Gays Can't Play the Catholic Game

A couple of recent stories involving Catholics and Catholic authorities leaves me reaching for sports analogies.

Imagine a soccer coach watching his team play. Suddenly someone comes up, asks to play, but demands to be allowed to carry the ball like an American footballer. What should the coach do? Why would the player not simply find a football team to play for?

Now imagine the superintendent of that soccer league. Suddenly, one team has a new coach -- a former football coach. The superintendent decrees that the team be expelled from the league because of the new coach's old job -- even though the new coach proposes no changes in the play of the squad.

For those of us in the bleachers, both of these tales are head-scratchers.

The actual version of that first scenario is snarled in a bit of he said she said. But reports from all sides agree with this much: A couple of weeks ago, Barbara Johnson was attending the funeral of her mother at a Catholic church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. When she went forward to take Communion, the priest refused to give it to her.

The reason: Fr. Marcel Guarnizo was aware that she was a lesbian who had, in fact, brought her partner with her to the service. And not only did he deny her Communion, but he left the service and didn't participate in the graveside ceremony.

Beyond those facts, the account gets fuzzy. Did Johnson confront the priest before the service, asserting her sexual identity confrontationally? Or did the priest discover her status in the course of conversation? Did he leave in protest or did he have a migraine headache that disabled him?

In any case, officials at the diocese quickly apologized for "a lack of pastoral sensitivity." And in the past couple of days the diocese suspended Guarnizo because of a "credible allegation that Father Guarnizo had engaged in intimidating behavior toward parish staff and others."

But what puzzles me is what has been dug out about Johnson. She has an interesting history, based on what's on her art school website. She's apparently an art teacher who has worked at secular and Catholic universities. She's been out as a lesbian for many years and has written about the challenges of teachers in secular settings who are gay and lesbian.

In writing about that struggle, she described a discussion she had before taking a job at a Catholic school: "So in my interview with the principal, we talked openly about my being lesbian and a Buddhist."

Which brings me to my confusion: Not about why the priest refused her Communion, which is a matter for church authorities to evaluate, but why she was there asking for it.

I understand that the faith of one's childhood has powerful emotional bonds. But why would one seek the sacraments of a religion that has not only explicitly and unambiguously rejected your sexual identity but that you have apparently left behind in your own search for spiritual meaning?

I'm aware there are people who say they can be Buddhist-and some other faith. Jewish Buddhists even have a nickname: Ju-Bus (rhymes with "who-dues"). But Judaism has no universally recognized overarching human authority. Jews have argued amongst themselves for several millennia about what exactly a Jew can and cannot be, with some of the oldest issues still subject for debate.

Catholicism, not so much. The Pope gets to decide what's official. And a woman like Johnson, for official Catholicism, is both living in sin and -- if her own account is true -- syncretism. Which isn't Catholic.

Understand that I am not criticizing Johnson's personal faith. But one great thing about America is that there's probably a church or temple or congregation out there for pretty much anybody's understanding of the Great Perhaps. The Catholic Church doesn't look to be a good match for Johnson. So why was she asking for Communion?

You want to play football, find a football team.

Shift to the second example. In this case, a charity in Sacramento, California, has been working with the homeless for more than 40 years. Francis House was founded by a local Catholic church, but it long ago became an independent agency. And there's nothing remotely religious that I can find today on the center's website.

According to news reports, the local diocese had been donating between $7,500 to $10,000 a year for many years. Not long ago, the executive director of Francis House died. The agency hired the Rev. Faith Whitmore, formerly the senior pastor at St. Mark's United Methodist Church.

And the diocese cut the funding. According to the Sacramento Bee, the diocese explained that "it respects the work Francis House does and cannot expect every organization it supports financially to ‘actively promote Catholic teaching...We can expect, however, that they or their leaders not publicly oppose Catholic teaching and that, unfortunately, is the situation in which we find ourselves.'"

Which would make total sense if the cut were done because the new director disagrees with the Vatican about transubstantiation, the authority of the papacy or the necessity of an all-male and celibate clergy.

But nope. The funding was cut because, in her former job, Whitmore was an outspoken advocate for gay marriage and Planned Parenthood.

There's no indication that Whitmore was bringing any of that to her new job. Or that the mission or programs run by Francis House were in any way changed with her arrival.

The diocese has the absolute right to disburse its monies as it sees fit. And no doubt it will find other worthy charities that can use an extra few thousand bucks. But if the mission and performance of the non-Catholic Francis House were acceptable for these many years, what's the point here?

Will this diocese do an issues check for every leader of every charity it plans to donate money toward? How about assistant directors? And which answers will be disqualifying? There may not be any non-Catholic charities that qualify. Which is, again, the right of the diocese to so choose. But it will somewhat isolate that church from most of American society. Which seems not generally to be one of the goals of that church.

For those of us in the theological bleachers, trying to figure out how the game is being played among the members of America's largest faith group, this is another puzzlement.