The MN Marriage Amendment Fight | Bad Catholics: Divorced Mailman Scolds Family, Says Their Daughter is Diseased
Mom, Dad, Billy and Susie: A sign on the Cathedral of Saint Paul urges Catholics to vote for the “marriage amendment.”
On this All Saints Day, when the church celebrates all those, known and unknown, who have been united with God in heaven, I’d like to discuss a disturbing newspaper story that appeared last week about the battle over the proposed Minnesota “Marriage Amendment” on the Nov. 6 election ballot. You may remember the story: A devout Catholic family whose daughter is a lesbian was harshly chastised by a divorced fundamentalist former Episcopalian mailman.
I am not making this up. Of course, the man who is a divorced Episcopalian mailman with a strong fundamentalist streak was not identified that way in the newspaper article. Instead, he was referred to as a Roman Catholic pastor, the Rev. Michael Rudolph, a divorced (he was married 13 years) former letter carrier who I knew when we both were members of an Episcopal church in the early 1990s. Mike was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2005, a few years after I, too, divorced, was remarried and then returned, a wandering soul, to the Catholic faith of my upbringing.
I am no one to tell others how they should live. And although Father Rudolph has only been a priest for seven years and has a limited experience as a pastoral caregiver, I acknowledge that he is more qualified than I to discuss the teachings of the church. Still, the man I remember from my Episcopal days was as possibly perplexed about how to live his life as anyone else I knew, and I am glad if he has now replaced all the questions and doubts we shared with the certainties of conviction and dogma that he seems to have found since becoming a Catholic.
No longer delivering mail; just condemnation: Father Michael Rudolph
My return to the Catholic fold started when my mother died. She had not been raised Catholic but converted in order to marry my orthodox Catholic father who, as these things often went, divorced her seven children later, remarried and still got the big funeral at the Cathedral. Mom was bitter about it (she skipped the proceedings), but she remained Catholic (even though she threw the Catholic lay people who came to her hospital room to pray for her out of her room with a string of curses). When she died, we held her funeral in the small church where I had grown up and where most of us were baptized. Wanting to take Communion at her funeral, but not wanting to be struck by lightning, I reconciled with the church after asking the priest whether it was acceptable to be a “bad Catholic.” He told me the church was full of bad Catholics, that it was the best place for them, and took me back. I felt at home.
Not that being home is always easy. Like many — nearly all — of my Catholic friends, I find it difficult at times. This year has been hell for Catholics, living with the constant bullying of ex-mailmen and ambitious bishops who are determined to win a political victory at the polls, no matter how much money and heartache it takes. For Catholics who don’t accept the Church’s political instruction as divinely inspired, this has been a time of pain, mixed feelings, wariness and quiet resistance. At the church where I send my young boys to religious education, and have seen them receive their First Holy Communions, many of us communicate with nods, brief conversations, meetings at each others’ homes, and lapel buttons — worn only after Mass is over — that signal our determination to vote no on the marriage amendment. It is a silent witness, for the most part: When Church leaders threaten to fire priests who oppose the amendment while hiring new ones who are more willing to flog the flocks to vote for the hierarchy’s agenda, open confrontation is unwise. So the people have organized a Catholic underground that is, for the most part, soft-spoken but fiercely determined.
We will vote no. and, if you believe the polls, we will be in the majority of Catholics.
I allow for Michael Rudolph to do as he sees fit. But I confess I am unable to understand how any priest — new or old — could dump such hurtful comments on one of his parish families as Father Rudolph was reported to have done in the newspaper story. Apparently, Father Rudolph has been quite energetic in his campaigning for Yes votes for the marriage amendment among his parishioners on St. Paul’s West Side. And when one family among the faithful whose daughter is a lesbian wrote him to say, basically, that he was forcing them to choose between loving their daughter or loving the political agenda of church leaders, Father Rudolph replied with words of rejection that threatened and stunned the family: Their daughter, he wrote, suffered from a “disorder” similar to “alcoholism … or clinical depression, or kleptomania.” What’s more, believing otherwise would lead the family down a “spiritual dead end.”
This is a long way from urging a yes vote on a political proposition. This is abuse.
