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Columns
Daughter of Doubt
Valerie Schultz
It had to happen. Just as the shoemaker’s children go barefoot and the carpenter’s children live under a leaky roof, I knew this day would come. I am a church worker whose daughter has stopped going to church. My daughters have grown up with the church as their second home, because it wa
Understanding Sex Before Sin
William J. OMalley
Who can tell me what I can do with my own body? The church? “Society”? The Bible? Playboy? A catechist? “Sex and the City”? With the high school students I teach, only one answer works: the objective facts and honest reasoning. Only the objective facts decide which of those c
Letters
Letters

Life Experience

For some time now, I have intended to write you to commend you on your excellent writing and articles on the sexual abuse issues in the Catholic Church. The report in Signs of the Times (7/29) about the remarks of Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz prompts me to write.

Current understanding among human development professionals includes the idea that each human person finds herself/himself somewhere on a continuum with regard to sexuality and affectional preference. That is, some people are more inclined to think of members of the opposite gender when they think of someone loving them; others think of persons of the same gender. And some people are emotionally attracted to members of both genders equally.

Bishop Bruskewitz focuses on two elements that I think are not indicated by the life experience of persons of either affectional preference. One element is to equate homosexuality with addiction (note his reference to persons suffering from drug addiction, alcohol dependence and kleptomania). Another troublesome element is his implication that persons who are attracted to persons of the same gender are driven to sexual promiscuity. To turn the tables, one might (erroneously) make the argument that it is not appropriate to ordain heterosexuals because they would likely be at risk of giving in to temptation of having sex with the wives and daughters of parishioners!

As a licensed counselor, I have met no person with a same-gender affectional preference who says that it is right to have sexual relations with children. Most gay people of my acquaintance want what most people want from a relationship: a special, monogamous relationship with the ability to love and be loved. And that does not always include genital sexual expression! Many persons of the gay affectional preference have been so rejected by their culture and/or family members that they certainly do not put themselves in the position to be rejected again. In sum, they are not pedophiles, nor are they sexual predators, in my experience.

One priest wrote in another publication, I believe God asks of homosexual relationships exactly what God asks of heterosexual relationships: truth, faithfulness, longsuffering, and the continuing forgiveness of the other. He then quotes Gal. 5:23: Against these there is no law.

We can all learn from one another. Your articles on this topic reflect good writing and pastoral sensitivity.

Louis Lowrey

Poetry
Supplication in the Heart of Summer
Wally Swist

after Andre Breton

 

The chiaroscuro of nuance,

Books
Ambitious Prophet?
Franco Mormando
On Nov 7 1630 Orazio Morandi abbot of the Roman monastery of Santa Prassede and former general of the Benedictine order of Vallombrosa was found dead in his cell in the Eternal City rsquo s Tor di Nona prison Although the doctor on duty and a friar confessor insisted that he died a natural dea
Faith
Rahner, Balthasar and High School Theology
Randall S. Rosenberg
Karl Rahner, S.J., (1904-84) and Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-88), are in my estimation the two most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century. Rahner, a German Jesuit priest profoundly influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, spent his life primarily as a teacher and
Beginning in Awe
James Martin, S.J.
To explain how my experience as a parent has been a spiritual path, I have to begin seven years before my first child was born. At age 22, I was feeling more lost in my life than I’ve ever been before or since. My life was devoid of meaning and more than grim. In my lowest moment I latched ont
Editorials
The Innocence Protection Act
The Editors
Even death penalty proponents do not want to see innocent people executed. In recent times, though, a number of prisoners have come within minutes of a walk to the death chamber before being exonerated of a capital crime. In Illinois alone, 13 men on death row were freed within the past two decades.
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
New Los Angeles Cathedral DedicatedNearly five years after its ground was blessed, and with thousands of people gathered in celebration in its plaza, the world’s newest cathedral church was opened and dedicated on Sept. 2 in downtown Los Angeles. “My friends, welcome to the city’s,
Faith
The Dallas Charter and Due Process
Kevin E. McKenna
Before banks of cameras, intense lights and the gaze of victims of sexual abuse, the bishops of the United States recently debated in Dallas a new policy to “repair the breach” with those damaged at the hands of church ministers. They approved overwhelmingly a Charter for the Protection
Books
A Qualified Victory
Tom OBrien
As James M McPherson notes at the opening of his new book Sept 17 not Sept 11 was the worst day in American history mdash Sept 17 1862 Over 6 000 Americans died that day at Antietam four times as many as on D-Day and more than those who died in all the pre-1900 wars combined Many of the
Editorials
A Pre-emptive War?
The Editors
For months Washington and the world have been debating the Bush administration’s professed desire to carry out a pre-emptive war against Iraq. In early August, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, headed by Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat of Delaware), opened hearings on the anticipated confli
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
John Predmore
On Aug. 2, the Jesuits at America House celebrated the feast of Blessed Peter Faber, the first recruit and only priest among the early companions of St. Ignatius Loyola. A humble shepherd from Savoy, France, he was a skilled master of the Spiritual Exercises and was chosen to attend the ecumenical c
Books
From Seal to Public Servant
Ron Hansen
In this disarmingly honest and haunting memoir the former governor of Nebraska and United States senator Bob Kerrey tells the story of his rite of passage from a rather na iuml ve and carefree childhood in the 1950 rsquo s Midwest to his transformation into a skeptical Vietnam veteran with the Cong
Columns
On Being a Patriot
Thomas J. McCarthy
The question, “Where were you on Sept. 11?” ordinarily asks for your location on that date one year ago. But as we mark the anniversary, the question needs an important update: Where are you on Sept. 11, 2002? What has changed at ground zero—as dramatically chronicled in William La
Ain't I a Fool?
Charles Christopher
Many read reports about victims of sexual abuse and wonder why the victim did not come forward earlier. Some readers suspect financial motives for newly important memories of abuse. Perhaps that is true in some cases. It was not true in mine. I am not suing anyone, and I cannot speak for anyone who
FaithThe Word
No Fair!
John R. Donahue
Today’s Gospel seems to challenge fairness, preferring concern for the “last.”
Forgive and Forget?
Mona H. Villarrubia
On the way home from a hospital stay several years ago, my husband and I stopped at a toy store to buy presents for our two sons. I did not want to arrive home empty-handed because I wasn’t sure of the reception I would receive. I don’t remember what we bought the boys, but I do remember
Faith in Focus
Where Is God in the Clergy Abuse Crisis?
Carol A. Mitchell
As the crisis of sexual abuse by members of the clergy grinds on and on, victims and perpetrators alike must surely be asking, Where is God in all this? The answer may come more easily to the victims. Consider envisioning God the way Jesus does in Lk. 15:8: What woman having 10 coins and losing one
Books
Whose Divine Right?
John F. Kavanaugh
What more appropriate time than this year of bombings retaliations wars and rumors of war to investigate the meaning and practice of terror especially in its relationship to faith Lee Griffith in The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God offers a compelling start Although he examines histori