Mission Creep
Mission creep can be a souce or symptom of spiritual illness.
BELOVED BY GOD: A DECLARATION OF A CATHOLIC COMMITMENT TO TRANS-AFFIRMATION
https://belovedbygod.faith/?fbclid=IwAR1Yf6R2bMDlE7_XPjqQjvn6TVlw1sYsuxSN1sMPrgWT8CY3heTGAaErQt8
This Catholic trans appeal made the cut in the January - February 2023 New York Catholic Worker newspaper. As such, it is a topic for discussion. I am not convinced that the bifurcated demands of this partisan political faction is actually a Catholic Worker Movement issue because it lacks focus upon the poor, the works of mercy and the unifying principles of Catholic Social Teaching. II am in complete agreement with Larry Chapp (founder of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm near Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania) that the Catholic roots of the Catholic Worker Movement are not well understood. The Catholic Worker Movement does not endorse partisan political factions. Zero sum secular power struggles mute the radical provocation of the Gospel and the radical call of Christ to evangelical conversion as the heart and soul of the Church’s very raison d’etre. Dorothy Day famously put this in perspective. “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” It's a simple spiritual principle. Say No To War ... stop the violence within yourself.
Whither the Catholic Worker Movement?
Larry Chapp , April 5, 2023
On this Holy Saturday 2023, I am meditating on the Dark Night of the Soul.
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This partisan political manifesto, Beloved By God, is largely endorsed by gay Catholic associations and professionals, whom I deeply respect and believe need to feel a part of Catholic communion, community and pastoral care. Inclusion means the weloming of participation in respectful dialog that searches for unity within diversity.
Members of the Dayton Catholic Worker Movement unanimously can not sign the document because it's not clear to us that children have a fully formed conscience that can be untethered from parental guidance. Nor is it clear to us that a person with the body of a man should be competing in womens K12 athletics and sharing a womens locker room shower. Several reputable peer-reviewed convergent surveys indicate a probability that about 5% of high school students self identify as transgender or nonbinary. The percentage of this subset of population drops to .05% as they reach adulthood. So, it is not unreasonable to question nurture or nature.
The alarmingly high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts among all youth is a concern. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people age 15 to 24 in the U.S. Nearly 20% of high school students report serious thoughts of suicide and 9% have made an attempt to take their lives. More than 50% of transgender and non-binary youth in states across the US seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 18% actually attempted suicide, according to one study conducted by the Trevor Project. Not all suicides are attributable to depression, either. While depression is a risk factor for suicide, only about half of people who take their lives had depression. People who have “vulnerable self-esteem” — self-feelings that require ongoing protection and promotion — are also at higher risk. So, there is justification for psychological interventions in K12 schools. But, the scope of interventions remain a cause for debate without evidenced-based data. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) are suicide-specific psychosocial treatments with evidence base in reducing suicidality in certain populations. There is no evidence that teen gender reassignment is of any value in preventing suicide. There is evidence that those who participate in faith-based communities, after adjusting for social support, have a low frequency of suicide.
We are not clear that the public should pay for elective surgery. On average, Gender Reassignment Surgery costs $30,000+, Facial Feminization Surgery between $25,000-$60,000, Breast Augmentation bewteen $5,000-$10,000 and hormone replacement therapy for gender affirmation can cost about $1500 per year for life. And we are not clear that transgender medical procedures and supportive counseling must be included in the services provided by Catholic and other faith-based agencies ... any more than I would demand the Catholic Church run an A.A. meeting. Such services are perhaps best offered by peers and medical specialists with specific knowledge.
I conclude that, within certain parameters, hormonal and surgical treatment for adults with gender dysphoria is not contrary to Catholic teaching. Pope Francis recognizes that "masculinity and femininity are not rigid categories." The act of existence of a person as a body/soul unity should not be determinative of what is essential to who the person is, but rather that the human person is relational.
This manifesto makes some specific demands for rights, some of which are universal and reasonable and some which are divisive and morally questionable. There is scant attention paid to social responsibilities. Not only is there no consideration for the rights of most others, I am concerned that without reference to the theological virtue of chastity, any discussion of sexual orientation, particularly among immature pubescent adolescents, may become license for acting out upon obsessive inordinate self-centered desires that cross the line into addictions with loss of volition that harm individuals. We witness many sad aberrant outcomes in 12 Step meetings. Learning how to manage one's sexuality responsibly is a universal principle. Dorothy Day expressed similar concerns in her writings. I do support both freedom and responsibilities. Both/and, not either/or.
Further, Pope Francis went on to address gender identity in a section on the “need for sex education” in his 2015 exhortation Amoris laetitia:
"The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. An appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment."
I do not have definitive answers to these questions. At present, it appears likely that these demands upon the conscience and pocket books of others require more dialog and discernment. I unequivocally support the 13th century teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas on the primacy of mercy and the primacy of conscience.
I am still of the opinion that this is not a Catholic Worker issue. I am no fan of the divisive politics of identity. The Catholic Worker Movement has a long history of not endorsing partisan political factions. I prefer unifying principles. In every case, the person's dignity as a person beloved by God should be affirmed. In this sense, I am supportive of LBQTQIA+ inclusion in our Catholic faith communities. Their stories are equally important. They have a right to be heard and a responsibility to listen. When we interact personally in faith community, we exhibit a tendency to become friends. That is the test of sound discernment and advocacy, to seek unity within diversity by means of personalism. Our purpose in life is to learn how to love. In our Catholic Worker community, if you are homeless or hungry, you are welcome. Period. Regarding the demand that I use preferred pronouns, this makes me feel linguistically awkward and different. I simply call the person by their preferred name. We do not have to agree. Traditional or irregular, family is family.
Last year, Pope Francis sent a handwritten letter to a Jesuit-run group of LGBTQ+ Catholics called Outreach. In the letter, Francis said, “God is Father and he does not disown any of his children, adding that “the style” of God is “closeness, mercy and tenderness.”
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The Dark Night of the Soul
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds the emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints . . .”
― Flannery O'Connor
“No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that someone will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the end only if it suffers change and bears new witness in new images, in new tongues, like a new wine that is put into new bottles.”
― Carl Jung
It is meet, then, that the soul be first of all brought into emptiness and poverty of spirit and purged from all help, consolation and natural apprehension with respect to all things, both above and below. In this way, being empty, it is able indeed to be poor in spirit and freed from the old man, in order to live that new and blessed life which is attained by means of this night, and which is the state of union with God.
― St. John of the Cross
Holy Saturday Prayer
Almighty, ever-living God, whose Only-begotten Son descended to the realm of the dead, and rose from there to glory, grant that your faithful people, who were buried with him in baptism, may, by his resurrection, obtain eternal life. We make our prayer through our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Prepared by Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas
