Musings of an Expagan

“It is sinful” Text of Bishop Jaime Soto’s address to National
Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries

(Editor’s Note: Below is a transcript of Bishop Jaime Soto’s keynote
speech to the National Association of Diocesan Gay and Lesbian
Ministries meeting in Long Beach on Sept. 18 as published on the web
site of the Diocese of Sacramento. See a firsthand account of the speech
and audience reaction in today’s edition, “At least five members of the
audience walked out.”)

When we meditate on the person of Jesus, we often call to mind the many
ways that Jesus cared for people. In all the many instances in the
gospel when people come to the Lord Jesus with their needs, he fed them,
he healed them, he forgave them, and he saved them. This can oftentimes
lead us to the conclusion that Jesus always said “yes.” He always gave
people what they wanted. He was an agreeable person.

That is not always the case in the gospel. A couple of weeks ago, we
heard in Sunday’s gospel the story of a difficult encounter between
Jesus and Simon Peter. In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew chosen for
the Twenty-second Sunday of the Year, Jesus begins to lay out for his
disciples the pending passion and death that awaits him in Jerusalem.
Simon Peter is a little put off by the subject of Jesus’ conversation
concerning the suffering that awaits him. He tries to persuade the Lord
that this is not a good idea for him or for his followers. What Jesus
described was not the cruise for which Simon Peter had signed up. When
Simon Peter first responded to the Lord’s invitation to come follow him,
this was not on the itinerary.

Jesus says “no” to his friend, Simon Peter, in no uncertain terms, “You
are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” The words of
Jesus to Peter must have shocked Peter. This is not the agreeable guy he
had come to know and follow. He probably felt like prophet Jeremiah who
in the first reading that same Sunday said quite bluntly, “You duped me,
O LORD, and I let myself be duped.”

Jesus says “no” to Peter’s request so that he can say “yes” to Peter and
to us with his sacrifice on the cross. Jesus does not give in to the
expectations of Peter or the expectations of others. He has firmly
planted in his heart the expectations and desires of his Father in
heaven. He says “no” to Peter and challenges Peter to take up a greater
“yes,” to take up his cross and follow him. Paul had the same thing in
mind when in the Letter to the Romans he says, “Do not conform
yourselves to this age.” Paul reminds us that we are not to conform
ourselves to the fads and fancies of our society. We are to conform
ourselves to Christ.

We can easily give in to the temptation to go along in order to get
along. We can easily be duped by the popular ideas and trends that
surround us. “Everybody does it” can become reason enough to think it or
do it ourselves. Like Peter we can think that what Jesus teaches us is
too unrealistic, too unreasonable. Like Peter we can convince ourselves
that we know better than the Lord. We may even try to negotiate with
Jesus, like Peter does, for easier terms.

We see this especially in the area of sexuality. So much of what we see
and hear every day can lead us to a distorted sense of our sexuality.
Sexuality has been reduced to a matter of personal preference and
personal pleasure without responsibility and with little respect for
others. We can lose sight of the profound dignity of the human person
who shares in God’s love and creative work through the chaste expression
of one’s sexuality proper to one’s calling in life.

We are surrounded by a “contraceptive culture” that has reduced the
procreative act to simple recreation absolved of any responsibility.

The deceptive language of “pro-choice” ignores the consequences of the
choice for abortion that does violence to the most innocent and leaves
traumatic scars on many young women.

What is a particular concern and alarm for us in California as well as
others across the country is the bold judicial challenge to the
longstanding cultural and moral understanding of marriage as a sacred
covenant between a woman and a man. Our own efforts to restore common
sense through the ballot initiative, Proposition 8, are portrayed as
bigoted and out-of-touch. The irony is that what we propose is most in
touch with the nature of families and what is good for the welfare of
all.

That we find ourselves at this time, reasserting the basic moral and
reasonable understanding of marriage, means that much has changed in the
popular perceptions of sexuality and common notions about marriage.
While we work to pass Proposition 8 this coming November, it is
important to remember why we do this. Like Jesus, in the sixteenth
chapter of Matthew that I cited, we are saying a strong “no” to the
California courts and to many who support the court’s wrong-headed
decision. This “no” is not rooted in bigotry or bias. It is firmly
rooted in a greater “yes” to a truer, more authentic appreciation of
love’s calling and love’s design for the human heart.

The nature of love has been distorted. Many popular notions have
deviated from its true destiny. Love for many has come to mean having
sex. If you cannot have sex than you cannot love. This is the message.
Even more destructive is the prevailing notion that sex is not an
expression of love. Sex is love. This reductio ad absurdam deprives
sexuality of its true meaning and robs the human person of the
possibility of ever knowing real love.

