An old friend is in town, at a meeting of liturgists. A liturgist is an expert on the theory and practice of public worship. In the last fifty years or so, folks like this have played a huge role in the changes in Catholic sacramental rites and ceremonies.
As we wandered through the Ferry Building, looking for a place to make dinner reservations later, we encountered a colleague of hers, another woman of middle age. After brief intros, this woman recounted the events at a morning seminar she'd attended, on the upcoming new translation of the Roman Missal, which is the center of attention at the conference.
"At one point, I spoke up and felt I had to surface the elephant in the room: that this translation bears all the marks of a clerical homosexual subculture. It matches all the gay stereotypes: effeminate and overdone. We will have to deal with this. Look at the schisms in the Anglican and Lutheran churches over the gays."Both my friend and I cocked our heads like dogs, indicating, "Huh?"
Either the woman did not clock me as gay or did not care that I am.
That there is a clerical homosexual subculture is no news. But the schisms in the churches are about public practice, gay marriage, gay bishops, etc., not sentence structure.
In fact there is more than one kind of clerical homosexual subculture in play. It seems to me that the opposition to the new translation comes from Boomer homo clerics (as well as feminists and their occasional straight male allies) and that there are probably groups of religiously Neocon young homo clerics who support it. But an argument can be made that the 1970's translation came from a gay pro-feminist anti-clerical clerical subculture! The Generational conflict.
I did not object that the woman described stereotypical gayness as being marked by effeminacy and lack of restraint. No argument from me! But for the life of me I cannot see how a fairly literal translation of Latin liturgical texts can be gay. That's what made the exchange so odd. To modern English-speaking ears, liturgical Latin is hieratic, formal, somewhat "overdone", rather like the 16th century rhetoric of the Book of Common Prayer. Compared to liturgical Greek, however, it is as sober as a Quaker.
As I pointed out to the woman, the new translation sounds very much to me like the translations in the old pre-1965 bilingual Latin-English missals that I and my parents and my grandparents used. Were the gays in charge of translations then, too?
Here's example of the gay liturgy:
You are indeed holy, O Lord,
and all you have created rightly gives you praise,
for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ,
by the power and working of the Holy Spirit,
you give life to all things and make them holy,
and you never cease to gather a people to yourself,
so that from the rising of the sun to its setting
a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name.
Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you:
by the same Spirit graciously make holy
these gifts we have brought to you for consecration,
that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son
our Lord Jesus Christ
at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.
Fabulous, no?
PS. An amusing story in the Scenes From Clerical Life tradition. My friend, a post Vatican II but basically Roman Catholic woman, asked her pastor/employer why he had mandated laywomen catechists to "bless" some new members of a church project when he was right there, in the middle of Mass, to do it. Blessing is part of the priest's portfolio. His answer, "Because I want them to." Here we have the exercise of clerical power to set up a rite that critiques clerical power. Very moderne.
3 comments:
Dishonest or evasive power crafts convolutedness! What's mistaken is the apparent conviction that if patriarchy adjusts to the demands of liberationists, liberationists will fill the churches. "If we build inclusion they will come." Which doesn't happen. No need for accusers who are confident of their rightness to attend religio-moral services that try to gain the favour of God. (Implicitly, God needs to gain their favour.)
The liberational feminist who wish'd to out RC conservatives as a homosexual subculture did hit on a tactic that could be effective were it believed by those who now attend mass. Interestingly, liberationists are willing to accept that "homosexuality" occurs in different forms, does different things: it doesn't inevitably induce 'chancel prancing' in Christian contexts, for instance. But a hypothetical or real homosexual subculture that worships the Father is not a valid homosexual subculture. Homosexuality must be liberated from intimidation before the Father and embrace effeminacy in worship of Ishtar? Is that the agendum of liberation?
Worship of Ishtar could be supplemented by neo-Islamic patriarchalism: psychical balance would be achieved, eh? The only practical difficulty is that churches that go over to Ishtar basically empty out. Not even all that many "gay males" are interested in attending a chancel dancing service. Similarly, feminist women -- hetero or homo -- prefer only to gather now and then in whatever sorts of meetings. "Womanchurch" wasn't something one got out of bed every Sunday morning for, wasn't something one sent one's children to for moral formation. Evidently only 'patriarchy' knows how to build institutions, in the foreground anyway.
The RCC way of Father-Son-Mother(BVM ≠ Ishtar?) was a very effective, practical institution builder and psyche expresser. But since liberated ('secularized') women don't want to attend an institutional Womanchurch, and since few liberated gays feel like attending MCC whose validation they don't need, feminists and gay activists have to keep at the churches that do produce membership, actual Sunday-morning worshippers, in order to point to institutions whose oppress'd are in need of liberation. (Even in mainline denominations, church-goers are very conservative, and in any case few women or gay males are interested in ministry to ordinary congregations.)
Why are there more gays in clergy jobs than in the congregations, even in churches that allow clergy to marry and re-marry?
Your footnote reminds me of one of a piece of Vatican 2 mockery in one of the early novels of A.N.Wilson; a scene where the Scots aristocrat, Fr Sporran, is harranguing his congregation about the importance of individual decision-making after the Council : "We all have to think for ourselves. And why? BECAUSE THE HOLY FATHER TELLS US TO!"
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