[Bruno-Turany, Czech Republic; September 27. Image via Getty]

Lesbian girls protest for their free marriage during their silence demonstration as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pontifical Mass at the local airport of Brno-Turany on September 27, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for hope and a renewal of faith in the former communist Czech Republic, as he served a large open-air mass in Brno, watched by some 120,000 faithful. The pope is paying his first visit to the Czech Republic ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that toppled Communism in former Czechoslovakia in 1989. AFP PHOTO/ ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

The UK's Catholic Truth Society has produced the 64-page Prayer Book for Spouses, which, according to Kissling, "contains prayers about pregnancy, about caring for children and elderly parents" — along with one to be said before getting nekkid. Which goes like this:

Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes. Open our hearts to you, to each other and the goodness of your will. Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in our true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations for your glory, forever and ever. Mary, our Mother, intercede for us. Amen.

Whoa, is it getting hot in here? I know invoking a mother figure even more saintly and prudish than my own mom always gets me in the mood.

As Kissling points out, there's plenty of hot biblical poetry they could have worked with, if Catholics for Truth had any interest in presenting sex in a positive light. They could have drawn on the Song of Solomon, she suggests, referring to "fine wine, the nectar of the pomegranate, the 'waters that cannot quench love,' the 'floods that cannot drown it.'" But really, what did we expect here? "Even today," writes Kissling, "the Catholic Church does not accept sexuality separated from procreation."

Kissling goes on to detail how modern Catholics just go ahead and resist that teaching, with 90% of the American faithful using contraception and not many asking God to forgive them for it. Big news: The Church is out of touch with the people, who, instead of taking their cues from the Pope or Catholics for Truth, "follow their common sense and their conscience." Technically, that's even sort of allowed; the catechism has a lot to say about conscience, including that "Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters." Sure, that's pretty much there to say that if someone tries to convert you at swordpoint, you should go ahead and die. And sure, there's also a lot of other stuff telling you that if your conscience says something different from the Pope's, it's probably broken. But there is, at least in theory, a loophole to account for a la carte Catholicism. There's also a strong argument to be made that the church is its people, not just the hierarchy, so if 90% of Catholics are doing something, it probably qualifies as A Catholic Thing to Do.

But, as someone who spent a long time trying to reconcile my love of some aspects of Catholicism — the intellectual tradition, the social justice tradition (in some areas), the stories, the rituals, the art, the bugfuck crazy saints — with being a pro-choice, gay-friendly liberal who'd be reluctant to piss on the current Pope if he were on fire, I also feel like at some point, there must be a definition of "Catholic" that goes beyond "What my friends and I do, while self-identifying as Catholic." That's why I ultimately stopped identifying as such — well, that and the fact that, in my heart of hearts, I'm agnostic at best — so when I see people claiming that Catholicism (or any form of Christianity, not to mention many other organized religions) is not really about the corrupt, ultraconservative, punitive, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-sex stuff you always hear about, I get hung up on one question: "How do you know?" Because to be sure, those people are saying with just as much conviction that you're the ones who have the religion all wrong. And they've got just as much evidence in the Bible and church history for their position, if not more.

Writes Kissling:

If anyone needs to pray for forgiveness it is Popes and bishops for the pain they caused to children by scaring them into believing they'd go to hell if they masturbated, for the divorced and remarried Catholics who have been denied the sacraments, for couples who followed the teaching against contraception and had more kids than they could care for, for gay Catholics who have been denied the right to marry, and for infertile couples who are told they can't use modern fertility treatments.

Agreed. Heartily. But instead of joining in her prayer that more Catholics will tune out the most oppressive teachings to "follow their common sense and their conscience," I'd like to offer a different suggestion: Let's pray — or hope, for those of us who don't do that — more and more people will come to agree that religion has no place in free citizen's bedrooms, period.

New Catholic Sex Prayer — But Where's The Sex? [Salon]

[New York, August 9. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - AUGUST 09: Italian-Americans gather during the 'The Dance of the Giglio' at the Giglio di Sant� Antonio Feast in East Harlem August 9, 2009 in New York City. The festival originated in the town of Brusciano, Italy and honors Saint Antonio. East Harlem once held the largest population of Italians in New York. The giglio is a tall wooden structure built to honor patron saints in Italian towns and is carried on the shoulders of men in a ritual that dates back hundred of years. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

[Vatican City; July 8. Image via Getty]

