Grace, Not Grievance

I recently read the 2024 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) report Religious Change in America, which states that “one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated.” The report adds that 35% of these people are former Catholics. It states that nearly half (47%) of respondents cited negative teachings about LGBTQ+ people in their religious tradition as a primary reason for leaving.

I also know that research shows that disaffiliation within the Catholic Church has increased among young adults, some of whom I am in conversation with because they are in my classes. So, I brought this topic to my Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) Seminar class. In our CIT seminars, we process in a synodal model where we listen carefully, reflect intentionally and engage in courageous civil dialogue about big questions and difficult topics. Their conversation was vigorous, animated and consistent with the PRRI report: “The Church says, ‘love one another’ but it does not show love for LGBTQ people;” “The Church does not treat women equally;” “The Church is not inviting.”  This is a class of mainly women and every one of them said they had a friend or a family member who is gay.

In CIT seminars, the faculty member steps back to allow the space for students to feel safe and free to discuss, and the faculty member does not dominate the conversation. But I did make minor contributions as the discussion unfolded. I mentioned Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican’s declaration on the blessing of same-sex couples as well as divorced and remarried couples (many of my students’ parents are divorced and remarried). I also mentioned how we understand and practice the Catholic intellectual tradition as an ongoing conversation where dialogue, inquiry and questioning can bring new understanding to the Church. They were deeply engaged in the conversation but I knew that there was no encounter with God’s love in this dialogue.

Shortly after this class, Dignitas Infinita was released, and I read it with mixed reactions. This declaration has been commented on thoroughly both on this blog and other news outlets, so I will not repeat what has already been cogently critiqued and analyzed. When I read the document, I was so glad to see the Church emphasizing its long-held core belief of the inviolable dignity of every human person, created in the image of God, and extending human dignity to capital punishment, violence against women, poverty, the status of migrants, human trafficking and sexual abuse. I was glad to read the declaration affirming human dignity regardless of sexual orientation and rejecting discrimination against LGBTQ people. But I was confused because the document also reinforced the discrimination it stood against. While I recognize that the Church must assert truth as it defines truth, I could not see in this declaration where faith and reason were in dialogue or where there was any intellectual engagement with the science that it outright denied. I could not see a listening or synodal Church accompanying, with compassion, the full range of the lived experience of transgender and non-binary people.

I felt too discouraged to want to continue the conversation I had days before with my students. I thought instead of the son of my friends and the eight-year journey that began in high school when he exhibited out of control behavior and abused drugs. Many psychiatrists and psychologists could not help. Finally, he was sent to a therapeutic wilderness program for six months where he was able to express the turmoil inside him. I had witnessed the pain and anguish, love and support that this family experienced until now when they celebrate their daughter who is happy and settled in her true gender identity.

Several weeks later, Cardinal Cupich came to Sacred Heart University and gave a talk on his reflections on Fr. Timothy Radcliff’s pre-synodal retreat last October. Cardinal Cupich selected three of Fr. Radcliff’s insights “as a pathway to confront our fears, doubts and divisions.” The one that struck me was Eucharistic hope in a time of division. Eucharistic hope looks at Catholic theology’s both/and approach: scripture and tradition, faith and works. Eucharistic hope looks at the renewal of the Church like making bread—bringing the margins to the center and the center to the margins. The Cardinal’s talk lifted the darkness in my heart and brought me a moment of Eucharistic hope. My students were in the audience and I wished that they too experienced hope. I hoped for grace, not grievance.

In Monday’s Fourth Week of Easter Reading, Peter is chastised for eating and spending time with uncircumcised people. Peter tells his chastisers that he has had a vision and that “the Spirit told me to accompany these people without discriminating,” (Acts 11:1-18). Would it be Eucharistic hope to imagine that synodal conversations in the Spirit would renew the Church’s thinking—like making bread, like Peter’s vision?

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Michelle Loris is the director of Center for Catholic Studies and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Sacred Heart University.