Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco recently approved language for a new high-school teachers’ contract and handbook that called on faculty to avoid publicly challenging the Church’s position on issues like same-sex “marriage” and abortion; the statement called on teachers “to avoid fostering confusion among the faithful and any dilution of the schools’ primary Catholic mission.” “[A]dministrators, faculty and staff of any faith or of no faith are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths,” read the language of the schools’ statement. “To that end, further, we all must refrain from public support of any cause or issue that is explicitly or implicitly contrary to that which the Catholic Church holds to be true.” The statement also affirmed Catholic doctrine on contraception, chastity and same-sex “marriage:” “We accept the Church’s teaching that all extramarital sexual relationships are gravely evil and that these include adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations.”
As a lost child of the 1970s and 80s Catholic parochial school system, I can personally testify that the efforts of Archbishop Cordileone have nothing to do with bigotry, self-righteousness, or ecclesiastical control or overreach, but primarily concerns innocent children who have been placed under the care of instructors who may, or may not, uphold or pass on the True teachings of the Catholic Church; yet, this is not just a matter of pedagogy or differences in educational styles, but a fight for the minds, and for some, especially those who may be already been influenced by the pop-culture pull towards homosexuality as the answer for same-sex desires, it’s a fight for their very lives.
In my own experience, as a student in Catholic schools all the way from first grade through high school - what I learned, or failed to learn from teachers and priests had a major impact on my future life after graduation. For the most part, Christ was presented as all-too-human, as a lovable and rather disinterested historical spiritual master; sort of the Christian equivalent to Mahatma Gandhi. As for His teachings - he mainly suggested that: we share our lunches with classmates, pick up garbage in the schoolyard, and be nice to our little brothers and sisters. First Holy Communion was casually staged as a communal gathering around a table - with Jesus as the maître de. The only thing memorable: in eighth grade, a minor scandal erupted at school when one of the associate priests offered instruction on the evils of masturbation; he was then resoundingly scolded by the pastor and never heard from again within the confines of the classroom.
High school religion was a bizarre practice in avoidance and meeting a superfluous academic requirement necessary for graduation. Early on, we sat through a screening of the recent R-rated film “The Breakfast Club.” In another class, the teacher compared Jesus to the character of Spock in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn;” Jesus as self-giving alien and humanitarian of big Buddhist proportions. It was nonsense. In another, the female teacher could barely mask her support for abortion rights - in a year that saw the first woman candidate for Vice-President; I remember writing an essay about how I thought contraception was a worthy means of population control and thus ensuring environmental sustainability - she praised my conclusions; being at best a mediocre student - in my mind, this was treasured praise. In my senior year, I opted out of religion by volunteering as an aid at a local public school.
Armed with nothing, I was defenseless and stupid. My estimation of being a good Christian entailed fostering an accepting and non-judgmental nature. Christ has been presented as such an empty shell - a rather bland and insipid good guy; the last thing He inspired was praise and adulation. Instinctively, I knew I needed more. And, from the time when I was a child, ever since I saw The Village People gyrate on the Merv Griffin Show, I wondered if I was gay. I didn’t know where to go or where to turn. The Church? It was highly irrelevant, as outdated and superfluous as the stupid Simon and Garfunkel songs they forced us to learn and sing at Mass. Even as a kid, and as a teenager, I could sense that the Church was weak and discordant; the ever-present contrast of the celibate male religious who nevertheless had pet-boy favorites, and the lay faculty who looked with disdain on what they perceived as an antiquated bureaucracy hopelessly stuck in the past; they didn’t believe in it – so, then, why should those they taught. There was nothing that I could draw from; there was nothing to help me: I thought, Jesus had tried to do His best, but He was long dead.
Echoing in my head was the song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” from 1967; in the 80s, there was the cyclical feeling of nostalgia for an era that was 20 years in the past; the 60s, for the 80s generation, symbolized so much: the antidote to Reagan conservativism; a time of free-love before AIDS, and a moment when San Francisco was the epicenter of the cosmos. Feeling lured towards something seemingly time-tested and still relevant, after 12 years of Catholic schooling, I ran to the Castro and the Haight-Ashbury. I felt as if I had been bullied and attacked for years; I wanted to leave it all behind. One of my social studies teachers in high school, then in her 40s, romanticized the openness and experimentation of San Francisco in the 60s to such a degree that she regarded it as the American version of the High-Renaissance. There, I thought I would meet the modern gay Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci; in fact, what I found there was the Marquis de Sade.
Far from being a haven for sexual liberation, the gay world was a wasteland of lost boys: all seeking some solace for a childhood wound that they couldn’t even admit to. Most of those that I met, even when I sunk to desperate lows in the hell of gay porn, were former Catholic school boys. We shared much of the same history. At once, we all began to live the same daydream; and the same nightmare. We were the children of confusion; experiments in a post-Vatican II landscape that imagined a new reality without absolutes. We were taught to find our own truths; our own paths of happiness and righteousness. But, we couldn’t. Instead – we looked towards the world. Only, the world didn’t care about our souls – it simply wanted to manipulate our brains and abuse our bodies. As the years passed – I watched helplessly as my friends gasped and coughed their way to death; they still had nothing to cling to; and, I had nothing to offer. Like the Church of our youths, Jesus was merely the sing-song hippie; gone by the wayside like the faded Summer of Love. For the most part, they died scared and alone. Yet, thorough the Grace of God – I was saved from the same fate; for them, and for the future – I speak out; and, as St. Paul said: “I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.”