FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Funny Bishops

Rant Number 521         7 January 2013

‘S’avessi avuto di tal tigna brama, colui potei che dal servo de servi fu trasmutato d’Arno in Bacchiglione, dove lascio’ li mal protesi nervi.’ Inferno, XV,111-14.

If you don’t dig Dante’s fruity Italian: it speaks of Florence’s archbishop Andrea de’ Mozzi. An outrageous, scandalous gay, the Pope had to remove him to Vicenza, another diocese. (How gratified was his new flock, I wonder?) Nothing new then about funny bishops, eh?

Are reactions to the Anglican Bishops’ decision to allow openly gay clergy to join them as official descendants of Christ’ apostles much ado about nothing? No need to hark back to Dante’s age of faith. Gay bishops have long been around. I could name a few. One of the bishops for whom I have served was widely known to be one. A strong, authoritative chap, he joked about taking his teddy bear to bed with him when feeling lonely. The people liked him. Yet, he could be dodgy. A priest I knew told me bishop X pretended to be friendly and ‘understanding’ towards his gay clergy in order to draw them out, then, if need be, he would use their admissions against them. Huh! Two-faced and treacherous! Very much like a bishop! That Protestant divine who opined that ‘the devil was the first bishop’ perhaps had a point.

Dante’s theology is not ambiguous. Sodomy is a sin, therefore its votaries must be in hell. (Note however that gays also appear in Dante’s purgatory and purgatory is not final but probationary - only steps away from Heaven.) The Church of England is incapable of such sharp clarity. Gay genital acts ‘fall short of the ideal’. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are not ‘equally congruous’. Thus, repentance and compassions are called for. Yet the Church ‘supports civil partnerships’ between same-sex couples, which, unless gays are angels, must entail same-sex genital acts. Inconsistency? Sure, but a state church is in a dilemma. Caesar must beat God, occasionally. Unless you declare jihadon the secular state (yes, please!), the same Parliament that grants you privileges and perks, such as 26 mitred chaps sitting by right in the Lords, you have to swallow legislation that conflicts with the Gospel. Too bad but such are the snares of being an established church. Erastianism is the name of the game. An ungainly polysyllable - unrelated to ‘pederasty’, insh’allah?

The thing gets more and more baroque. No objection to gay laity, the Synod stipulated – the sheep can fall short OK - but lowly shepherds, priests of the same inclination, though living together, are expected to be chaste. Sancta Simplicitas! Holy innocence! Now the permissiveness extends to the chief shepherds, with the proviso that they too have to promise continence. A simple soul blogs that the Church should now ‘enforce’ that celibacy. Sounds like a French farce. Synod snoopers popping out of cupboards in bishops’ palaces, checking on His Grace’s bedfellows. What next? Inspecting underwear, bed-sheets and mattresses? CCTV like in Big Brother? Aaargh!

‘A bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome and no lover of money’, the New Testament prescribes (I Timothy 3:2-3). A fair desideratum, if not always lived up to. Note, though, how heterosexuality is assumed to be the norm. Polygamy is warned against, not sodomy. Guess the Pauline author of I Timothy could not bring himself to envisage the possibility, old-fashioned gaffer that he was. Times have indeed changed.

Further woes emanate from of the Anglican Communion, the bizarre outfit pretending to be a worldwide, serious ecclesial body. Eliud Wabukala, Anglican Archbishop of Kenya, preaches against the ‘secular preoccupations of the West’. In other words, obsession with gay rights and the like would be an expression of cultural provincialism, not a genuinely universal affair. A wily critic of course might respond that African horror at the practice might also be culturally conditioned...Regardless, it presents Western, liberal churchmen with a nasty dilemma. Gays or Africa? Criticism of black, African culture is bad, neo-colonialist and reactionary, hence inadmissible. Alas, the notorious, unbelieving American bishop John Spong once sinned that unforgivable sin: ‘I am not going to give up being a modern man because of the Africans’ (or words to that effect), he once let off. Poor fellow! You almost feel for him.

Still, the prime prize for idiocy in this debate must go to Alan Somebody, the bishop of Buckingham. On telly, this pillock spoke of the need for the Church to relate to the ‘instincts’ of society. Wallahi! Cats and dogs, horses and lions, have instincts, bishop, and it is OK for them to follow them. Human beings also have instincts and urges, sure, but they sometimes have to control them. Because they are rational beings, they do not have to succumb to instincts. Same for society. Instincts have to be properly regulated. Subordinated to reason. Otherwise we might behold some peculiar spectacles around, given that human instincts cover areas from bestiality to incest and rape. Above all, the Christian Church’s message is not about obeying instincts but about following God’s Will. Amazing the pillock missed a bit of that.

Back to Dante. In the same infernal passage quoted above he meets amongst the gays his former teacher, a distinguished Florentine intellectual, writer and diplomat, Brunetto Latini. ‘You here, Sir Brunetto?’ Dante exclaims, shocked. A cosy dialogue follows, however. ‘A dear, beloved, paternal face’, the poet describes his former masters’ image. And Brunetto calls him ‘my son’ throughout. There is not the slightest suggestion that Dante finds Sir Brunetto repulsive or odious. Quite the opposite. It is a melancholy but sentimentally uplifting encounter. Of course, Brunetto has to be where he has placed himself, presumably by followings his ‘instincts’. The teaching of the medieval Catholic Church was clear. Yet, genuine friendship, reverence and compassion may be stronger than sin. Call it God’s love – that’s that.

And Anglican bishops? Guess Dante might say, disdainfully (Inferno, 3: 48): ‘Let us not talk of them but look and move on’.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli