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| "So proud of my nephew Scott and the dialogue he started. He was responding to a teacher he had at his high school who still believes that homosexuality is a learned behavior. High school is a tough time anyway ... students don't need teachers making it even more difficult." -Susan Sarandon |
In 1972 Pope
Paul VI remarked:
We
have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has
entered the temple of God: it is doubt,
uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this
come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit
in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a
power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought
that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of
the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of
searching and uncertainties.
It
was after reading this
that I, reflecting on my experience in over 30 years in Catholic educational circles,
decided to write The
Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God, for I recognized the prophetic
nature of Paul’s insight, never more obvious than the present day. Let us take
the most obvious example of the doubt, uncertainty, questioning,
dissatisfaction, and confrontation (signs of the diabolic) facing the Mystical
Body of Christ, the People of God today- the happenings in the Archdiocese of San
Francisco.
Op
Ed from a San Francisco Chronicle columnist:
Supervisor Mark Farrell tried to be reasonable.
Maybe that’s where he went wrong.
At last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Farrell introduced
a resolution pretty much to urge San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone
to back off on the “morality clauses” he’s got his mind set on for local
Catholic school teacher labor contracts and handbooks.
In a carefully worded statement, Farrell noted that he is a
practicing Catholic who attended Catholic school. But he also said that he
personally could not support the Archdiocese characterizing a list of practices
as “gravely evil.” They included “homosexual relations” and “reproductive
technology.” Nor, Farrell said, did he support changing the policy at Star of
the Sea Church in the Inner Richmond to no longer allow young women to serve as
altar girls.
The legislation doesn’t have any real teeth, of course, but it
was a strong gesture. It passed the board unanimously.
So, finally, some adult discussion of the issues, right? Not so
fast.
The day after the legislation was approved, the New York-based
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sent out a letter written by
President Bill Donohue announcing, “The
Board of Supervisors ... declares war on the Archdiocese of San Francisco.”
Donohue asked his group’s membership to “contact the author of the resolution
... Mark Farrell” and included Farrell’s e-mail address.
Last week the e-mails began to arrive — from out of town.
“I have received e-mails from Minnesota, New Jersey and Canada,”
Farrell said. “But not a single one from San Francisco.”
And now that Farrell has shared some of the e-mails, let’s go
out on a limb and say they are unlikely to change the minds of San Franciscans.
The worst of them range from extreme to borderline loony.
“Your actions against the Archdiocese ... prove that the devil
is very active in modern society,” one said. “I am sorry for you that you have
willfully chosen to be his agent.”
“I can understand your sentiments because the temple dedicated
to Satan is a major part of the city of San Francisco,” another wrote. “Where
is Zorro when you need him?”
Um, Zorro?
OK, so we’re not going to have a logical, thoughtful
conversation. Too bad, because there are some sensible points to be made.
“We have nondiscrimination laws here in San Francisco that have
been established for years, including protecting the LGBT community,” Farrell
said. “And by mandating that teachers conduct their public and private lives in
a manner contrary to our laws in San Francisco, it becomes a civic and legal
issue.”
That seems pretty straightforward. Same-sex marriage, for
instance, is legal in the state of California, and marriage licenses are handed
out daily in San Francisco and other cities.
The church can express disapproval if it wishes, but requiring
teachers (some of whom may be LGBT) to be against it, even if it is contrary to
their beliefs, isn’t going to fly.
Although Archbishop Cordileone also unsuccessfully tried to
change their designation to ministers, these people are teachers. They’re
employees. A hot dog stand in Oakland can’t require its employees to become
fans of the Raiders. (Given the team’s recent history, maybe no one can.) And
the Catholic Church can’t control the thoughts and opinions of its paid
employees.
In the world of law and logic, that makes sense. Unfortunately,
we’re in a parallel universe of noise, accusations and posturing. In that
world, these kind of wild accusations — if you disagree with us, you must be
supporting Satan — have currency.
Donohue and his organization, which bills itself as the nation’s
largest Catholic civil rights organization, clearly loves this attention. As
its mission statement says: “When slanderous assaults are made against the
Catholic Church, the Catholic League hits the newspapers, television and radio
talk shows, defending the right of the church to promote its teachings ...”
Among Donohue’s most recent press releases were complaints about
the Netflix series “House of Cards” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,”as
well as a blog post headlined, “Obama panders to Muslim Americans.”
This is grandstanding on a national stage. Cordileone and the
Catholic League aren’t trying to have a dialogue with San Franciscans. They’re
throwing red meat to the vociferous conservatives who persist in thinking that
they are just about to turn this whole LGBT thing around. Although the national
momentum is going in the other direction — 37 states now permit same-sex
marriage — they genuinely think they are making progress.
Good luck with that. I’ll keep my inbox open. Oh, and let me
know if you hear from Zorro.
Zorro Replies:
If the Catholic Church is to continue to teach timeless
truths about the dignity of all human persons from conception to natural death,
and the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, then she needs to
begin to seriously participate in the spiritual war that has already been
declared against her by those who wish to destroy these teachings.
