A Reading From the Book of Irony

So the latest news out of the Vatican concerns a gay prostitution ring organized by one of the pope’s elite group of ceremonial ushers. According to Reuters, “among four people arrested last month in the corruption probe was Angelo Balducci, a member of an elite group called ‘Gentlemen of His Holiness’, ushers who are called to serve in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on major occasions such as when the pope receives heads of state.”

I’m just going to put my pen down now, because the comedy writes itself. It’s too easy. As easy as a Vatican usher, apparently, but…. OK, seriously, I’m done.

I suppose I have a love-hate relationship with the Catholic Church. Maybe that’s a little strong, on both counts. I never really hated it that much, just didn’t agree with much of it and felt it had nothing to say to me. But I only recently realized that I might love it, just a little bit.

As far as the great big family of Christian denominations goes, the Catholic Church seems more “normal” than most family members (men wearing dresses notwithstanding), when you consider the nutty cousins, some of whom speak in tongues or forgo alcohol and Bingo. My background in the Catholic education system has led me to believe that Catholicism, more than many other faiths, has thrived within a tradition of logic and reason. St. Thomas Aquinas, after all, tried to mathematically prove the existence of God. Odd, then, how this background of rationality led me to become a born-again atheist.

I’ve been thinking a lot about religion since right before my mother passed away last month. While she was in a coma in the hospital, my older brother, a lapsed Catholic as well, read to her from her collection of prayer cards that she saved from funerals over the years. It struck me how something that meant nothing to him acquired meaning by doing it for someone else. That is, I suppose, the nature of all religions, and I don’t mean this in a sinister way, but the Catholic faith harnesses that symbolism to greater effect. Plus, our spiritual head wears ruby slippers. Could Pat Robertson pull that off?

Still, it had been a long time since I was in church. I dabbled in religion a few years ago in the middle of some trying times with one of my brothers. You might remember the United Church of Christ and their well-publicized “bouncer” ads—the ones the networks refused to air. I went to two very different UCC churches, one in a beautiful old structure that smelled of equally old money, the other in a much smaller, less ostentatious church that struck me as more vibrant. I also tried a Unitarian Church (the religion of choice for those who don’t necessarily believe in anything).

All had their merits, but in the end none resonated with me. Is it this hard for everyone, I wondered, to make that leap of faith? I do (did, anyway) want to believe in something, but could not bring myself to do so.

So I found my cynical self again in the bosom of Holy Mother Church (that one’s for you, Margo). Mom was on a respirator, and the prognosis was not good. I remembered one of her favorite priests, an assistant pastor from the parish where I grew up, and thought to find him so he could come and give her last rites. After Mom died, I didn’t think twice about picking out the readings for her funeral mass; I was even one of the lectors. The gay, atheist son thought of all those things because he was a son first, and a gay atheist after the fact. Though part of me felt like a hypocrite, another thought there was no harm in doing it, and just maybe Mom would be looking down at me—once again in the church where I received my First Communion, Confession, and Confirmation—and know her part in my spiritual journey was done.

Gays and religion mix about as well as oil and vinegar (I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which is which). And yet, we are often more in need of that spiritual connection than the typical straight person, if there is such a creature. As wounded youths and young adults, learning to accept ourselves as God made us; or living with the stigma of HIV/AIDS and wondering why me, we know what real persecution feels like. We also know the feeling of belonging that can be found in a group that embraces us.

Some churches have caught on to this. Mostly in the dwindling mainline Protestant denominations—Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, UCC—this is where the battles for acceptance within communities of faith are being waged. We also have our “separate but equal” churches, like the Metropolitan Community Church, that are mostly gay & lesbian.

I’m not saying I’ll go back to church any time soon. Nostalgia is not a good enough reason to commit to something that demands more than the most hardened BD/SM master. Still, the sense of belonging, the transcendent moments when you feel the presence of something greater than yourself, if only a collective mirage, is tantalizing, even more so than Ryan Reynolds in a towel asking if you would rub some lotion on his back. Maybe I’ll give it another try as my own time on this earth grows longer and I wonder more urgently what my life has meant. Until then, I’m still sorting out what it all means to me right now, and wondering how something that offers such comfort to so many people can inflict such anguish on so many others.

Tags: acceptance, Faith, Gays, GLBT Church, HIV/AIDS, Pope, Religion