Diversity and Equality Philippines (diversityandequality.ph)

It’s September 5th. August has faded away.   8 8 8 is gone for a thousand years.

Yes. I am here.  I have been here, there, and everywhere. And that’s why so many were calling to ask: why no blogs? Why no emails?

Yes, August was a humdinger,   For one thing we had more weddings than any other month ever.  We had guy-guy weddings, gal-gal weddings, guy-gal weddings, and some weddings where gender was no issue at all. And isn’t that the way it is supposed be really, in justice, all the time?  Isn’t it really about  love? Instead of gender?

Well, we had weddings here; we had weddings in Mindanao,  and weddings all over Luzon.

It reminds me of a humorous footnote in my ministry in Manila. In 1994 one of the tabloids ran a four day series of page 1 stories about our “same-sex weddings.”  So many of them, they said, that Rev. Mickley is calling Los Angles for two more priests to handle all the weddings.  That was 14 years ago back when we were having one wedding a month. I had to go down to the newspaper office and virtually threaten the editor to “stop the untrue publicity.”

Now, Rev. Mickley is sending out a general SOS.  This time it is true. We do need help in this ministry.  The call is to those who have ministry experience, the call is to those who have only the love of God and love of people in their hearts. They can qualify for the ministry in our St. Aelred Seminary and  any other orthodox seminary.

You know I was asked last month on a national television talk show, “Is love ever mentioned in these same-sex weddings?”  What an insulting question. I gave a long answer, but the bottom line was: “It’s all about love.”

That incident brings out a terrible misconception so many people have about  same-sex love.  Do you know how the natives of Lindustristan make lov?  You probably think they do some really weird things.  But do you know? What do you know? You don’t know. And that’s the way it is with people who don’t know that “it’s all about love” in same-sex relationships.  It is “all about love.”

And now we need priests who will carry that message to us LGBT people, and their parents, and their families, and their neighbors, and all the people up and down the archipelago.

Two mothers recently came to see me, demanding that I cancel the wedding of their sons to one another. “It’s against the faith, against the church we love so much. How can this be in this country? How can this be happening to my son?” One mother was separated from the boy’s father and living with another man without benefit of marriage. I asked what her church  thought of that?  The other mother told her son, “If you have that wedding, don’t come back. You have no mother.” She knew as much about her son’s love as you know about love-making among the natives of  Lindustristan.

The Order of St. Aelred needs  priests, one two, or ten who can wipe out that ignorance, and let the truth of  our love be known. Ignorance begets prejudice. Your vocation is between you and God. Ask God what God is saying to you? Ask yourself: “What am I replying to God?”

Some countries are slowly wiping out societal prejudice against black people and against women.

Five countries (The Netherlands,  Belgium, Spain, Canada, and South Africa) have equal marriage (no gender test). Added to that are California and Massachusetts which are states which have equal marriage.  Many  other  jurisdictions have recognition of same-sex relationships under a name other than marriage.

I don’t think the legislators of the Philippines are courageous enough to do what the legislators of Spain (another Catholic country) have done.  Our legislators are quite allied with the Catholic bishops. The bishops hold the legislators in their hands (shall we say like puppets) on birth control, on same-sex recognition, on divorce, and, and, and… And we remain the only country n the world (along with Malta) which does not have divorce!

We cannot, and have no intention of trying to change the teachings of Islam, the Catholic Church or any other religion. They have a right to teach their followers their teachings. But do they have the right to hold the whole country hostage to their teachings – say on divorce, and, and, and.???  You know I am not anti-Catholic. I pray a Roman Catholic mass every day with Roman Catholics. I am anti-sex negative theology, wherever it is.

Bishop Burch recently sent me a wonderful article by the priest-sociologist and prolific author,  Fr. Andrew Greeley. I first encountered his wisdom when I was researching my first book in 1974-75. As he has done for the 30 some years I have been reading his works, he makes sense, sense, and more sense in a Catholic world which does not talk sense on sexual matters. Again he made the important point that many good Catholic people cannot and do not follow the church’s directives on many sexual matters (birth control, love, and divorce) because they don’t make sense.

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“God is Friendship.” (St. Aelred, 1110-1167)