Welcome Back, With Fine Print

Headline on the front page of the Tucson/Region section of the Daily Star on Sunday:

Bishop Says Gays Welcomed At Church

"Oh, look," says the girlfriend, who is reading the paper across the breakfast table from me, "you can go back to church now."

Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas says he wants homosexual worshippers to know they are welcome in his Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson.

Kicanas writes in this month's edition of The New Vision, the diocese's newspaper: "I am very sensitive to the concerns I have heard from people of same-sex orientation that they feel they have no place in our parishes or in the household of faith.

"We need to consider how we as a diocese or how I as bishop may be generating such misunderstanding."

Golly. How indeed might our favorite vegan bishop be generating misunderstanding where gay folk are concerned? We thought about that one for all of half a second. Could it be his recent refusal to allow retired Detroit bishop Thomas Gumbleton to speak in the diocese on the behalf of Call to Action, a lay group that is trying to drag the church out of the Middle Ages on topics such as priestly celibacy, ordination of women, and acceptance of homosexuality? Maybe it's not that. Maybe it was Kicanas' eager glomming on to a pastoral letter with Arizona's other two bishops supporting Proposition 107, Arizona's proposed (and failed) constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, a letter in which he said

So-called "same-sex unions" lack both natural complementarity and the ability to generate new human life naturally. They have a different meaning entirely.
Societally, the implications of equating so-called "same-sex unions" and marriage are profound and unsettling.

This is indeed an annoying and insulting position, but it isn't confusing--it's actually about as straightforward as you can get. The confusion comes when he follows those statements, full of scare quotes and assertions of how unsettling we are, with this:

At the same time, we reiterate the Church's teaching that people of whatever orientation must always be treated with compassion and respect and that their civil liberties must be protected. The Catechism of the Catholic Church further elaborates in reference to people of homosexual orientation that "[e]very sign of unjust discrimination in this regard should be avoided."

Hmm. Most of us notice the cognitive dissonance.

[Call to Action vice president Laurie] Olson also wondered how Kicanas will be able to reconcile his outreach efforts with church teaching that gay sex acts are contrary to natural law and that gays and lesbians should remain chaste. The church says "homosexual inclinations" are "objectively disordered," a phrase it defines as "an inclination that predisposes one toward what is truly not good for the human person."

Of course, there are three sides to every coin, and this guy has the edge covered (I am not sure why he is quoted in the Daily Star story; maybe the writer couldn't find enough grumpy old men in Tucson to interview):

Joel Fago, a retired Catholic who lives in Sierra Vista, is also concerned about how Kicanas is reconciling church teachings, which Fago says were missing from Kicanas' New Vision article.

Fago understands same-sex relations to be "intrinsically evil," a phrase that has been used in some church documents.

"The misunderstanding Bishop Kicanas is generating is in not stating the Catholic position on homosexuality. … How he is doing this is not in keeping with our faith," Fago said. "We do not hate the homosexuals. On the contrary, we do try to reach out to them and explain the Catholic position. But we do love the sinner, hate the sin."

There's the crux of it for most of us, Gerry. You, your church, and too many of your followers behave as though an elegantly worded statement about justice, respect, and compassion negate blatant actions that reveal the true motivations beneath. You actively work to deny us equal rights and protections under the law and then act astonished--astonished-- when your flowery statements about avoiding unjust discrimination ring more than a little hollow for us. Mr. Fago, it's easy for you to spout your mindless "love the sinner" pap. It's far easier for us to see through it.