Scalia fils to LGBT: Hide!
It has been mentioned to me before that Paul Scalia -- his daddy's a Supreme, as you know -- is a priest of the diocese of Arlington and, ergo, not a fan of our paesan Paul Loverde. (The one thing everyone can agree on, I'm told.)
Nino's a big Catholic; he goes to the Work's parish, along with Louis Freeh (former FBI director) and other DC glitterati. And, reflecting Daddy's views, Paul's featured in the last First Things(Dickie Jack's rag) basically chastising schools which encourage LGBT teens in the coming out process. As diocesan chaplain for Courage (where they like their gays as straight as possible), it's to be expected that he just wants to push everyone back into the closet. This is called the "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" school of "Catholic" neoconservatism, one with deep roots in the troublesome quality of bella figura -- and look at where the reliance on that got the church.
The piece sounds like something from Jim "No Gay Teachers" DeMint, except in this case focusing fire on the kids.
Um, I know this'll be a controversial statement, but sometimes the role of teachers requires presenting a constructive counterpoint to and an opposite view than that of parents. Just because parents are the first teachers doesn't mean they're the only ones. And if you're really that gung-ho about control, then take your kids out of the socialist-liberal-heresiarch public school and home-school them.
Does it show that I never spent a day in Catholic school or what?
We all know the rotten fruits that results when repression is the order of the day. Scalia's excesses require a mature, balanced, faithful response -- and it should fall to Prefect Levada (He Who Makes the Legion Tremble) to give it.
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Nino's a big Catholic; he goes to the Work's parish, along with Louis Freeh (former FBI director) and other DC glitterati. And, reflecting Daddy's views, Paul's featured in the last First Things(Dickie Jack's rag) basically chastising schools which encourage LGBT teens in the coming out process. As diocesan chaplain for Courage (where they like their gays as straight as possible), it's to be expected that he just wants to push everyone back into the closet. This is called the "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" school of "Catholic" neoconservatism, one with deep roots in the troublesome quality of bella figura -- and look at where the reliance on that got the church.
The piece sounds like something from Jim "No Gay Teachers" DeMint, except in this case focusing fire on the kids.
Rather than struggle through the difficulties of adolescence, a high-school freshman or sophomore can now, with official support, profess to be gay—and he instantly has an identity and a group. Now he belongs. He knows who he is. Gone is the possibility that adolescents might be confused, perhaps even wrong. Adults typically display a wise reserve about the self-discoveries of high-school students: they know adolescents are still figuring things out, and they recognize their responsibility to help sort through the confusion. So why is all this natural wisdom somehow abandoned these days—in the most confused and confusing area of adolescent sexuality?....And some want to accuse me of "morose delectation"? My goodness.
Meanwhile, the schools’ endorsement of all this quickly undermines parents’ authority in an extraordinarily sensitive area. While the parents try to teach one thing at home, the school presents the opposite view, now not only in the classroom but also socially (which in high school might have a greater effect). And those parents who have a better way to handle their child’s difficulties will find their efforts thwarted. At home they strive to love their children, help them in their struggles, and teach a coherent truth about human sexuality. Meanwhile at school, children receive the propaganda and encouragement to argue precisely against what their parents say.
Um, I know this'll be a controversial statement, but sometimes the role of teachers requires presenting a constructive counterpoint to and an opposite view than that of parents. Just because parents are the first teachers doesn't mean they're the only ones. And if you're really that gung-ho about control, then take your kids out of the socialist-liberal-heresiarch public school and home-school them.
Does it show that I never spent a day in Catholic school or what?
We all know the rotten fruits that results when repression is the order of the day. Scalia's excesses require a mature, balanced, faithful response -- and it should fall to Prefect Levada (He Who Makes the Legion Tremble) to give it.
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posted by Rocco Palmo at 11:18
8 Comments:
"Nino's a big Catholic; he goes to the Work's parish..."
Rock,
As far as I am aware, Opus Dei does not have a parish in the Washington Archdiocese or the Arlington Diocese.
While I am on the subject...
Scalia claims that gay student groups shouldn't direct adolescents too strongly in an identity that may or may not be accurate. I agree that gaining self-knowledge is critical and that sometimes gay groups play the illicit role of sexual identity cop. Scalia, however, seems blind to the fact that Courage suffers from the same defect that they decry in the gay student groups: playing the role of sexual identity cop, but from the opposite end, claiming that an identity of "gay" is somehow evil or "homosexual" almost as evil, and urging their members to resort to awkward circumlocutions and euphemisms. In this respect, Courage is at least as bad as the gay student group that Scalia posited- if not more so - in limiting the ability of persons to know and understand themselves.
If a member of Courage is having sex with men in bathrooms or meeting them on the internet, but doesn't want to identify as gay or homosexual - or even by identified as anything, then that identification is just fine and dandy, so long as he actually is not in denial about himself. That does not mean, however, that others must "identify" themselves in the same manner that Courage people identify themselves. Much less does it mean that Courage and its champion should sanctimoniously accuse others of engaging in the same kinds of political correctness exercises that they themselves indulge in.
Rocco -- Since your a Philly guy, did you happen to be at the opening of the TOT series with David Morrison last month? He's a courage member from Arlington, and I think Fr. Scalia is his spiritual director.
