We are by now familiar with the yawning gulf between some Catholic bishops’ fulminations against equal marriage and the strong support by ordinary Catholics (including many politicians, lawyers and activists who have instrumental in bringing about the gains achieved thus far. Similarly, we know that the orthodox Vatican doctrine ruling out any form of sexual expression of love between two people not in an opposite sex marriage and open to procreation, is far removed from the beliefs and practices of real life Catholic couples - gay or straight. This is particularly troubling to lesbian and gay Catholics, who may see it as generic Catholic hostility and rejection of themselves.
Using the recent and comprehensive survey about the lives of LGBT people, Mark Silk at Religion News has come up with a useful measurement of the gap between LGBT perceptions of religious response to their lives, and the actual beliefs of the people professing religious faith. That survey asked a large sample of LGBT Americans about a range of issues, including religion (others were demographics, social acceptance, coming out, marriage and parenting, identity, and political partisanship and policy). It’s the religious dimension that concerns us here. Directly from the LGBT respondents themselves, Pew was able to report LGBT perceptions and experience of hostility by a range of religious groups. From surveys of the general population, Pew compared these with the attitudes of members of those groups, to LGBT people and issues.
Comparing the two sets of measures, Silk devised what he describes as “The LGBT Gap, by religion” . He found that this gap exists for all groups, but varies in degree. It is at its narrowest for Evangelical Christians: 73% of LGBT people believe that Evangelicals are hostile to them, and 59% of Evangelicals themselves agree that “homosexuality should be discouraged in society”. So, the LGBT perception of Evangelical hostility is based in reality. Taking the difference between the two measures gives an Evangelical “LGBT Gap” of 14%. But for Catholics, its very different:
By far the largest gap is in Catholicism — fully 59 points separate LGBT perception of Catholic unfriendliness from Catholics’ support for societal discouragement. Simply put, the bishops have gotten the message across very well that the Church looks with disfavor on homosexuality, but the laity isn’t buying it. Or at least, the laity isn’t buying the proposition that society as a whole should follow the lead of the Magisterium.
Those campaigns against same-sex marriage? It looks like the consensus fidelium is to forget about them, bishops.
- See more at: Mark Silk, Religion News
It’s admittedly a bit of a leap to go from the gap between LGBT perceptions of the Catholic Church and Catholic attitudes, to blaming the gap on the bishops, but it’s an entirely reasonable one. For people who do not actually participate in a Catholic parish, almost the only information they will have on Catholic attitudes is shaped by statements from the bishops. As many LGBT Catholics have been so repelled by what they see of institutional hostility that they have either changed denominations, or simply ended all religious observance, they do not have the opportunity to see the far more supportive side of Catholic attitudes, as manifest among ordinary Catholics. This support is substantial. On the key measure adopted by Silk to calculate the Catholic LGBT Gap, only 20% of Catholics agree that homosexuality should be discouraged. That’s lower than for any other Christian group, and not far off the score for Jews (which is 15%).
Other measures also confirm that Catholics are more supportive than other denominations. Pew also reports that 54% of American Catholics support gay marriage (similar to findings in numerous other surveys, from a range of pollsters). Less than half of Catholics (43%) agree with the bishops that homosexual behaviour is morally unacceptable (let alone “a grave moral evil”). Instead, 13% say it is morally acceptable - and 30% just do not see it as a moral issue, at all. (Many Catholic theologians agree, arguing that it is not the gender of our sexual partners that is the determinant of morality, but the quality of the relationship behind the sexual acts).
It is simply not true that “the Catholic Church” is hostile to LGBT people. Instead, we have a church with a split personality. One the one hand, a handful of unrepresentative, unelected bishops with no personal experience of loving, sexual relationships, formulating responses based on abstract theological formulae. These are the ones making the headlines. On the other, ordinary Catholics representing the real Church, who know from experience in their own families, the importance of inclusions and authentic respect for all.
Related articles
- Remembering Bishop Sullivan’s LGBT Ministry (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)
- Marianne T. Duddy-Burke: Is the Catholic Church Unfriendly to LGBT People? (queeringthechurch.com)
- New Ways Ministry Welcomes Supreme Court Decisions on Marriage Equality (news.queerchurch.com)
- “The revolution of family” and the Catholic Response (queeringthechurch.com)
- Catholics As Unfriendly to Gay Folks? Who Owns Catholic, Inc.? (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
- Gay Priests: The Challenge of Honesty (queeringthechurch.com)
- Diarmaid MacCulloch on How Same-Sex Marriage Is Leaving the Bishops Behind (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
- Catholic LGBT Ministry, Johannesburg (queeringthechurch.com)
- Candace Chellew Hodge on Pew Finding that 8 in 10 LGBT Americans Rank Catholics as Among Groups Most Unfriendly to Gays (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
- Yet Another Cardinal Supporting Same - Sex Unions. (queeringthechurch.com)
It is truly tragic that Vatican II with its emphasis on the Faithful being at the heart of the Church in union with Christ - as the driving force of the Church - through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - has been greatly damaged/disregarded during the inattentive, uncompassionate, gestapo like reign of Benedict VI both as Pontiff and for decades before as the directing force of what used to be labeled the “Inquisition”. He even held to the belief that it would be better for Catholics who dissented from Church teachings to “leave” - resulting in a smaller but truer Church - aka non-questioning, zombie like group. He has much to answer for in harming the Body of Christ. Fortunately, Francis I, though conservative, realizes that ALL faithful/all people must be embraced by the Church for they are all loved unconditionally by the Father. We may differ in opinions regarding teachings - but as stated in the Catechism, are obligated in the end, to follow our sincere consciences our to out it in Church language “well-formed” consciences. In the past the Bishops have promulgated that, naturally IF your conscience is “well formed”, then one will NEVER stray from Church teachings. They ignore “free will” - forgetting that following/obeying one’s sincere conscience - which is the voice of the Holy Spirit within our hearts, is sinful. The old guard of the hierarchy has lost the loyalty/blind obedience of us precisely because we have come to realize and accept that Faith is not pablum, Scripture is not a “rule book” but a message to form our consciences, and they were given shepherd’s crooks to lead - not the rods of iron used by the Egyptian task masters to beat out compliance. The Church is in turmoil for sure. The hierarchy is in disarray owing to the Faithful turning a deaf ear to what is perceived “in error” and for the first time in many years they are governed by a Pontiff who they can not control, predict his actions or be certain of his thoughts. Francis I strikes me as a Shepherd in the line of john Paul II and John XXIII - a man who will defend the core beliefs of the Faith, whilst seeking to embrace all persons as the Good Shepherd does. Namaste…
I trust the findings of the Pew poll and I agree generally with your interpretation of the results. However, I question your interpretation that there is a disconnect between the faithful in the pews and their leaders. I cannot square such a large gap as Pew reports with the fact that the people in the pews have not been able to bring sufficient pressure on their leaders to at least dial down the rhetoric.
We are still dealing with feudalistic mindset in the hierarchy…they are right because they look with disdain on us…the serfs. Even though 90% + of Catholic theologians are laity, the ordained cling to the false belief that only they are inspired by the Holy Spirit…only they have God on their side. Such claptrap and boulder dash does slowly.
Will the serfs ever revolt?
The serfs are in revolt…leaving the church…ignoring the bishops…they should contribute nothing to Peter Pence and decrease tithing…the hierarchy always understand money