In addition to the aforementioned San Francisco Board of
Supervisors resolution, Sam Singer, the
head of a high priced Public Relations firm, was hired to wage war on
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone because of the archbishop’s strong defense of
marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
In the Diocese of Scranton a fight began last week against a
priest who alllowed a pro-life film, To Be Born, be shown a sixth
grade CCD class. Described in the local newspaper as
holding “rabid anti-abortion views,” the priest—a pastor who is beloved and
greatly respected by his faithful parishioners at St. Monica’s Catholic
Church—was labeled the PC intolerable— a “bully,” and has since said that he
“showed poor judgment” in allowing the film to be shown. The teacher who presented
the pro-life film has resigned, under attack from
parents because she had the temerity to disclose to her students that “not
everyone goes to Heaven.”
I think the priest’s failure to engage in the battle, as has
Archbishop Cordileone wonderfully in San Francisco, makes things harder for
those of us on the front lines in the ongoing war on Catholic moral and social
teaching.
When the media favors those who attack the Church, it makes the
fight tougher; thus my support for the San Francisco shepherd. Archbishop
Cordileone has been under siege since he arrived in San Francisco—but he has
been courageously fighting a noble fight against an overwhelmingly greater
force that wants the Church to just stay out of the conflict over same-sex
“marriage.”
We go on. Recently I saw on Facebook that Patricia Jannuzzi, a
religion teacher at Immaculata High School in the Diocese of Metuchen, NJ
posted a statement supporting traditional marriage on her personal Facebook
page. Angry same-sex “marriage” supporters, some of them Immaculata
alumni, demanded that she be removed from
her teaching position, and that the school address the “homophobic undertones
in the school.” Creating a change.org petition called
“Stop the Public Hate Speech of Teachers” alumnus Tom Robinson (class of 2001)
posted: “I know that many of you want to see Mrs. Jannuzzi fired, but
addressing the systemic problem of homophobic undertones in the school and
publicly posted on social media is much more important than one person keeping
her job.” So much for tolerance. For this gentleman, anyone—including a
religion teaching at a Catholic high school—who refuses to support the goodness
of homosexual acts is an enemy that must be destroyed.
I have prayed for this teacher who is indeed under seige. Much
of the media—including the local newspapers—have described her Facebook post as
a “rant.” She wrote: “We need healthy families with a mother and a father for
the sake of the children and humanity!” and that “(gay activists) want to
reengineer western civilization into a slow extinction.” In place of defending
Jannuzzi for her willingness to defend Catholic teachings, the principal and
the pastor of her school suspended her—sending a letter to alumni,
parents and students apologizing for “any hurt this has caused to any
individuals and the negative light in which it has cast our school.”
What of the chief catechist and shepherd of the diocese? Bishop
Paul G. Bootkoski appeared to concur with
these steps, saying that “the teacher’s comments were disturbing and do not
reflect the Church’s teachings on acceptance…. Pope Francis reminds us that we
are to accept all of our brethren. We must ensure that our educators steer away
from harsh and judgmental statements that can alienate and divide us.”
What those who disagree with Januzzi want is for the Immaculata
High School to stop teaching what the Church teaches about same sex behavior
because they mistakenly view it as hateful. Remember, the devil is far more
clever than the brightest human, except for the one to whom the keys have ben
given, for, contrary to what Bishop Bootkoski says, in 2010, Pope Francis referred to the trend towards
same-sex “marriage” as a movement that begins with the devil, cautioning us to
“not be naïve: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to
destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a move of the
father of lies who seeks to confuse (emaphasis mine) and deceive
the children of God.” Indeed one wonders, would the Holy Father be permitted
to tech at Immaculata High? Pope Francis is on record as viewing same-sex
“marriage” an “ideological colonization that we have to be careful about that
is trying to destroy the family.” Pope Benedict XVI warned in 2012 that the
policies which “undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of
humanity itself.” Jannuzzi on Facebook heroically resounded B16, who knew that
this was a war not to be refused.
How to fight this battle of the war? Robert George advises
parents of students at Immaculata High School to boycott the school until Mrs.
Jannuzzi is fully reinstated. The suspension of a teacher who was recognized as
deserving of the Regina Nostra medal by the diocesan bishop for her “love and
devotion” to Immaculata High School and the parish—is proof that Immaculata
High School is “not a fit place for your children.” Professor George has requested
that others join this fight. I alredy have. As of now Jannuzzi’s contract will
not be renewed in the coming school year.
Catholic teaching precludes that there can ever be common ground
on issues like abortion and same-sex “marriage,” and the Catholic Church has
never existed in isolation from cultural conflicts. This doesn’t that the
Church must be filled with hostility or resistant to all change. Just that she
may never be guided by the changing values of a secular culture, the world that
Our Lord has overcome. The Church cannot change her infallible teachings—the
teachings of the Magisterium—including the dignity of the human person and the
sacredness of the family. Thus, to the extent that secular forces engage the
Church in combat, the culture wars will continue. Let us as Catholics be not
conformed to this culture, but engage to transform it. Pope Francis warned us
to be wary of “popular opinion” in an address to the members of
the International Theological Commission. He said that while the Church must
pay attention to the sensus fidelium, the Church should never
confuse it with popular opinion on matters of faith, for, contrary what
many heterodox argue, the sensus fidelium does not mean “majority
opinion.” Francis knows, as his predecessors knew, that we are at war with a
movement that began with the Fall of Man in the Garden, and will continue until
the end of time. It is a war without end—but we are emboldened in the battles
as long as we remember to give thanks to God who leads us in triumph in Christ
Jesus.
