Tuesday, August 26, 2008 | Reason : In the News | print version

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Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

by The Independent

Thanks to Corylus for the link.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/plan-to-exhume-cardinal-is-homophobic-907797.html

Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

By Robert Verkaik

The Catholic Church is under growing pressure to abandon the "homophobic" exhumation and reburial of the body of one its most famous cardinals, in defiance of his wish to lie for eternity next to the man he loved.

Gay rights campaigners have accused the Vatican — which has ordered the disinterment in the first step towards beatification — of attempting to cover up the sexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who died in 1890.

Opposition to the reburial among some British Roman Catholics has been bolstered by a new poll organised by The Church Times which shows that a majority of Anglicans are now against the separation of Cardinal Newman, a former Anglican clergyman, and Father Ambrose St John who lived together as "husband and wife" for most of their late adult lives.

Yesterday, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told The Independent: "The Vatican's decision to move Cardinal Newman's body from its resting place is an act of grave robbery and religious desecration. It violates Newman's repeated wish to be buried for eternity with his life-long partner Ambrose St John.

"They have been together for more than 100 years and the Vatican wants to disturb that peace to cover up the fact that Cardinal Newman loved a man. It's shameful, dishonourable betrayal of Newman by the gay-hating Catholic Church."

The Church Times' poll found that 80 per cent of responders were opposed to the Vatican's decision to move Newman's body.

But Austen Ivereigh, former advisor to Cardinal Cormac-Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, told BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme yesterday that Mr Tatchell's criticism was a nonsense. Mr Ivereigh said the reburial was "part of the process to the journey towards canonisation" so his remains can be taken to a suitable city to allow pilgrims "to venerate the saint to be". He added: "I don't think anyone disputes that Cardinal Newman deeply loved Ambrose St John. He did say after St John died that the grief is comparable to a husband losing a wife or wife losing a husband, but he did not mean that the relationship with Ambrose St John was a marriage like a gay relationship. It is simply wrong to read back from today's categories into the Victorian periods when these very intense, passionate, but totally celibate relationships in Oxford and among the Anglocatholic community were very common."

Cardinal Newman and Ambrose St John share a memorial stone and are buried side by side in the same grave in Rednal, Worcestershire. Cardinal Newman wrote shortly before his death: "I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Father Ambrose St John's grave — and I give this as my last, my imperative will."

On their gravestone is a Latin inscription, "there from the shadow and images into the truth", which many people believe is a posthumous coming out.

The Ministry of Justice has granted a licence for the removal of the Cardinal's remains into a sarcophagus to stand opposite the Holy Souls Altar in the Birmingham Oratory. Pope Benedict is likely to declare Cardinal Newman as blessed in November, which could lead to canonisation.

Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 | Permalink

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1. Comment #237181 by rod-the-farmer on August 26, 2008 at 6:57 am

They have to dig him up to make him a saint ? Is this creepy or what ? And to those who think there is room for dialog between Catholics and Muslims and their ban on idolatry, good luck !

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2. Comment #237182 by carbonman on August 26, 2008 at 7:00 am

Nothing at all can be gained by moving this man's remains. The proposal to move them seems to be an act of arrant selfishness on the part of the church: in their self-centred eyes, their meaningless rituals trump the man's last wishes.

That said, if I were the man buried, I wouldn't give a hoot where they put my bones, as long as they didn't cause my descendants unnecessary grief by moving them.

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3. Comment #237183 by Quetzalcoatl on August 26, 2008 at 7:03 am

Ah, the good old forward-thinking Catholic Church is hard at work again. I've always thought this particular Christian sect is practically polytheistic, with its endless veneration of Mary and the saints, and this act of grave-robbery just adds to that.

Why would you even need to move the body at all? Couldn't "pilgrims" visit the grave if they were that concerned about paying their respects? And why would anybody want to visit a hundred-year-old corpse to begin with?

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4. Comment #237186 by stptrck75 on August 26, 2008 at 7:07 am

Yet they still want to make this man a saint? I'm so confused. Wouldn't his sexuality exclude him from sainthood?

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5. Comment #237187 by Sargeist on August 26, 2008 at 7:10 am

I'm with carbonman on this one. Every now and then I'll find myself musing on the topic of funerals and their arrangements - for example, my landlady was redoing her will not too long ago and she was talking about what music she would like at her funeral. And, because the topic has come up, I find myself starting to think: hmm, yeah, what songs would I like? Hmm, let me think...

... and then I'll snap out of it and realise that I am thinking utter bollocks. I really don't give a stuff what happens to me after I'm dead. People can do whatever the hell they want. For all I care (and for all I will ever know, of course) they could dress me up in a tutu, paint my face orange and have a great big sing-a-long about what a devout Christian I was, while reading out my "favourite" passages of the Old Testament.