Sexual intercourse is a beautiful expression of love, but this is so
when intercourse is understood as a unique expression intended to share
in the creative, faithful love of God. As the Holy Father, Pope
Benedict, elaborated in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est,
“Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love” – between a man and
woman – “becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people
and vice versa. God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.”
(DCE, n. 11) Sexual intercourse within the context of the marriage
covenant becomes a beautiful icon – a sacrament – of God’s creative,
unifying love. When sexual intercourse is taken out of this iconic,
sacramental context of the complementary, procreative covenant between a
man and a woman it becomes impoverished and it demeans the human person.

Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman in the covenant of Marriage
is one expression of love to which the human person can aspire, but we
are all called to love. It is part of our human nature to love. We all
have a desire to love, but this love can deviate from its true calling
when it exalts only in the pleasure of the body. Pope Benedict said in
the same encyclical, “The contemporary way of exalting the body is
deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex,’ has become a commodity, a mere
‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a
commodity. This is hardly man’s great ‘yes’ to the body. On the
contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely
material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will.” (DCE, n. 5)
This is not our true calling. The human desire to love must lead us to
the divine. Looking again to the Holy Father’s encyclical, he says,
“True, eros – human desire – tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the
Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls
for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.” (DCE, n.
5)

This path is the path of chastity. This is very true in marriage. It is
also true in all of human life because it is the nature of all authentic
love. We are all called to love. We are all called to be loved. This can
only happen when we choose to love in the manner that God has called us
to live. Love leads us to ecstasy, not as a moment of intoxication but
rather as a journey, “an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking
self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards
authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: ‘Whoever seeks
to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve
it’ (Lk 17:33).” (DCE n. 6)

Sexuality, then, as part of our human nature only dignifies and
liberates us when we begin to love in harmony with God’s love and God’s
wisdom for us. Chastity as a virtue is the path that brings us to that
harmony with God’s wisdom and love. Chastity moves us beyond one’s
desire to what God wills for each one of us. Chastity is love’s journey
on the path of “ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.”
Chastity is the understanding that it is not all about me or about us.
We act always under God’s gaze. Desire tempered and tested by
“renunciation, purification, and healing” can lead us to God’s design.

This is true for all of us. It is also true for men and women who are
homosexual. We are called to live and love in a manner that brings us
into respectful, chaste relationships with one another and an intimate
relationship with God. We should be an instrument of God’s love for one
another. Let me be clear here. Sexual intercourse, outside of the
marriage covenant between a man and a woman, can be alluring and
intoxicating but it will not lead to that liberating journey of true
self-discovery and an authentic discovery of God. For that reason, it is
sinful. Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring
for homosexuals but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and
distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us
all. For this reason, it is sinful.

Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving,
life-creating love. It should not be accommodated and manipulated for
those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its
unique expression.

Marriage is also not the sole domain of love as some of the politics
would seem to imply. Love is lived and celebrated in so many ways that
can lead to a wholesome, earnest, and religious life: the deep and
chaste love of committed friends, the untiring love of committed
religious and clergy, the profound and charitable bonds among the
members of a Christian community, enduring, forgiving, and supportive
love among family members. Should we dismiss or demean the human and
spiritual significance of these lives given in love?

This is a hard message today. It is the still the right message. It will
unsettle and disturb many of our brothers and sisters, just as Peter was
unsettled and put off by the stern rebuke of his master and good friend,
the Lord Jesus. If the story of Peter’s relationship with Jesus had
begun and ended there, it would have been a sad tale indeed, but that is
not the whole story then nor is it the whole story now. Jesus met Simon
Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He said with great love and
fondness, “Come, follow me.” Peter would not only continue to follow the
Lord Jesus to Jerusalem. Despite his many failings and foibles, he would
eventually choose to love as Jesus loved him. He would die as martyr’s
death in Rome, giving himself completely for the one who loved him so
dearly.

The teaching of the Church regarding the sacred dignity of human
sexuality is not a rebuke but an invitation to love as God loves us. The
Church’s firm support of Proposition 8 is not a rebuke against
homosexuals but a heartfelt affirmation of the nature of the marriage
covenant between a man and a woman. We hope and pray that all people,
including our brothers and sisters who are homosexuals, will see the
reasonableness of our position and the sincerity of our love for them.

