When the Church Goes Bi-Polar

When I was at my Canadian theology school, there were topics that were almost never mentioned. If a student tried to bring up women's ordination in class, the professor would never play ball. The farthest one professor would go was, "Not in my lifetime." Another professor was even more circumspect. He just smiled and said, "We won't be talking about that today."

Another topic that was on the Index was homosexuality. There were students around with Same Sex Attraction, and if they saw me laboriously writing out Same Sex Attraction so I wouldn't have to label them "gay", they'd be mad or--way worse--hurt. Never talking about homosexuality in class was a way never to hurt homosexuals, and that was fine. The only time I recall the topic coming up officially was in Sexual Ethics class, when we discussed the story of Lot. Oh, and there was a bisexual Ph.D. student who wrote papers on "Sex as Play." One of my ambitious friends and I regularly barged into the Ph.D. seminar, so we learned something THAT day, let me tell you.

My theology school managed to combine inclusivity with fidelity. To some people in Canada, it has a "liberal" reputation which I think undeserved. And indeed I grew to find liberal-hunting rather amusing, as I knew a tiny Asian priest-student who regularly quizzed me over who on staff was "LEE-ber-al."

"XY. I think he is LEE-ber-al."

"Well," I would say, "he says at the beginning of his first lecture every year that he believes in the Nicene Creed in the same way the Church does."

"Hmph!" the Liberal-Hunter would say. "Well, how about QZ? I think HE is LEE-ber-al."

"QZ," I would say sternly, "is perfectly orthodox."

Needless to say, I loved my Canadian theology school and its gentle, very Canadian, refusal to fight over stuff.

Not so my American theology school, not so. When I got accepted into its program--and a great honour it was--I went to see one of my Canadian school's administrators, whom we all revered as a Genius, for advice.

"Don't get polarized," he said.

"Right!" I said. I wrote it down.

"And don't ever contradict KX."

"Don't ever contract KX," I repeated. I wrote that down too.

I spent a year and a half trying desperately not to get polarized before I lost my marbles and went home. When I went South, I had heard of the Culture Wars, but I did not realize how fiercely they were being fought in the American Catholic schools.

You see, the American theologians we read up North pulled their punches when they published. When I read, say, VQ's book on the Church and Sexual Ethics, I was impressed with how balanced the author was, and how everybody who was Catholic would profit from this book. But when I met VQ, and heard VQ lecture, I discovered that VQ was firmly in the Progressive Camp. And not only that, but I discovered that VQ lived in a culture of fear, a culture in which VQ and other professors did not publish what they really believed, out of fear for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

When I first went South, I thought that I was centre-left. But the message I got from my nervous American profs was that I was an ultra-conservative. To this day, I am not sure what I did to get this reputation. I went to Sunday Mass in the Ordinary Form, I quoted Bernard Lonergan and Thomas Aquinas, I didn't bring up hot button issues.

However, Hot Button Issues were ever-present, and there seemed to be no way to abstain from adding my two cents. I say "seemed" because I suppose I could have kept my mouth shut. But sometimes what I heard was so against what I had been taught in my (LEE-ber-al) Canadian school that it could have been a severe sin of omission to stay silent. I mean, I had a professor deny that the Christ of Faith was the Jesus of History. That same professor sneered at dogma as a "Western" invention.

Meanwhile, one of my classmates denied the physical Resurrection in class--not in a dramatic way, but just matter-of-fact, as if we all knew it was a myth. That was a hundred times worse than discovering that premarital sex was A-OK to many, if not most, of my classmates. And somewhat worse than finding out some didn't go to Sunday Mass.

After a particularly nasty slapdown by a particularly neurotic visiting prof, I started to go looking for conservatives. I had heard rumours that Father X was conservative, so I went to him and told him all my woes. He gave me a few names. There was a meeting. But I didn't feel right with these people either.

But I had met some undergrads, too. These undergrads met regularly for Benediction. So I started going to Benediction. And I fell in love--not with the Blessed Sacrament, but with the piety of these kids. After Benediction, they would have pizza and listen to a theology lecture of orthodox strictness. There, out in the open, were Catholic kids who weren't liberal or conservative. They were just orthodox. And they were fun.

Most of them steered clear from my department, whose reputation rather stank in their nostrils. And the fact that I belonged to that department made some of those kids nervous. (My own undergrad friends treated me like a pet.) And I think it made the priest in charge of their club rather nervous too. I may have been a strange sight--fifteen years older than all the other students--and eventually the priest in charge fired what I took as a warning shot. He paused one evening in the hall, and watched me as I left.

"Goodnight, Father," I said.

"Goodnight," he said. He paused again and said,

"They're great kids, aren't they?"

I walked home, crying. They...they. As far as I was concerned, I was a kid, too. But obviously not to Father Y, protector of the orthodox undergrads. I quit going to Benediction.

Eventually I went home. And at home I discovered that my Canadian school featured many new American students. And when one of those students, assuming that I was as liberal as my department, made cruel fun of one of my American school's few conservative students, I hit the ceiling. My mental health was not good as it was.

"You could be bi-polar," suggested my doctor.

I wasn't bi-polar. I was depressed. But the American Church is bi-polar. I am terrified that the Canadian Church will become bi-polar, too. And now that I have (sort of) criticized progressive Catholics in my paid gig, I am sorry. I don't want to be polarized. I just want to be orthodox and fun, like those kids who loved Benediction so much.

Update (Nov 9): Welcome readers of the noble Maclin Horton! I've finally remembered why his name is so familiar: he regularly commented on Dawn Eden's blog.

Update (Nov 10): And welcome to readers of Catholic Insight! May I tempt you with my reality "TV" show, Sad to Seraphic, an all-orthodox, multi-national drama set in a Scottish mansion with a mystic twist?