I find it very very hard (nigh on impossible) to even care mildly about what people do to or for me after I am dead. I must have a bit of my brain missing.

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6. Comment #237189 by SamKiddoGordon on August 26, 2008 at 7:12 am

I hate to say it, but there is only one word to describe it. Fucktards

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7. Comment #237190 by Sargeist on August 26, 2008 at 7:12 am

I do wonder, though, what the laws actually are that govern what happens to one's body after death. Do I own it? I still own my property, in some sense, seeing as I am allowed to specify to whom it is given.

Lots of fiction has been written around peculiar stipulations in wills, but I wonder how much legal weight is actually applied to these. Can I, for whatever reason, actually legally require, for example, that a person is allowed to inherit my vast sums of cash only if they wear a blue hat and sing Waltzing Matilda in Brent Cross shopping centre every July 24th?

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8. Comment #237196 by Cartomancer on August 26, 2008 at 7:23 am

It is simply wrong to read back from today's categories into the Victorian periods when these very intense, passionate, but totally celibate relationships in Oxford and among the Anglocatholic community were very common."

Quite simply irrelevant. One could say with just as much conviction that it is simply wrong to read back from today's categories into the sixteenth century and declare that Henry VIII had six wives, because his marriages were nothing like the marriages we have now.

I doubt there is any evidence either way as to whether Newman and St. John's relationship had a sexual element to it. But why can gay relationships not be celibate? Many straight relationships are, and nobody feels any doubt about calling them relationships. Just because their weird catholic sensibilities made them vow celibacy, that doesn't mean they weren't gay. It's possible that they were simply very very good friends, but the language used, in a Victorian context, leaves little doubt that there was a deep love present - it would be obtuse not to credit that.

It is a commonplace when discussing homosexuality in the past to begin with the disclaimer that our modern categories of gay, straight and bisexual were not recognised in all past societies. This is true, but in the light of modern scientific research it seems a dangerously postmodern and overly relativistic thing to emphasise. We know that the origins of sexual orientation are largely biological, and we know that our human biology has not changed appreciably in historical timescales. However past societies have conceptualised sexual orientation, there is undoubtedly an underlying biological phenomenon that is the same across all of them.

As an ironic aside, though, I had my first kiss in front of a bust of Cardinal Newman, in the grounds of Trinity College where he was a member, when I was nearly 23. Though I didn't choose to do it there, it sort of just happened.

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9. Comment #237198 by Jesus was a zombie on August 26, 2008 at 7:28 am

"Can I, for whatever reason, actually legally require, for example, that a person is allowed to inherit my vast sums of cash only if they wear a blue hat and sing Waltzing Matilda in Brent Cross shopping centre every July 24th? "

Please stop, you're giving me ideas. My will is gonna be so bloody strange!

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10. Comment #237200 by ridelo on August 26, 2008 at 7:30 am

It's about time for a patron saint for gays and lesbians. Well? What are they waiting for?

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11. Comment #237204 by Pattern Seeker on August 26, 2008 at 7:48 am

ridelo-

There already is...

In 244 C.E. (current era), St. Tarcissus, a patron saint for gay Catholics who died at the age of 13 in the arms of a Christian soldier, was canonized.

More on this site-
http://www.otkenyer.hu/halsall/lgbh-gaysts.html

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12. Comment #237205 by larhule on August 26, 2008 at 7:52 am

"Jesus was a zombie". You gotta check out this song my friend wrote.

http://www.myspace.com/schafferthedarklord

It's called "Night of the Living Christ".

"Now tell me 'what would Jesus do?'
Well let me tell you what he'll do!
He will leave a trail of goo
As he prays
He prays on you!"

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13. Comment #237206 by Raiko on August 26, 2008 at 7:52 am

Suggestion: Make a living homosexual a saint. THAT would set a positive sign and maybe actually get something useful rolling... after much sneering and struggle and hating, that is.

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14. Comment #237208 by Dhamma on August 26, 2008 at 7:54 am

I love that homosexuals make a fuzz about their rights, so that the church gets weakened, but WHY on earth do they want to associate themselves with a religion that obviously hates them?

It's like a black person struggling for his right to be allowed membership of the KKK. It doesn't make sense.

But if you're in it only to sabotage the religion... I'm all for it!

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15. Comment #237209 by HoyaSaxa87 on August 26, 2008 at 7:55 am

I don't think there's anyone who wasn't already aware that the Catholic church is homophobic. The whole digging-up-bodies-in-order-to-be-canonized thing is definitely much stranger.