Nuns wave to Pope Benedict XVI (not pictured) during his weekly general audience on July 8, 2009 at Paul VI hall at The Vatican. The pontiff called the day before and on the eve of a G8 summit in L'Aquila, for a new world body 'with real teeth' to restore the global economy and prevent further disparities in a letter to Roman Catholics worldwide. AFP PHOTO / VINCENZO PINTO (Photo credit should read VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)

[Vatican City, July 1. Image via Getty]

Nuns wait for the weekly general audience of Pope Benedict XVI on July 1, 2009 at St Peter's square at The Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI will release a social encyclical on July 7, 'Caritas in Veritae' (Charity in thruth). AFP PHOTO / CHRISTOPHE SIMON (Photo credit should read CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty Images)

Mary Ward, an English Catholic, joined the Poor Clare order of Franciscans at 15. But frustrated by the rigidity of the order, in 1609 she founded her own order at St. Omer. While most nuns were strictly cloistered and limited in their outside activity - by Church decree - Ward's was based on action: like the Jesuits, her order would be devoted to educating women and preserving the Catholic faith in Protestant England. She encouraged her nuns to abandon their habits and go amongst the poor. Oddly enough, one of ward's big issues was the theatre: she was aggressive in challenging the notion that women couldn't appear on the stage, and that those who were warranted scorn.

Although this was the height of the Inquisition, and progressive thinkers were being accused of heresy right and left, such was Ward's confidence in the Church that in 1631, Ward walked from Belgium to Rome to ask Pope Urban VIII for official recognition of her order. The Pope jailed ward and issued a Papal bull declaring that her order be disbanded. And, after a year in prison, Ward obeyed this edict, dissolving her revolutionary order and returning to England, where she died in the siege of York. Although something of an icon to English nuns, Ward remained persona non grata in the church until the 19th century, when a French nun's petition helped convince Pope Piux X that the case against her was unfounded. Pope Pius XI, opened Ward's cause for sainthood in 1932, and the Jesuit lobbying for the cause says that she will probably be named a "Venerable" (two rungs below sainthood) on the recommendation a panel of Vatican theologians within the next year.

Says a member of Ward's order, now known as the Congregation of Jesus and made up of 4,000 sisters, "She had a vision of the equality of men and women before God and a vision of the capacity of women to do good and to work for the kingdom of God...She had this at a time when universities were still discussing whether women had souls."

It should perhaps be noted that Dorothy Day, another firebrand whose adherents are pushing for canonization - controversial because of a history of civil disobedience, criticism of the Church and political action - was an admirer of Mary Ward, taking the title of her famous autobiography The Long Loneliness from a Ward epigraph. Both women are emblematic of a deep traditional faith interpreted according to conscience. And while recognition of Ward would, in 2009, hardly qualify as a revolutionary act, it would be one of good faith, long overdue.

The First Sister Of Feminism [Independent]
Mary Ward: Pioneer For Women In The Church [IBVM]
Mary Ward [Catholic Encyclopedia]
Mary Ward, Pilgrim and Mystic [Google Books]

I have a hard time with these articles, mostly because I was raised in an Irish Catholic household, by a mother who still attends church every Sunday morning and who sent us through the standard Catholic upbringing; CCD classes, confirmations, Lenten rituals, and a common usage of the phrase, "Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph," in times of annoyance or frustration. I was also a choir leader for about 5 years and can bust out a tune from the Glory & Praise songbook at any given time.

President Obama's commencement speech today at Notre Dame is thrusting the Catholic church into the spotlight once again, as conservative Catholics are currently standing outside of the school, protesting his speech, as he is pro-choice, and they are not. Catholics like my mother, however, see these protests and say, well, "Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. For Gawd's sake. Cripes Almighty."

For people who weren't brought up Catholic, it's a bit hard to explain how one can identify as Catholic but not actually believe in the things the church has taken on, politically. I stopped attending church with my mother shortly after high school, as I felt disconnected from the church's views on homosexuality and abortion, and felt like a big old liar sitting in a pew, saying prayers, and acting as if I belonged there. And then, in true Irish Catholic form, I felt guilty about not feeling guilty about not going to church anymore. You can leave the church, but you can't leave the ol' Catholic guilt!

Recently I had to go to the hospital for a procedure. The admissions people asked me for my religion, in case anything happened to me during my stay. I hesitated. "Catholic?" I said, "Yes, Catholic." The truth is, I don't really care for organized religion at all, but Catholicism, I suppose, is more of a cultural connection at this point than a religious one, if that makes any sense. I am not a fan of the Vatican, I am often angered and repulsed by the Church's administrative side and their political views, and I do not tithe to the Catholic church for those very reasons, but I knew if something had happened to me in that hospital, God forbid, my mother would have wanted a priest there.

