In the article below I end by urging readers to read what the Pope actually said in his address to senior Vatican officials, in which he is all but universally reported as having said that the world needs to be saved from homosexuality. I had written the piece before reading his words, but withheld if from my blog until after I read what he said to, if necessary, make adjustments.
I have made no adjustments, although, as I suspected would be the case, there is almost no resemblance between what the Pope said and what he is said to have said. He does not use the word homosexuality. What he identifies as the threat is gender theory. And to be fair to the general media, while all of the accounts of his address that I have seen fail to mention the first point, they do mention the latter. But one could reasonably conclude from the coverage that the Pope’s main point was a full frontal assault on homosexuality.
It wasn’t, but you can judge for yourself. Here is a link to his address.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20081222_curia-romana_en.html
Had I read his address before I wrote what follows I would have written quite differently. I was responding to what he was reported as saying. I have not changed my piece one jot however, because, inadvertently, it does respond to what he actually said – and what the general media completely ignored. I refrain from saying what I think is the point of his address to avoid influencing the way you read it – that is, if you read it at all – and I stand by every word of the article as I wrote it.
Saving the world – Yeah, let’s do it … but save it from what? Yesterday, 1st January 2009, I saw what the Pope wants to save the world from. Homosexuality, out and self-confident. I’d watched gay people emerge from dances behind closed doors in the early seventies into the open in events like the Sydney Mardi Gras; to being represented compassionately in films like Brokeback Mountain; and, most recently, achieving the abolition of legal discrimination against same sex couples. Yesterday, in one sense, was just another social event like any before it. But in another sense I was seeing it all with new eyes. Until yesterday, I’d never thought of such events as something that other people might think they need to be saved from. So for the first time, instead of just participating in what was going on around me, I looked carefully for what it is that people feel threatened by.
Before telling what I saw I want to relate an incident that took place on a train from Brisbane to Sydney during a University term break in May 1971. There was a large contingent of students from James Cook University; several military personnel; and quite a few bogans. At Casino about a dozen cowboys (show stockmen) joined the train going to a rodeo – and a bloke who was very obviously camp. He was dressed in the briefest and tightest of white shorts, a t-shirt that didn’t reach his navel with sleeves that barely covered the tops of his shoulders and underarms cut to about his lowest rib. He minced as he walked and spoke with studied affectation. We students had a lot of fun with him as distinct from at his expense; but when he ventured from the safety of our company he was insulted and slandered and eventually provoked to lash out at one of his tormenters. At no stage did he proposition anyone. In fact, on the contrary, he was propositioned repeatedly by thugs who wanted to bait and bash him. He didn’t criticise the kitsch fashion sense of the cowboys, nor comment on their grotesque masculinist posturing. He simply defended his right to appear in public and to behave in a manner that suited him. Despite the fact that it was the bogans who got very drunk and borishly aggressive, it was the victim of their violence who was taken off the train by police at Tamworth. When students tried to give statements to the police they were threatened with being charged with obstructing police work.
Now back to the recovery party at the Lismore Showgrounds on the first day of 2009.
John and I hadn’t been to an event like this for a very long time, so the first thing that we both noticed was how different people looked from what we’d experienced before. For starters, the age range was from very mature to late teens – predominantly from the mature end of the scale, however – the bulk of younger gays were probably at another party at Byron Bay. There was a small number of what might be called pristine bodies – in contrast to how it used to be at the Midnight Shift (a Sydney gay night club) in the early eighties, when just about every body was pristine. This is not at all surprising. In the early eighties the stomp generation was thirty-to-fifty-something; still young enough to be concerned with and capable of living up to body image. We’re now sixty-to-eighty-something, which means there’s an increasing percentage of people at gay parties in their mature incarnations; way past being able to look twenty-something, and way past caring – indeed, relaxing into the dignity that comes with the insights of age and experience. And in marked contrast to the early eighties, when dress had a code, dress is now not an issue for most, while for others it is, as it has always been, especially for drag queens, a means of engaging in self-deprecating humour and irony. There were people wearing what ever was at the top of the pile of clothes in their draws, and others in the most outrageously silly get ups – not because they suffer from a lack of dress sense, but because they like to entertain others. Whereas once it was an act of real courage to appear in public in camp attire, it is now possible to turn up to an event like this very much ‘out of shape’, dressed in get ups calculated to amuse, looking like an escapee from ‘body-image-hell’, and be greeted fondly by friends and welcomed by strangers. Believe it or not, this lack of ‘suitable standards’ is partly what makes some people feel threatened.