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16. Comment #237213 by Jesus was a zombie on August 26, 2008 at 8:06 am

12. larhule

That song is genius!

"Oh Jesus Christ, its Jesus Christ!"

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17. Comment #237215 by Ishruul on August 26, 2008 at 8:07 am

Are they really serious? Moving 100 years old dead to cover up fact that he's gay so he can be canonized!

It's that Palpatine look-alike pope doing 11th century crap again isn't it? First he hired legion of exorcist, ban condoms in Africa and now it's shovel time in the gay guy's tomb!

Wow, well, I can only applaud his remarkable creativity.

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18. Comment #237219 by JimmyGiro on August 26, 2008 at 8:16 am

*Them bones them bones them dry bones...
...and the dick bones connected to the arse bone...
...Hear the word of the Lord.*

Other Comments by JimmyGiro

19. Comment #237224 by Philster61 on August 26, 2008 at 8:20 am

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20. Comment #237225 by irate_atheist on August 26, 2008 at 8:24 am

13. Comment #237206 by Raiko -

Suggestion: Make a living homosexual a saint.

Ted Haggard?

No. Perhaps not.

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21. Comment #237227 by huzonfurst on August 26, 2008 at 8:25 am

Re Dhamma #14: It's also like Loretta in Life of Brian insisting on her right to have babies, even though she's a man. "It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression" - or reality.

I'm sure I've watched that movie at least a dozen times and I laugh harder every time - then stories like this come along and prove once again that truth is indeed even stranger than fiction.

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22. Comment #237229 by J Mac on August 26, 2008 at 8:30 am

"...attempting to cover up the sexuality..."

Let's see here, how many people would have heard anything about this if they weren't trying to dig him up?

Who the hell thought up this strategy: 'hey, if we want to hide his homosexuality lets dig him up, make a big scene, THEN no one will notice.'

Geesh. I actually hope they succeed in this. A gay man becoming a saint... Apparently homosexuality isn't the problem its gay necrophilia that is. As long as your corpse doesn't lie next to someone of the same sex you're fine.

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23. Comment #237233 by beanson on August 26, 2008 at 8:36 am

The man's long dead- he's dead, his relations are dead- no living fucker remembers him

Why does anyone give a shit what they do with his bones

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24. Comment #237237 by J Mac on August 26, 2008 at 8:42 am

On one level I don't really care what happens to my body after I die. But at another level I want to take precautions so that my remains are not paraded around and put on display for "pilgrims."

This is sick. I joked earlier about necrophilia, but it seems the catholic church does have a morbid and disturbing obsession with corpses.

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25. Comment #237239 by Gregg Townsend on August 26, 2008 at 8:43 am

12. Comment #237205 by larhule

Surely, the lyrics should be:

"As he prays
He preys on you!"

:)

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26. Comment #237240 by irate_atheist on August 26, 2008 at 8:43 am

24. Comment #237235 by garywheron -

It's a 'spot the looney contest'. Yes - that's right. They're all loonies!

Edit: 25. Comment #237237 by J Mac -

I joked earlier about necrophilia, but it seems the catholic church does have a morbid and disturbing obsession with corpses.

Indeed. That is why they recently elected one as their Pope.

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27. Comment #237247 by squinky on August 26, 2008 at 8:52 am

I think they should saint Liberace. With much fanfare and music playing as well. He's just sooooooo saintly!

And let's move his remains to Rome.

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28. Comment #237260 by Cartomancer on August 26, 2008 at 9:12 am

I found comment #237224 rather distasteful.

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29. Comment #237269 by hungarianelephant on August 26, 2008 at 9:30 am

Did I read that right? Peter Tatchell is having a go at the Vatican for "religious desecration"?

I think a small part of my brain just exploded.

As to the general idea of digging people up years later, I'm more and more convinced that some previous pope was an atheist and just made up a whole load of crap to amuse himself and see if anyone would actually follow it. It would be great fun to see just how far you could push it before the faithful realised you were messing with them.

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30. Comment #237273 by J Mac on August 26, 2008 at 9:34 am

Comment removed by J Mac as referenced comment was removed.

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31. Comment #237276 by Vinelectric on August 26, 2008 at 9:42 am

Philster61

.....

......................

Edit: comment removed.

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32. Comment #237293 by cercamon on August 26, 2008 at 10:17 am

Robert Verkaik article appears somewhat biased:

"Cardinal Newman, a former Anglican clergyman, and Father Ambrose St John who lived together as "husband and wife" for most of their late adult lives."

