Some reactions to Bp. Lynch’s ‘Locker Room’ essay

In the Light of the Law ^ | 10/25/14 | Edward Peters

[BlatherNaut]

Defenders of right reason and doctrinal coherence must often, these days, upon reading the latest column in support of, say, holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics or ecclesial recognition of the gay life-style, engage in ‘comprehensional self-checks’ along the lines of “Did so-and-so really say that? Can that possibly mean what it seems clearly to have said?” But, to an extent that has never been required of one before, Bp. Robert Lynch’s (St. Petersburg FL) “Locker Room” essay on the Synod of Bishops and the future of the Church demands that readers repeatedly stop and make sure that they are not eisegetically ascribing to a Catholic bishop positions that no informed Catholic can defend.

For those willing to wade through Lynch’s juvenile sports-theme prose, to overlook his more startling characterizations of the synod (“it was collegiality exercised in its most pristine form”) or its procedures (“transparency has never been more apparent” {huh?}), and forgive his digs at the Church herself (“which until now has thought that the best form of governance is secret governance”), I offer the following.

Lynch writes: “I cannot, we cannot promise [gays and lesbians] that we will ever be likely to recognize the nature of their unions as sacramental…”

I must ask: does a sentence like that show any regard for what its words mean?

Of the myriad of “unions” between human beings—spousal, parental, friendships, co-workers, religious groupings, political factions, educational, artistic, economic, military, conspiratorial, criminal, and so on—only one union, namely, that between husband and wife, is regarded by the Church as (potentially) a sacrament. Only one. Knowing, therefore, that no other human union besides marriage could be a sacrament, Lynch must be talking about ‘same-sex marriage’ and, albeit regretfully, predicting that the label “sacrament” will be withheld from it.

But, setting aside Lynch’s inadvertence to the fact that, even among human unions that are indisputably marriage, only some of them (namely, those between two baptized spouses) are “sacramental”, the bishop seems not to know, first, that no sacrament of matrimony can exist unless that union is first, by natural law, a marriage (and that the Church teaches with infallible certainty that marriage can exist only between a man and a woman), and second, that Christ raised marriage (and only marriage) to the level of a sacrament we call Matrimony. Put another way, a same-sex union cannot be a marriage under natural law, so it cannot be the sacrament of Matrimony under Church law. To hold as even possible that same-sex unions could… maybe… might… one day be reckoned a true marriage and, from there, that they could… maybe… might… eventually be recognized as sacraments, defies both right reason and doctrinal coherence.

I have read several times Lynch’s line wistfully closing the door on recognizing the sacramentality of same-sex unions as if such recognition were simply a bridge too far (that is, not impossible in itself, but only impossible for us now with the means at our disposal) and I cannot read it as other than reflecting a complete unawareness of the absolute necessity of marriage under natural law to anything that would be sacramental Matrimony by the will of Christ.

[livius]

Let me just say that he was known as “Bishop Speedo” here in Florida, and I don’t know why he wasn’t removed after he lost the sexual harassment suit (pressuring a stright, married lay employee to give the bishop photos of himself wearing a speedo-type bathing suit). This was under JPII, who was quite lax on disciplining bishops, unfortunately, and I guess when BXVI took over, he had bigger fish to fry. He removed Fr Maciel immediately, for example, even though JPII had tolerated him for years.

In any case, calling it a “locker room” talk was probably not the best thing to do.

[BlatherNaut]

“...In addition to reporting on the Lynch-Urbanski story, the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune were looking into rumors of Bishop Lynch’s intimate relationship with bachelor David Herman, a contractor who had moved from Fort Lauderdale to St. Petersburg with Lynch when he was installed as bishop. The two men had vacationed together in Hawaii, San Francisco, Key West, Bermuda, Israel and Rome, sometimes accompanied by Urbanski.

Herman had several things in common with Urbanski, one of them being that both men were triathletes. In March 2000, all three men, that is Herman, Urbanski and Lynch went to West Palm Beach for a weekend. Urbanski said the bishop pressured him to go. When they got to their hotel, Urbanski said that Lynch made him take a steam bath together. Herman, who joined the two men said that Urbanski clearly did not want to be there.

Urbanski said that when Lynch began to make sexual overtures towards him, he tried to avoid the bishop as much as possible. “I tried to avoid him as the years progressed, without him getting mad at me. I couldn’t have him mad at me. It was a tough day at work if he was mad at me, yet I couldn’t leave. He went as far as to tell me how to wear my hair. If I got my hair cut, he would say, ‘Oh, Bill. You need to grow your hair back. It’s not a flattering haircut for you.’” He said that when he and Bishop Lynch traveled together the bishop always insisted on sharing rooms, and sometimes appeared naked from the shower.

In April 2002, Urbanski gave a lengthy interview to Brad Smith of the Tampa Tribune in which he elaborated on his four and a half-year relationship with Bishop Lynch. He said that Lynch was a lavish spender who always traveled first class and that he (Urbanski) was frequently the recipient of the bishop’s largesse — watches, designer clothing and other expensive items. Urbanski said at first he was grateful, until he realized that the gifts came at a price — more time, attention, and ultimately sexual favors for the bishop.

It is interesting to note that reporters following the case appeared to be unfazed by the homosexual overtones of the Lynch-Herman relationship or Lynch taking sexual familiarities with Urbanski, a married man with two small children baptized by the bishop. They were upset, however, by the accusation that Lynch, as Corporation Sole of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, had awarded Herman highly inflated new construction contracts totaling $30.3 million on a non-competitive bid basis even though diocesan regulations mandate open bidding for church construction work.

It appears that Bishop Lynch has successfully managed his own sexual misconduct crisis, thanks in no small part to a major distraction provided by the resignation in March 2002 of Bishop Anthony O’Connell of the Diocese of Palm Beach for — you guessed it — sexual molestation....”

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/070330

[livius]

JPII may have been very personally holy, but he was a terrible pope from an administrative point of view. He never removed any bishop unless the bishops was virtually on his way to jail.

Some of these were the “boy bishops” appointed by Paul VI, a few of whom were so young that they will still be with us for another year or two, and some of the were bad appointments he himself made, as the result of bad nuncios who accepted the bad recommendations of bad bishops’ conferences.

BXVI did clean up a few things, such as Fr. Maciel, but I don’t think he ever was able to really get going on the bishops (probably because it would have required more support from the bishops’ conferences, and when he took over, most of them were firmly in “progressivist” hands) and just hoped to appoint good ones when the bad ones were aged out.

We had a very good nuncio in the US for awhile and got some good appointments. He died too soon, alas, and his replacement has not been as good. It also appears that Francis is taking much more of an interest in this and he and his coterie are making sure we get youngish progressive or weak bishops who are going to poison their dioceses for years to come.

[utahagen]

This Bishop Lynch is, as far as I am concerned, a murderer. When a few hundred of us Americans were fighting to keep Terri Schaivo from being starved and dehydrated to death, Bishop Lynch was working for the other side. He is a quisling.