Dear Bishops: Imitate Jesus’ Open Welcome
What’s a bishop to do? Clearly these are difficult situations for them. Perhaps I can offer some thoughts on how to approach incidents like this. So, ahem, here goes.
Lisa Fullam, D.V.M., Th.D. teaches moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, California. Her research interests include Virtue Ethics, sexual and medical ethics, and Ignatian spirituality. Her essays include: “Toward a Virtue Ethics of Marriage: Augustine and Aquinas on Friendship in Marriage,” “Joan of Arc, Holy Resistance, and Conscience Formation in the Face of Social Sin,” “Sex in 3-D. A Telos for a Virtue Ethics of Sexuality,” “Why Ordination Matters: A Reflection from Jamaica,” and “Juana, SJ: The History (and Future?) of Women in the Society of Jesus.”
She is the author of "The Virtue of Humility: A Thomistic Apologetic," and has co-edited, with Charles E. Curran, three volumes in the Paulist Press series "Readings in Moral Theology." A few years back, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. The view from the top is just glorious.
Lisa is no stranger to New Ways Ministry and Bondings 2.0. She was a keynote speaker at New Ways Ministry's Eighth National Symposium, Chicago, April 2017. In 2012, she published the article "Civil Same-Sex Marriage: A Catholic Affirmation" on Bondings 2.o. That article is now archived on New Ways Ministry's web page on Marriage Equality.
What’s a bishop to do? Clearly these are difficult situations for them. Perhaps I can offer some thoughts on how to approach incidents like this. So, ahem, here goes.
Can the official teaching of the Church come to recognize and value the lives and loves of queer Catholics? Why not?
“Pastoral prudence” ducks the real question.
Repeating a silly idea doesn’t make it true. Church leaders’ accusation of trans people holding a body/soul dualism is exactly backwards; any dualism here is in the magisterial minds, not those of the people they attack.
On the fifth anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL), one refrain keeps coming to my mind “What’s Amor Got to Do With It?”
Theologian Lisa Fullam writes, “Pope Francis’ recent statement supporting civil unions for lesbian and gay couples is, I think, good news and bad news.”
The ministerial exception allows Catholic institutions to treat its employees in ways that civil society has deemed immoral and illegal.
With the U.S. Supreme Court’s Title VII decision to include sexual orientation and transgender identity under the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the leadership of the Catholic Church has a chance to review its own stance on matters of civil equality for LGBTQ people.
The bishops of the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church (UMC) recently announced that their churches would provide “safe harbor” for LGBTQ clergy, stating “We do not believe The United Methodist Church has the authority or the power to impose limits on the movement of God’s Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s beloved LGBTQ+ children.” This decision is good news for the Methodists, but for Catholics, also.
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