Thread by @stevenpmillies

1/ I am alert to the insistent appropriation of "ideology" as a sort of tell here. It signals a lack of confidence that I think insidiously nags #Catholic bishops on #gender identity questions. It poses them with a problem. Spare me a moment to say why.

ncregister.com/blog/bishop-da…

2/ It comes to this—the science is becoming quite clear that #gender is understood best as 2 clusters of characteristics we draw from, not a strict binary. We often draw characterictics from both clusters even if one clearly predominates.

3/ This view is supported in multiple peer-reviewed studies by reputable scientists in reputable publications. Gender is part chromosomal and part in utero hormonal, and this has consequences for our development: it is part of how we become who we are.

4/ That's hard science that should pose a believing #Catholic Christian with some clear choices abt how to offer cura personalis, how to render service in love.

Also, it's not something the writers of Sacred Scripture could have possibly known.

5/ Now here we have our problem for @USCCB #Catholic bishops.

This is a Galileo problem.

Science has disclosed something unsettling abt what our faith tells us. It's happened before & the #CatholicChurch has acknowledged Galileo was "imprudently opposed."

6/ But let's stay with the Galileo case for a moment. It has something else to teach us. Or, rather, this EWTN apologetic for John Paul II and the #CatholicChurch does.

ewtn.com/catholicism/li…

7/ I think this basically gets the issues right—the church doesn't object to scientific inquiry. But inquiry's meaning for theology takes time esp when something deeply settled in our theology is challenged. The #CatholicChurch insists we unsettle theology slowly with care.

8/ And that's certainly good.

The #Catholic church has continued to grapple with that, notably in Dei Verbum and in Fides et Ratio. And Francis recently reaffirmed the vocation of theologians to go beyond where doctrine is today.

catholicnewsagency.com/amp/news/25291…

9/ The #CatholicChurch believes there is no conflict btwn our faith and what reason discovers to be true in the created universe. The church wants theological reflection on scientific inquiry. It just wants us to be cautious about it.

So then. Why "gender ideology," @USCCB?

10/ Now we can see the tell, @spokanebishop.

To dismiss these uncomfortable questions as ideology excuses the #Catholic @USCCB bishops from engaging the challenging dialogue with science abt what is true.

Ironically, I think, our bishops do this for ideological reasons.

11/ I've said before that the #CatholicChurch in the US has become corrupted by ideology. I speak in Voegelinian terms. There are a number of expressions, but a good umbrella term is the one suggested by Blandine Chelini-Pont @GUberkleycenter—Christianism.

12/ Christianism "creatively combines...neo-rightist...political theses...with Christian identity."

Chelini-Pont observes how central "abortion and religious freedom" have been for cultivating a Christianism that gave support to Trumpism in the US.

books.google.com/books?id=2ydgE…

13/ Abortion & religious freedom have been signature preoccupations of the US #Catholic bishops. So has been opposing the "gay and gender lobbies."

And here is my point.

Ideology has frustrated a truly episcopal response to a theological challenge raised by science.

14/ This is also true of some #Catholic bishops in other places but it is overwhelmingly true of @USCCB bishops who are characterized in great numbers by hostility to Francis, a hostility also rooted in ideology.

Bishops in ideological glass houses cast stones of ideology.

15/ And we know we can say this because the #CatholicChurch is so clear. The meaning of what science says for theology may not be clear yet. But simply dismissing what science says as ideology is NOT what the church teaches us to do.

Only ideologues have reason to resist that.

16/ How long 'til our church gets it right? Did any human institution ever reach that kind of light?

When we deploy the church in service of an ideology we emphasize what is human & sinful in it. That's what far too many of our bishops (and their financial supporters) do.

17/ But when we insist care for persons must guide us and delve deeply into our Tradition to study how we can do that, we find the eternal in our frail visible church.

We need more #Catholic bishops willing to do that in the US, fewer ideologues. I think they know that. /END/