I've asked my mother how she feels about gay marriage (she supports it) and how she feels about abortion (she thinks women should have a choice). But when I try to explain to her that these views are the polar opposite of the church that she's been attending for 50+ years, she just says, "There is a lot of good there, too. Nobody ever talks about the good."

My mother represents the shifting identity of the American Catholic that David Gibson touches upon in his piece, "Who Is A Real Catholic?": "American Catholics — and there are upwards of 65 million of us — are going their own way on many matters of faith and especially on issues ranging from priestly celibacy to political candidates, and there seems to be little the bishops can do about it. If there is a true swing vote in the U.S. electorate today, it is the Catholic bloc," Gibson writes, "That willingness of American Catholics to break ranks with such long-held tenets is evident in surveys on a number of issues, including church teachings regarding celibacy and birth control."

So what does this mean for Catholicism? Perhaps it means that, as in every religion, there are extremists and moderates, there are those who are conflicted on certain aspects of a religion that they've been raised in, and that the as the identity of the Church changes, perhaps those in it will change the way they label themselves as well. My mother will always be a Catholic, practicing. I will always be her Catholic daughter, lapsed. Both of us, I think, have the right to question the religion we were raised in. Cripes almighty, forever and ever, amen.

Obama, And Protests, At Notre Dame [NYTimes]
Who Is A Real Catholic? [WashingtonPost]

[Nazareth, Israel; May 14. Image via Getty]

NAZARETH, ISRAEL - MAY 14: A woman prays during vesper celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on Basilica of Annonciation on May 14, 2009 in the Galilee town of Nazareth in northern Israel. The Pontiff is nearing the end of his eight-day pilgrimage to the Holy sites in Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

[Bethlehem, May 13. Image via Getty]

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - MAY 13: A Catholic nun raises her arms to undergo a security check at the entrance to Manger Square before the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI to the city of Jesus' birth on May 13, 2009 in Bethlehem, West Bank. During his visit marred by controversy over his wartime past as a member of the Nazi's Hitler Youth, the Pontiff called for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would lead to a homeland for both sides. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

If you haven't been paying attention, Mel's wife of 28 years, Robyn Moore, filed for divorce amid rumors of Gibson's infidelity. Gibson, whose theology is slightly behind the Vatican's (example: he believes that his Episcopalian wife is ineligible for entry into heaven), would not be allowed to remarry within the Church once the civil divorce is complete, unless he seeks to annul the nearly three-decade union and allow his children to be declared bastards by the Church — in fact, if he gets married again at all, his second marriage would be considered tantamount to adultery in the eyes of the Vatican (not that, if the rumors are true, he's necessarily got an issue with being considered an adulterer). Kissling thinks that, even for Mel Gibson, this sucks — and, after all, it's not like the Church hasn't changed its mind before.

Women, especially, feel like the church is telling them they were having illicit sex and their kids are illegitimate. The feisty ones appeal to the Vatican. Sheila Rauch Kennedy appealed the 1996 Boston Diocese tribunal's decision to grant her husband Joseph Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, an annulment on the grounds they were immature. She said it wasn't true. In 2007, the Vatican agreed with Rauch Kennedy and reversed the annulment.

No one, even Mel Gibson, should need to go through such hypocrisy. If the church could figure out a way to redefine "outside the church there is no salvation," to forgive Galileo, to abolish limbo, it can certainly find a way to recognize that valid marriages fail and let people move on to new relationships with dignity.

Maybe they can get on that whole "birth control" thing next?

Over at The Daily Beast, Barbie Latza Nadeau does see signs that the Vatican might be softening to the idea of divorce, given the Pope's recent tête-à-tête with Prince Charles and Camilla, who is herself divorced from a Catholic (yes, that matters, too).

While neither she nor Charles are Catholic, Lady Camilla was married to one and as such is seen as an "unforgiven" in the church. The fact that she was granted a private audience, according to many Vatican watchers, may signal an easing of the church's intransigent opposition to divorce, especially given the timing of the visit. The meeting comes just days after the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic church over his own divorce, which led to the creation of the Church of England.

So, if a sign of the Vatican softening on divorce is its willingness to have its leader photographed with a non-Catholic who was divorced 500 years after a predecessor of her new husband created his own church in order to get divorced, I'm thinking Mel Gibson might have to wait on a Catholic second wife, or his kids might have to get used to being born out of wedlock.

