Celebrating a more inclusive church

BACK IN THE mid-1960s, my aunt's husband did what a lot of other husbands (and wives) did with spouses who no longer filled their wish lists: traded her in for a younger model. Given the fact that my aunt was not even 30 at the time, you could rightly say that her eventual ex was a bit picky. In fact, given the age of the shiny new model he ended up choosing, Uncle "Johnny" was dangerously close to being known as "Uncle Holmesburg."

But this isn't about him. It isn't even about my aunt. This is about the priest who, when she was deathly ill from pneumonia, refused to give her last rites because she was a divorcee.

I always found it hard to believe that the church would have denied a dying woman the comfort of a sanctified death because someone else had decided to destroy her life, and that of her two young sons. But there are enough relatives who have firsthand knowledge of the incident that I believe it.

As it turns out, my aunt didn't die. Personally, I think it's because she was so annoyed at that callous priest that she wanted to be able to say, "I don't need your crummy sacrament." And just like that, she left the church.

My aunt's story was repeated over and over by a generation of Catholics who saw the rules of the church as mean-spirited, unrealistic and plain wrong. Of course, many chose to stay, and new blood (provided in large part by devout immigrants) has been pumped into a religion that is more relevant in this time of secular nihilism and anomie than ever before.

The interesting thing is that most of those who ended up leaving, even with good reason like my angered aunt, still maintained a strong interest in their former spiritual home and had their antennas attuned to any possible change in the rules. That didn't seem likely during the papacy of Paul VI who reaffirmed the immorality of artificial birth control. It wasn't even an issue during the monthlong papacy of John Paul I. It was absolutely off the table during the tenures of John Paul II and Benedict.

But then, something funny happened on the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis tangoed into town. And the disgruntled Catholics saw some light at the end of the tunnel.

That light started glowing brighter this past month with the release of an interim report from Rome that seemed to suggest that the Vatican was willing to become much more user-friendly, particularly if the user is gay, divorced or cohabiting.

I'm sure my aunt cracked a smile when she learned that bishops deliberating at the synod on families came out (no pun intended) with observations like "homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community" and implied that divorced and even cohabiting Catholics should be welcomed into the fold. The latter would seem like a no-brainer to the majority of people who look at the church as antiquated because so many Catholics are divorced and remarried, or have never married but are, let's face it, not just washing their hair at home alone on a Saturday night.

But the big focus, as you knew it would be, was on the so-called softening tone toward gay Catholics. In its usual penchant for drama and exaggeration, the media started using words like "pastoral earthquake" to describe what lazy thinkers were calling an embrace of same-sex unions by the hip bishops, following the lead of their Woodstock pope.

Unfortunately for both the wishful thinkers and the haters, that is never going to happen in a church that views the sacramental family as one that is headed by two loving, committed partners who are open to the creation of life. The church is not an entity that considers compromise to be particularly important and doesn't "go with the flow, man," particularly not on such a fundamental issue as what the purpose of marriage is.

On the other hand, Francis wants the church to appear more welcoming of those living in its margins and shadows, something that cuts across philosophical and political lines. This pope is simply trying to deliver a Christian message to those who live imperfect lives, which is essentially all of us.

But that's not enough for observers who deeply desire a sea change in a church that will never waive the white flag of surrender and validate same-sex unions. That's why religious exemptions from civil laws validating gay marriage must be strong and widely enforced.

That's also why the media were so wrong to interpret the statements from a working draft as fully supporting same-sex unions. At most, it was a recognition that human beings need love to survive, even the most imperfect kind. It was also a nod to those who, despite their best painful efforts, could not honor their marriage vows.

All these years later, I can still feel my aunt's pain when her own church turned its back on her, collateral damage in my uncle's sin. Any move toward easing that sort of pain should be celebrated.

That's all this is. But that's pretty damn good.