The next noticeable point – not instantly obvious, but seen as night fell and deepened into the next day, was that despite the fact that there were thousands of people there – significantly more than 50% of them men – there was no agro, no violence, no gangs, and not even an obvious excess of alcohol consumption. And, very surprisingly, as far as my nostrils could tell, (woof! woof!) almost no drugs. In this respect it was the same as the Midnight Shift had been in the early eighties. Thousands of men (it was a men only club in those days) would shoehorn themselves into a space significantly smaller than the dance floor at the Lismore Showgrounds, and enjoy each others company. In twelve months of going there up to four nights a week, I never once saw a fight or even an argument. In contrast, no gathering of bogans, no matter how small, ends without someone being ridiculed, insulted, threatened, and more often than not assaulted. And at bogan gatherings, the relationship between men and women is usually characterised by mutual disrespect, distrust and even loathing. Yet as gay men and women integrated their clubs and started working together on the preparation of social events and participating together in them, their relationships were, from the outset, visibly respectful, trusting and mutually accommodating. That’s certainly how it was at the recovery party at the showgrounds. Really frightening stuff, eh?
A third point of interest was way people participated in the main event – the dancing. Hang on, main event … there was more than one? Oh yes. Apart from the main dance floor in one of the pavilions, there was an art exhibition in another; a cabaret in a shed; the bar in a big top; and another dance floor in a smaller pavilion. The concourse along which people strolled from one event to another was dotted with people performing fire dances and other exotic activities. People lounged on the grassy knoll (just kidding - I mean bank) or squatted on hay bails, chatting and greeting one another with uninhibited affection while the sun went down and the music from the main dance floor throbbed with the promise of a great coming together in joyful celebration. But once again, I need to refer to something in the past before coming to the point. And since I am responding to something the Pope said, I think I can reasonable expect that you will tolerate my talking church stuff for a moment or two.
Just after the Second Vatican Council, which triggered enormous vigour among lay Catholics, the issue of what kind of music is appropriate in the liturgy boiled over throughout the whole of the church in Australia, and probably elsewhere as well. Musicians of every calibre came forward with music that expressed their enthusiasm for renewal and reform in the church. But many, perhaps most, of the clergy were horrified. Some tried to throw their authority around, and as often as not succeeded in intimidating musicians into compliance with their wishes – or leaving the church. I was personally involved in clash with a particularly pedantic Jesuit, not over what we played and sang in our parish, but over the principles involved in the issue. The Council had just made the momentous declaration that not only was the Church the People of God, but that the people of the church are the Church. The people, I argued, must be allowed to find their voice, especially when it comes to music. No! He insisted, there is music that is appropriate to the liturgy, and the people must be taught to love it. That was over thirty years ago. I challenge anyone to go into a cathedral or church and listen to the music, check how visceral your response is, and gauge the congregation’s temper. Is there joy? Really? Don’t take their word for it. What do you feel there? Um, well yeah. Perhaps you’ve already tried it and ...
Allow me one more detour before coming to the point. Have you seen Sister Act II? If not, do yourself a favour and see it. Not just to get what I am talking about here, but for the deep feel-good laugh you’ll get. For those who have seen it, recall that the pivotal piece of music in the story was Joyful, Joyful. And that it got sung not only by the kids from a down and out parish school but also by the !!Choir!! of a very well healed private !!Academy!! (not just a school … an !!Academy!!). Recall that when the !!Choir!! of the !!Academy!! !!performed!! it, you were almost certainly stunned. It was so … so … !!ASTOUNDINGLY!! … !!ASTOUNDING!!!! Oh! My God! How could anyone top that, I asked, and I bet you did too. No wonder we have choirs. If that’s what can be produced by people who know what they’re doing … gosh! Let’s just, the rest of us, sit back and listen … and be !!AMAZED!! Let’s not even think that little old ordinary us could get involved and mess it up. But then along came the kids form the parish school, and before they were half done you were melting all over yourself, swooning with tear-away joy. You might even have been up on your feet dancing to the music, but, if not, you were almost certainly participating in the event, quite possible as actively as you have ever participated in anything … ever….ever……eeeever. I know I did.
So, there is !!MUSIC!! that creates an elite, in awe of which the rest of us sit or stand, solemnly, and listen. And there is joy that expresses itself as music that entices people to move their bodies to the rhythm and raise their arms and clap their hands and whoop and whistle and joy themselves. Oops, did I say joy themselves? Should I have said en-joy? And is that like en-gorge? And if so – or not – is there a difference between en-gorging oneself on food and possessions, and en-gorging oneself on joy? Well, that is what I saw on the dance floor at the showground – people en-gorging themselves on joy. But before saying anymore about that I just want to make one more point about music as it is experienced in churches. The mention of people moving their bodies, raising their arms and clapping their hands might call to mind what we see in media accounts of Pentecostal churches, which have never felt constrained by consideration of what is appropriate music for worship. A Pentecostal meeting in full flight is not as exuberant as one sees on the dance floor of a night club, but I draw attention, nevertheless, to the fact that the music is more like rock music than Gregorian chant, and people do move their bodies, raise their arms and clap their hands. But to what, and for what purpose? I will come back that.