Mel Gibson's Family Values [Salon]
Is The Pope Softening On Divorce? [The Daily Beast]

"Before thinking about excommunication, it was necessary and urgent to save her innocent life and bring her back to a level of humanity of which we men of the church should be expert and masters in proclaiming," Fisichella, a Vatican prelate who heads the Pontifical Academy For Life, wrote in the Vatican newspaper. Though he clearly noted that he was against abortion, he believed that in this case, the girl ""should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction," and noted that the highly public excommunication of the girl's mother and doctors on the Vatican's behalf "unfortunately hurts the credibility of our teaching, which appears in the eyes of many as insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy. There wasn't any need, we contend, for so much urgency and publicity in declaring something that happens automatically." [AP]

"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified." Brazil's Catholic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, disagreed with the Cardinal: "The doctors did what had to be done: save the life of a girl of nine years old," he said. [BBC]

In response to all the backlash against the selection of Saddleback pastor Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration, she says:

When I heard the news, in its neat little sound bite form that we are so accustomed to, it painted the picture for me. This Pastor Rick must surely be one hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others. He probably has his own gay little secret bathroom stall somewhere, you know. One more hater working up his congregation to hate the gays, comparing us to pedophiles and those who commit incest, blah blah blah. Same 'ole thing. Would I be boycotting the inauguration? Would we be marching again?

But, last night, Etheridge performed at a Muslim Public Affairs Council event last night — at which, she was informed Monday, Warren was going to be the keynote speaker.

She flipped. And then she thought. And then she reached out to Rick Warren.

On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Maybe it's the spirit of the season, or she's infected with some audacious hope, but Etheridge thinks that maybe, rather than shunning religious figures who denounce same sex marriage (or homosexuality more generally), the anti-H8 community should engage them on issues and in causes on which both sides agree.

Of course, she might have also written it not knowing that the Saddleback Church used to — until recently — deny practicing homosexuals membership in the congregation. Or she might have written it before the Pope said that "saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment." Or she might just be trying to understand the Prop 8 supporters that are trying to annul her marriage after they totally kind of completely hinted to voters that they wouldn't.

Actually, she probably does know those things. She's lived with open intolerance much of her life, after all. That's what makes it harder to hold hands and try to change people by allowing them to understand her. It's easier to hate the H8ers than to grit your teeth and show more understanding of their religious world views than they've ever bother trying to show people who have something other than the most banal heteronormative sexuality.

The Choice Is Ours Now [Huffington Post]

Related: Warren’s Church Removes Anti-Gay Statements From Website [Think Progress]
Gay Groups Angry At Pope Remarks [BBC]
Prop. 8 Sponsors Seek To Nullify 18,000 Gay Marriages [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Melissa Etheridge on Prop 8

"You don't work to limit the murder of innocent victims. You work to stop it," Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League adds. But couldn't they do both? Throwing their support behind more health care and opportunities for impoverished and campaigning to end abortion are not mutually exclusive things, as the more reasonable pro-lifers, like Douglas Kmiec, realize. "If one strategy has failed and failed over decades, and you have empirical information that tells how you can honor life and encourage women to make that choice by meeting real needs that are existing and tangible, why not do that?" Kmiec, a Catholic who voted for Obama tells the Post.

There's one Catholic who might not be as willing to compromise as Kmiec: the Pope According to Time, one of Obama's first moves in office may be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo some restrictions to abortion, and "could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience." An insider at the Vatican tells Time, that if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act, "[I]t would be the equivalent of a war. It would be like saying: 'We've heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.'" The most unfortunate part of this potential is that the Obama administration and the Vatican have a lot of shared thoughts about foreign policy and the environment, and according to Time, "the possibility of an open clash over abortion could squander the potential for the Vatican to work side-by-side with Washington" on these issues."

Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban To Reduction [Washington Post]
Will The Pope And Obama Clash Over Abortion? [Time]

"They keep their boyfriends warm at night??" I remember whining at my dad (who did something like roll his eyes and say, "Maureen, no one took the Beach Boys seriously until 'Pet Sounds'," as if that was something I should have known.)

