We're hearing opinions from Catholic hierarchs and their advocates of LGBT equality suppression that support for LGBT equality is a cultural blip that will "straighten" out in the next 30 years. They conclude that the young people of today--overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT dignity/equality--are "a misguided generation".
Where in heaven's name is the evidence for this opinion? Seems the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.
The young are largely supportive because their LGBT peers are out of the closet earlier and quicker than previous generations. What they see in the lives of these LGBT peers are the same hopes and dreams, the same desires for connection and intimacy, the same heartaches and elations. They know these peers as equally capable of true friendship or betrayal, of deep compassion or shallow meanness. In other words, the young are not seeing themselves and their LGBT peers in an "Us and Them" world. It is more and more about simply "We". How Gospel of them.
The young are largely supportive because many of them have aunts or uncles or other family, friend or neighbor elders who are out-LGBT. The young see into the lives of these elders, and they see loving people, real people who contribute mightily to the world with the gifts and talents of their shared humanity.
As these young people grow older, they will continue to be in relationship with their LGBT family and friends and co-workers and neighbors, and they will gather in relationship with additional LGBT folk. The world they will help create (are already creating) will be/is a world of "We".
And so, quite likely in 30 years we will see a culture of much greater inclusion and equality as we see today...
...thanks to our young, "misguided" generation.
But what about that other "misguided" generation? The generation of young folks who are drawn to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and the Ordinary Form celebrated well? What about the young folks who are wearing mantillas to daily Mass and having 8-10 children and receiving communion on the tongue? The young folks that actually believe the Church is right on the controversial issues of our day? What of them? What of the truly rebelious ones who actually believe the claims of Catholicism and are building their lives on them?
ReplyDeleteAs more and more believers surrender to the wisdom of the world, the need for men and women who dare to live radically, who dare to say "what if the Church is actually...right?" continues to grow.
Thank goodness for this "misguided generation" too.
Dear Anonymous, we don't presume that the young people you describe as enamored by pre-Vatican II liturgical customs aren't supportive of LGBT equality, especially any of those young people who are in direct relationship with LGBT peers or elders.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, it is our belief that to "live radically" includes listening with the ear of our hearts to the stories of those who on the surface look different than us. This intention to look deeply into the lives of others, and, given what we might find there, to be open to our own transformation, is extremely counter-cultural.
We hope you aren't mentioning those who take Communion on the tongue or celebrate Mass with mantillas or in Latin as a way of providing yet another manifestation of the "Us (good) and Them (bad)" illusion. Why find more reasons to separate the "We" into the "Us and Them"?