James Alison: “un nuovo approccio teologico per un’inclusione globale delle persone LGBT+ nelle comunità cattoliche”

Intervention by the theologian and priest James Alison* held to "The roads of love ", an international conference for a pastoral care with homosexual and trans people. (Rome, 3 october 2014), translated by Claudio Abate

I would like to ask you to join me in imagining participating in a family scene taken from the scriptures.

The scene is of the acts of the apostles, chapter 10, but I invite you to think about the events described as if they had happened about a week ago.

We are in the house of the Roman centurion Cornelio. We could be family members, servants or slaves. Together with Cornelio, we have long been used to being second class citizens in the house of God.

When we accompany the master in the synagogue we are called "Timounts of God" and we have allowed us to enter and follow the celebration from a carefully separate place.

This happens because, although we know that The god Of israel is the Only true god and we carefully follow the Precepts of moses, we have not Completely converted. we were therefore not circumcised, if male, or we have not fully adopted the yoke of Moses' laws with his rites and commandments.

We go to the rite, therefore, aware of being considered impure and not to be touched. We are often treated with courtesy and also with genuine cordiality by the members, even if this is constantly characterized by a certain distance and deign, as it is suited when it comes to unreal members that cannot be fully participated.

Last week, however, something strange happened. Cornelio sent three of us from Gaffa to invite a certain Pietro. He accepted the invitation and came to our house truly, which was in itself a strangeness since he was a observant religious and not a kind like us.

It was not a mistake: it was very determined to tell us that, although we knew it was not lawful "for a Jew unite or meet with a kind", he was convinced that "God taught me not to consider anyone impure or profane".

When Cornelius invited him to speak, he told us that in truth he had realized "that God does not make people preferences, but those who fear him and practice justice is accepted to him". Afterwards he told us about a message of peace that had been sent to Israel and of which we had already heard some hints. The message had been delivered through someone named Jesus, the greasy.

It came out that Pietro was a friend of Jesus of Nazareth, who had been a prophet with great powers. This man had been put to death as a blasphemous seditious, as if under a Curse Of God. but God, resurrecting jesus from the dead, had shown that the so -called curse, of Which we Read In moses's torah, had nothing to do with Him.

From the day of his resurrection, Jesus was seen by many people who had been with him and who had dinner and drunk with him before his death. It became clear that he was the long -awaited fulfillment of a series of prophecies, although he had made them in a way that no one would ever expect.

Having been treated by observant religious as someone to be condemned and, in reality, having revealed himself as the one who acted in the full approval of God has greatly shocked the way of understanding God among the religious of his people.

At the beginning it was not clear if Pietro had fully understood that God has no preferences in apparently herself telling something that concerns Israel. Certainly the men who had brought with him had not understood it at all. However, while Pietro spoke, we all found ourselves within a great movement of the Spirit to glorify God and speak strange languages. We were all surprised, especially those who had come with Pietro because they had already seen such a thing, but only among the circumcises.

They could not believe that according to us second -class citizens was also happening.

However, while the scene took place and became clear that what God had told Pietro on the preferences between people and on not having to call anyone impure or unchanged was absolutely true, much more true than Pietro seemed to have understood initially, we discovered that we Being part of this movement of the spirit just as they were and the others, in the same identical way in terms of equality and without any distinction. What was even more surprising for all of us was to see how everything pushed Pietro to tell his to baptize us.

We had already heard of this gift: at the time of baptism, some circumcises had shared the feeling of feeling involved in the life and death of Jesus discovering themselves encouraged to be children and daughters of God and becoming part of a priestly people that Jesus had inaugurated in his Life and death and that was actually the fulfillment of what Israel had always been called.
And Pietro, in our master's house, suddenly recognized that the substance of baptism had clearly manifested himself among us kind.

So how could he deny us the gift? As a result he asked his companions to baptize us with water. And we were amazed to discover ourselves belonging to the life of God sharing his holiness without any distinction based on previous convictions or Pietro on what was necessary to be a member of the life of God.

