A blogger I’ve known only through our shared cyber-space as librarians on discussion lists and as bloggers mentioned at his blog that he has moved over to an Anglican church from the Catholic church due to the Roman Catholic’s position on women clergy, on marriage of gays, and the sexual abuse scandals.
That’s putting a lot of stock into current cultural beliefs in the face of 2,000 years of church history and teaching, plus all the Hebrew/Jewish traditions that came before that. In fact, it flies in the face of the history of the human race and all religions, not just Catholicism. There’s virtually no mention of homosexuality in the Old Testament except in veiled references to temple practices of other religions which the Jews were supposed to avoid at all costs. But dalliances with young men and male temple prostitutes were certainly well known and even accepted in Greek and Roman cultures. Gracious! Have you seen some of those murals in collapsing ancient buildings? The Greeks and Romans lived in sex saturated times, male, female, animal, child, multiples—made no difference (if we can believe their art and literature, and why shouldn’t we?). They probably inherited profligate and perverted sex from the civilizations who came before them. God chose the Jews for a reason—they were the only ones, even in sin who seemed to really get the story of creation.
That said, even with trips to the temple for sex with young, beautiful temple prostitutes, male and female, when it came to building blocks for the society, it was marriage between a male and female. Yes, some engaged in polygamy, or polyandry, some had mistresses and concubines and some men may have preferred a male concubine, but the state/monarchy/emperor or tribal elder recognized the marriage. There was a distant memory and command in the mind of all cultures.
As for women priests, show me a church that is growing under female leadership. Sure, maybe you support it, but have you joined one? Have you encouraged your call committee in that direction? Even men who claim to be “feminists” don’t like sitting under the authority of a woman, often not at work, but certainly not at the church. They’ll never admit it, but quietly, the numbers begin to drop.
Child abuse? The Roman Catholic church is a huge target; and it’s rich. Why sue a school system where the abusers, at least until recently, are just passed from school to school, protected by their unions? We’re just beginning to hear how many female teachers are predators as the stories are leaked to the papers. How many Protestant clergy have been caught with their hand in the . . . well, and just quietly moved on to the next small church thinking the problem will go away if we just warn him. Although many young girls have certainly been molested at the hands of clergy, teachers, babysitters, etc., the number of boys and gay men involved is way out of their proportion (1.5%) in the general population.
But this particular librarian who has left the church, who became a convert to Catholicism and took all the instruction in 1992, now thinks that the profound spiritual wisdom of the 20th and 21st centuries exceeds that of the church he committed himself to just 20 years ago and in which he agreed to raise his children and be faithful to his wife (who has remained Catholic).
Imagine all the stuff a Protestant is exposed to in RCIA which must completely have baffled him—like 7 sacraments, or the teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, or all the stages to go through to become a saint, or all the special holidays, seasons and observances he’d never heard of. Think about undoing all the teaching Christians hear in Baptist or Lutheran or Nazarene churches about evil, unscriptural Catholicism. That’s a huge leap for gay marriage and the ordination of women priests!
And he threw it all over for a fad, fable and fantasy. I’m not a Catholic, but it appears he wasn’t either.
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