For now I want to return to the dancing at the recovery party. It had been a long time since I had taken to the dance floor. I literally couldn’t count the years on the fingers of both hands. And yet, when I did dance, back in the early eighties, I used to be transformed into a hamburger with the lot – you know, I’d become one with everything. I attain that same state when I drive long distance and when I slip into a particularly effortless rhythm of writing – making art – and sometimes, doing computer graphics. But dancing was – is – the most potent sacrament I can administer to myself. Emptying myself of self-awareness by focusing on the music, its beat and its changing melody, responding physically to different elements with my feet and with my arms – it’s not something one can do by thinking about it. You let go in your mind and let your body be what it can. As with long distance driving, when one enters the zone, one’s awareness of what is going on around one is enhanced rather than diminished. When dancing in the zone one sees everywhere the infinitely differentiated uninhibited bodily response of others to same rhythm and melody that you are being moved by – not as an act of individualistic egotism but as mutually entertaining self revelation – a state of being one with everyone. In the light of this, the scathing judgmentalism of our elders forty to fifty years ago – and still today – is nothing less than tragic. Remember the moment when we abandoned the Pride of Erin and the Gypsy Tap for the Stomp? It’s such a shame. Their children will never learn to dance properly. No one will know how to teach them. How ironic is it that the grand-children of the Stomp generation, having grown up knowing self-expression through dancing, are finding their own way to Ball Room Dancing. Meanwhile, we ageing baby-boomers are still finding new depths to ourselves and the company we keep as we put our ageing bodies to the test of maintaining the rage. This is what I saw at the recovery party. Men and women of diverse ages overflowing with joy. Most of us would never think of it this way, but when the psalmist said My cup runneth over he wasn’t talking about wine in a goblet. Ah, but such joy … it’s such a threat.
Not far from the dancing at the recovery party was another group of people. Somewhere on the Gold Coast, probably. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t on the same day, because events that are separated in time occur simultaneously in the state of everywhen. This other group of people, numbering in the thousands, are in a stadium size venue, but in stark contrast to the egalitarianism of a dance floor, these people are in rows surrounding a central point occupied by a Star Preacher who claims to be praising Jesus, but is, in fact, engaged in a performance of monstrous egotism, as he mediates, not a sense of interdependence and community, but what purports to be a personal relationship with what those gathered think of as Jesus. It’s Ye and me, God, they affect. Their feet are tapping, their arms are raised and their hands are waving in a peculiar way – as though they are holding something, or touching something; and they are singing a song of victory. It’s about something they call “The Rapture”. For those who haven’t heard of it, The Rapture is the moment when ‘The Lord’ is supposed to come again and cause all of his faithful to simply disappear from the face of the earth as he takes them to heaven, leaving the rest of us to our own devices and what the Rapture-waiters openly relish as our apocalyptic fate. These people call themselves Christians – two thousand years after Jesus, whom they claim as their own, overturned the very concept of a Chosen People. Perhaps it’s not surprising. After all, Jesus was at the time, the latest of a long line of prophets who had denounced the temple cult in Jerusalem, that made its people continue to think of themselves as God’s own – this, in spite of the fact that the greatest of the earlier prophets, Isaiah, had made it clear that every people is as special to God the tribes of Israel claimed to be. Some ‘Christians’ are still missing the point. Some of them even want to rebuild the temple! Some of these same people actively canvass the possibility of a nuclear first strike against the Russians or the Chinese or the Whoever, as a trigger for Second Coming; there are some who are preparing for Armageddon – doing what they can to hasten it – and relishing the prospect. There are also people – the overwhelming majority of them, in fact – for whom the accumulation of extravagant wealth at the expense of others and the environment is the sign of God’s favour, and who assert that if the environment really is important, God will take care of it. And there are men among them, unchallenged in their claim that, it is not just their right, but their duty, to intimidate women and children into obedience – by force if ‘necessary’.
From what does the world most need to be saved? People who know how to en-gorge themselves on joy; or people who hate so much that they ‘joyfully’ contemplate and actively seek the demise of all but those who are ‘like’ themselves?
