Editor’s Note: The original “roundtable” had three participants, all of whom contacted me in the same week clamoring to review a new book by James Martin titled Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity. The onslaught persuaded me to cover this book, though three pieces proved too many for this “religiously unmusical” editor, so the upshot is a kind of review and response. Donald L. Boisvert had submitted a review that was quite critical of Martin’s book, while Brian Bromberger proposed a defense of it, having interviewed the author in early summer. So it seemed logical to share Boisvert’s critique with Bromberger so as to allow the latter to comment.
Nothing Has Changed
Donald L. Boisvert
IT TOOK ME a little over an hour to read James Martin’s long-awaited Building a Bridge, and several days to figure out what was wrong with it. It is a book full of good intentions. But in fact, something sticky and almost insulting lurks within this short book.
Jesuit priest James Martin, editor at large for America magazine, is a best-selling spiritual writer and lecturer and the author of numerous books, including The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. He is very skilled at making traditional Roman Catholic teaching on almost any topic accessible to cradle Catholics and to the uninitiated alike. The problem in a nutshell is that Martin, ever conflict-avoiding and bland, never challenges fundamental Church teaching. One needs to remember that not one iota of official Catholic teaching on homosexuality has been altered in recent years, despite Pope Francis’ good will and oft-quoted inclusive remarks. Martin is cut from the same cloth as the Pope, so there certainly is nothing unfamiliar here.
The book is an extended version of a talk Martin gave when he received a “Bridge-Builder” award from New Ways Ministry, a Catholic LGBT-positive organization. It is divided into two parts. The first and more substantive, titled “A Two-Way Bridge,” outlines, in turn, a number of ways in which the Catholic hierarchy and the LGBT community could deal with each other from a position of “respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (each of those three themes meriting an individual chapter, times two). The second major section provides a theological perspective and offers LGBT persons a series of affirming scriptural passages and associated questions for reflection. Though simplistic and largely inoffensive, this second piece does not constitute a serious problem. It’s just that, in much of the book, rebellious and loud-mouthed gays are told in effect to behave themselves, to change their rhetoric and attitudes, while the Church hierarchy is given no similar instructions. The “bridge” that’s vaunted in the book’s title seems to be more of a one-way street.
When you step back and look critically at the ways in which Martin unpacks respect, compassion, and sensitivity, first for the Catholic hierarchy and then for the LGBT community, you have to be struck by how the former body always comes out looking better. It’s those rambunctious gays and lesbians who need to learn more respect, more compassion, and more sensitivity. Nowhere does Martin object to core Catholic teaching on homosexuality. For him, it’s simply a question of using better, more nuanced, language—words that don’t hurt quite as much. Much of this seems to me to be just another version of “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Martin cherry-picks the more palatable parts of Church policy on homosexuality—hence the focus on the Jesuit values of respect, compassion, and sensitivity—while ignoring the far more troublesome and nefarious elements of Catholic dogma, notably the doctrine that homosexuality as an objective moral disorder.
Martin’s stubborn refusal to engage with such substantive issues is what gives the book a superficial feel. After all, no one can really object to dialogue, so why not kiss and make up, or at least be more civil to one another? All very nice, but all very defeatist in the long run. There is, I think, a sort of basic anti-confrontational, almost anti-intellectual tone to Martin’s analysis. My recommendation would be that Catholic LGBT people who want to confront these questions with greater substance turn to such scholars as John McNeill and Mark Jordan, who have spent their lives adroitly dissecting official Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Nowhere are they, or others like them, mentioned in Martin’s book.
And then there’s the question of sex. Make no mistake: this is what most bothers the Catholic Church. Orientation or emotional preference is one thing, but what two women or two men do with their bodies is quite another. In a review of Martin’s book in Commonweal magazine, theologian David Cloutier puts it quite nicely: “For ultimately, the sexuality is not the problem; the sex is.” Indeed it has always been thus. So it’s hard to see how Martin’s view of a dialogue between the LGBT community and the Catholic Church changes things. Nothing of significance will happen so long as the Church maintains its exclusively heteronormative position on human sexuality. Martin’s total avoidance of the subject of sex speaks volumes. A book that purports to be about LGBT people but ignores the defining feature of their identity isn’t going to take us very far or very deep into the heart of official Catholic homophobia.
There are many legitimate reasons why Catholic LGBT individuals may choose to remain in the Church, and those need to be respected. But equally important, the Church’s teachings on homosexuality need to be critically examined and challenged. This book does neither. Rather, it seeks to put a cover on dissent, and especially on loud and in-your-face dissent. I do not believe that this is the only legitimately Christian way to change the world.
Give It Time
Brian Bromberger
THE CHIEF CRITICISM of Fr. James Martin’s book—from both Donald L. Boisvert and other reviewers—is his silence on the core Catholic teaching on homosexuality as codified in the Catechism about homosexuality, which it describes as “intrinsically disordered.” And one can certainly sympathize with their impatience. But Martin believes that a fundamental change in Church teaching can only be a long-term goal. The question is, what is the best way to get there? His answer is that we need to engage in a respectful, sensitive, and compassionate dialogue between the LGBT community and the institutional Catholic Church, something that occurs through building personal relationships, however laborious and time-consuming they can be. (Shorter term, Martin believes that the language of “intrinsic disorder” needs to be updated.) Boisvert’s other objection is that Martin never actually mentions sex—an activity that gay Catholics do want to be able to engage in—or the need for the Church to revise “its exclusively heteronormative position on human sexuality.”
These are modest proposals, to be sure. Martin’s book is neither a work of moral theology nor a discussion on the sexual morality of LGBT people, with Martin viewing himself not as a theologian but as a writer–journalist. In an interview that I conducted with Martin last June, I asked him about this criticism of his book, and he replied:
The basic reason I did not address this issue is that the hierarchy and LGBT community are too far apart, with both sides clear on where they stand on sexual relations. I didn’t want to get into a long complicated discussion as I would rather focus on areas of commonality. If you want people to start listening to each other, you don’t start at the place where they are farthest apart. What the Church needs to do is listen to LGBT people rather than talking at them, telling them what to do and condemning them. It is an invitation to start a conversation and prayer.
Through his editorship of America magazine, Martin has had the opportunity to become friendly with many American bishops and knows where most of them stand on the LGBT issue, so he’s probably a reliable barometer on the (mostly poor) relationship that exists between the hierarchy and the LGBT community.
The distance between the LGBT community and the Church hierarchy is demonstrated by one “radical” proposal in Martin’s rather mild book, which is for the Church to refer to LGBT people by the labels they use themselves, like “gay” and “LGBT,” rather than with phrases like “same-sex attraction” or “homosexual persons” as favored by many bishops. The latter continue to reject “our” words because they want to define people by their “sexual urges” rather than their personal identity—which is a meaningless distinction, since the act cannot be engaged in without an actor. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago (appointed by Pope Francis) recently made headlines when he supported this proposal at an April press conference. Even Pope Francis has used the word “gay.” The fact that Martin has received such negative blowback from the Catholic right on this bland, inoffensive recommendation speaks volumes about how far the Church still has to go on this issue.
Perhaps the most revolutionary section of an otherwise tame book is the endorsements on the back cover from Cardinal Joseph Tobin (Newark) and Cardinal Kevin Farrell (Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life). Never before has an LGBT book received such praise from two princes of the church—Farrell in particular (whose endorsement Martin welcomed, saying: “short of getting the Pope to endorse it, this is a pretty high level of support”). Both Cardinals are appointments of Pope Francis, which suggests that he is selecting bishops who are open to LGBT Catholics.
Of course, many LGBT people have long since given up on Catholicism or religion in general. Due to negative or abusive childhood experiences, an aversion to organized religion, and/or lack of belief in God, they have written off the Catholic Church as either toxic or irrelevant. And yet, there are still those who want to participate fully and equally in religious institutions, however dicey they may be. Gay people of faith are often caught between a rock and a hard place, accused by the larger subculture of being apologists for religious intolerance, even as they feel victimized by this intolerance and protest against it. Reform can only come when people stay and fight for their rights and a place at the table, because it forces the church to contend with an issue that they fervently wish would disappear. It may very well be that LGBT Catholics need their own Stonewall, as Church teaching is probably not going to change even under this more progressive Pope. Barring that, it becomes essential to lay the groundwork for gradual reform through dialogue. One development that Martin cites is that more gay Catholics are coming out to their congregations, claiming their identities despite institutional opposition. One result is that sixty percent of lay Catholics now approve of marriage equality, so they’re far ahead of priests and bishops on this issue.
On August 9th, The National Catholic Reporter, a mainstream Catholic newspaper, referencing James Martin’s book in an editorial, called for a dialogue on sexual ethics for all Catholics. The piece pointed out that Church teaching is fundamentally opposed to sexual acts that a majority of people engage in, concluding: “We call on bishops to continue the work of developing the doctrine of sexuality that began in Vatican II … to loosen its rigid interpretation of millennia-old ideas about natural law and the procreative norm … otherwise any dialogue around LGBT inclusion will only be stymied.” So, despite the limited scope of Martin’s book, it has already had an impact. In my interview with him, Martin stated that he should have made it clearer in his book that “because of the immense suffering and marginalization LGBT Catholics have felt at the hands of the Church, the onus for building a bridge is on the hierarchy. The hierarchy cannot look at LGBT people solely through the lens of sexual expression, which is shocking to me, as if they are only sexual beings. They must get past the sex.”
If there is to be bridge-building, what issues should be talked about initially? “To be honest, simple knowledge, as many bishops either don’t know personally any out LGBT people well or have never asked them what their lives have been like. That’s how basic it is at this point. One of my closest friends is a gay man who left a religious order and has been with his partner for twenty years. Mark has cared for his partner who has a serious illness. The question to the church and the bishops is: What can they learn about love and fidelity from Mark and his partner? The key is to listen to people’s experiences.” Martin believes there is a real shift in the Church occurring on LGBT matters from Pope Francis down—with his welcoming tone and emphasis on mercy as opposed to doctrinal adherence—a kind of awakening to the experiences of people formerly kept in the closet.
Despite achieving marriage equality, LGBT people still have a long way to travel before they have total equality and acceptance. Much of the resistance is religious-based bigotry, which is not confined to the Catholic Church by any means, so the dialogue Martin is proposing could have wider implications for American society. At a time when people in Washington are talking about erecting walls, Martin’s recurring metaphor of building bridges stands out in marked contrast. It may be that Martin’s proposals and critiques don’t go far enough, but at least they are moving in a positive direction.
Donald L. Boisvert is a retired professor of religion, a published scholar of gay spirituality, and an Anglican priest living in Montréal.
Brian Bromberger is a freelance writer who works as a staff reporter and arts critic for The Bay Area Reporter.