The source for "lived as husband and wife" is cardinal Newman's words: "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine.". English is not my primary language but I think that "as husband and wife" (or "they acted like a husband and wife."[http://tinyurl.com/55vka7]) means something other than the deepness of grief or the intensity of an attachement. Those interpretations of cardinal Newman's are biased at least.

@cartomancer: The quote may be irrelevant for you but it is not for cardinal Cormac-Murphy O'Connor: lived in celibacy, Newman and St. John relationship does not infringe the teachings of the Catholic Church (cf. art. 2357-2359 of catholic catechism).

(NB. To be clear: I, personaly, reprove the exhumation plan, against cardinal Newman's explicit will, plan wich smells of homophobia. My observations only aim at restoring the complexity and nuances of reality. The catholic doctrine on homosexuality is not without ambiguity or hesitation. The heart of it seems for me rather in mastering/repressing sexuality more than in condemning homosexuality per se but the plan of parting the two life-friends pull it on the side of homophobia (or hypocrisy).)

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33. Comment #237295 by stereoroid on August 26, 2008 at 10:22 am

I wonder what they'll make of it here in Ireland? Newman was the first ~~Rectum~~ Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, now University College Dublin.

I'm a (mature) student there, and can tell you that it's not a very Catholic place now. According to reports it's the Chlamydia Capital of Ireland. The gloves are ON, folks...

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34. Comment #237301 by Stephen Maxwell on August 26, 2008 at 10:32 am

I've posted this story before, but I'll post it again. This story was originally posted here:

Bishop accuses gays of conspiracy against the Catholic Church

I've attended a conference while at school where he was spouting off similar anti-homosexual rhetoric much to the disillusionment of the hundred or so students in attendance.

You may be wondering why I found this relevant to post. Well, the school which was hosting this conference was...

Cardinal Newman High School! :P

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35. Comment #237306 by catskill on August 26, 2008 at 10:34 am

A death cult is obsessed with digging up corpses. What a surprise.

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36. Comment #237334 by Ishruul on August 26, 2008 at 11:02 am

I bet Pope Benedict just saw Indiana Jones 4 and wanted some goonies-adventure with his exorcist buddies.

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37. Comment #237341 by Corylus on August 26, 2008 at 11:08 am

Cercamon

Thank you for your polite comment.

I am glad to hear that you do not agree with the digging up of this man's body. However, I don't think your statement below is quite correct

The heart of it seems for me rather in mastering/repressing sexuality more than in condemning homosexuality

I see, so you think this is about advocating self-control.

Question. If the Church admires sexual restraint then why were this couple not allowed to marry? The male was incapable of ("standard") sexual activity and his wife agreed to face a life without sex because of love for him.

That's self control, that's selflessness, they should have made the woman a saint.

What happened instead? A humiliating level of publicity for both of them and a deprivation of the church wedding they both wanted.

So, respectfully, I have to say that I think that you are kidding yourself. I'm afraid that this whole business is about the unhealthy obsession the Catholic Church has with suppressing any form of sexual activity that does not result in the production of more Catholics. Also, this suppression always seems to be done in an unbelievably cold-hearted, mean, intrusive and, I have to say this, vulgar fashion.

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38. Comment #237347 by Dr Technical on August 26, 2008 at 11:14 am

a) Comment #237224 was an excuse to be homophobic. Not clever or even remotely funny.

b) He's dead, he cares not

c) As God does not exist, is religious desecration possible ?

d) I wonder if the South African's prayed before today's cricket match against England ;-) (irrelevant to the thread, but hey, what a thrashing !)

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39. Comment #237372 by stephenray on August 26, 2008 at 11:58 am

Beatifying and canonising a recognised homosexual (if that was what Newman was - I only heard of this just now) is just a shining example of DoubleThink, a philosophical capability in which the Catholic Church leaves Air Strip One stunned on the starting blocks.

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40. Comment #237374 by Sargeist on August 26, 2008 at 12:01 pm

IANAA (I am not an anthropologist) but the discomfort that I think almost everyone would feel towards the deliberate dismemberment of a corpse for fun or to make a point is, I think, a good reason for its being regarded as unethical. I know that this is appealing to the "icks" factor, but there is a strong contribution of ick in our ethics. It's all very debatable, of course, and I am not entirely sure of my own (shifting) position on this, but I don't think we should discount deep-seated feelings on what is right and wrong entirely when it comes to morals.

Of course, making the distinction between "heart" and "head" for a moment, when I think about it in what I suppose is the rational way, I cannot really see what is wrong with playing football with a corpse's head, for example, if the person has been long long long dead and, as someone mentioned earlier, there is no one alive today who has the slightest memory of him/her.