For that reason, we should let the words of St. Paul haunt us and
unsettle us: “Do not conform yourself to this age.” In so many ways we
can allow ourselves to be duped, fooled, by the fads and trends of this
age. It is far better that we allow ourselves to be drawn into the ways
and the manners of Jesus. The Lord Jesus challenges us as he challenged
his friend, Simon Peter, to not conform to what is fashionable and
convenient. He has so much more to offer us. Do not think as others do.
Let us think as God does. He shows us the way, the truth, and the life.

The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow

By Fr. John A. Peck
There is an interesting phenomenon occurring in Orthodox Christianity in America today, and reflected powerfully in our seminaries. Seminaries are loaded almost exclusively with converts, reverts (cradle Orthodox who left the faith, and were re-converted to it again), and the sons and grandsons of clergy.

I believe we are looking at the future of the American Orthodox Church — today.

The notion that traditionally Orthodox ethnic groups (the group of ‘our people’ we hear so much about from our primates and hierarchs) are going to populate the ranks of the clergy, and therefore, the Church in the future is, frankly, a pipe dream. Orthodoxy, despite the failings of its leadership, has actually lived up to its own press. The truth of the Orthodox faith, as presented on paper, is actually being believed – by those who have no familial or historical connection with the Orthodox. These poor deluded souls (of which I count myself) actually believe what they are reading about the Orthodox faith, and expect the Church to act like, well, the Church. They refuse to accept the Church as a club of any kind, or closed circle kaffeeklatsch. No old world embassies will be tolerated for much longer – they will go the way of the dodo. No one will have to work against them; they will simply die from atrophy and neglect. The passing away of the Orthodox Church as ethnic club is already taking place. It will come to fruition in a short 10 years, 15 years in larger parishes.

This is a well known problem. Statistical studies taken a mere seven years ago predicted that within 10 years the Orthodox Church in the United States would for all practical purposes, no longer be viable. If nothing was done within five years (that’s two years ago) the decline would be irreversible. Demographics determine destiny, as they say. As you may have imagined, not only was “nothing done,” such reports were surreptitiously filed away, while the calls for a solution from clergy and laity alike only increased. Larger jurisdictions will, of course, have a little more time, but not a different result.

What we are looking at, of course, is of the highest concern to the hierarchy. They know, in their heart of hearts, that they cannot reverse this trend. Yet they fight a rearguard action, hoping against hope to forestall the historically inevitable movement toward an American Orthodox Church.

The laity has already moved on. Americans, generally, don’t fall for very much strong arm intimidation or brow beating, don’t go for bullying by insecure leaders, and certainly don’t see the value of taking on and promoting someone else’s ethnic culture. They care about the Gospel, and the Gospel does not require Slavonic or Koine Greek, or even English for that matter. The Gospel requires context, which is why it cannot be transmitted in any language unknown to the listener.

When we look at our seminaries, we are looking at the Church of Tomorrow, the Church twenty years from now. Indeed, this is the Church we are building today.

Twenty years from now, I anticipate we will see the following:

* Vastly diminished parishes, both in size and number. There will be a few exceptions, (and they will be exceptional!) but for the most part, most current Orthodox parishioners will age and die, and have no one to replace them. Why? Because as they have taught the context of their culture, instead teaching the context of their faith. Some parishes will simply be merged with others. Many will close outright. A few will change how they do ministry, with a new vision of parochial ecclesiology. These newer parishes will be lighthouses of genuine Orthodox piety and experience. Some parishes, I believe, will actually be formed specifically, in the old fashion, by purchasing land, building a chapel or Temple in the midst of it, and parishioners building or buying homes around it. The Church will be the center of their lives, and many will come from far and wide to experience their way of life.

* Publicly renowned Orthodox media and apologetic ministries. These ministries are the ones providing a living and powerful apologetic for the Orthodox faith in our culture (that is, our 21st Century life in the United States), and actually providing the Gospel in its proper context – engaged in society and the public arena. These will succeed in visibility and public awareness more than all the speeches before the U.N. and odd newspaper stories about Orthodox Easter or Folk Dance Festivals could ever do. In other words, the Orthodox Christian faith will become that most dangerous of all things – relevant to the lives of Americans, and known to all Americans as a genuinely American Christian entity.

* More (and younger) bishops. If our current slate of bishops has been mostly a disappointment, reducing their number will only tighten this closed circle, making the hierarchy less and less accessible, and more and more immune to things like, oh, the needs and concerns of their flock. The process of selection for the episcopacy will contain a far more thorough investigation, and men with active homosexual tendencies, psychological problems, insecurities, or addictions will simply not make the cut. We aren’t far from open persecution of Christians by secularists in this country, and we need bishops who know the score. With better bishops, no one will be able to ‘buy’ a priest out of a parish with a gift of cash. Conversely, parish councils will no longer be able to bully priests into staying out of their affairs, and will be required to get out of the restaurant/festival business and get into the soul saving business.