A lot of people, including priests and divorced people, suffer from disorders. We all struggle with something. But Father Rudolph’s words were impassive and indifferent to the human ordeal of a family struggling to cope with the pain stemming from being rejected and disapproved by society, the state and, now, their church. Archbishop John Nienstedt has spent upwards of $1 million bankrolling the so-called marriage amendment, a useless bit of unnecessary boilerplate that would restrict marriage to One Man and One Woman, as state law already prescribes. (Actually, the reality of marriage law is different: The law in practice, says this: “One Man, One Woman. At a time.”) Whether His Excellency has chosen to do so because he has set his sights on a bigger job or gets a kick out of joining forces with fundamentalist churches that have fomented anti-Catholic hate for centuries (politics makes strange bedfellows, eh, Archbishop?), I can’t tell. (I previewed Nienstedt’s extreme anti-gay views in a 2007 column: click here to read). But Nienstedt has pushed and bullied and intimidated and threatened and spent his flock’s hard-earned money like a sailor on shore leave all to make a cudgel to use against gay people and Catholics stricken by his heavy-handedness.
It is a terrible pity.
And it isn’t working. If the marriage amendment fails, it will go down because Catholics did not listen to their leaders.
“There is a massive number of us,” my Catholic friend “Jim” tells me. “There’s a widespread cognitive dissonance going on. A lot of non-Catholic friends ask me how I can reconcile my faith with the church politics. And what I tell them is that I still believe that the good that’s done by the church greatly outweighs the quite substantial harm that the church does. The church is a human institution and it errs, it falters and it fails. There is a lot that the church does that makes the world a worse place, but when you look at it all on balance, it still comes out strongly positive.”
I am not quite as confident about that positive balance as Jim, but I do want to believe it, and I don’t think that leaving the church is an answer to its problems. I think staying is an answer. Staying, and fighting for a better church.
I pray for a November 6 outcome that ends this sad chapter in the church I love.
Here is the sign I have in my yard:
–30–
To quote myself: When some cleric plays the “soul card” on you, it’s time to put on not only your skeptics hat, but your walking shoes as well.
I agree completely with your summation, “I am not quite as confident about that positive balance as Jim, but I do want to believe it, and I don’t think that leaving the church is an answer to its problems. I think staying is an answer. Staying, and fighting for a better church.”
The difference at the “new” St. Matt’s between Fr. Steve Adrian, a welcoming, social-justice-focused priest who was at the parish for an almost unheard of 34 years, and newcomer Fr. Michael Rudolph, who hasn’t even been Catholic as long as I have, is staggering. The seats (we don’t have pews) have been emptying for the last 4 months and it’s no wonder we can’t meet our current bills – no one is there to contribute money to the parish. I don’t totally blame Fr. Rudolph – he is a newbie, a scared rabbit, who sees his only only option is to follow the archbishop. Trouble is, he seems to actually believe that rhetoric. I know I am there to worship God, not to measure the effectiveness of a priest, but many of us have already left and others aren’t far behind. I hate to see Steve Adrian’s St. Matthew’s – an effective voice for West Siders and the downtrodden everywhere – go down the tubes in deference to some “greater good” coming down from the hierarchy.
I was shocked when I saw that the newspaper story was about St. Matthew’s, a parish that many Catholics in St. Paul valued. Father Adrian was a mensch, an intellectual with a heart of gold and a man of the people — the best kind of priest, the kind I grew up revering for their warmth, their humanity and the deep sense of spirituality they conveyed. They fostered real community, and would never knowingly crush the hearts of a family. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone to replace a priest like him. But the hierarchy has chosen to replace them with, as you say, rabbits who do what they are told. A dirty shame. And a dark chapter in church history.
Great post Nick! It is hard to stay Catholic, we miss the church we grew up with and don’t recognize this organization that looks more and more like a branch of the Republican Party!
Very well put, Nick. This issue is the main reason I’ve been estranged from my parish, where I was an enthusiastic choir singer and strummer for years.
Don’t tell me they let you play a banjo in church!
My Church, our Church, is now in the hands of sadly misguided leaders. By the way, I am one of many Catholics who feel this way, who are voting no, but who are also voting for Romney.
Nick, thank you for drawing more attention to this issue. You have stated it so well. It is heartbreaking for so many of us to see this happening within our Catholic community, where we have given and received love our whole lives. These discussion are happening all over the state, “underground” as you say, but it helps to know that others feel the same, and that someone like you can convey our despair in a public way.
There are a number of issues – church teachings – that I’ve never agreed with, but have chosen to just ignore all these years. And I’m not very proud of that, but I figured most of us Catholics did it. But this is different. Until this became so public, I wouldn’t have thought that I’d feel so much passion about this issue; I don’t have any close family members or really close friends that are directly and deeply affected by this. But the public – and embarrassing – way that the church hierarchy is behaving just hits the very core of my sense of justice (and it’s not that I think I have some ‘special’ sense of justice – obviously a lot of others feel the same way!).
