Dear Roman Catholic Church,
Hi. It’s me again. You know, the girl from the front pew at church? The one with the rosary dangling from her pocket and the rainbow ribbon on her jacket’s lapel? The one who, on occasion and following the spirit of the Vatican II documents has been known to disagree (respectfully, of course) with your teachings? I’m sorry to bother you again, but this week you’ve lightened my soul and appalled me in equal degrees.
It’s no secret that it was my radicalism that ultimately brought me back to you. I needed somewhere to root my advocacy, and I began reading liberation theology, feminist theology, and Dorothy Day. They began to introduce me to the Church not how I had experienced it to be, but what the Church can be, and is (sometimes). They brought me back to you. And once I was here, I began to understand that there’s so much more here than I can ever imagine.
I cried, often, during that first spell of time after my return. Usually during the consecration of the Eucharist and always without understanding why. Something about that action moved me in a way in which I couldn’t explain. It taught me to love the sacraments and the ritual memory which comes along with them. These are no mere prayers which we parrot every Sunday. They are actions which are imbued with deep memory and meaning, actions and rites which connect us to the Church of the past and the Church of the future. The Church, as I experienced it then, was a place of prophetic witness to the world—a place where all truly were welcome. You, were a place bold enough to say that there should be a dignity to the work we do, a preferential option for the poor, that we must care for the sick, the dying, the imprisoned, the spiritually destitute. We must be hope in a hopeless world. I am so grateful to you for showing me what a living witness can be—I still see it daily in the life of the Benedictines I know here in Minnesota, in the individuals who work in the Catholic Worker movement, in students and faculty at this graduate school with whom I live and work every day.
And yesterday, I saw you at your prophetic best. I attended an anointing for the sick. In a culture so terrified of death and dying, of the other, of communicable diseases, this was a witness I could not ignore. The prayers for those who were ill were not for miraculous recovery, but for grace, peace, and support from the community. And then the community laid their hands on the ill—effectively saying “You are not other. We are not afraid of you, but YOU ARE our brothers and sisters and will care for you as such.” The deep ritual action which occurred linked us—in our little community in Collegeville—to hundreds of thousands of other Catholics, from the institution of the sacrament to those celebrating in other parts of the world. I have rarely felt so connected to this community of believers as I did yesterday.
But then today I read the article in the Washington Post about the DC Archdiocese and I wept from frustration, anger, and sadness. How, how can you go against your own basic teachings about justice? Even if I could set aside your views on GLBT rights (and frankly, their humanity) how can you justify denying services to people unrelated to that community? The homeless man to whom you give a meal has little to do with this decision—and you’ll deny him that meal? How is that justice? How is that following your own teachings? How is that proclaiming a message of love, forgiveness, and justice to the world? How is that prophetic? If any of the Old Testament prophets were here, I can’t help but think they would call you to account for the utter lack of love, justice and mercy which you are showing.
I have stayed with you through anti-GLBT documents and through sexual scandal. I have defended you after Dominus Jesus and throughout investigations of seminaries and religious orders. I have done all of this because I have seen you at your prophetic best—as the Church who supports and cares for the marginalized. Who overwhelmingly witnesses a Gospel which calls us to account for our actions in the world. A church which declares that we can be better than we are—and that we can only realize what we were meant to be through our presence with the least among us. And now…I don’t know what to do with you anymore.
I think we’ve come to a crossroad in our relationship. You can either show me once again that you’re capable of being prophetic in this world—that you care about the Gospel, about Christ as the new covenant of love, forgiveness, peace, joy, justice, and care for the marginalized and oppressed—you can either begin to bear witness to YOUR OWN DOCUMENTS about justice and love, joy and hope or you can continue to rely on spreading vitriol and hatred based on the old covenant—on a few lines in the Old Testament and a corrupt translation of Paul—you can ignore your own comments about the place of historical-critical method and understanding the context from which those verses emerged.
If you chose the former I think we’ll grow together in our understanding of this wonderful, broken world and what it means to minister to it. If you chose the latter, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay with you. And I know that one person leaving probably isn’t the biggest deal to you, but I can’t help but feel that you’ll begin to miss us. Hopefully one day you’ll understand why we left, although I fear that by then it will be too late for you to regain your role as prophet and participant in God’s grace in the world.
I miss what we used to have. I do. Please consider the people you’re hurting and who you used to be.
With all my heart,
Kelly
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