Perplexing

I don't know what to make of this.

Catholic Church maliciously blocks new job for Father Geoffrey Farrow

Have you wondered whatever became of that California priest who refused to give in to a directive from his bishop to instruct folks to vote yes on Prop 8?

If you've been following his blog, you know that Father Geoffrey Farrow was suspended for following his conscience but continues to work for LGBT justice.

The fact that he is barred from functioning as a Roman Catholic priest is bad enough, but recently, through mutual friends, I received some sad news about Father Geoff. News that makes me extremely angry. News that demonstrates the malice of a church that preaches the love of Jesus while deliberately persecuting a priest who for all the right reasons dared to follow the real teachings of Jesus.

Father Geoffrey Farrow had applied for a position with the Los Angeles branch of CLUE, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

CLUE identifies itself as follows:

We are an interfaith association of over 600 religious leaders throughout Los Angeles County who come together to respond to the crisis of the working poor.

CLUE derives a significant part of its funding from the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Today I spoke with a member of CLUE's board of directors, Rev. James Conn, a Methodist minister and Director of New Ministries for the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church. Reverend Conn had been directly involved in the recruitment and interview process involving Father Geoff.

I asked him if CLUE had denied Father Geoff a second interview specifically because the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles threatened to cut off all its significant funding for CLUE should Father Geoff ever be offered the position in question.

As incredible as it may seem, Reverend Conn confirmed the truth of this and expressed his heartfelt disappointment over the fact that CLUE had to choose between continuing the interview process with an extremely promising and qualified candidate or risk losing the financial support of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles that is critical to CLUE's work.

A second interview with Father Geoff had been scheduled for December 15, 2008, but on December 13, Father Geoff received a phone call from CLUE expressing disappointment over their decision to terminate the interview process solely because of the threat made by the archdiocese of Los Angeles whose representative on CLUE's board of directors had brought the situation to the attention of the highest level of authority in the archdiocese.

It is important to note that, in his interview, Father Geoff was not trying to pass himself off as a priest "in good standing" with the Roman Catholic Church, and that the bishop who suspended Father Geoff is the ordinary of a different diocese.

It is also important to note that the ministry performed by CLUE is to the poor. Its primary focus is not the LGBT community. Father Geoff would not be representing the Catholic Church on matters of faith and morals in his new position.

It is important to note that at the age of 51, after having devoted 23 years of his life to the Roman Catholic Church plus an earlier 7 years in the seminary, Father Geoff has had his medical benefits discontinued and is without income and assistance from his bishop. While it is disgusting that his bishop has turned his back on Father Geoff, it is infuriating to think that his bishop would conspire with the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles to block gainful and appropriate employment.

I am well familiar with the jargon of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. They will say that they feel compassion for Father Geoff and that they pray for him, but their actions speak too strongly and demonstrate deliberate malice. They do not wish him well. And, God forbid that they should have ever proactively attempted some sort of out-placement effort on his behalf. Some bishops privately do that on behalf of priests who leave, but not the hard-hearted bishop who cut off Father Geoffrey Farrow nor the malicious Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles.

I am writing this because I've learned over the years that the Roman Catholic Church gets away with this kind of despicable and inhumane treatment of men who choose to follow their conscience only when its bad deeds are not held up to a strong light. Father Geoff does not wish CLUE to lose its funding and therefore has remained silent about this, but his friends have brought this situation to my attention, and I want Catholics in California and beyond to understand clearly the level of unchristian behavior and deliberate malice of which their bishops and cardinals are capable.

I hope you will consider going to CLUE's website and leaving them a message about your feelings (please keep in mind that CLUE wanted to continue its interview with Father Geoff so don't paint them as the "bad guy". If you want to leave a message for the real "bad guy", you may contact the office of Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Archdiocese of Los Angeles
3424 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010-2202
213 637 7000
info@la-archdiocese.org

Ask them why they hate Father Geoff. When they assure you that they do not hate him, ask them to prove it and soon. Right now, more than their insincere prayers, he needs a job.

Michaelangelo Signorile interviews Father Geof Farrow

You've probably been to his blog and read his words but here is a fine interview that will let you hear his voice and ought to indicate why I think he is sincere. I may not agree 100% with the way he handled his announcement, but whole teams of presidential candidate handlers have done a lot worse than this one priest at getting their message across.

I hope he's got a rich boyfriend because the job market for such a man is very limited.

