Today's Guardian newspaper reports that Harvard University is about to endow the US's first named professorship of sexuality.
The chair in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies introduces a discipline still in its infancy into the heart of the country's academic establishment.
Its supporters claim the move by one of the world's most august universities will send a message to other institutions globally that 'queer studies', as some call it, has finally arrived.
The chair has been backed by a $1.5m gift from the university's 4,600-strong caucus of gay men and lesbians which will fund an eminent visiting scholar to teach at Harvard on a rotating basis. The campaign was supported by 275 donors.
What would happen say if a Catholic priest were appointed to the chair or a number of Catholic priests attended lectures on the course?
Would the Vatican object? The Vatican well knows that there are gay priests, so what then would be the problem with a priest being appointed to the chair?
It would seem the issue with gay priests in the Catholic Church has to do with non-transparency and secrecy? And it is that non-transparency and 'secrecy' that has landed the Irish Catholic institutional church into such a nightmare at present.
It is not that one's sexuality is of public interest but it would seem the church goes to great lengths to deny the reality that actually exists.
And it really does seem quite extraordinary that the church leadership continues to bury its head.
When the media tries to equate liberal thinking with a go-easy approach to issues of homosexuality within priesthood, it appears they are missing the point. It would seem that there is a far greater link between homosexual priests and doctrinaire orthodoxy. Maybe anecdotal but no less real.
But the 'issue' all the time seems to be one of obfuscation and 'keeping the lid' on things. Surely it is this very 'thing' that leads to such pain, hurt and maybe deviance.
Then again, maybe lids need to be kept tight and firm! Who knows.
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2 comments:
Michael,
It's interesting that you automatically associate the chair of sexuality with gay and lesbian issues. What about heterosexuality? Do you assume that this is 'normal', and so does'nt require any further investigation or study?
On a separate point,, I caould never understand why the term 'queer' studies is used in this context.
A valid point. I suppose I was reporting what appeared in The Guardian on the day.
I am now just a five minute walk from the memorial to homosexuals who were victims of the nazis. It is a shocking blot on German history. Here one cannot but think of the lines from Pastor Niemoller.
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