Well, each of us had shocked as much as those who were next to us: first -class citizens found themselves on our own level and having to overcome a certain repugnance in having to deal with us, with their sense of purity and separateness completely deflated; Second -class citizens must get used to the idea of ​​taking themselves seriously and behaving like sons and daughters of God instead of dirty minor servants who have a sort of innate excuse for their impurities.

As is easily imaginable, news like this has spread very quickly. Some of Peter's most scrupulous friends and colleagues were somewhat contrary and thought that Peter, who was known for his impulsiveness, had been frivolous in some way to behave in that way.

Consequently, Pietro had to explain to them before them in Jerusalem, but fortunately he did not hold back. Even if there was a strong pressure on him to portray and apologize for what he had done (saving the face of those who really need the existence of people like us to feel special). In reality he told them everything very clearly: "The spirit told me to go with them and not to distinguish each other and us".

Pietro also described how the Holy Spirit had descended to us as he spoke and how he had realized one thing: “If God gave them the same gift that he had given us when we believed in Jesus Christ, who I am for hinder God? ".

This has provided an important starting point of reflection and slowly began to understand that we too can be included in the same gift of forgiveness, with the life that flows from it.

So this happened a few days ago ... we are still waiting to see the consequences and how it will all be part of the house of the Lord, sons and daughters with the same dignity that share a priesthood whose only purity requirement is in the heart.

It will be interesting to see if they abandon their rules on food for us, if they consider our family structure equal to them for what matters as a true marriage.
What will they think of us who do not have to circumcure us and that we must not observe all the commandments that make up their code of purity? And what will we do with the freedom to rediscover first -class citizens, members, daughters and sons, not servants or external to the life of God, starting from how we are? What will be the form of holiness that will descend on us?

I think this story makes the sense of where we LGBT Catholics are found at this moment and I would like to develop four consequent points with you.

1) A question of Elementary christianity

First of all, because of what has happened to us in recent years as LGBT Catholics, it has become increasingly clear to us what these shocks generated by the death and resurrection of Jesus were.

He with his teachings and with his powerful gifts had brought testimony to God, who had nothing to do with a code of purity and no tolerance for any religious exercise, such as the sacrifices, which was armed with reconciliation between humans that he wanted to bring. However, he had a strong interest in those who were considered unacceptable by the society of his days.

In the end he was considered blasphemous and seditious by the set of civil and religious authorities and was assassinated. His killing was performed in such a way that he officially falls under the curse of God.
His resurrection was much more than the demonstration of the existence of the afterlife, something in which many of his contemporaries already believed. It was the claim that from above the entire political and religious structure that had put him to death was placed under the judgment of God. In other words, that he, Jesus, who had been seen in all respects as a blasphemous and seditious Transgressor, he had told the truth about God when he preached.

This means that anyone, regardless of its nationality, perceives that they have been involved in some way in a sort of false and violent construction of good and evil, which Jesus has shocked, can be forgiven and become part of the life of the Living god without a special obvious external sign.
It is for this reason that it is not, formally speaking, no Christian religious law.

The image of himself that God showed us in Jesus was not that of a legislator, but that of the victim car donated to the conspiracy of civil and religious legislators. Considering this car definition of God, no definition of people not founded on who they really are, who could catalog them as pure or impure, sacred or profane, can be valid.

Instead, there is the only clarification that, starting exactly from where we are and how we are, we are invited to become daughters and sons of God and be part of the house of God. What God calls good is not some external definition that satisfies a certain legislator , but what is good for us. That what is human is love and becomes, through the same love, sharing of God's life.

It is not pruning parts of ourselves, psychologically or physically, that we are saved, but it is rather in discovering ourselves and becoming what we had always been destined to be that we come to reflect the glory of our Creator, despite the very reduced version of ourselves in to which we got stuck and from which the death and resurrection of Jesus freed us with clamor.

This has been exactly our experience as LGBT Catholics in the last thirty years. It has become increasingly clear, to the point of having it overwhelmingly, that what seemed to be an ultra evident description of us was actually an error. We were somewhat distinguished as defective, pathological or liver people spoiled; intrinsically heterosexual that suffered from a bizarre and extreme form of heterosexual concupiscence called "attraction for the same sex".