Father Geoff Farrow's press conference statement

Go here to read what Father Geoff has said regarding Prop 8, counseling gay people, what he did and why he did it. Here is the comment I left on his post:

Exactly. You know, of course and probably by heart, the rebuttal. Your bishop will claim that following the teachings of Christ is challenging but not impossibly onerous. He will say that Christ speaks through his Church and that His truth has been revealed through the magisterial authority of the Pope and his bishops, and that the route to salvation is revealed through Church tradition and laws based on that tradition. He will discount your compassion. He will say that your conscience is malfunctioning. He will say that you have fallen prey to modernism and a theology of convenience.

He will make that which is so simple and clear very complicated and distorted. It will come down to whether the listener decides that he is speaking for Jesus or that you are speaking for Jesus.

Permit me a story. My own mother once faced a moral dilemma. She wanted to pursue something that she knew was against church law but it seemed right to her. She was conflicted. Did she think it was right just because it was desirable, she wondered. She asked my counsel. I told her to do it. (I think I may have said "Go with your bad self".) She said, "I knew that's what you would say." She then asked a priest who was a good friend of mine. She worked as his parish secretary. He told her the same thing I did. Her response to him was the same. Finally she went to an elderly Monsignor who had known our family for decades. He said "Marge, you know in your heart what you must decide." She took this to mean "No, you can't." She did it anyway, but she went to confession to the elderly monsignor and she felt forgiven and relieved. All four of us got a good laugh out of it, and it clearly demonstrates how traditional Catholics think their way through stuff.

Times have changed. Those quaint games are over. It's time to take the lid off the nonsense of 20th century Catholicism and return to a healthier more mature (I won't say sophisticated) approach to Jesus who has patiently been waiting lo these many years for his priests to do exactly what you have done.

Father Geoffrey Farrow to be interviewed today

Michaelangelo Signorile will interview Father Geoff on Sirius radio today at 4:30PM EST.

UPDATE: postponed until later in the week.

Father Geoffrey Farrow and the Third Army.

This article is of interest to me primarily because it will help keep the Catholic Church from burying this man's story. I am not surprised that the Bishop of Fresno would say something like "You're suspended and stop talking about this on the internet" (I haven't seen the bishop's letter to Geoff whose call I missed last night, but I hope he'll read me that laughable section when we talk later today.)

The article is also of interest because it leans more heavily on the comments of irate parishioners who disapprove of what Father Geoff has done and/or how he did it. It leans less heavily on the comments of supportive parishioners. If you read the comments on Geoff's blog, you will be moved by the compassionate words from many of his parishioners and from clergy and religious folk from around the globe. All the same, the LA Times writers would be inclined to highlight the disapproving mob (despite the fact that its size may be eclipsed by that of the cheerful side of the street) because this is a war story needing opposing camps and one hero and some colorful villains. The bishop who seems to be insufficiently colorful is enhanced by the parish deacon, a man known only to me by his actions and words in this matter. But I've seen this type before. Clerical-wannabes who trumpet the party-line and are always jumping up to fall on their toy swords whenever anyone says a word against the bishop or the pope. When Geoff made his first announcement on Sunday in his church, this gung-ho deacon rushed to the altar before the congregation dispersed to assure everyone that Father Geoff would certainly be replaced by a new pastor. If anyone should have been fired for his words, it is this over-stepping deacon who, a week later, dosed the same congregation with a church history lesson concluding with a reminder to vote yes on Prop 8. A sufficiently colorful and idiotic villain, at least the way he has been drawn by the reporters.

There is also in this war story a third army. That vast and impotent legion of gay priests who are afraid to come out of their rectory closets. Newspaper reporters have difficulty depicting them because they will not speak and they will not be seen and they will not come to the defense of a man who has lost everything including his health insurance because he has spoken his conscience. How do you include them in a fair and unbiased report when they fearfully refuse to be counted?

When I ceased functioning as a priest, I received no support and certainly no expression of concern from my bishop. I did receive immediate notification from the Chancellor that my health coverage had been terminated and that I would now be responsible for the repayment of my student loans which up until then had been handled by the diocese. When I received that letter, I thought "So. They do know where I live. They do have my address. If they were worried about me, they could have reached out to me." More than anything else in my life, that moment, standing at my mailbox and reading that letter, helped me realize the truth about the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. They are at heart a terrifically unchristian lot. I suddenly knew where I stood with them but I also knew where I stood with Jesus Christ whom I rather believed to be sympathetic with my new life of extreme poverty and integrity.