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41. Comment #237375 by Philster61 on August 26, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Apologies to anybody offended my comments.It wasnt meant to offend.It was meant to be toilet sarcasim towards the Vaticans ridiculous approach to this.Do you want the whole thing rmoved or just the offensive parts of it?

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42. Comment #237379 by Alan Canon on August 26, 2008 at 12:05 pm

I didn't know all this about Newman.

I like to make pilgrimages to places like graveyards and other historic sites. Since I am proudly gay-friendly, I think his and his partner's gravesite would make my list if I ever found myself near to it.

After all this plays out, if I ever do find myself standing there, I will either find evidence that this man's last wish was respected by the organization he labored for all his life, or evidence of the Church's disrespect and denial of the man's memory.

With this controversy out in the open, the Catholic Church is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Not bad for some 100 year old bones. As Feynman said of Stevenus, "If you get an inscription like that on your tombstone, you are doing fine!"

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43. Comment #237380 by Philster61 on August 26, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Actually my editing time has timed out and I am now unable to remove it.I guess my attempt at a dirty joke backfired.I stand corrected.No more joke from the Philster

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44. Comment #237381 by Philster61 on August 26, 2008 at 12:09 pm

I guess my antipodean rooted sense of humour still needs working on.Ive never felt so bad about a dirty joke.

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45. Comment #237386 by cercamon on August 26, 2008 at 12:14 pm

Corylus,

Thanks for your polite, too, objection to my comment (to the last part, by the way).

I wrote mastering/repressing to preserve the ambiguity of the doctrine, the possible span. Don't forget the "repressing" part and you will aknowledge that we do not disagree so much. And to be clear I am not advocating the doctrine of the Catholic Church, or, here, only as the Devil's Advocate.

I tend to think that you better try to understand the internal logic of ideologies, even when you regard them as harmfull, especialy when you regard them as harmfull. But may be I am kidding myself in this.

To advocate for the devil again, I must say after reading the article you link to in your comment that I don't evaluate the news as you did. "Wedding" doesn't mean the same thing in religious and in secular life. It's not the place to elaborate on this, but to put it short: the catholic religious wedding, according to the teachings of the Church, is purposeless if there is no sex and fertility involved. The couple did not have to marry in church to remain good catholics while living together (like Newman and St. John, by the way). And for their legal status, they have it through the civil wedding. But the problem, I suspect, was that they didn't want the wedding according-to-the-teachings-of-the-church, they wanted the ceremony.

And what amazes me is that: shouldn't a consequent atheist rather deplore the obstinacy of people demanding meaningless rituals than encourage them by deploring the refusal of such rituals by an institution of wich she/he allready knows that nothing good is to be expected?

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46. Comment #237394 by Sargeist on August 26, 2008 at 12:20 pm

\begin{offtopic}
Yeah, this comments thing is a bit odd. For me, after I have submitted a comment it appears at the bottom of my screen so that I can update and modify it, and it also appears on the main body of the screen. But if, as often happens, it gets posted onto the next page of comments, I have to do a full "no cache" refresh with Ctrl F5 to get the next page's link to appear. And I have to do this, too, just to get another fresh text box to appear so that I can post again.
\end{offtopic}

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47. Comment #237417 by Philster61 on August 26, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Sorry Corylus.I refreshed it and it didnt show.Im using a Mac so if I press F5 I just end up turning up the volume on itunes.Im afraid the page will have to live with my bad attempt at a dirty joke.Sorry to anybody whose offended.Pray for me.(pun)
Update.Edited out.

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48. Comment #237419 by Wosret on August 26, 2008 at 12:53 pm

8. Comment #237196 by Cartomancer

While I agree with all of your sentiments, I didn't know that "we know that sexual orientation has biological origins". I haven't heard this, I've only heard it speculated or argued for. Could you direct me to some material that demonstrates this?

Other Comments by Wosret

49. Comment #237422 by geru on August 26, 2008 at 12:59 pm

"Were going to desecrate your remains and violate your last wishes, because your life is a disgrace to our organization."

What great moral values again from the Vatican.

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50. Comment #237432 by Ivan The Not So Bad on August 26, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Newman's sexuality is well known, or at least well speculated upon.

In fact, the long-established group within the RC Church that campaigns for reform of the church's attitude towards gay and lesbian people is called, if memory does not fail me, the Cardinal Newman Society.

Of course, if the Church really believed Newwman's relationship was platonic and they weren't just engaged in a pathetic attempt to airbrush his gaynesss, they could abide by his dying wish by exhuming Farther Ambrose St John as well and then keep the bodies (or matching bits of them if they plan to send various parts hither and thither) together.

Somehow, I don't think they'll go for that though........

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