I think you're really stretching things to compare Fr./Courage to Jim DeMint. Courage is focused first and foremost on holiness and living as a Christian disciple, and only on "identity" in so far as labeling oneself "gay" now has connotations that assume physical sexual expression are inevitable and irrepressible. In this sense encouraging a shift from describing oneself as "gay" to "experiencing same-sex attraction" is a shift that allows a Courage member to rise above a label that essentially despairs of the possibility of ever living chastely.
That's important isn't it?
"Can alcoholism be cured? Overcome? In some ways yes, in others, perhaps no. But one doesn't claim it as a badge of identity and insist that it be "respected.""
I have heard this argument trotted out a number of times and I find it to be very overblown. I do not believe that alcoholism and homosexuality are comparable because the former is an addiction and the latter is not - at least not necessarily. Apples and oranges. But, let's stipulate that they are comparable for these purposes. The Church (and AA as far as I know) doesn't discourage or forbid someone from identifying himself publicly as an alcoholic nor does the Church discourage someone from self-deprecating and affectionately calling himself an "alchy" or some other term of endearment, nor does the Church forbid disclosing this fact to others. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with people using the word "gay" or "homosexual" or "invert" or the antiquated "Uranian" if he or she so chooses.
"People can pick up on all the verities of the day, if they wish. If secular society says, "Gay people are just the same as you and me; let's respect their identities," one can regard that as unchallengeable truth and anything the Church says as old-fashioned, mean hogwash. You can reject or undermine ANY teaching of the Church, of course, and little will happen to you. Unless you take the fuddy-duddy idea of eternal salvation seriously. But that wouldn't be polite, tsk, tsk, shame on me for mentioning it."
With all due respect, this is a red herring and doesn't at all address my point. In any event, it does not logically follow that, if homosexuality is an inclination to a sin, then a "gay" or "homosexual" identity is thereby illegitimate, if that is the drift of your argument.
Then Catholics can't identify themselves as "alcoholics." Heck, if one can't identify with any inclination to sin, because, as you say, "sin is not the essence of any human being," then Catholics can't even identify themselves as "poor sinners" even though that is contrary to lived-in human experience according to your logic.
Your own argument, if not self-refuting, stands basic Catholic theology and practice on its head.
Moreover, following your own logic, someone couldn't even label himself as as SSA because, so the argument goes, SSA is itself an inclination to sin. Thus, it simply makes no difference whether one calls one seelf "gay" "SSA" "homosexual." The only difference is that the words "gay" or "homosexual" offends the PC sensibilities of certain people on the right in a manner reminiscent of Monty Python's "Knights Who Say Ni" who flip out every time someone says the word "it."
Personally, I just wish that junior high/high school society would quit pressuring kids so much about sexual identity, period. As it happened, I was a reasonably late bloomer and was never particularly interested in boys -- or girls, either.
I got a good amount of people telling me I must be a lesbian (which was a pejorative back then), and so I spent a good amount of time back then agonizing over whether this was true. After all, if I was lesbian, I would have an explanation for why I was so weird. But alas, after much wondering I concluded that women just didn't do it for me, even less than men did. (To paraphrase the old joke about Jewish atheists -- "I'm not going to have sex with anybody, but the people I'm not going to have sex with are guys.")
This caused me a lot of pain, since it still seemed awfully close to "asexual", another favorite insult of folks, but it was pretty much borne out by my college experiences. (I slowly became convinced that most men and women really did spend most of their time thinking about the opposite sex, whereas I was only interested in dating so that I'd be able to write dating scenes.)
As it happens, I think now that I've got a vocation to be a nun, which is exactly what everyone would have said to me if I'd been in high school back in the day. People would have talked about the gift of chastity, not "you are such a sexless freak." And I probably would have thought about it fifteen, twenty years ago, if everybody from my parents on down hadn't been on my case to get interested in some kind of sex.
On another point -- as it happens, there are some people who are lonely, seeking an identity, and who possibly are flattered by attention from gay people, who do the "gay till graduation" or "gay until I get over a bad breakup" thing in college. You have to wonder if this sort of thing doesn't happen in high school.
Certainly the (illegal) attention of adult men was a factor in the life of the one gay kid I knew at my high school. (It was also a factor in his repeated suicide attempts.) Exactly how gay he would have felt himself to be without being molested is a good question.
I suspect anyone working with folks from Courage will have heard even more sad and shocking stories of high school life than I've heard from my gay friends. So yeah, his advocacy of stopping people who don't know anything about themselves from defining themselves for life seems more humane than nasty.
Beyond that, you have to worry about how many vocations are being lost, because people are so worried about proving themselves straight or gay or something -- anything but a sexless freak, because sex is the supreme god and only way to happiness and sanity.
Finally, I don't think it's fair to say that Courage is trying to repress people. Nobody says I'm repressed because I don't walk around like a big ol' sheela-na-gig, screaming "I'm a female heterosexual!" and pointing at my private parts for proof. Courage is just calling upon gay people to follow the same rules for the single life as heterosexual people are supposed to follow.
Now granted, I've never found those rules particularly onerous thanks to my situation. But people in pretty much all times and places have acknowledged that "no sex unless you're married" is a pretty good rule, whether or not they personally follow it. So what's the huhu?
Sorry for all the rambling.
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