Taken up

As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.’

Acts 1: 9 - 11

There are few areas of our lives today where uncritical acceptance can be excused, whether you are buying a new vehicle or enrolling your child in a school, employing a new staff member or joining a choir. What we use in our decision-making is evidence: technical, observation, experience, history (such as previous success, founder, reputation, quality), and oftentimes - what our friends/family have to say.

The scriptures and tradition present us with a number of challenging propositions. Some of these are condensed and expressed in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Very clever people spend a great deal of their lives writing about and/or explaining what these propositions are. There are 'traditional', fundamentalist, conservative, liberal, and post-modern thinkers, and all of these contribute to the weighty shelves of libraries and the exhausted terabytes of our computers' memories.

And yet, many of those challenging propositions are accepted as unexamined articles of faith. One of these is the Ascension of Jesus. The usual questions can be asked: Was it is an historical event? What is the purpose of this story? How does it fit with other scriptural and extra-biblical ascensions? Why are there different versions in Luke and Acts? Is my assent necessary in order for me to remain orthodox? Many of these questions can be answered by the clever people mentioned earlier. But the question I want to ask is: What does the Ascension mean for me and for my life?

The Ascension is one of three events recorded in the Gospels that draws us into a deeper experience of the full life that God offers us. While the Transfiguration anticipates the Resurrection, Jesus must undergo his passion and death before revealing the full potential of God's power over death. The Ascension completes the work of the earth-bound Lord as he takes his place with the Father.

What we learn from Jesus' ascension is that we too are time-bound, we have our '4 score and ten' and then we prepare to meet our Creator. This is the time for us to fully realise (both become aware of, and become) who we are before God, and ultimately we seek and arrive at enlightenment - sharing in and sharing God's generous and unbounded love. We too ascend from our daily humanity and become more and more the image of our God. In doing so you and I are slowly reformed and transformed in this process, not by our own endeavours, but by God's own hands.

For me Jesus' ascension is a pointer for my own life, to where I must aim myself, to be for others, to flourish inwardly and outwardly. It is not something that happens to me, it is something I choose, something in which I am a conscious participant. I am elevated, raised to new levels of consciousness of my proximity to the Divine and impelled in my everyday relationships and to work at making a difference by sharing God's love.

Words, emotion, images (art) and sound (music) are extraordinarily powerful means of accessing a deeper understanding and appreciation, but in the Ascension God reaches into our very lives and souls and draws us to himself. He is indeed with us always. To the end of time itself.

Peter Douglas

U.S. church wrestles with changing attitudes, pastoral practice toward L.G.B.T. Catholics

By Michael J O'Loughlin

Michael J O'Loughlin

Last month, the bishop of Lexington, Ky., addressed hundreds of L.G.B.T. Catholics and their supporters who were meeting in Chicago at a New Ways Ministry national symposium, telling them, “Your presence and your persistence in the church is an inspiration for me and for many.”

Bishop John Stowe, OFMConv told America that he accepted the group’s invitation because of a desire to engage in dialogue with Catholics who do not always feel welcome in the church. “Pope Francis talks about a culture of encounter, and that requires a lot of listening,” he said. “What I’ve seen among gay Catholics in my own diocese is a real desire to live their faith and the challenge to do so within a church that is not always accepting or labels them as disordered.”

Bishop Stowe is certainly not the first bishop to address a gathering of gay and lesbian Catholics, but his insights are emblematic of recent shifts in the relationship between the church and the L.G.B.T. community. Support for pro-L.G.B.T. causes, including same-sex marriage, has risen sharply among lay Catholics in recent years.

Support for same-sex marriage among U.S. Catholics closely tracks support among the country at large. Part of that support, several L.G.B.T. advocates said, stems from the increased visibility of gay and lesbian Americans. More people know a family member or friend who identifies as gay or lesbian and are thus more sympathetic to causes they support.

“Who am I to judge?” is one of the defining phrases of the Francis papacy, a statement praised by some Catholics. The pope has followed up that message of inclusivity with concrete actions as well, meeting with a transgender individual at the Vatican and with a gay couple during his U.S. visit in 2015.

But Brian Brown, head of the National Organization for Marriage, told America that those who see in the pope’s words and actions a softening of church teaching on marriage or sexuality “fundamentally misinterpret” his beliefs, pointing as evidence to the pope’s strong words against gender theory, the idea that male and female identity are not biologically fixed.

He notes polls that show Catholics who attend Mass weekly support same-sex marriage at lower rates than Catholics who attend Mass less frequently, yet he acknowledges that the church must do a better job overall in educating Catholics about church teaching. The past few decades have seen a sharp increase in the number of Americans who personally know L.G.B.T. people.

“People need to know not only what the church teaches but why it teaches it,” he said. “There is a deep, deep well of anthropological, philosophical and theological beauty and truth in church teaching, and I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job in conveying that to the next generation.”

American bishops have emphasized different aspects of the church’s teaching in their outreach to L.G.B.T. Catholics and their families. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark told an L.G.B.T. Catholic group that they would be “very welcome” to organize a pilgrimage to the cathedral in his city. And Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, a delegate to the pope’s global meeting of bishops discussing family issues, said in 2015 that he meets with gay Catholics to understand their perspective and that gay Catholics in relationships could rely on their consciences when it comes to the question of receiving Communion. Meanwhile Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, also a delegate to the Synod of Bishops, has said that gays and lesbians not following church teaching on chastity are not welcome to Communion.

Arthur Fitzmaurice, an Atlanta-based Catholic who through lectures and workshops advocates greater acceptance of L.G.B.T. Catholics in the church, said there have been “a lot of ups and downs” over the past decade. “Catholics in the pews generally accept people in same-sex unions and want the church to be a safe space for them, but there are still pockets in the church in areas where [L.G.B.T.] people feel isolated,” he said.

Despite shifting views among average Catholics, advocates for L.G.B.T. people say the church can still feel unwelcoming. Church teaching that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” has not changed, and the Vatican reaffirmed its ban on priests with “deeply-seated homosexual tendencies” as recently as last December. Some also point to policies that prohibit gays and lesbians from holding leadership positions in parishes and to the termination of openly gay and lesbian employees from Catholic schools and other institutions.

Margie Winters was fired from her position as the head of religious education at a Philadelphia-area Catholic school in 2015 after a parent complained about her marriage to a woman. She told America that dismissals like hers lead some to drift away from the church, taking with them their creativity, energy and faith “We should be about the Gospel,” she said. “We should be about including people, which is what Jesus did.”

Just three months after she was fired, Ms. Winters and her wife were part of the crowd welcoming Pope Francis to the United States during a ceremony on the White House lawn, an event she described as “an incredible privilege.” She continues to be active in her parish and said she has hope that other L.G.B.T. Catholics will also feel welcome in the church.

“With any institution that is as large and has as long a history as the church, any kind of overtures are welcome,” she said. “But I also don’t expect that the church is going to change overnight. I think Pope Francis and others of his mindset are trying to change the tone and the pastoral approach to L.G.B.T. persons, but it’s a long road.”

This article appeared first in America on 18 May 2017