Duc in Altum | Oct 8
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Put Out into the DeepOct 8 2024
Hello, it’s another edition of Put Out into the Deep, the newsletter of Building Catholic Futures! Our thanks to the many who are keeping in touch by subscribing, donating, and contacting us about how best you can help.
This week, we’re looking more closely at one of our five Building Block principles: “Start the Conversation.” And we’re honoring Our Lady, in this month dedicated to the rosary, with one story among the many in which Catholic history and gay history overlap.
To learn more about our work and how you can help, you can send us a quick note via the Contact Us page at BuildingCatholic.org. And if you have interested friends who are not yet subscribers, invite them to click Building Catholic Futures and fill out the Keep in Touch form to receive updates from us.
Start the Conversation
When we list BCF’s principles—our five Building Blocks—this is the first one. And that makes sense; it’s the principle about beginnings. But it’s also the first principle we developed.
For almost all of us, the conversation about faith and sexual orientation starts in all the wrong places. Whether we were raised in more-progressive or more-conservative communities, almost all of us first learned early on that gay people are on one side, and the Catholic Church is on the other. This conflict gets embedded in gay Catholics’ sense of self.
What kinds of resources might help people begin the conversation in a better place?
From Eve's Talk on "Start the Conversation"
"I think about it almost like one of those text-based adventure games some of you may remember, Zork or The Fool’s Errand. You journey through a mysterious world and pick up strange jeweled objects and tools, not knowing when they’ll be helpful to you. Later on, you discover puzzles and challenges that these objects help you meet.
So yes, I definitely wish I had known other gay people who were trying to live in harmony with the Church, for sure. People I could turn to for advice—and whom I could trust when they called me on my nonsense! And I wish I’d known stories of real Catholics who experienced same-sex desire.
Some of those stories wouldn’t have resonated with the specific queer youth I was. (I’m not emotionally-aware enough for Fr. Henri Nouwen.) Other LGBT+ people, especially women, have described how powerful it was to have women religious as role models: Sisters gave them confidence that God might call them to a life very different from their mothers’ lives, and that celibacy could be a source of peace and strength. That’s another beautiful jeweled object I left by the wayside! What I grabbed the instant I saw them were models of friendship: the Catholic theology of friendship as a mirror of the relationship between Christ and the soul; vows and covenants of friendship; friendship as community and as kinship; friendship with Jesus, and with the saints."
BCF knows we have to try a lot of different angles, to speak to the needs of very different people. So we explore the many vocations, or paths, God calls people to. We highlight the stories of real people (some of whom were even weird and artsy enough for teenage Eve), and we form people to be mentors in their local communities. We help those in pastoral care think through the ways Scripture, Scholastic theology, the theology of the body, and bridal mysticism can speak in unexpected ways to LGBT+ people.
All of these approaches help Catholic leaders begin the conversation from an assumption that gay people are potential missionary disciples, called by God to share their gifts with the whole Church. We begin with assumptions of belonging, solidarity, and responsibility.
Where did the conversation about faith and sexual orientation start for you? Where do you wish it had started? If you’re a parent, godparent, teacher, or other adult responsible for children, where do you see the conversation starting for the next generation?
Photographed by "Ealdgyth". Used under a Creative Commons license
Futures Webinar
Those are some of the questions we’ll be exploring in our upcoming webinar on using our Futures resources. We know a lot of you want to learn more about the curricula and workshops we offer for Catholic school personnel, parents, youth ministers, and catechists. On Saturday, October 26 at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern time, we’ll host a webinar to introduce these resources, explain the thinking behind them, and explore ways you can bring BCF’s work to your local communities. If you’re interested, click Event Registration to sign up.
Max Jacob's Rosary
Max Jacob was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Jacob, a poet and painter who influenced Picasso and shaped the course of modern art, was a harlequin character, larger than life: clownish, tragic, promiscuous, jealous. He was, in his own words, “at times, a sodomite.” He was a devoted friend and mentor, who explored Jewish mysticism and the tarot but returned insistently to his Catholic faith. After France fell to the Nazis, he was interrogated (he greeted the Gestapo with, “Enchanté,” and offered to sign one of his books); he was arrested the day after Ash Wednesday, just after serving at morning Mass, and died of pneumonia in a detention camp for French Jews.
From Rosanna Warren’s biography, Max Jacob: A Life in Arts and Letters.
"Max Jacob wanted to die as a Catholic. As well as they could without a priest, his fellow prisoners tried to make that come true. George Dreyfus, Julien London, and several other Jewish Catholics bribed a guard and crept into the small room where the body lay; they crossed his arms over his breast, placed his rosary between his fingers, and recited prayers. …
When Pierre Colle arrived in Saint-Benoît, he found Max’s room so familiar in its disorder and the smell of tobacco, he hardly dared touch anything, so strongly did he feel the presence of his old friend. Canon Fleureau gave him the boxes of papers that Dr. Durand had saved. Colle kept Jacob’s rosary for his father and eventually gave Dr. Szigeti the copy of The Imitation of Christ inscribed to Jacob by Picasso on the day of his baptism."
From the poetry.
"O God who repairs worlds
look at the world I am!
open my rib cage, touch my loins
with the finger that wrote in the sand a mystery"
Prayer Requests from the BCF Community
- Please pray for young people struggling to understand their feelings and friendships.
- Please pray for God to be a light to my child who is questioning gender and sexuality.
- Pray for priests and teachers, and all who present the Catholic faith to our children.
And please pray for Building Catholic Futures, that we may be guided in wisdom and humility. How can we pray for you?
Thank You!
We want to thank you all for subscribing and supporting our mission. If you know anyone who should hear about our mission, please share the website. And please keep us in prayer.
Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!
Eve and Keith