Other than dressing up in long robes and aspiring to the elevated career apex where the wearing of comical hats is permitted, there is nothing that interests Anglican clergy more than climate change.
It isn’t much of a testimony to the persuasive powers of Diocese of Montreal clerics, then, that only 15 congregants could be convinced to march to “Preserve the Climate”. Only one priest seems to be present; it was raining, of course, and high humidity does make one’s robes cling so.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the Diocese of Montreal was well represented in the Montreal Pride parade:
The priest in the photo is Rev. Donald Boisvert whose book, “Out on Holy Ground” includes this gem on phallic worship and the holiness of gay sex. I note with interest that the usual reference to stable, long–term, committed relationships has been supplanted by the more accurate if less edifying, unknowable anonymity:
As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with riotous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.
A paradigm of contemporary Western Anglicanism.
Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of Montreal has developed porous edges. I had to curb my rejoicing at the news that the Cathedral is taking on water and will soon be a fitting metaphor for the church to which it belongs – a decrepit heap of rubble – because that’s not what having porous edges means in Anglican-speak.
The astute Rev. Rhonda Waters has concluded that up until now, people didn’t come to church because they couldn’t find the door; hence the attraction of a church with porous edges – we can all ooze through the walls.
To make this even more enticing, the Cathedral recently screened a musical documentary about “a transgender indie singer who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home on the Canadian prairie.” It’s called My Prairie Home; other, less pastorally sensitive authors than I might have yielded to the temptation to replace the trailing “e” with a different vowel.
From here (page 3):
People are no longer familiar with churches and what goes on in them, quite the opposite in fact. As a result,we need to create edges that allow people to peek inside, to slip in and out at their own pace, to test our spaces and our communities without an invitation and without a commitment.
[….]
My Prairie Home, a porous-edge event designed not only to create an opportunity for people to check us out but maybe to surprise them as well. My Prairie Home is a musical documentary about Rae Spoon, a transgender indie singer who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home on the Canadian prairie.
The Bishop of Montreal, Barry Clarke, recently ordained Alain Brosseau, a candidate who is in a same-sex relationship with Peter Wessel. A number of clergy and laity objected to the ordination, an objection that, predictably, was ignored by the bishop. In Anglican jargon, what the bishop did is known as listening.
The objectors must have known that their statement would have no effect because they have tried it before with the same result; perhaps the time has come for more radical action.
From here (page 7):
As has happened at several recent previous ordinations of candidates with same-sex partners, Bishop Barry Clarke noted briefly at the March30 ordination that he had received an objection to the ordination of one of the candidates but was proceeding in the light of his own reflections and decisions of the diocesan synod.
The announcement was greeted by applause from a number of those at the well attended ordination service.
The objection was to the ordination of Rev. Alain Brosseau (whose partner, Peter Wessel, read the lesson,Peter 5:1-4, at the ordination service).
The objection, not read out at the service, was also similar to ones filed on earlier occasions. It was signed by Rev. Nick Brotherwood on behalf of three other clergy and seven lay people.(Previous objections were signed by six clergy.)
It says in part: “We, the undersigned laity and clergy, understand that one of the candidates for ordination to the presbyterate on March30th is in a sexually-active, same-gender relationship. We believe such relationships to be incompatible with scripture, and, when they are also Civil Marriages, with our Marriage Canon, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. We believe such relationships are also inconsistent with the received tradition of the Church Catholic, as well as resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Proceeding with such ordinations would not respect the previous Archbishop of Canterbury’s request for gracious restraint in these matters for the sake of the unity of the whole Church.
“For these reasons we believe the manner of life of the candidate so described to be unsuitable for the exercise of this ministry, and respectfully ask you not to proceed with his ordination.”
The letter was signed by Nick Brotherwood on behalf of Linda Faith Chalk, John and Diane Degrace,Bruce Glencross, Marilyn Miles, Stan and Joan Pepler, Roger Spack, Susan Wallet and Tim Wiebe.
