Of Gods and Men (2010, in Arabic and French with English subtitles)
On the night of 26-27 March 1996, seven Trappist monks from the monastery at Tibhirine in Algeria were kidnapped by Islamist militants during the Algerian Civil War. Two months later, on 23 May, their kidnappers reported in a communiqué that the monks had been killed on 21 May. On 31 May the Algerian government announced that the monks’ heads had been discovered but their bodies were never found. Ever since, controversy has raged about the kidnappings and killings. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) claimed responsibility for both, but the then French Military Attaché reported that the monks had been accidentally killed by an Algerian army helicopter during an attack on a guerrilla position, then beheaded after their death to make it appear as though the GIA had killed them. It has also been claimed by conspiracy theorists that the GIA cell responsible had been infiltrated by the Algerian secret service.
Whatever the truth behind this appalling tragedy, what lies at the heart of this film is the rhythm and witness of this contemplative community in an Islamic country, 34 years after independence from France, in the increasingly tense final months before the murders. The names of the monks are real and, while the screenplay draws on documents, including the journal of the prior, Christian de Chergé, the characterisations of necessity are fictional.
Having spent a few weeks ten years ago living with a community of Trappist monks, I can say that the film captures with astonishing accuracy the austerity of their way of life. At times I felt that I was watching a documentary. Overall there was a serenity permeating this film arising from the community’s prayer life and its closeness to the villagers among whom they live and for whom they provide an outpatients’ clinic. And yet, paradoxically, this serenity is mixed with an underlying tension; we, the audience, know how this is going to end. Read more…
Quest Bulletin reported in the Spring 2011 issue that the coalition Government at Westminster had launched a consultation on civil partnerships on religious premises. In effect, following the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, the Government seeks to remove the ban on civil partnerships being held on religious premises. The consultation document issued in March 2011 made it clear that faith groups would be given the freedom to act as they wish in relation to registering civil partnerships on their premises and thus enable religious same-sex couples to formalise their relationship in a place of worship.
The then Chair, Peter Rodgers, asked Guy Torrance to draft a response on behalf of Quest. The summary of our response stated that the scope of the consultation and its proposals were too narrow in that faith groups might be protected from legal challenge in choosing not to allow their buildings to be used for civil partnerships but that government might itself be open to such challenge. The Quest response made clear its concern that Government may be seen to be legitimising discrimination by faith groups whilst those groups are fulfilling state functions (whether as to premises or persons). Currently the Catholic Church fulfils a state function when it registers marriages in its churches. Read more…
A new Quest Bulletin has been sent to print and will arrive to the members postboxes in next couple of weeks. – 28 pages of great read! Meanwhile, the digital colour version is already available for download (password-protected; Quest members can request the password from website@questgaycatholic.org.uk).
Todd A. Salzman & Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology. Georgetown University Press, 2008.
Salzman and Lawler are two lay and married moral theologians in the US. They have made a name for themselves as challenging thinkers, especially in the field of sexual ethics. In The Sexual Person they offer a thorough overhaul of sexual ethics in the light of the person-centred theological vision undergirding Vatican II. I suspect that very many of my fellow moral theologians will accept, as I do, much of what is found in this book, both at a general theoretical level and in their teasing out the implications for everyday life.
They take their starting point from Vatican II’s emphasis on the nature of the human person, as found in the Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes (GS). GS’s opening chapter is entitled, “The Dignity of the Human Person”. That is a kind of banner headline for its approach to morality, including issues in the field of sexual and marital ethics. A few bishops at Vatican II argued that sexual acts as such had their own specific nature over and above the nature of the human person. This was not accepted and n.51 of GS was worded very precisely to bring out this point. (cf. my New Directions in Moral Theology, pp.29-30) Moreover, the Drafting Committee insisted that this was “a general principle” which applied right across the board: “Human activity must be judged insofar as it refers to the human person integrally and adequately considered”. In fact, Humanae Vitae provoked such widespread criticism precisely because it seemed to disregard this key principle. The same is true regarding the current official teaching of the Church denying the goodness of sexual love in faithful homosexual relationships. Read more…
A feature of my nearby county town is the river that runs through its heart. For decades, however, the town has largely ignored the river. As a result it is mostly hidden from view by factories, a large brewery, and retail parks. Someone, however, has now woken up to the possibility of utilising the river as a focal point for leisure and a potential tourist lure by submitting an application for a floating restaurant adjoining a local park; the only open space on the banks of the river nearest to the town centre.
Objections to the scheme were initially raised by the unlikely alliance of the local police force and gay activists, the latter arguing that it will harm the openness, natural character and freedom of the area. In fact, the proposed three-deck floating restaurant is close to an area used by male and female cruisers and cottagers. A gay website describes it as a place where “fun can be found in-car and in the bushes as well” but warns ‘fun lovers’ “don’t leave your sex litter behind though, it gives us a bad name.” The police have since said they have not objected to the planned restaurant, but warned the town council that there could be a clash of interests between locals and cruisers. The local lesbian and gay alliance posed the question: ‘What about the needs of the gay community? How are they being met in terms of bars and clubs and social spaces?’ Read more…
When Mark Dowd began a teenage fling, a daring lie kept the true nature of his relationship secret. But when his former boyfriend died, he suddenly found himself in an excruciatingly sticky situation.
My flatmate greeted me with an unusually severe expression. It was 10pm after another long day at work and I slumped in the armchair. “You’d better check the answermachine,” he said. I walked over and pressed the red button. A message from a relative in Manchester. My 65-year-old father was dead.
