Someday Never Comes
David Palmieri
Today’s post is from guest contributor David Palmieri, a theology teacher at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, MA. He is the founder of Without Exception, a grassroots network of secondary educators dedicated to discerning the art of accompaniment for LGBTQ+ students in Catholic high schools, and received an award from the National Catholic Educational Association in 2021.
The U.S. bishops’ conference recently issued a “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body“ to set guidelines for Catholic healthcare services on gender-affirming care. Like the legion of diocesan policies before it, this document seeks to “employ criteria that respect the created order inscribed in our human nature” (no. 1). But absent from the strategy is any tenderness of pastoral care.
These ecclesial documents have become a litany of don’ts, like circles of barbed wire protecting the trenches of Catholic order and discipline. For example, instead of listening to the needs of transgender persons, the doctrinal note prohibits Catholic healthcare services from “any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul” (no. 20). This policy will promote the “authentic good” of the human person (no. 22). But that is a judgment from afar, not an invitation to the closeness that Jesus embodies.
The new document states, “With regard to those who identify as transgender or non-binary, there is a range of pastoral issues that need to be addressed, but that cannot be addressed in this document” (footnote 34). In fact, it is almost never addressed by church leaders. How long must we wait for a pastoral response when someday never comes?
A familiar tagline of LGBTQ+ opponents is “speak the truth with love.” They claim the most loving response to the LGBTQ+ “disorder” is to promote authentic human flourishing by guiding persons to objective truth. But love is the wrong word in this case. Love requires an open heart, so that joy, peace, and mercy pour out freely like God’s grace.
It might be more precise for opponents to say they “speak the truth with sympathy.” Brené Brown, who is an expert in emotional intelligence, writes that sympathy is an “unwanted, superficial, pity-based response.” That is exactly what LGBTQ+ persons and allies are experiencing when they read these documents. It’s love expressed as sympathy not as joy, peace, and mercy. It’s love that misses the mark.
A
nd speaking of truth, how do we define truth when we are talking about realities that are not new but are only now becoming more understood? In this case, we have a responsibility to employ the gifts of the Holy Spirit: faith, understanding, wonder, courage, wisdom, knowledge, and counsel. Faith seeking understanding is not just about the alignment of the mind with the objective world, but also about meeting the living God who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). The truth is not just an idea but also a person to be loved with joy, peace, and mercy.
Some LGBTQ+ persons and allies will often fire back that their opponents are hateful. While the data supports that some people actually do wish physical and moral evil upon the LGBTQ+ community, most Catholics who are opposed to LGBTQ+ ministry are not truly hateful.
A more accurate description might be that these opponents are self-righteous, a quality that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees (Mt 23:1-36). Brené Brown says, “People who exhibit this emotion [self-righteousness] see things in black and white—they tend to be closed-minded, inflexible, intolerant of ambiguity, and less likely to consider others’ opinions.” This description seems to more precisely describe the behavior of those opposed to LGBTQ+ ministry.
Anxiety, fear, dread, sadness, anger, contempt, disgust, resentment, disappointment, frustration, discouragement, regret, embarrassment. These are the costs of a conflict fueled by emotional distance. It is time for church leaders to invite LGBTQ+ voices to the table, not as tokens or object lessons but as family members in the Body of Christ. Only by this closeness can we begin to learn what it means to offer a pastoral response that is more than just a footnote.
—David Palmieri, April 1, 2023
Previous Posts on the USCCB Doctrinal Note
Catholic LGBTQ+ Advocates Strongly Condemn Latest USCCB Transgender Statement
Fr. Dan Horan: U.S. Bishops’ New Transgender Document Is “Nothing Short of a Disaster”
“We Deserve to Proclaim Our Truth to the World,” Writes Transgender Catholic
New USCCB Document Seeks to Stop Transgender Healthcare at Catholic Institutions
New Ways Ministry Criticizes New USCCB Guidance on Transgender Healthcare
Conscience is supreme–over any statement by hierarchy, dare I say, any doctrine of the Roman Church.
Excellent reflection, David.
This is one of the best and clearest view of what’s happening with LGBTQ+ community and some of our church hierarchy. I totally agree with what was said as to why there is such an entrenched view of what is “ordered.” Thank you for your thoughtful reflection.
Thank you for this reflection. It always strikes me as the epitome of arrogance when any entity — either another person or an institution of any stripe — asserts that it knows more about another’s experience than the person themself. Pope Francis’s approach is one of engagement, of listening; the USCCB’s approach is one of “we don’t care what you have to say because we know your truth better than you know it yourself”!
As a cisgender gay man, I admittedly do not fully understand the experience of transgender or non-binary persons (nor for that matter, the experience of cisgender heterosexual men or women!), but that in no way means that I can’t be open to trying to understand that experience as another expression of the great diversity within the human family. If we truly believe that every human person is “created in the image and likeness of God,” then my task is to see the face of God in every other human person, just as I would hope and pray that others might see the Divine somehow reflected in me (albeit limited and marred by my own sinfulness).