Inclined to disagree

The U.S. Catholic bishops took another step toward irrelevance yesterday, issuing three documents that are likely to go over like lead balloons among most Catholics.

The first, "Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination," gets dinged from the beginning for not even getting the vocabulary right. I'm waiting for the document that would address the care of persons with a heterosexual "inclination," whatever that is. The bishops get credit for insisting that the children of same-sex couples must be baptized, though this document isn't as strong as the injunction in canon law itself.

Document two, "Married Love and the Gift of Life," will no doubt win the eye-rolls it richly deserves from married couples of childbearing age, only 4 percent of whom practice the Natural Family Planning it endorses. If I were married, though, I'd be more irritated that a group of men who know absolutely nothing about the financial, psychological, and interpersonal demands of childrearing presume to speak so bluntly about a "generous" attitude toward fertility. Add to that the insulting statement that marital sex that uses artificial contraception is merely "casual" and tantamount to lying, and you get a sure winner with the married set.

Finally, and perhaps most sadly, “ 'Happy Are Those Who Are Called To His Supper' ”: On Preparing To Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist" encourages those to whom the first two documents apply to refrain from receiving communion if they can't or won't toe the line on gay sex, contraception, and a host of other issues. All I can say is that the day the bishops issue a document on worthiness to preside at Eucharist (Cardinal Law, anyone?), I'll pay attention to a document about who is "worthy" to receive.

All three of these ill-conceived statements share the same problem: Never did the bishops make any effort to consult those addressed. Heaven forbid that the bishops should hold a public dialogue with gay and lesbian Catholics, much less with married ones. No, armed with their infused knowledge, "the grace of orders," or naked presumption, the bishops have once again treated the people of God as a voiceless mass, fit only to listen, never to speak. The bishops are content, it seems, to stay safely in their own magisterial echo chamber.