This description that transformed us into practice into second -class citizens in the house of God is very simply false. In fact, it seems that we are blessed in being carriers of a minority non -pathological variant in the human condition not particularly relevant and that our affiliation to God descends on us as we are, with this small but significant variant that characterizes who we are. A further feature that gives graceful shape to those who are called to be.

Of course, affiliation transforms the characteristic into something more when we overcome the concupiscence, which is proper to all of us humans, developing and humanizing our ability to love so as to achieve a fuller sharing of god's Life.

This constitutes something significant: the only way in which a teaching can be truly catholic is if it leads to mind something that really has to do with the human beings in question. Therefore, when it becomes clear that what seemed to be an accurate description of who we are, a description that imagined looking for our good, is not actually accurate, but simply an error, in that same instant it is no longer possible to argue that that teaching that derives from that description is catholic because catholic teaching follows the discovery of what the Creator shows us as true.

In other words, as in the book of the acts of the apostles, the Holy Spirit does not wait for Peter's permission to welcome new sons and daughters of God. On the contrary! Pietro in fact learns that what he had thought to be true of the holiness of God and the need to observe the book of Levitico to join it was not correct.

As Pietro learns this teaching, the code of purity takes on a relative value and is perceived as a series of non -binding taboos: it contains ways of defining the people based on the exteriority instead of considering who these people are and starting from them.

We are at this point: there is nothing that peter and His companions can do to stop him. as the Creator has Abundantly clarified us what is the case, through a normal human learning process of the creation illuminated by the spirit For which we become part of the wisdom of God, so The teaching that sees us bearers of a disorder goal that there it leads to intrinsically evil acts has proved to be a taboo and, therefore, not By god and, consequently, not a true catholic teaching.

2) Catholicity instead of inclusion

My second point is to try to define consequences. You asked me to report compared to the theme "towards a global inclusion of LGBT people in Catholic communities" and yet the theological approach that I propose is not actually the inclusion of LGBT people in Catholic communities, more than the story of acts 10 is not of the inclusion of the Gentiles in Jewish communities: not an example of alms in which second -class citizens ask and get humble places at a first -class table.

No, we are in the presence of an extraordinary realization for which, having clarified that we are simply carriers of a non -pathological and not particularly relevant minority variant of the human condition, we find ourselves looking for the Lord and to be carriers of Catholicity in terms of equality with any other individual. Catholicity is redefined not by our merit but for the objective element of humanity that we bring to the table simply being present as such.

Why is this so important? Because it means that it is not us who must adapt to someone else's home rules. All of us in the house find ourselves having to adapt to the fact that, with Peter, we are all learning something new of the human being and that our understanding of good and evil, for those who are inside and who is out, will change by virtue of This.
The process is obviously much more difficult and painful, at least initially, for those for which it was important to promote a form of public "goodness" in which we were marginal players and an example necessary for what was wrong.

Instead, it will be much more joyful for those of us discovers that after all we were just saying the truth. It is not true, as we were often told, that we are particularly self-indulgent, that our love is harmful to others, that we are crazy to think we are normal or that hedonism and relativism has led us to purely subjective desires It is unrealistic that are part of a dehumanizing trap.

Please note what happens as the work of the spirit becomes evident and that our participation as added members of the Catholic story of truth becomes clear. First of all, there is hatred and anger from those who had invested a lot in what appeared to come from God but which proved to be another idolatra taboo that requires sacrifices.

These people need help and compassion, of our magnanimity instead of our resentment. Above all, we shouldn't try to cause them or scandalize them, even if it is tempting. Secondly, there is something thinner I believe we should look carefully. This comes from those who are not full of hatred but who love old bisacce.

These people would like to say things like "Well yes, we understand that there was a problem about how the Church has treated gay people in the past and none of us want this to repeat itself.
However, the Church has the right in tolerant and multi -cultural societies not to be defined by what is actually true about human beings. We claim the right to keep our pious way of doing things alive to do things without interference ".