From here:
In this case, the bishop said during some brief introductory remarks in French that he had received a letter objecting to the ordination of Alain Brosseau as a deacon and Donald Boisvert as a priest and appreciated the respectful and dignified tone of the objection but did not agree with the arguments and was proceeding with the ordinations.(the letter is similar to ones the same six clergy – Rev. Nick Brotherwood, Rev. Linda Faith Chalk, Rev. Michelle Eason, Rev. Chris Barrigar, Rev. Canon Bruce Glencross and Rev. Tim Wiebe – have presented on similar occasions in the past, saying the signers believe sexually active same-gender relationships are incompatible with scripture and, if civil marriages, with church law and traditions.)
I vaguely remember Norman Mailer writing (or perhaps it was in an interview) that if one believes something strongly enough, then the only defence of that belief that has integrity is one that goes in swinging – he was an amateur boxer. I’m not sure that that would work in a cathedral but, on the other hand, a “respectful and dignified” objection that everyone knows will be ignored seems to me to be worse than a waste of time: it is little more than a ritual conscience absolver.
If only the newly consecrated Donald Boisvert were as reticent in his panegyric to phallic worship in homoerotic and sadomasochistic sex. From his book, “Holy Sex” [Correction: “Holy Sex” is actually a section from Boisvert’s book Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men’s Spirituality):
Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.
From here (page 7):
Past and present clergy, wardens, altar servers, choristers. Organizers over the years of Sunday school, bazaars and rummage sales and men’s activities. Altar guild members.
Partners in other churches. Bishop Barry Clarke of Montreal – from 1993 to 2004 parish priest of St. Paul’s Church in Lachine – asked members of these and other groups in a near-capacity congregation of over 300 parishioners and wellwishers to stand and be recognized as he presided over a closing service marking the end of the 139-year history of the parish.
He also urged them not to waste energy trying to assign blame for the closing of the church or to focus too much on its dramatically impressive buildings, dating from 1963-64.
[…..]
“For us to move forward in God’s mission we have to do things differently,” he said.
The diocese has no discernible plan to “do things differently”; unless you count its accelerating descent into heresy tinged liberalism accompanied by an increasing cannibalisation of its assets in order to stay afloat – all disguised as a Ministry Action Plan – as different.
Page 8 of the same paper, without the least hint of irony, proudly announces: “Quebec diocese to offer blessings to same-sex couples”, something that the Diocese of Montreal approved in 2010. Catering to 0.8% of the population has worked out so well for other dioceses that Quebec has decided it wants a piece of the action.
From here (page 6):
The church needs to recognize that God is already at work through, for example, first nations spirituality, shamanism in various traditions and Confucianism, Bishop Mark MacDonald, national indigenous bishop, said.
“When a Christian person goes to a new place they find God already there.”
There is a sense in which Bishop Mark MacDonald is correct: God is omnipresent, so he must indeed be “already there”. That is not what MacDonald is getting at, though. What he means is Christians should look for enlightenment in the manner that God expresses himself through Shamanism and Confucianism; this is utter tripe.
A Shaman purports to contact the spirit world in an attempt to gain occult insights, a practice – whether it works or not – that is expressly forbidden in the Bible.
Confucianism teaches that people can perfect themselves through their own efforts – a contention whose falsehood is blindingly obvious to anyone who has made an honest effort to do so.
It is hard to believe that any Christian who is not non compos mentis could fall for either – yet Mark MacDonald, a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, clearly has.
Why is he still a bishop? Because the Anglican Church of Canada, while still trying to maintain the fiction that it is a Christian denomination, actually ceased to be one a few decades ago.
Rev. Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert were ordained by Bishop Barry Clarke in June, Camara as a priest and Boisvert as a deacon; both Camara and Boisvert are married – to men.
Anyone still labouring under the misapprehension that the Anglican Church of Canada is not being consumed by an obsession with homoerotic sex, need look no further for illumination than to the preoccupations of those whom it is ordaining. Here is an extract from “Holy Sex” by Deacon Boisvert:
Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.
Just what the doctor ordered for ailing Canadian Anglicanism: phallic worship.
Here, in his book “Sacred Space”, Boisvert describes his life’s most “spiritual moments” in – where else – gay bars and bath-houses:
Because I am a gay man, my first time in a gay bar, my first visit to the baths, and most poignantly, the first time I stepped into the Stonewall Inn in New York City have also been uplifting, spiritual moments in my life.