So, our words may not make a difference right now, but I guess if enough of us leave the pews (and collection plates), or stick around and fight for the dignity of our community, things might change some day.
I am praying with you that enough of us vote NO next Tuesday to make Minnesota the first state (with this issue on the ballot) to stand up to the bullies.
Remember WE are the church and as the arc of justice moves back there is an opportunity for us to reclaim the good and banish the bad from OUR church.
Another Catholic voting no and keeping fingers crossed for the future!
My estrangement from the Catholic Church began in the 1970s when I was treated to a sermon on “The Evil Rights Amendment :” political activism tinged with judgmental rhetoric is obviously not a new idea to the Church. And I was in Kentucky, so Minnesota doesn’t have a monopoly on this unsavory market.
The most distressing thing for me is to listen to people (some in my own family) display their willful ignorance about these issues: claiming statements from the Bible that don’t exist–most of them have never read the Bible and wouldn’t know Deuteronomy from Acts, or insisting that if this Amendment is defeated men will eventually be able to marry dogs. And it is clear that they are getting some of these ideas from discussions at church.
It’s hard to believe it is 2012. Sadly, the same Catholic church, a different priest, sent me a letter in 1990, informing me that I was no longer the God parent to my niece. I had just come out to my family as a lesbian. My sister (nor anyone in my family) was in favor, so to speak. With no conversation with me in advance, no “pastoral counseling” between me, the priest and my family, my name was simply erased from my nieces sacrament of baptism – me, no longer Godparent. Wow. How do these priests live with themselves?
and by the way, i don’t mean that exact same building/church/parish… I mean the same overall CATHOLIC church — my experience was at St. THomas Aquinis in St. Paul Park. (thought it important to clariify).
Great post, Nick. I’m with you…hoping to see this amendment defeated on Tuesday.
What makes it even worse is that the Archbishop’s office is so focused on this issue that in the process, they’ve abandoned the disenfranchised among us.
The Catholic church hierarchy has changed their position on the Voter ID amendment from OPPOSED to NEUTRAL. Hmmm, further evidence of their concern for the downtrodden…
http://thuginpastels.com/2012/11/02/all-the-archbishops-men-silent-on-voter-restriction/
The RCC cast its lot with Big Business nearly two hundred years ago, which was around the time that its leaders stopped talking about social-justice concepts and things like the “just price” for goods and services.
Ironically, the most successful example of a non-capitalistic, worker-owned and worker-run enterprise, the Mondragon Corporation, was formed by a Spanish Catholic priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga, who still believed in social justice, and who was lucky enough to die before JPII and Ratzinger commenced their Stalinist purgings of people like Father Arizmendiarrieta.
Nice column, Nick. From the heart. I know a lot of people who feel the same way as you do. I am so proud of our Jewish clergy for standing up against the marriage amendment. It is a matter of social justice.
Thanks, Doug. I know you are a mensch.
My wife and I are the couple that had the interaction with Fr. Rudolph. Sadly ,we have been hearing stories similar to ours from Catholics throughout the area. There is so much damage and hurt done through the arrogance of Church authority. Let there be no mistake about this, at the core of all of this is Fear, fear of change,fear of being made uncomfortable and fear of the loss of power and control. God continues to speak through his people, but the hierarchy lacks the faith to listen and dialogue with all the Faithful.
Dear Seiverts: Thanks for your comment. I didn’t think it was necessary to contact you for my post, but I am glad you read it. Best to you ad your daughter. And let’s hope Tuesday puts an ed to the bullying. — Nick
This has always been a problem I have had with the Catholic Church since college. Yes, it was a time of questioning and ambivalence in my life but I made some choices based on what I saw happening in the church. My relationship with God and my faith remains strong and unchanged but I needed to walk away from a church that teaches Jesus only loves certain groups under certain conditions. Nick, I agree with your evaluation that we all have conditions or faults but the Catholic Church has time and again covered up it’s own faults (pedophile priests shuffling), not allowing priests to marry, against birth control, hold women as second class citizens and this popes edicts concerning the recloistering of nuns. Sorry, can’t support the Catholic Church as long as it stays a fundamentalist patriarchy.
Jim: I walked away when I was younger, but you know the Irish: I missed the fight, and this is a good fight to be involved in. So, I’m back in Holy Mother the Church, with my dukes up.