LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
My Queer Life: Unnatural Causes |
by Michael Thomas Ford |
On March 12, Pope John Paul II led what he called "The Day of Pardon Mass" in St. Peter's Basilica. During the service, five Vatican cardinals and two bishops made confessions of sins that the Catholic Church as an entity has committed over the years, with the Pope then asking forgiveness from God for these actions. Among the groups the church leaders admitted to wronging were Jews, gypsies, and other ethnic groups, as well as women and children. The Pope said he hopes that, by publicly apologizing before God, the Catholic Church can begin to heal the wounds it has caused and learn to love and respect people of all beliefs. This is a lovely sentiment, but I think he needs to look a little harder, because there are some people right there in his own family who need to hear him say he's sorry. One morning several weeks ago I received two things in the mail. One was a clipping from The Kansas City Star, an article about the frighteningly high death rate from AIDS among Roman Catholic priests and how for years the church leadership has been covering up any links between HIV infection and their clergy. The other was a letter from my friend Dr. June Steffensen Hagen. It's interesting how seemingly unrelated things take on new meaning when they're brought together. Ordinarily I might have read the Star article and filed it away to think about later. But then there was June. June was one of my English professors in college. At a school rampant with muddleheaded fundamentalist Christian teaching, she was a breath of fresh air, a fiercely intelligent, liberal Episcopalian determined to get her students to think for themselves instead of believing everything they were told. More than once she upset the powers that be, and more than a few people would have liked to see her ousted. Knowing June changed my life. Not only did she introduce me to writers and ideas I'd never encountered, she was the first person to let me know that being gay was okay. She was also the first person I ever met who I think genuinely loved God. Having grown up with a lot of people who feared God or used him as a weapon, it was something of a shock to find someone who thought of God as her friend. Determined as I was because of my past experiences to believe the whole God thing was a lot of nonsense, June made me rethink that position. In fact, when it was time for me to leave school, I even applied to the Episcopal seminary. Ultimately I didn't go, which I know now was the right choice, but at the time it was an appealing option. June's husband, Jim, is a retired Episcopal priest who for many years served a largely Spanishspeaking community in Queens. Her letter is filled with news about their lives: their recent trips to Ecuador and Mexico, the literature class June is teaching, her and Jim's involvement in The New York Choral Society and in the life of their parish, the activities of her two children. These are the pieces of a full and happy life. They're the things that I think of when I think of June. And then I think of those priests dying from AIDS. According to the Star article, many of them were sent to hospices outside of their parishes to die, alone and far from their friends and families so that no one would know what was killing them. In almost all cases, the cause of death was listed as "natural causes" and the occupation written on the death certificate was listed as anything but priest. In the end, these servants of the church were reduced to lies, their years of duty to God wiped out with the stroke of a pen to protect the image of the institution they had devoted their lives to.Tucked into June's letter is a photograph of her and Jim, taken on one of their trips. June's hair is greyer, and Jim's is more absent, but the smiles on their faces still reflect all of the love and joy I remember. The most wonderful thing about it, though, is how much they look like a couple. Jim has his arm around June, and she's leaning into him in a way that radiates familiarity and friendship. Looking at them, I see a picture of a lifetime spent exploring the world and all of its joys and challenges together. I can't help but compare this picture to the images in my head of priests dying, alone and frightened, among strangers because their superiors sent them away to hide their shame. I want to believe that someone was there to hold their hands, to tell them that they were loved. I want to believe that they died knowing that their lives meant something. But I don't think that they did. I think that, in the end, they were betrayed in the cruelest way. The Episcopal church and the Church of Rome have been at odds since the beginning, and theologians and academics can argue points of doctrine until they're blue in the face. When it comes down to it, though, the only thing that matters is how a church serves its people, and the Catholic church gets failing marks for that. I'm sure the church sees its dead priests as embarrassments best forgotten, the same way for years it ignored the rampant sexual abuse of young people by clergy. What the church should really be embarrassed about, however, is its refusal to acknowledge the needs of the men who come to it offering up their lives. In order to maintain control, they strip them of their humanity, forcing them to give up love and companionship and, yes, plain old sex in a misguided attempt at manufacturing piety. Sublimating desire in incense and robes and a rehearsed liturgy mumbled two or three times a day is a recipe for unhappiness. And for death by the most unnatural cause of allshame. One of the things that June taught me was that Godin whatever form you embrace himloves joy. It saddens me that the Catholic priests who came to worship God with joy instead were met with betrayal and fear in the hour when they most needed love. I am also angered, angered enough to want to comfort myself with disbelief in a God who would let this happen, just as I wanted to back in college. But once again June won't let me do that. I've put the picture of her and Jim on the wall above my desk, right beside the picture of the stone circle and phallic rock monument my Radical Faerie brother, Ron, painstakingly built on his Maine sheep farm. When I look at these pictures, I am reminded that even the fear of an institution as large and imposing as the Catholic church is nothing compared to the power of one or two people who truly understand what it is to live with joy to make a difference. And I am reminded, too, that God comes in many forms, and that the God those priests were looking for really does exist somewhere, waiting for them. I hope they've found him. Michael Thomas Ford is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and That's Mr. Faggot to You. He welcomes e-mail at Shopiltee@aol.com or in care of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 3, Apr. 7, 2000. |