Even if certain religious views are correct and homosexuality is a disorder, what is the Pope afraid of? Does he think that homosexuality is going to spread like a virus through the population robbing heterosexuals of their heterosexuality? Well yes, actually – something like that. Mediated by gender theory, apparently. Well, do you know what …if Kevin can use that expression I can too … I didn’t see anyone sitting around at the recovery party discussing gender theory. And what’s more, I don’t know anybody who does. Sure I know that it is one of the preferred mental sports in academia at present. But hey! Does anyone remember the theory (the theories) of post-modernism? People tied themselves in knots over it for a decade or so, but who takes it seriously now? Who, for that matter takes Marxism seriously now? Theories come and have the grace to go. Unlike bigotry and prejudice that underpins religious views that are eventually dragged kicking and screaming to a disgraceful death.
If, as gays assert, we are a manifestation of human diversity with every right to contribute to humanity’s understanding of itself, the Pope is, to use the language of his own church, sinning against the Holy Spirit by issuing such an edict. Or to put it in language that the rest of us can relate to, he is being a bogan. It is his views that threaten the cohesion and further unfolding of humanity’s fullness; his world-view that denies women their rightful place in the world; words such as his that give comfort and encouragement to thugs.
Before making my final point I should make it clear that not everyone in the church supports his position. An Australian Catholic bishop virtually apologised to gay people for the Pope’s intemperance. And though the Anglican and Uniting churches are divided over the role of gay people in their organisations, there are people in all mainstream churches who deeply regret the hate and discrimination in which they are historically implicated, and from which they are seeking to be freed. We are not alone in knowing the truth about ourselves. And that, of course, is what some are threatened by most of all.
Finally, the faith of Abraham has always been about standing up to ‘God’: that is, confronting the mental images of divinity that cultures generate to justify dispossessing others – anyone who is not ‘like’ them. So to the ‘God’ of those who yearn for The Rapture I say, Bring it on, you fraud. Take your fawning self-obsessed cultic groupies to the palace of religious pornography they have created in their own image. God knows they deserve you.
And to all who feel diminished by the Pope’s own fear of you, maintain your rage – not as anger but as joy. Regard him with compassion, for he is far too intelligent to be expecting anything as theologically crass as 'The Rapture'. The very fact that he has spoken to you means that he wants to engage with you. Read what he actually said, rather than what the media said that he said. And respond, not with reflex contempt, but with the truth that he needs to hear. Because if we don’t speak the truth about ourselves to those who fear us, now one else will. It’s only bigots whose hearts will be hardened by our words, and … well, you know where they’re headed.
Postscript
If you have not yet read the Pope’s address but still intend to do so, read the following later.
In spite of saying in the preface that I was not going to summarise the Pope’s address, I have done so in this postscript because I want to highlight the manner in which my article, written before I read the address, inadvertently responds to what the Pope said.
What follows are key words and phrases from the Pope’s Address.
Nativity…come together to enjoy… the joy of meeting… atmosphere of Christmas… prolongation of that mysterious joy… “atmosphere of grace”… the grace of God has appeared “for all”… mission of the Church… make the grace of God… visible to everyone… World Youth Day in Australia… shared joy… Pentecost today… celebration of a joy that in the end spread even to the doubtful… celebration… where people step outside of themselves… thus are truly with themselves and with others… their joy and their power to build communion… the Pope is not the star around which everything revolves… Christ is present… makes life joyful… a joy that cannot be compared with the ecstasy of a rock festival… joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit… abundantly visible… in Sydney… Creator Spirit… creates the world and renews it constantly… matter has a mathematical structure… matter is structured intelligently… our minds can interpret… a duty and a responsibility… responsibility for the earth… not simply our property… to exploit according to our interests and desires… the earth and the cosmos… have an inherent ethical orientation… the language of creation… points to the way of an upright life… defend earth, water and air as gifts of creation belonging to all… must also protect man from self-destruction… the nature of the human being as man and woman… demands that this order of creation be respected… the term “gender”… often expresses man’s attempt at self-emancipation from creation and Creator… innate message within man the creature does not contradict our freedom but is its very premise… defend love against sex as a consumer good… Creator Spirit manifest in the grandeur of the universe… faith also tells us… the Spirit speaks with human words… entered into history… Old and New Testaments… we too can… roam about the garden… and encounter God who walks there… the passion and Resurrection of Christ… the presence of the God who speaks and becomes visible… the Church is the Body of Christ… an organism of the Holy Spirit… gifts… fuse individuals into a single living whole… our task… live for one another and in dependence on others… responsibility for Creation and for man’s living in harmony with Creation… a celebration can be organised, joy cannot. It can only be offered as a gift; and in fact it has been given to us in abundance…the Holy Spirit gives us joy. And he is joy… can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation… it is part of the nature of joy to spread, to be shared… missionary spirit… the drive to share the joy that has been given to us…
I believe this selection of key words and phrases gives the essential flavour of the Pope’s address, and can be summarised thus:
Humanity’s vocation is to live joyfully through being in harmony with God and his creation. This joy was visible at World Youth Day at which the Pope was not the star around which everything revolved. Rather Christ was present in the fellowship of the pilgrims who know the ethical orientation of the material world through its intelligent structure and their own faith. This contrasts absolutely with the efforts of others to emancipate man from creation and the Creator through the misuse of concepts such as gender. Our responsibility towards Creation includes attempting to save mankind from self-destruction as well as stewardship of rainforests and other natural gifts. The innate message within man is the premise of, rather than an obstacle to freedom. The God who speaks within the grandeur of the universe and in the heart of men is visible in the passion and resurrection of Christ, whose body is the church, whose mission is to manifest and share the joy that is given in abundance to those who live in harmony with God and Creation.
