When the Vatican last month released a document that initially called for the "welcoming" of gay people, the media reacted by calling it "an earthquake." But is the media complicit in the Vatican's refusal to deal with LGBT people honestly and equally?

Guest Author Benjamin Brenkert, an openly gay ex-Jesuit, explains.

Recently a friend at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where I am studying to become an Episcopalian priest, reminded me about the “shocking” news regarding the “pastoral earthquake” symbolized by the Roman Catholic Synod on the Family’s provisional document titled Relatio. In the same breadth my friend surmised that the Archdiocese of New York would not need to close 55 parishes if they adapted to the signs of the times, and got out of the homes of gay and lesbian men and women. As an openly gay ex-Jesuit I told my friend that the media’s love of Pope Francis harms the truth about the place of the LGBTQ community in the Roman Catholic Church.

I reminded my friend that Pope Francis I’s hand-picked authors of Relatio posed this myopic question to the other gay and straight prelates in attendance: Can the Roman Catholic Church accept and value gay and lesbian Roman Catholics who offer their ministerial gifts and talents, time, and treasure, to the Church without compromising Catholic doctrine or tradition?

I reminded my friend that the all-male gay and straight prelates at the Synod did not demand that Roman Catholic institutions rehire fired LGBTQ employees or volunteers, they did not discuss employment non-discrimination laws, they did not invite same-sex couples to discuss dating, love or their marriages, they did not invite the biological or adopted children of same-sex couples to discuss life at home with two mommies or two daddies, they did not encourage gay men to pursue the priesthood, they did not walk back on hateful language vocalized about LGBTQ people by Popes John Paul II or Benedict XVI, they did not condemn punitive laws that penalize LGBTQ men and women in countries like Russia, Egypt, Uganda or Jamaica. No openly gay man or lesbian woman was invited to mass during the Synod or to pray with the prelates. No one admitted publicly, nor did the media report, that some of the prelates in attendance were gay men; no prelate took this historic meeting as an opportunity to come out of the closet. The Roman Catholic Church did not apologize for centuries of anti-gay theology that has tormented the LGBTQ community for millennia.

What did happen? The media quickly saturated the news cycle with stories about the newfound acceptance and welcome of gay men and lesbian women, forgetting about the spiritual desires and needs of bisexual, transgender and queer people. In their quest to push the Roman Church forward the media let countless LGBTQ men and women and youth down. The media sought out the Jesuit priest Jim Martin for public comments, to which he called Relatio “revolutionary.” In their quest to answer Pope Francis’ question, “Who am I to judge?” the media damaged their own credible characterizations of that question, and made the context of and truth about his famous question irrelevant.

The media is swept-up by the ambiguity of the charming 77-year old Argentine Pope Francis, all too willing to pervasively mischaracterize his very specific response to a reporter’s direct question about celibate gay men currently seeking ordination to the priesthood. To that question Pope Francis said: Who am I to judge whether or not a currently celibate gay man should actively continue to pursue the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church? I wish Pope Francis had been more discerning, more prudent, more Jesuitical, and more audacious at that moment. Pope Francis still hasn’t answered his own question. But the media has!

Over the past 10 years as a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in good standing I’ve met many celibate gay or straight Roman Catholic seminarians, priests, brothers and nuns. I’ve worked alongside many different laypeople in cities like Rio De Janeiro, New York City, Cochabamba, New Orleans, Barcelona, San Jose, Saint Louis, Syracuse, Rome and Boston. Today I am no longer a Jesuit. I left the order over the firing of Colleen Simon, a lesbian who was fired from her position as director of outreach at the Jesuit-run parish in Kansas City, MO. I left an upper middle class lifestyle, where many gay and straight men do good work with the poor.

I could not be an openly gay Jesuit priest, and never (ever) would I be allowed to bless the same-sex relationship of a gay or lesbian couple. To me, the Church remains sadly out of touch with reality, complacent not prophetic, welcoming but not radically honest or radically hospitable. I question how gay priests can serve authentically, with integrity, and not marry gay men or lesbian women; is this not hypocritical: that, while the Church sanctifies, blesses and sacramentalizes a gay or straight man’s ordination to the priesthood, the Church will not sanctify, bless or sacramentalize same-sex marriages. The media does not seem interested in this.

This proves to me that the media is not interested in reporting that the institutional Church does not see humanity or human sexuality as intimately connected to God, as much as the Psalmist or the author of the Song of Songs or Saint Paul or Jesus himself might. And as the recent Synod reminds me the Church still distorts human sexuality, all the while good and holy gay and straight celibate priests serve Her whether they are closeted, confused, internally homophobic or marginalized because of their status as openly gay. To me it was a major let down to see Pope Francis let prelates like the bombastic Cardinal Timothy Dolan walk back on a language of inclusion of lesbian women and gay men, whereas even stating that LGBTQ men and women are nice and have talents proved too of-this-world for the Church’s all-male hierarchy. Today, Fr. Martin’s comment about revolution sounds more and more loquacious.

If Pope Francis or the media ever called me I’d tell them that we must rage against the Church and beckon her to radical honesty and radical hospitality, moving beyond mere welcome or mercy. LGBTQ Roman Catholics are well beyond the need of mere welcome or mercy, they need the Church to repair their broken and fractured relationships, all caused by a narrow theological argument about culture not nature.

Imagine too just what might happen to LGBTQ men and women if the current Pope said: I have known and loved and served with my gay and straight Jesuit brothers around the world or more simply: I love gay and straight people. Imagine how many LGBTQ second-class citizens might be immediately rehabilitated to their broken families, released from physical or spiritual self-imprisonment, how many homeless LGBTQ youth might be welcomed home (some 200,000 LGBTQ youth are homeless in America alone). Imagine the stories of homecoming that the media could report!

It is the Church who must tell the world, through the media, that she loves LGBTQ people – until then what is revolutionary about having doors wide open when they’ve had centuries of homophobic rhetoric that negatively labels the LGBTQ community and thwarts their human flourishing? Yes, the Roman Catholic Church should apologize and seek reconciliation for centuries upon centuries of hate-making speech and theology that has contributed to the death, marginalization and othering of LGBTQ people.
Until this is done I fear that what the archconservative Cardinal Raymond Burke says is true, the Roman Catholic Church remains rudderless under the leadership of Pope Francis. And the media contributes to this by navigating the course and direction of a Pope too unwilling to answer his own question, Who am I to judge?

Image by Catholic Church England and Wales: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk, via Flickr