But this is where the problem arises: when people choose this way they refuse catholicity and create a church in their own image. These people are transforming the Catholic Church into a group defined by certain rules of the house that are independent of reality. In other words, they are creating a form of holiness that goes against those who are considered impure and profane. This constitutes a regression to the Judaism of the second temple.

When people do this, they are automatically excluded from the Catholicicity of the Church because they are trying to transform it not in the concrete sign of God's desire to reconcile all men through Jesus, but in a sign of their own intention of constituting A group with a strong identity and boundaries markedly marked about those inside and who is outside.

I therefore implore you not to think that, only for an incorrect courtesy, these people define what catholicity is. Catholicity is defined only by God because God amazes us by crushing all our social and cultural barriers revealing the truth for which we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, creating a way of being a human being in a way that knows no forms of comparison and that flows from Jesus crucified that forgives us.

Another light variant on the theme comes from those who say: “Yes, there is something wrong in the way the Church has treated LGBT people, but you should not be in a hurry to change it. Let the hierarchy organize, in the most appropriate and peaceful way possible, every necessary change ". This is like saying that those who are not even able to publicly recognize that we have always told the truth and that they have always blinded our consciences using a taboo must continue to manage a change towards truth according to their program.

Vorrebbero che fosse così! Questo non è come opera lo Spirito di Dio, come dimostra il racconto degli Atti. Lo Spirito ci conduce alla piena verità scalciando, protestando, sconvolgendo e scardinando con l’audacia della parola quando è sconveniente e quando non lo è. Quelli che sono più sorpresi ed accorrono per ultimi sono coloro che credono che il cambiamento dovrebbe essere da loro gestito e alle loro condizioni, preferibilmente senza perdere la faccia dovendo ammettere che anche loro hanno bisogno del perdono.

No, la verità non aspetta la convenienza di quelli associati con la non verità prima di manifestarsi. Essa evade, come dalla cattività, portando testimonianza a Chi l’ha mandata per farla circolare libera tra noi e ci porta su una giostra divertente.

Lo Spirito porta la pace che viene con la verità, ma non seguendo l’agenda di chi con la loro paura lo trattengono. Pietro fu veramente petrino ascoltando lo Spirito e riconoscendo di aver sbagliato sulla santità. Facendo ciò divenne un centro di unità apparentemente precario, ma in realtà una roccia contro tutte le forze reagenti che cercarono di colpirlo. Né lui, né i suoi colleghi stabilirono un’agenda o un calendario.

3) Preparazione per l’evangelizzazione

Il mio terzo punto è come è vista la nostra vita nelle diverse culture? Una delle cose che le persone dicono è “Tutta questa questione delle persone LGBT è un valore decadente del mondo occidentale e noi dovremmo difenderci”. Ma le persone da cui si stanno difendendo non sono occidentali decadenti, ma i loro stessi fratelli e sorelle, ugandesi, nigeriani, iraniani, russi, sauditi e giamaicani.

Questi sono fratelli e sorelle che hanno scoperto qualcosa di vero su loro stessi e la loro capacità di amare e sanno che ciò che è vero ha senso per loro. Ecco qualcosa di notevole: scoprire la verità è lavorare nel modo in cui il Vangelo ha detto che avrebbe fatto e seguire la dinamica dello Spirito che scende su di noi da Gesù.

E tuttavia, stranamente, leader cristiani di tutte le denominazioni si uniscono a capi religiosi di altre organizzazioni, che non solo non conoscono lo Spirito Santo, ma che addirittura si oppongono alla sua esistenza e al suo effetto illuminante. Tali leader preferirebbero circondarsi di trappole della religione piuttosto che diffondere la buona novella di Colui che ha relativizzato tutte le formalità religiose per portare tutti in una nuova umanità, a cominciare da precari ed esclusi. Ciò significa che noi cattolici LGBT possiamo stare nelle prime file dell’Evangelizzazione che Papa Francesco ci ha chiesto e possiamo farlo da felici destinatari di questa nuova umanità.