But anyway, in the spirit of nostalgia and slow news days, I started trying to remember other things that used to get me, like, RAGING mad on behalf of womanity. The Good Earth. (Meanwhile, the Good Earth movie, which was full of white actors, was offensive on numerous other levels pertaining to civil rights, but that's another story.) The year our monsignor fired all the female altar servers. My mom ranting about how she never should have taken my dad's fucked up surname. Oh my god, and all old movies. Below, a clip from a 1961 movie musical that STILL TOTALLY STILL MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF, even as it is also almost hard to look away and years later I ended up using this movie to appease girls I babysat. In Rodgers' & Hammerstein's defense, Nancy Kwan is, at least, legitimately Asian:

This is the Santa hat he showed up with at Christmas, which he says is actually a camauro and shows up in papal portraits in the Middle Ages! He's making everything old somewhat less ancient again!

Here his is in his traditional shiny Mass clothes... but just look at his snazzy red loafers (not made by Prada, he swears!) peaking out from underneath! As long as your shoes don't clash with your golden vestments and pointy hat, it's ok to use them to make a fashion statement!

Here, Benedict is taking a page from his predecessor's style book, but he makes it his own with a shiny little scarf and — you guessed it — his red shoes! Since he's hosting George W. Bush, look how they reflect Bush's Texas roots to make him feel more at home!

[Images via AP]

• God bless Vivienne Westwood for being so undeniably herself. Says the fashion designer-cum-philosopher: "I'd like to do less, but there are people dependent on me now. My thing has always been, just let me finish this pair of trousers and then I can read my book. We've all got to wear something, I suppose. So my advice would be to buy quality. Choose well. I think there's a certain status in seeing someone wearing the same thing over and over again." [Vogue UK]
  
• God bless Heidi Klum. She's just so wise: "[Take] time out for yourself so you can engage in an activity that you really enjoy. [Also, don't] neglect the romance in your life. [And] wear pretty lingerie if you don't want to feel schlumpy." [Vogue UK]
  
• God bless Donatella Versace for saying at the Times Talks on Sunday that her fashion motto is "Don't let the rappers wear more bling than you do!" and that she hopes to be reincarnated as Maya Rudolph. [Fashion Week Daily]

• God bless Agent Provocateur co-founder Joe Corre (who is, incidentally, also the son of Vivienne Westwood) for making his brand's latest advertising campaign, fronted by Kate Moss, actually about his feelings of disdain regarding the Vatican and Catholicism. The apple clearly does not fall far from the tree. [NYMag]
• God bless the Project Runway producers for sticking to their guns and maintaining contracts with NBC rather than following their bastardized show to Lifetime. [Yahoo]
• God bless Burberry for not using Agyness Deyn in its next advertising campaign. [Fashionista]
• God bless Jack White and Karen Elson for seemingly non-stop sex. [Globe and Mail]
• God bless model/tsunami survivor Petra Nemacova for making big money in real estate. [Page Six]
• God bless Margerita Missoni for deigning to look at apartments in Alphabet City, NYC. [Fashionista]
• God bless Giorgio Armani for sorta slighting the Met when talking about last night's Costume Institute Gala: "The superheroes theme is both topical and modern and will, I believe, attract a wider audience than usual to the Costume Institute. I am looking forward to welcoming everyone." (Let us not forget in his first press conference regarding the exhibit, he managed to insult Anna Wintour.) [Vogue UK]
• God bless alice+olivia designer Stacey Bendet, who is reportedly pregnant with baby number one. [Page Six]

See, the Vatican purposely dictates from on high that all Catholic school uniform suppliers manufacture their pleated skirts at a preposterously low hemline. (One could make an attempt to alter the hemline, but one's mother would generally invite one to go fuck herself, those pleats are permanent press anyway.) So one is a left with a choice; not whether to roll up the waist, but how many times.

This serves as a constant reminder to all female members of the student population, no matter how modest, that they are all sinners, living life in constant risk of being given a detention whereby Sister Elizabeth could potentially waste the entire afternoon forcing them to copy the biography of St. Francis De Sales — perhaps the least interesting St. Francis, not that one would be absorbing information anyway — because one would be preoccupied plotting the coy request for a ride from whatever Primus listening potsmoking dude who got busted for wearing Vans one happens to be sitting next to.

The prospect of punishment for the rolling up of the kilt also keeps one constantly attuned to the intentions of the potential enforcers of said punishments. The retired Colonel who wearily barks "KILTS DOWN" when one passes — he is waiting to die. The chemistry teacher who insists one kneel on the floor every period so he can personally inspect the length of one's kilt — a pervert. The one or two truly Christlike figures in the building, the gentle-voiced guitar-playing service project-organizing plainclothes priests: who are they to cast detentions? They're closet homos anyway. And homos, like Jesus, love sluts.

Goodbye To The Catholic School Skirt