Lunch with Cardinal McElroy

Going to Lourdes with Knights of Malta

It was April of 2010. My friend with whom I shared an apartment in Monterey had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, struggling with chemo and all that entailed. Members of the Knights of Malta from the community invited her to accompany them as a malade, a person in need of healing, to Lourdes on their yearly pilgrimage. I would be able to go along as her companion.

We were both active in our separate parishes—she as a DRE at the Cathedral; I in music and children’s liturgy at Carmel Mission. We prayed together and shared our common understanding of the Church we both loved.

How would the experience be?

A recent nationally publicized ruling by the Bishop of Phoenix had troubled us: his very strict ruling in an abortion case that many Catholic theologians saw as justified in as much as the baby could not be saved. We were very concerned about this decision, which seemed more juridical than pastoral. More detail is available for any who would like to refresh their memories; the point here is not that story, but the fact that this very conservative bishop would be a member of the pilgrimage. I feared this might color the whole experience of the week in Lourdes.

In fact, members of the Knights of Malta came from all over the western division, along with maladies suffering from all kinds of incurable illnesses. Included, as members were a number of bishops and cardinals, who would minister to all of us during the week of pilgrimage. Lay knights from our community impressed me with their very evident love flowing from the Holy Spirit within.

Sitting down to lunch

Cynthia and I made friends among the other malades and companions, and would sit with them at lunch. One day we’d chosen a table and sat down, when we were joined by a friendly man in civilian dress, who introduced himself as Bishop McElroy of San Diego. Most of the clerics dined together, so I felt very honored that a bishop would choose to sit with us.

We’d begun eating, engaging in light conversation about the experience, our places of origin and ministries at home. Then the bishop pulled out a spiral notebook and said he was trying to get some ideas for his homily the next day. Would we want to help him? I don’t remember now what the gospel was from the mass he’d be celebrating, but I do remember that we spent the rest of our lunchtime pondering it together, Bishop McElroy taking notes and making his own observations.

It was remarkable to me that he trusted us as laywomen to be able to share meaningfully with him in listening to the Spirit.  That he respected us enough to treat us as sisters in Christ, as co-workers in the vineyard, so to speak. And it was rewarding to hear the homily where he wove in our ideas along with his own the next day.

I have never forgotten that lunchtime. When Pope Francis elevated him to the position of Cardinal, I felt the decision was well deserved by one who is a true shepherd.

Dispute over Cardinal McElroy's remarks during a discussion at America Magazine

Now I have read McElroy’s interview with America Magazine and the many responses to it on both sides. Again he has chosen the difficult path, not bolstered by some Canon legality, but wandering out amid the sheep, as well a pastor might do.

Conservative bishops have come out against his views. Bishop Samuel Aquila is one whose rebuttal was published in America. Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, suggested in an article in First Things that McElroy might actually be a heretic.

Two of the more sane were articles in the National Catholic Reporter by Michael Sean Winters, political staff writer. In the first of these,  "What Cardinal Robert McElroy’s Critics Get Wrong," Winters points out that the Cardinal took his points from the U.S. Synthesis of the Synod, where participants called for greater inclusivity in the Church.

There is too much of value in this article to summarize it here, so I recommend an actual read if you are interested. But what I do want to say relative to it is from my own Catholic experience.  First, I was one of my parish’s representatives to our Denver archdiocesan synod gathering, which was conducted in the most prayerful manner imaginable, with theological preparation for the task we would undertake in seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our discernments.  After many prayerful sessions before the Blessed Sacrament, our assembled multi-cultural body called for, among other things, greater unity and more inclusivity in the Church.  This was expressed in our diocesan group as well as in dioceses throughout the country.

Clearly, the Church teaches that sexual expression must be limited to those in a marriage between a man and a woman, and even there, certain limitations exist. The question the Cardinal raises is not whether homosexuality is sinful, but whether that sin is always mortal—so grave that it completely separates a person from God.

Are all sexual sins mortal?

Sr. Mary Amelia, O.P., my 4’11” Irish Dominican 8th Grade teacher assured us that God more easily forgives sins of the flesh than those of the mind and spirit—probably based on Dominican Thomas Aquinas. If she were alive today, she would probably go on to say that there are degrees of seriousness even within the ranks of serious sin.

In addition to this, even the Baltimore Catechism listed the conditions for a sin to be mortal, and the objective seriousness of the action or omission was only one of these. One has to be fully aware of the gravity of the action, including in his or her conscience, and fully choose to commit it. With sins of the flesh, including drunkenness, it’s sometimes hard to know how freely the choice has been made.

The issue in all of this is admission of a sinner to the Eucharist.  Can we judge the state of a person’s relationship with God, only by our surmises concerning his or her actions?

Is It Possible to Disagree respectfully with the Cardinal?

Could sex become an idol?

Michael Sean Winters wrote a second article on the Cardinal’s position entitled “It’s Possible to Respectfully Disagree with Cardinal McElroy,” in which he brings up a couple of critical points. First of these is the matter of sexuality. While the Church may be excessive in its treatment of all sexual sins as mortal, it is important to realize, Winters says, that sex, like money and power, can easily become an idol; and, unlike the latter two, sexuality is available to be idolized by all. One could as easily say that sex can become an addiction. In any case, an idol promotes itself as a substitute for God. If sexuality becomes an idol (and one might judge from the media whether it has not taken over much of our attention from serious matters affecting all of us), it becomes an offense against the First Commandment, which is also the first of the Two Great Commandments.

How important is church unity?

Winters’ second point was that of Church unity. Other churches have splintered over the issue of LGBT clergy and same-sex marriage. I pray regularly with Episcopalians and have witnessed that very split among us—both with regard to the church’s election of a gay bishop in Gene Robinson, and in rules calling for prayer groups not to choose homosexual leaders. While I have read the full story of Gene Robinson and see that he was no longer in a gay union when he was elected, and that he was quite a remarkable priest, the question is whether expressed sexual orientation should be honored over church unity.

Continue the discussion

How would Cardinal McElroy take Winters’ cautionary notes? Because they were offered with respect, I would think the man who shared a lunch table with us that day in Lourdes would want to continue the discussion. Because that is the whole point of synodality: that we as a Church, instead of attacking and threatening schism, come together to discuss critical issues, as has been done for over 2000 years. The difference today with the Synodal process is that the discussion has been opened up to the whole Church—even the laity, as when the then-bishop invited two laywomen to work together with him on a homily.