Further comment - Key Points from the Pope's addres in green; Comment in relation to the Recovery Dance in Blue; Comment in relation to fundamentalist religion in red
If this is objectively true one has to ask why there are so few followers of Christ in the church, because it is not a place one thinks of when looking for people of joy. If one were to take the gospels at their word one would look among the kind of people that Jesus actually mixed with – the despised and marginalised – and find joy in abundance, and therefore Christ incognito. The kind of people who attended the recovery party would have no problems agreeing with the assertion that we all need to live in harmony with the planet and the cosmos beyond. If they hesitate to speak of creation and the Creator it may be that such terms are loaded with baggage that robs them of credibility.
Jesus condemned those who mislead the innocent. None mislead more than the religious right (which is not confined to Pentecostal Protestantism) who combine utterly joyless exhortations to “just say no”, for example, with a sneering triumphalism that they misrepresent as happiness and joy.
At an event like WYD there can be no focus but Christ who is experienced not in any sense of personal salvation but in the shared joy of those present.
At the Recovery Dance the whole event was about people being together and the joy that flows there from; there was no star – no one person modelling a sense of what if means to be happy/joyful; just a multitude being joyful in one another’s presence in a way that they could not be alone.
WYD participants might have been joyful as a result of being in one another’s presence; and the Pope might not have been the star; but the credibility of his claims depends upon their being factually correct, and the latter certainly requires suspension of disbelief. Pentecostal church services, on the other hand are quite explicitly all about the star preacher modelling a relationship with God that has nothing to do with people’s relationships with one another.
…a joy that cannot be compared with the ecstasy of a rock festival…
[this is the official English translation of the Pope’s words!]
Taken at face value people attending rock festivals and similar events, such as the Recovery Dance, would have no trouble agreeing with that! The joy at an event like the Recovery Dance is palpable, precisely because the event is egalitarian in nature and the joy is a felt experience – unlike the “joy” that is talked about at church and “believed in” without being felt. But the Pope obviously did not intend his words to mean that the joy he talks about is inferior to the ecstasy of rock festivals. Yet that is the judgment he invites by asserting that what ‘the world’ sees his flock doing is the what human race would be if it were living in harmony with God and creation.
Pentecostals claim that, being “saved”, what they experience is superior not only to the ecstasy of a rock concert, but to anything that Catholics experience in their Liturgies and Para-liturgical events such as WYD. It is interesting to note just how much their church services are looking more and more like rock concerts; not only in that both are about star performers, but also in the music of both kinds of event. When the forms of popular culture, which are OK in their place, become the media through which issues of ultimate significance are expressed, those issues are likely to have been trivialised and all about the self.
It is necessary to save humanity from self-destruction as well as look after the environment.
People attending the Recovery Party would have no problems agreeing that looking after the environment is the primary imperative of our times. Talk of saving humanity from itself, however, sounds hollow from people who want to exclude gays and others, and who protect clergy guilty of sexual and other abuse. It’s not that we don’t agree that there are severe threats to the integrity of existence; it’s just that the credibility of the Pope’s world view is severely damaged, not only by his personal complicity in protecting abusive clergy, but in his failure to recognise – or to mention, at least – the very real threat emanating from fundamentalist religions.
The threat to the integrity of existence – the treat of self-destruction, and the most contemptuous attitude towards the environment – comes from the religious right. These people eagerly anticipate a nuclear holocaust as the trigger for “the rapture” and the second coming of Christ. This is the truly sick and sinful disposition. This makes men having sex with men assume its true significance – as peace making!
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