Noi, come chiunque altro, sappiamo come lo Spirito di Dio ci umanizzi non distruggendo la cultura ma depurandola da tutto ciò che è violento e distruttivo in noi umani. Grazie a Gesù sappiamo che non esistono cibi religiosamente puri o impuri, precetti forme religiosi di mutilazioni genitali o di altro tipo. Sappiamo che solo la cultura, e non Dio, ha preteso il velo per coprire la gloria della testa e dei capelli delle donne.
Lo stesso Spirito ci ha insegnato tutto ciò, mettendo a nostra disposizione ciò che è realmente vero, consentendoci di scoprire la graziosa banalità della nostra variante di minoranza e lasciando che desse forma al nostro amore che ci trasforma in testimoni della bontà di Dio mentre ci protendiamo verso coloro che soffrono di terribili ingiustizie e privazioni.

Questo non significa che siamo solamente in grado di trasmettere un messaggio agli altri, ma che siamo portatori della Cattolicità nella nostra carne. Ci riscopriamo pronti ad essere annunciatori del Vangelo precisamente per effetto dell’essenza cattolica: siamo stati intrinsecamente parte del processo di auto correzione della cultura, che è il modo in cui lo Spirito mantiene la Chiesa viva e fedele. Pertanto, in qualsiasi cultura noi viviamo siamo nella vantaggiosa posizione di aiutare i nostri fratelli e sorelle ad abbattere i tabù locali e particolari, la violenza e le strutture che mascherate nelle sembianze di Dio sono in realtà opera degli idoli.

Chi avrebbe pensato che sarebbero stati i cattolici LGBT a portare testimonianza alla freschezza del Vangelo, al modo in cui rende viva la Creazione e, persino, al valore della legge naturale non come trappola ma come avventura? A proposito di pietra scartata dai costruttori!

4) Santità, parola e testimonianza

Vengo ora al mio ultimo punto. Qual è la forma in cui la Santità discende su di noi? L’effetto più debilitante del tabù che ci ha perseguitato non è la proibizione di certi atti sessuali. Quello non ha mai trattenuto alcuni di noi, neanche, come è diventato evidente, molti di quelli che avevano assunto il pesante impegno di evitare certi atti.

No, l’effetto debilitante del tabù, come per ogni infezione da idolatria, è il danneggiamento dell’immaginazione che rende impossibile vedere il bene.
Quando la nostra concupiscenza fu erroneamente definita come una forma oggettivamente disordinata del desiderio eterosessuale, tutti i nostri atti furono visti come cattivi e non avevamo nessun incentivo a umanizzarli.

“Niente spuntini tra i pasti” può essere un’utile indicazione se insegna alle persone a godersi meglio il prossimo pasto, ma “Niente spuntino tra i pasti e, nel vostro caso, per voi neanche nessun pasto” è una sicura ricetta per un’abbuffata di spuntini.

Ma ora, grazie al cielo, stiamo cominciando a scoprire quale potrebbe essere la forma del pasto, o dei pasti, verso cui potrebbe valer la pena di indirizzare il nostro appetito. Quindi, per favore, nel processo di riscoperta della forma della Santità che sta scendendo su di noi, ora che non siamo più cittadini di seconda classe con la scusa del vittimismo risentito per la nostra mancanza di dignità, lasciamo che la nostra immaginazione sia ravvivata dallo Spirito.

Stiamo già sperimentando alcuni modi in cui possiamo condividere il donarsi di Gesù agli altri: matrimoni civili, adozioni di bambini e, in alcuni casi, la libera scelta della vita da single. (Quest’ultima era chiaramente impossibile secondo gli insegnamenti del tabù: ci veniva detto che non avevamo altra scelta che il celibato e, quindi, l’opzione non era certamente libera perché non si trattava di rinunciare a un bene per un altro bene, ma di evitare il male che era il nostro dovere solenne in ogni caso). In quali altri modi scopriremo di esser chiamati a diventare una benedizione per gli altri?

