ROME LETTER: IS NOT the Catholic Church’s teaching that homosexuality represents both a “grave depravation” and an “intrinsic disorder” a total hypocrisy? That oft-posed question has been doing the rounds in Italy in recent days following events at the funeral of the popular singer/songwriter Lucio Dalla.

The debate was sparked by the fact that a moving and emotional funeral oration was given at Dalla’s funeral in the Basilica of San Petronio by his 31-year-old partner/companion/lover, Marco Alemanno. Total hypocrisy, screamed commentators who suggested the semi-state basilica funeral and the lover’s oration had been tolerated not only because Dalla was a practising Catholic but because he was famous, successful and private about his sexual orientation.

“Lucio Dalla’s funeral represents a very clear example of what it means to be gay in Italy today. You go to church, they grant you a funeral and they bury you according to the Catholic rite, just as long as you don’t say you are gay,” said television presenter Lucia Annunziata.

“Marco Alemanno embodied in a church and in a totally public ceremony all the dignity of love between men. However, you would have to ask yourself how many less famous Catholic homosexuals, less protected by the charisma of their art, would have been able to feel themselves so fully members of their community.

“We would like to think that Marco’s brief oration for Lucio has established a precedent. For those homosexuals who are not Catholic, church teaching on the subject does not matter a damn, they could not care less. But for Catholic homosexuals, it is a huge problem. And it is to them that the thoughts of all decent-minded people turn, when we see Marco Alemanno praying for his ‘man’ beside the basilica altar,” commented writer Michele Serra.

-full report at The Irish Times.

I don’t for a minute believe Dalla had special treatment from the Church because he’s a celebrity. There must be thousands of gay couples, constantly, who get similar respectful treatment within their own parishes. The only special treatment here, is by the news media. His celebrity status makes him newsworthy – not a different class of Catholic. What we lose sight of, in the media hype over stories like that of Barbara Johnson, is that they hit the headlines precisely because they are newsworthy. Unless they are celebrities, like Dalla, the only reason they are newsworthy is that they are exceptional. For every horror like the denial of communion to a woman at her mother’s funeral, there are far more that go unreported, because they are so ordinary. Even Johnson, in precisely the same circumstances, in the same parish, was given the communion on a previous occasion – at her father’s funeral. That was not reported, because it was normal.  There are countless same – sex couples all over the world, worshipping and fully accepted in their parish communities. In my own life back in Johannesburg, my partner and I served openly as a couple on the parish pastoral council, without any comment or reaction at all. I am certain that in the many similar cases around the world, if one half of a gay or lesbian couple were to die, the parish community would respond in precisely the same way they would to any other couple – even if there is not celebrity status involved.

This story supports an increasingly strong perception I have that notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of Catholic bishops to legally recognized gay marriage, and regardless of  the widely – publicized horrors perpetrated by some individual priests and bishops, there is a major shift under way in the Church towards tacit understanding and acceptance of loving and faithful same – sex relationships – exactly as there is tacit understanding and acceptance of the role of conscience in contraceptive use by married couples.

I am attempting to put together two parallel series of posts on Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s Baltimore address last week on the need to reform the whole of Catholic sexual teaching, heterosexual and homosexual, and on James Alison’s extended interview that I have previously referred to only in part.

Once I have done that, I will be able to substantiate more fully what I offer now only as an assertion:

The times, they are a-changing.

Related articles

• How the Bishops’ Letter SHOULD Have Read.
• Bishops’ Letter Divides English Catholics
• “Gay Masses – unique outreach and support”: The Tablet
• Valuable Discussions of Christian Sexual Ethics: Geoffrey Robinson and Jeffrey John
• Reaction to Communion Denial
• Bishop urges change in all church teaching on sexual relationships