The former governor of New Jersey, who is also formerly married, heterosexual, and Catholic, is entering an Episcopalian seminary. The NorthJersey.com site reports:
Jim McGreevey’s tortured soul searching took him from governor to a “gay American.”
Now he could become the Rev. James E. McGreevey.
McGreevey, whose political career ended nearly three years ago amid claims of an adulterous affair with a male aide, is headed to the seminary to decide if he should become an Episcopal priest.
The 49-year-old McGreevey, who made his Catholic faith and upbringing was central to his public persona, has been accepted into a three-year master of divinity program at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, the school confirmed Wednesday.
The announcement comes just three days after the McGreevey, was formally accepted into an Episcopal church, also in Manahttan. ...
His formal embrace of the Episcopal Church makes a complete break from the Roman Catholic religion of McGreevey’s family and boyhood, a faith he often detailed in his public campaigns, complete with tales of being an altar boy and learning at the hands of dedicated nuns.
The Episcopal Church is the American offshoot of the Church of England, and is far more liberal than the Roman Catholic faith in which McGreevey was raised.
In the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, for example, there are about 20 openly gay priests and numerous congregations that are considered gay friendly. The diocese covers seven counties including Bergen and Passaic.
As strange as it might sound, I'm thankful that McGreevey is being honest enough about what he believes and how he wants to live to recognize that he could no longer be Catholic. Obviously, it would be far better if he were to reconcile with the Church. But, since that apparently isn't going to happen anytime soon, it's best that he not pretend to be a devout, obedient Catholic while holding views that clearly contradict Church teaching. Now, if only some other politicians would be equally honest and consistent...
I think that's right Carl. It is more honest not to pretend. Also, not that I have followed him closely, but McGreevey seems to avoid the shrillness and invective that marks a lot of former Catholics (or former Catholic wannabees).
I had to smile though when the Guv said he was lead to his decision by reading (the famous Anglican to Rome convert) Newman. The poor dope, what did he do, read Newman back to front?, last to first? what?
Posted by: Ed Peters | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 05:21 AM
I wish I could be as charitable as you gents. McGreevy strikes me as a consummate narcissist and opportunist and the word 'honest' seems alien in any discussion of what he does.
Posted by: Dan | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 07:19 AM
The Neumayr link is really good, as always.
It takes us back again to Testem Benevolentiae. The real problem here is "Americanism". The bishops in the US didn't "get it" in 1891, and they still don't get it today. The claims of the US state and culture are the problem.
When the US was a multi-ethnic empire, with lots of arriving immigrants, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was easier to ignore the "city on a mountain" rhetoric, and to focus on the practical reality of a space outside Protestant and anticlerical Europe where Catholics were comparatively free to practice their faith and participate in civic life.
Since World War II, however, the political and cultural claims of the US state and society have become, well, totalitarian. Mexican, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian (and even Scottish and English) bishops can challenge the claims of their states and prevailing cultures more forcefully because their states and prevailing cultures remain "hypotheses". The US state and culture are "given": to be "American", one must pledge allegiance to an ideology.
The US public discussion is carried on totally within the framework of this ideology. Thus, the US bishops have no native political or cultural "tools" with which to fashion a Catholic "public thing" in the US. This is why I think the prime thrust of Catholic politics and apostolate in North America should be reintegration with the rest of the Americas -- the Catholic Americas: we need to be welcoming as many Spanish Americans as are willing to risk coming north of Bush's fence. Their sheer numbers eventually might make this a Catholic country.
(A related aside: Why do we get upset about editorial cartoons that suggest that anti-abortion judicial decisions represent "Catholic jurisprudence" dictated by the bishops? We ought to be glowing with pride, connecting the dots between faith and legal reason -- and openly discussing the opportunities to advance the Catholic public thing, glorying in the fear the decision strikes in the hearts of the secularists and anti-Catholics).
Posted by: Robert Miller | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 07:42 AM
Dan. You might be right. I don't have the evidence for that, but your interp. of McG is not unreasonable.
RM: I won't get started, but for others, know, fwiw, that I for one think there's as much evidence that R1891 ome did not understand America as there is that Am. bishops is not understand TB.
Anyway, sooner or later people who want to discuss which kind of secualr gvt is best for Catholics (a discussion I enjoy cuz I DON'T know the answer) will simply have to come to grips with the REALITY that as bad as things are here in the USA, they are WORSE for the Church in almost every other significant place. iow, the burden seems to be on the anti-US crowd to show why its model is so bad notwithstanding, and not the other way around.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 09:56 AM
that was supposed to be "Rome in 1891". oops.
1 more thing: Personally, yes, I am proud of the fact the five Catholic justices had the brains to reject PBA. Sure. But it is bigotry to assert, as does the bigot Auth, that their decision was based on faith, and not on sound legal principles, universally applicable natural law, and cold hard logic.
I'm proud of Catholic martyrs, but I can still condemn the injustice to which they were subjected. What confusing about that?
Posted by: Ed Peters | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:01 AM
What I think we should argue is that because the majority justices are Catholics they were able to find their way to "sound legal principles,universally applicable natural law, and cold hard logic".
You don't have to have read very much of Pope Ratzinger to understand why this is so.
Posted by: Robert Miller | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:19 AM
RM. Worth thinking about.
Would you accept: "Because the majority justices are Catholics they were MORE EASILY AND/OR QUICKLY able to find their way to 'sound legal principles,universally applicable natural law, and cold hard logic' IN THIS CASE". ? It helps us avoid suggesting that only Catholics can use their brains. Reading a little Ratzinger helps us understand why this is so.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:26 AM
Auth's cartoon was reminiscent of that Thomas Nast cartoon showing Catholic bishops, their mitres transformed into crocodile snouts, crawling out of the sea and attacking the stalwart Protestants on shore. The bigotry is in the suggestion that the Church remains intent on subverting this nation through a conspiracy of infiltration.
Posted by: Dan | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:41 AM
Speaking of editorial cartoons:
http://www.catholiccartoonblog.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Jackson | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:42 AM
Touche on the Ratzinger reference.
When I speak of Catholics, I am thinking about people who believe that true faith and right reason (including the natural law)are ordered one to the other. You can't get to the natural law through US constitutional jurisprudence or precedent. You can't get to the natural law at all through any of the faiths or "non-faiths" that non-Catholic Americans hold today. In saying this, of course, I am not arguing that Catholics should disdain the collaboration of anyone who gets to the same practical conclusions by a different route (e.g., Christian Evangelical pro-life and pro-family folks).
Posted by: Robert Miller | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Dan is right. McGreevy presents himself as a consumate narcissist. He is, true to his penchant for sodomy, a perpetual juvenile; he is about "me, me, and more still of me".
Posted by: latinae | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 02:28 PM
His Holy Trinity (did Sheen say invent this?): Me, Myself, and I.
Posted by: Jackson | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 02:38 PM
How long before it will be Bishop McGreevy??? One wonders if he will someday "hook up" with Episcopal Bishop Robinson of N.H.
Posted by: deacon john m. bresnahan | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 04:03 PM