Ecco un indizio: non lasciamo che il santo lavoro della ravvivata immaginazione sia adombrata da chi preferirebbe evitare la discussione sul nostro essere veramente oggettivamente disordinati o meno.

Nel Nuovo Testamento, chi insisteva sulla necessità che i gentili fossero circoncisi per essere salvati aveva niente di genuino da offrire al dibattito sulle forme appropriate di santità per i gentili battezzati. Allo stesso modo, chi non può concederci la legittimità (il necessario per la purezza) del nostro amare che proviene da chi siamo non può neanche offrire un aiuto nel nostro processo di comprensione di quali leggi matrimoniali e sull’adozione sono adatte per noi, per non parlare delle forme liturgiche che potrebbero essere appropriate.

Molte autorità religiose in diversi Paesi cercano di nascondersi dietro il proclama che “difendendo il matrimonio” loro non stanno facendo o dicendo niente contro i gay e le lesbiche.
Se sono sinceri in proposito, che dimostrino che la loro coscienza non è legata al tabù, che rinuncino alla nozione per cui i gay in una relazione, di cui sostengono di non parlare, indulgono ipso facto ad un disordine oggettivo, sono gravi peccatori impenitenti e stanno cercando di santificare qualcosa che non può mai essere approvato.

Una volta che queste autorità hanno dimostrato che la loro coscienza è libera e, quindi, che non c’è, nel loro intendimento, alcuna rivalità tra la forma adatta per gli eterosessuali di prosperare nel matrimonio e le forme che potranno rivelarsi prospere per noi, allora potranno avere qualcosa di genuinamente utile da offrire a tutti noi perché saranno legittimamente in grado di contemplare qualcosa di come, nel nostro caso e nel loro, la grazia perfeziona la natura.

Mi riferisco a quel qualcosa che proviene da chi siamo e non dal nonostante ciò che siamo. Comunque, finché saranno fedeli al tabù, non possono essere giudici della nostra prosperità.

No, la verità e la pace, la spinta verso il reale, che viene dalla consapevolezza di essere una figlia o un figlio di Dio, sono la fonte dell’immaginazione della forma dell’arduo bene cui aspirare e nella cui realizzazione speriamo di essere trovati. La verità che promana dal poter parlare con una coscienza libera non è un’estrinseca aggiunta all’essere Cristiano.

È intrinseco al significato stesso di Cristiano e comprendere il portare testimonianza, senza cui non c’è Cristianità. Per noi animali linguistici, parlare chiaramente e apertamente è essenziale al poter vivere di conseguenza.

È attraverso il parlare e il condividere con gli altri le esperienze dell’amore e del diventare che scopriremo nelle nostre relazioni ciò che siamo chiamati ad essere.

Eccoci riuniti nella città di Pietro. Chiediamo all’apostolo Paolo, che non ha avuto paura di rimproverare Pietro di ipocrisia e che ci ha insegnato che tutto è puro per i puri – Omnia munda mundis – di pregare per noi.

______

  1 Cfr. Deuteronomio 21,23.
  2 Cfr. Atti 10,11.

* James Alison, nato nel 1959 in Inghilterra, è un teologo cattolico, sacerdote e scrittore. Ha studiato, vissuto e lavorato in Messico, Brasile, Bolivia, Cile e Stati Uniti oltre che nel suo paese d’origine.
James ha conseguito il dottorato in teologia presso la Facoltà dei Gesuiti a Belo Horizonte, in Brasile. Esistono edizioni di alcuni libri di James in spagnolo, olandese, francese, russo e portoghese. Alcuni dei suoi scritti più recenti in diverse lingue possono essere trovati su http://www.jamesalison.co.uk
Una raccolta di suoi scritti è stato pubblicato in italiano nel 2007 da TransEuropa. (Ancona – Massa) con il titolo “Fede oltre Il risentimento: Coscienza Cattolica e Coscienza gay”. Un’ulteriore raccolta in italiano sarà disponibile presto a cura della stessa casa editrice.