I am looking forward to the gradual transformation of Christ Church Cathedral into a “Sacred Space”; my bet is that it will be a gay bathhouse – once the baptismal font has been enlarged.
Boisvert used to be a Roman Catholic, an affiliation that proved unsympathetic to his yearning to worship penises. Unsurprisingly, he has received a warm welcome in the Anglican Church of Canada as it sinks inexorably into Boisvert’s murky world of cruising other men looking for a spot of “Holy Sex”.
From here (page 4):
To say that Donald Boisvert has come out as a gay man would be an understatement. You could almost say he wrote the book (or books).
His ordination as an Anglican deacon by Bishop Barry Clarke June 3 is another event in his distinguished and public career as a scholar and activist concerned particularly with sexuality and the relation between sexuality and religion.
In a note for The Montreal Anglican in 2009, on the occasion of his being received into the Anglican Church by Bishop Barry Clarke, he wrote:
“I was raised a Roman Catholic; I studied for the Catholic priesthood; and I am a scholar of Catholic religious culture. I have a great deal of affection for the Catholic Church, in large part because it marks my cultural heritage and it guided me through my youth, but also because it still has a great deal to offer. But I am gay, and I have more and more difficulty with the Vatican’s archaic teachings on human sexuality, including its position on women and their place within Catholicism.
More broadly, however, the Catholic Church remains a deeply entrenched patriarchal institution, with an authoritarian and rigid governing structure.
It is difficult to refrain from speculating on why Bishop Barry Clarke would ordain someone whose chief interests lie in the exploration of the ritualistic aspects of sadomasochism and the holiness of male genitals. Is the bishop a witless lunatic, a closet adorer of phalluses, a neophyte practitioner of wanton sex looking for instruction?
Who can say – perhaps he just picked up Boisvert in a bathhouse.
Note: I’ve updated this article since Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert, while married to other men, are not married to each other as I had previously stated.
The synod of the Diocese of Montreal voted to support keeping the long gun registry, which would cost Canadian taxpayers another billion dollars and criminals nothing at all. The synod also voted to oppose “tough on crime legislation” which would most probably expose Canadian taxpayers to more crime, leaving them less money to pay for the long gun registry, and ease the burden on criminals trying to make a dishonest living.
There was also broad support for the objectives of the Occupy Movement – whatever they are.
It appears that God did not intrude upon the meeting in any way.
Not bad for one synod.
From here:
Delegates to the 152nd synod of the Diocese of Montreal voted by strong majorities to urge the federal government to rethink its plans to abolish the long-gun registry and to adopt tough-on-crime legislation expected to greatly increase the prison population.
[….]
Another resolution, with support from the Revd Canon David Sinclair among others, gave some support to the objectives of the Occupy Montreal protestors against income disparity and other social ills. It supports “Occupy Montreal and all others who have drawn attention to the grave disparities of the current economic systems.”
Obviously no one has told the diocese that capitalism doesn’t work any more and, even if it did, that it is fundamentally unChristian.
From the diocesan paper (page 4):
The fund that handles the investments of the Diocese of Montreal has not escaped the impact of conditions in Canadian and world financial markets.
According to a report to the diocesan synod in late October, the net asset value of the Anglican Balanced Fund, a private mutual fund in which the units are owned by the Diocese, certain parishes and related institutions, stood at $27.69 a unit (the equivalent of a share) on August 31, down from $29.33 at the end of 2010 and $28.40 year earlier.
Coincidentally, in the same issue we find a favourable review of Terry Eagleton’s “Why Marx was right”. I am unsure as to how a revue of a book about Marx found its way into an ostensibly Christian paper other than to note that not only did Marx predict the end of capitalism but that, as could be said of many of Canada’s Anglican clergy: “He was, of course, an atheist; but one does not need to be religious to be spiritual”.
It does go to show that those in charge of diocesan investments should read their own paper, not to mention consult their lefty clergy, Rev. Canon Paul Jennings, Very Rev. Michael Pitts and Rev. James McDermott all of whom visited Occupy Montreal upon which they bestowed their anti-capitalist blessing.
