Father Mychal Judge is listed as the first official victim of
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. One of the most
poignant news photos of that tragic day is that of the
firefighter chaplain's body being taken out of the ruins of the
towers by soot-covered firemen. His funeral mass at St. Patrick's
Cathedral was packed with the city's firefighters, police
officers, public officials, and clergy, who were devastated by
his death. The fact that Judge was a gay man was not then widely
known. It is now, thanks to columnist Andrew Sullivan, who is
using Judge as an example of how the Vatican's position on not
ordaining gays into the priesthood is wrong.
At a recent Christmas party, I ran into Father Richard Neuhaus,
editor in chief of First Things, a literary magazine comprised of
religious essays. Father Neuhaus is a highly regarded theologian
who has been at odds with Mr. Sullivan on the Vatican position. I
had just read Mr. Sullivan's essay in Time magazine, and I asked
Father Neuhaus if he knew that Judge was gay. He said he was
unaware of it until it was first mentioned on Mr. Sullivan's Web
site. He said he had spoken to a close friend of Judge who
confirmed that Judge was gay but celibate.
His homosexuality should not detract one iota from Judge's record
of compassion, goodness, and kindness toward all he met. Yet,
according to Mr. Sullivan's essay, under the recent Vatican
guidelines, this wonderful man would not have been allowed to
become a priest. I agree with Mr. Sullivan's conclusion, but it
is obvious that he does not understand anything about church
dogma.
He begins his essay titled "The Vatican's New
Stereotype," with a truism: "The church hates only sin,
not sinners." The rest of the article is his interpretation
of church teaching as he wishes it were - not its reality. After
writing that Judge was "a proudly gay man," Mr.
Sullivan writes that Judge and the thousands of other gay
priests, bishops, and nuns would never have been accepted into
the church under the new rules Pope Benedict XVI issued earlier
this month.
Then Mr. Sullivan writes: "In the past, all that mattered
for a priest, as far as sexual orientation was concerned, was
celibacy. If a priest kept his vows, it didn't really matter if
he were refusing to have sex with a man or with a woman. All that
mattered was that he kept his vows and had sex with no one."
That's a pretty simplistic view of the priesthood and clearly
shows that Mr. Sullivan needs to bone up on theology. There is
such a thing as church teaching, and for a priest to ignore that
because he does not agree with it clearly disqualifies him from
that sacred office.
When I first met my dear friend Hugh in the '60s, he had just
come to my work straight from being booted out of the seminary.
He had fallen in love with a fellow seminarian and was advised
that he was not suited for the vocation of priesthood. There is
actually nothing new about the Vatican guidelines. They have
always been in effect, but after Vatican II, when the church lost
so many vocations, seminaries tended to be less diligent about
the screening process.
Mr. Sullivan condemned the church sex abuse scandal of 2002 on
his Web site but neglected to mention that nearly 81% of the
cases involved homosexual priests and adolescent victims. It is
this fact that has prompted the Vatican to reassert its
authority. It is not changing any of its rules, as Mr. Sullivan
implies.
Mr. Sullivan reminds us of the parable of the Good Samaritan as
an example of how Jesus's message was to ignore the stereotype in
order to observe the soul beneath. The Vatican's message, he
insists, is to label a class of human beings as too
psychologically and morally disordered to become priests.
I just love the way some pundits adopt Jesus as their liberal
icon because he ate and dwelled among the sinners, unlike those
of us on the right, I imagine. What they seem to forget is that
Jesus's message to these reprobates was always, "Go and sin
no more." Unless a gay priest can counsel his gay
parishioners to do what the church teaches and remain celibate,
he's not a Catholic. He's an Episcopalian. The Catholic Church
teaching has and always will be the same.
According to Judge's biographers, he was very careful not to
flaunt his homosexuality to church officials. Mr. Sullivan may
consider him a "proud gay man," but according to his
close friends, Judge felt he had to constrain himself. What a
pity Mr. Sullivan couldn't respect Judge's discretion and let him
rest in peace.