Kate Childs Graham begins her most recent contribution to National Catholic Reporter’s Young Voices blog, “Most weekends, I wake up early and tip-toe downstairs before my partner stirs.” Yup. Not only is she an avowed lesbian, but she’s cohabitating. Openly and proudly, even, and using it as an intro for an anecdote ostensibly about Catholicism. What follows is one of the most mindless articles I think I’ve ever encountered. It – I kid you not – includes the line, “And that got me thinking, what could ‘Footloose’ teach the leaders of the Catholic church?”
I’m not sure if this is a bigger crime against Catholic morality or against good taste. Honestly, Footloose? The answer, of course, is that Footloose means we should have women’s ordination, and that “many church teachings, particularly around gender, sex and sexuality,” should be “cut loose.” Shocking, right? She’s a lesbian feminist who reads Footloose as promoting lesbian feminism. It’s like the hammer who realizes that all sorts of things are nails.
In the comments section, typical NCR readers swoon, before a couple of seemingly orthodox reader crack wise. One says, “So what should the bishops stop teaching–that all life is sacred, that Jesus is the Christ, that ordination is reserved for men, that marriage is between one man and one woman?” To which another responds, “Yes. Because Kevin Bacon says so.”
Finally, “progressive” Catholic dissidents have a Magisterium they can obey!
By the way, National Catholic Reporter is published in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, run by one Bishop Robert Finn, who really is a good bishop. His personal assistant can be e-mailed at [email protected] if anyone else has thoughts on NCR’s continuing “contributions” to American Catholicism.
I wonder what she would make of the concept that the bishops are following their consciences.
I wish the KC-St. Joseph Diocese would cut loose all the radical, feminized church leaders that still hang on even under Bishop Finn. I’d dance to that!