I made a hand-written response to the Chancellor apologizing for the fact that I no longer had access to a typewriter, and I explained to him that he had not seen me lately at the health club/spa to which we both held memberships because I could no longer afford it. I reminded him of the fact that when I was a seminarian, the Archdiocese had promised to repay the loans upon my ordination. Because the diocese had instructed the lender to pursue me for payment, I was now receiving threatening demands for money I did not have. I told the Chancellor that I thought this was unfair, and I made a very clear and explicit threat to go to the local media with the story of my situation. I received a very swift and curt response stating that the diocese would resume repayment of my student loans.

I did not have health coverage or dental coverage for a couple of years, but I was young and had rarely used it while I had it. I did not miss it at the time. Only with hindsight can I realize the importance of what the bishop was doing when he cut me off financially. This will certainly be more of a hardship for the fifty year old Father Geoff.

Father Geoff's story obviously awakens unpleasant personal memories some of which are too painful for me to recount. I hope his survival instincts are as strong as were mine. Also, with unrealistic optimism, I hope that when he returns from the desert into which he has been cast, he will find that third army ready to march.

Father Geoffrey Farrow has been suspended.

I left the following comment on his blog post about the suspension:

Dear Father Geoff,
We rather knew it would come to this. Sadly, a man does not get to be a bishop by championing truth and by facilitating the movement of the Holy Spirit. He is given authority because he can be trusted to uphold the laws of Roman Catholicism. The kindness you extend to the bishop of Fresno is noble but undeserved. Shame on him for having passed on an opportunity for greatness and witness to the real message of Jesus Christ. He has unfortunately chosen to be ordinary in every sense of the word.
You shine a bright light on some important issues, and I am hoping that your voice will be heard widely because of this suspension. If only your brother priests had but a fraction of your courage.

Father Geoff Farrow: the blog

I'm going to be following his blog, prepared to read about the retribution and blind hostility that will come his way. I think he is up to the challenge.

PS: The first post contains the text of his excellent sermon.

Father Geoffrey Farrow, my hat is off to you.

I just got off the phone with Father Geoffrey Farrow. (A blogger friend of his suggested I contact him and was kind enough to facilitate our introduction.)

If the word gracious can be undertstood to mean filled with grace in the spiritual sense, I’d like to apply it to Father Geoff who has surely fired a graceful shot to be heard round the world.He seems like a gentle man. A man of integrity who demonstrates once again that the greatest thing a man can do in this world is simply to be true to himself and to care about the people entrusted to him.

Trained in different seminaries and assigned to pastoral ministry in different parts of the country, our paths seem not to have crossed, but there is not a word of his magnificent story that felt foreign to me.

Having refused to bind himself to a directive from his bishop regarding Prop 8, and having delivered himself of a fine sermon about the nonsensical and un-Christian stance of the Roman Catholic Church regarding gay men and women and gay marriage, Father Geoff will return to his parish this weekend as usual and until he hears otherwise, will continue to serve his parishioners as usual. He has not been suspended.

Not yet. And this was a large portion of our conversation. Father Geoff has put the bishop of Fresno in a spectacularly awkward position. If he ignores what Father Geoff has said from the pulpit, he will catch hell from Rome. If he suspends Father Geoff or in any way reduces his faculties, he will be rightly demonized for silencing an honest and sincere priest who puts the message of Jesus Christ above the hidebound laws of the church, and he will find himself in the center of a defining war that has been percolating for far too long.

Father Geoff is unsure of his future, but he says that for the first time in years he feels at peace with himself while fearful about his ability to deal with the strife and tumult that is about to come his way. He said, “I feel like the little boy in the crowd who says the emperor is naked.”

We talked about the fact that most priests are gay, and about the power structure that keeps them silent when in their hearts they know they should be working to overturn the ridiculous mistreatment of gay people by the Catholic Church. He said that at a gathering of priests that followed the news about his sermon, the bishop was assured by many of the priests that Father Farrow was wrong and should be punished. This is disgusting and yet so very believable.

I wish I could shout out to all the thousands of gay priests out there. This is your chance, guys. Father Geoff took the first shot. He made the bold jump. Are you going to let him stand there alone and vulnerable? Are you going to turn your back on him? Or, will you stand up and be counted? Will you use your pulpits to support what he has begun?

The bishop can get away with suspending one man, but he cannot suspend all of you.

Do the right thing. This is why you were ordained.