* A very different demographic of clergy. Our priests will be composed of converts, reverts, and the sons and grandsons of venerable, long-suffering clergy. These men all know the score. They won’t tolerate nonsense like homosexual clergy (especially bishops), women’s ordination, or financial corruption. They will not tolerate the Church being regularly and unapologetically dishonored by her own clergy. Twenty years from now, these convert and revert priests will be sending life-long Orthodox men, a new cradle generation, en masse to our seminaries. They will be white, black, Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic, and everything in between. Fewer will be Russian, Greek, or any other traditionally Orthodox background.

* Orthodox Biblical Studies. Orthodox Biblical scholarship will flourish, and will actually advance Biblical Studies, rather than tag along for the latest trends, staying a minimum safe distance back in case the latest theory tanks unexpectedly. Septuagint studies are already on the rise and Orthodox scholars will usurp the lead in this arena, establishing a powerful and lasting influence in Biblical Studies for decades to come. Orthodox higher education — specifically in Biblical Studies in the Orthodox tradition — will finally have a place at the doctoral level in the Western hemisphere, and it will become a thriving academic entity. The whole Church will feed on the gleanings of this new scholarship and Scriptural knowledge, preaching, and Biblical morality will invigorate the Church for generations.

* A much higher moral standard from all clergy. The next twenty years will see a revival of practical ethics. Instead of trailing military or business ethics, the Church will, once again, require the highest standard of ethical and professional behavior from her clergy — and they will respond! The clergy will not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing and hold to account those who practice these vices. They will vigorously defend the honor of Christ’s priesthood, and Christ’s Church. I dare say, even the clergy will finally respect their own priesthood.

* Vocations will explode. As a result of the elevated ethical standard publicly expected from the clergy, candidates in far greater numbers will flock to the priesthood. There will be very full classes, distance education, self-study and continuing education going on in every location. Education at a basal level will disappear, except in introductory parish classes. Clergy will powerfully articulate Orthodoxy to the faithful and to the culture around them. Personal opinion will no longer be the standard for clergy when articulating Orthodox ethics and morality. Our seminaries must become beacons for this teaching, and give up “training culture” once and for all. We will finally begin to penetrate our society, rather than go along for the ride like a tick on a dog’s back.

* Philanthropy will flow like the floodgates of heaven. Finally, the many Orthodox Christian philanthropists who annually give millions of dollars to secular institutions will finally find their own Church completely transparent, completely accountable, and worthy of their faith-building support. Let’s face it, there is more than enough money in Orthodoxy right now to build hospitals, clinics, schools, colleges, universities, and a new Hagia Sophia right here in the United States. The reason this is not being done is because these philanthropists are intelligent men and women who do not trust the hierarchy to do the right thing with their millions. This will change in short order once it is shown that transparency doesn’t destroy the Church, but strengthens it immeasurably. Frankly, I don’t anticipate every jurisdiction to do this in the next twenty years, but those that are practicing transparency will emerge as the leaders in every arena of Church existence.

Hope

This all may seem unlikely today, but it is coming.

How do I know this? For one thing, the last holdouts of corruption, Byzantine intrigue and phyletism (a fancy theological term for ethnic preference) are clinging desperately to a vision of the Church that is, quite frankly, dying fast. Oh, they are doing everything to shore up their power and influence, and busy serving their own needs, but their vision is dying. And where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18).

As frightening and disconcerting as it may seem to our leaders, they will learn that emerging from a cocoon, even a Byzantine cocoon, is not a bad thing. Orthodoxy is about to take flight on new beautiful wings. These are the birth pangs of a new era for Orthodoxy. God is giving us a time of freedom and light.

This new Orthodox Church will have a different face, will be ready for contemporary challenges, and will have begun to penetrate American society at every stage and on every level. This Church is the one that will be ready for the challenges of open persecution, fighting for the soul of every American, regardless of their genetic affiliation. This Church will be the one our grandchildren and great grandchildren will grow up in, looking back on the late 20th-early 21st century as a time of sentimental darkness from which burst forth the light of the Gospel. Let it begin.

Fr. John A. Peck is pastor of Prescott Orthodox Church in Prescott, Ariz.

Published: September 16, 2008