Several gulps of whisky later, I plucked up the courage to ring home. A familiar voice said: “Are you all right? You don’t half sound queer.” It was my father – still very much in this world. What was going on? Sensing an almighty mess brewing, I quickly finished the call and replayed the message. It was from a man calling himself “uncle” whose first name I didn’t recognise. He had left a number and when the blunt Mancunian tone answered “Ronnie Craddock”, the surname sent my mind spinning back to 1979.
From his new home in Madrid, former Quest chair, Mark Dowd, reports on the difficulties that gays still face despite having some of the most liberal sexuality laws in Europe. A case perhaps of the Spanish equivalent of ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’ (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
Summer 2005. I am in Valencia on Spain’s east coast having swapped my London flat in a holiday exchange for a pad just a stone’s throw from the city centre. Tuning in to the evening news, there is a feature on a male couple. They are the first in the country to have taken advantage of the country’s new gay marriage legislation. The crew from TV España film their first full day as a married couple. And it rather resembles a scene from La Cage Aux Folles as the cameras capture them walking the dogs and ambling down to the bakery for pastries. You can tell that the reporter is keen to inject some tension into the piece by trying to find some detractors. She approaches a gaggle of elderly ladies dressed in solemn clothes. Surely they´ll provide a bit of homophobic opposition? Franco turning in his grave at the thought of same-sex marriage blessed by the state; that sort of thing. When I heard the vox pops, I knew that these new legal changes weren’t just superficial.
“Aren’t they lovely? Why shouldn’t they marry?” asked one woman in a severe black mantilla. “They’re very good with dogs…that’s what I like,” said her elderly companion. In the end, the reporter confessed she’d spoken to a lot of people but failed miserably to come up with any ammunition. So all is well in Spain then? It’s the new gay nirvana?
According to a press report, the actress Keira Knightly deliberately ignores her mobile when it rings, much to the displeasure of her mother. Keira said: “My mobile phone doesn’t really get answered a lot. I don’t like talking on the phone, which is a nightmare because my mother does.” Doubtless Keira’s celebrity status is the principal reason why she ignores phone calls, but I am pleased to be in such good company. Indeed, I will take my aversion a step further and pronounce a curse on the day the telephone was invented and a thousand curses on the day the mobile telephone was conceived.
I am in a deep sleep or enjoying an afternoon nap, the phone rings. I am praying, the phone rings. I am cooking, the phone rings. I am eating, the phone rings. I am washing up, the phone rings. I am reading, the phone rings. I am in the bathroom, the phone rings. I am watching a favourite TV programme, the phone rings. I am listening to music, the phone rings. It can only be the invention of Satan!
Irascible, belligerent, irritable: I admit to them all when it comes to life with the telephone. In my increasing desire for solitude and to taste something of the eremitical life, the culmination of many years of searching, the sound of a telephone ringing is an intrusion and a source of constant irritation. The answer would be to remove the irritant completely, landline and mobile; but, for the time being, this is not a viable option.
Paul Bailey. Chapman’s Odyssey. London: Bloomsbury, 2011.
This book is well worth reading; it is in turn funny, witty and touching in places and tells a good story.
The narrative is set in a hospital ward as an older gay man, Harry Chapman, hears ‘many voices’ and recalls memories from his life. Whilst he awaits surgery/investigations, the detailed and rich drama of recollections happens over a period of days nearly a week, but spanning all of Harry’s life! The voices are from his past plus a few historical surprises too! Paul Bailey is a master with words, so much so that by the end of reading this book you know Harry‘s character and his response to a lifetime of pain and pleasure.
I did wonder at one time if Harry was a stereotyped gay man – very arty, cultured and a writer of some sorts, but on the whole he is likeable for what he is .
The ending was a surprise to this reviewer, but I agree with Ali Smith who has some blurb on the back cover: ‘I love this beautiful book’.
Barbara Glasson. The Exuberant Church: Listening to the Prophetic People of God. Darton, Longman & Todd. ISBN 978-0-232-528619
One of the speakers at the Quest Conference in 2010 was the Reverend Doctor Barbara Glasson, a Methodist minister currently working in Bradford. Previously she led Somewhere Else, the community which hosts meetings of the Quest Liverpool group. As she prepared to leave Liverpool Barbara began a series of conversations with Kieran, other representatives of Quest and Storm, an ecumenical LGBT Christian group, and other people marginalised by mainstream faith groups. Her newly published book, The Exuberant Church, is the result of these conversations about how LGBT Christians, and other ‘coming-out people’, may be prophetic examples of the potential for new life and growth in the faith communities from which they spring. The text of her Conference talks form the basis of this book, hence they could not be published on the Quest website as usual. Barbara plans to launch her book at the Quest conference [This text was published in Spring 2011 - editor] this summer in recognition of the contribution this ‘prophetic community’ has played in the formation of this work. Here Quest Liverpool Convenor Kieran Bohan reflects on the coming out experience, based on Barbara’s pastoral and theological insights.
In writing about the process of ‘coming out’, Barbara Glasson describes how it takes ‘an unusual and specific sort of courage’. As a gay Christian man I can vouch for this from my own experience. And, as the convenor of the Quest group in Liverpool, and the co-ordinator of an LGBT youth group in the city, I think I can say with some authority that courage is indeed a defining characteristic of the process of questioning your identity and becoming something which defies the dominant norms of culture, society and faith. Read more…
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