I am feeling tired but content this morning. I have just finished the final chapter draft - my contribution to a book called The Edge(s) of God: New Liturgical Texts and Contexts in Conversation. Assuming the editors still like it now it's been revised, it will come out, I guess either later this year or early next. I am like a child with a new toy. still in its protective wrapping. I want it out of the packaging and to be able to play with it now! I am really keen to hear what people feel about what I have written. I hope it's good enough to be included.
I read the script back early this morning before I set about preparing it for posting and I was pleased I had written it. I find trying to articulate issues regarding disability and the practice of the Church exceptionally difficult. I want the challenging things I say to be accessible and not 'turn people off' from the discussion, even though I am addressing subjects which aren't very comfortable. How do we exclude people from belonging in our churches? Why do we deny the validity of attitudes which are hugely different from our own? I would be very weary of a church where everyone thought, spoke and acted like me - indeed that could easily be a working definition of Hell!
Following the current national debate on gay adoption and the Roman Catholic Church, this is a case in point. The reality is that same-sex couples are very unlikely to access adoption services from the Roman Catholic Church given their exceptionally well publicised position on the importance of heterosexual marriage. I can respect the position they hold regarding the sanctity of marriage even if I don't personally agree with it without some critical revisions included! I can even agree, as a foster carer and adoptive parent myself - with my partner - that the shear practicalities of engaging in the lives of older children who are placed for adoption means that at the very least, you need either a very loving partner to honour you; listen to you; and scrape you off the floor when you are in the doldrums - or you must have the closest and most committed of friendship networks - who will stand by you through thick and thin.
I am struggling with the opposite notion from Archbishop Rowan. I cannot see why the Church should or could plead extenuating circumstances and still claim funding for the work they do from central government. We have a very acute need to find caring households for children who, for whatever reason, are unable to remain in their birth families. As a society we try and encourage birth families to remain as a unit if at all possible - and so if the placement breaks down - eventually, the reality of the situation is that the child will need very high levels of support and care.
Finding a person or people to undertake the task of caring in a loving way for another person's child is not easy. Any person, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation is capable of offering security, consistancy and love. Although I uphold the Roman Catholic Churches right to choose not to accept applications from gay prospective adopters, I do not understand how they can justify receiving government funding for their non-inclusified policy.
I need help to get my head round that.
I am surprised that the Archbishops seem so cut up about the government refusing to back down on this issue. It is not a question, surely, of the state telling the Church what to do (although there are plenty of historical precidents for that) but rather the state setting the boundaries under which it requires the various partners in care to operate together for the good of society and the accountability of us all. If the dominant attitudes in society are not to our liking as a Church, then we must stand in a long and courageous tradition with our forbears and be prepared to present our message, values and understanding of humanity in ways which subvert and engage with the prevailing attitudes of our time. We cannot side step vigorous debate by pleading a special case; nor claim a dispensation on the grounds that our values are counter-cultural. We need to engage and in doing so recognise that we may also be changed by the interaction.