Who gives us permission to live fully? How do we break the chains?
A man couldn’t get permission from me to be both gay and Catholic, he said, because I’m not a Catholic priest. He found great comfort in my recent memoir, but he said he needed a priest to tell him that he can still receive the sacraments without divorcing his husband.
I sought to find him the necessary cleric, so he’d let go of his chains and the anguish they bring him. Yet, it breaks my heart that he, and so many others, fear the wrath of God if they don’t remain Catholics in good standing. Only a priest, they feel, can save them.
This man, from a small town in Ohio, says he was helped by my book and our correspondence. I told him that the source of permission to be whoever he wants to be is his own soul. He liked the idea but didn’t trust it. Like many of us, he was, and continues to be, a victim of spiritual and emotional abuse. He has been helped to see multiple means of breaking his chains of dependency, but he’s still convinced that only a priest can allow him to go back to the church as a married gay Catholic man.
When I finally understood that I couldn’t give him an acceptable blessing, I reached out to my friends at Dignity/USA, New Ways Ministry, a gay Catholic theologian, Jason Steidl, and Fr. Jim Martin, SJ.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, the Executive Director of Dignity/USA, immediately contacted two priests in Ohio, and Fr. Martin instructed me to have the man contact him directly. If the Jesuit advisor on LGBTQ issues to Popes Francis and Leo didn’t have the necessary credentials, who would for this man?
We all remember Plato’s imagery of the man in the cave who had only known shadows. He grew up chained side by side to others, with a big fire burning behind them. It happens that one man escaped the cave and saw the reality of the sun, birds, cool breezes, and the smiles of people. He returned to the cave to save the others, but most didn’t trust him and were too afraid to leave what they knew as truth.
How many of us are there who stay in the cave, chained to believe in shadows? How many of us are there who won’t leave the cave without the blessing of our parents, our rabbi or priest, our peer group, or spouse? Do we know that if we crave the approval of others, we will be their prisoners for life?
Many have taken the bold and courageous steps to climb out of the shadows to live in the light. Without the approval of others, flying on our own wings, we embrace as sacred our sexuality and spirituality. We may have needed help breaking the chains, but we didn’t wait for permission to let go.
How do we help others do that?
