D. Valour Annual Conference
2013
University of The Lake
Notes on getting here.
Am definitely getting older ;-) did not enjoy getting up at 4 30 to get
to the Huejotzingo airport at 5:30 to take 7:00 o’clock flight. Have traveled
very lightly because I’ll be going to Minneapolis from here to visit Sean; It
was a blessing to do so, because I had to walk 3 miles from the Metro Station
to the University in a beautiful setting, but with muggy weather. By the time I
walked in to the Seminary at 5:00 pm I was drenched in sweat, and had to take a
quick shower to go to 5:00 o’clock mass.
When I walked in I was
of course lost—I‘d forgotten to print the map of the university campus--, so I
wandered through the gardens and stumbled upon a statue of Mary carrying the
Christ child (he was crowned with a garland of roses), and I just stood there,
exhausted from a long day of flights, Metra and walking. I need to
step back and reflect what I’ve lived here the last 24 hours.
To make this easier,
I’ve decided to break the information down into segments to remember what I’ve
seen, though it’s been so much I may not recall everything. As far as the
conferences are concerned they are being recorded and I can purchase them at
the Pauline stores, and will have to write, and reflect about them later.
Location:
Probably my favorite thing of all; Architecture is stunning from my
personal point of view. We’re just in a village (which I walked through from
Metro station and saw has a heavy Hispanic population; many businesses catering
to Latino’s tastes) the seminary holds building that look like a mixture of an
English Grand House, to a Roman revival church interior and a refectory that is
filled with Dutch chandeliers.
The view of the lake from the church is quite
breath taking. An image of the Sacred Heart on a pillar, and at the base of the
statue the four evangelists—Mathew, Luke, Mark and John—all very different from
the Catholic aesthetic we have in Mexico.
The dormitory is comfortable, not as Spartan
as I thought it would be: old wood furniture that reminds me of the type my grandparents
had in Detroit, except this is more massive; there’s blue velvet hanging from
the curtain rack. The room is designed for two people but am fortunately by
myself. Staff not very nice, treatment is very matter of fact. Information is
not given unless specifically asked to.
People:
Thanks to being bilingual binational, I’ve been able to fit into two
groups, the men who have come from Latin America and a small group of Americans
who were kind enough to include me with them the first day for dinner.
The Americans; very friendly, J was the first to approach me when he saw
me eating by myself his first words were
if it was my first time in a Valour congress, and after an affirmation he said
nobody should be alone at his first congress. He is from Wichita, very nice, quiet and it
would seem unassuming. He has character though. He has been in Valour for eight years and is hoping to join a Camaldolese monastery in California the next year. He likes
Valour's regimented lifestyle, but honestly doesn’t seem to have a problem
with being gay; he can be flamboyant wearing cravats and a navy blue linnen
shirt, but does not forward many thoughts on the gay or SSA movements. He seems
content. We were met by his friend D, from Buffalo, NY, recent convert to
Catholicism and an explorer of diverse faiths within Christianity and new age.
He regularly attends other meetings of ex gays who do have the finality of
transforming the gay man back to masculinity. He has been an interesting source
of information and he seems to be very social, hanging out with different
groups of men.
At the table with us that dinner sat two men from the diocese of Wichita. They just opened their first Valour chapter in May, they are both
heterosexual and seemed cordial to us, though there was something off-putting
or aggressive about their persona; we chatted briefly (not me though, I just
listened) and a Deacon from Memphis came and sat with us. The topic came up
that some (or many) bishops and archbishops do not want Valour chapters opened
in their diocese.
After dinner we went to the first conference; on the way I talked to a
sweet man, a priest from Minnesota young and happy it seemed; I wished for a
few seconds I could be like him, young, an optimist, good looking and a priest.
The first talk was given by Dr. J. Zamarska—a man who I knew from
his Amazon.com page, because I wanted to buy his book on Natural law.
Interesting talk based on the natural vs. unnatural argument, don’t necessarily
agree with his ideas because it even contradicts the notions of chastity within
Catholic Church stating what the reproductive organs are for, but will go into
that deeper later.
I went to bed and slept profoundly.
July 26
Reclaiming the Latino heritage.
I hung out more with the Latin American nationals who came to the
congress. Among the foreign population, we [Hispanics] don’t seem to fit in well. There is
Guido from Arezzo, who though not a member of Valour—because such a movement does
not exist in Italy—came to participate.
He stands by himself, and is very
serious.
Communication is hard with him because he is a low volume talker—his voice is
barely audible, while his accent is hard to decipher. He likes to sit with us
the Latin Amercans, I guess, that he does not feel alone with us. He does know how to fall
elegantly at a Cardinal’s feet when the prelate walks by regally. He is the only person
who did so at yesterday’s mass, and it must be that he a) has practice because
he’s done it before or b) Italians just have a culture that knows how to highlight
the dramatic. Interestingly enough he heard about Valour apostolate thanks to
a priest from Mexico in Italy. His clothes are fantastically beautiful, though
they tend to be grey and different shades of dark blue.
From Mexico there are
two men, apart from myself; A and R. A is from Mexico City; there is a sheepish air that surrounds him. When you get to know
him he is very sweet and offers information freely; I asked him about the law
suit that Valour faced recently. The story goes that two lesbian women from
Monterrey joined Valour as a couple (they were allowed to do so, highlighting
the good intentions of Courage) and after a while left the group and accused
the apostleship of promoting discrimination. The case took four years to be
solved and was won by Valour. A is one of the founders and told me the story
of how Valour Mexico was founded. There were two individuals who had
homosexual feelings but did not want to live them out. Both contacted a priest
and hermit who lives in the state of Morelos, his name is Father Thomas Aquinas of American nationality. One of the men who contacted him was
driving to Taxco when he got a call from Fr. Aquinas and they decided
to meet there shortly thereafter. From this talk of a man who did not like
having homosexual feelings, emerged the idea of bringing Valour to Mexico. Fr. Thomas Aquinas contacted Fr. Henry in the
States and invited him to a Congress of Bishops in Mexico City. It was a spur
of the moment type of thing; Fr. Henry came to Mexico, gave a talk to the
Bishops about his mission, and received a warm welcoming. The letter to inform
Cardinal Norberto Rivera was lost (it wasn’t delivered to him) and when he
first heard of the groups meetings, he was upset that he had not been informed
of its creation in the Archdiocese of Mexico. After it was explained to him of
what it consisted he became a defender of the movement throughout Mexico. He
also allowed them to start in the basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He doesn’t say much, but John's name comes up
he always refers to John as “Juanito” that could be interpreted as a
derogatory or sweet way of calling John. He doesn’t talk about him much at all,
except to say that he is one of the founders of Valour. The start was hard,
but it has all worked out and eight years afterwards, the movement keeps
growing. From Mexico the first Vlour chapters of Latin America emerged. The
first one was Puerto Rico and there are others in Guatemala and El Salvador.
There are two men from Peru with us: R and L. R is the older of the two. He has SSA but married
and has children. He is now 56 yrs. Old. He always seems like a very sweet man,
and always has a smile and wants to chit chat with everybody. I don’t trust
him. He is a part of the R.C. movement with his wife. He brought
Valour to Peru because as he remembers, "homosexuality had been
glamorized in different public venues." He asked a priest what he should do
about it, and the priest suggested that the bring Valour to Peru.
Through the process he recognized that he had SSA feelings as well, and acted
them out when he lived in New Mexico during his college years. He recruited L who
tends to be very quiet. He is a computer programmer with a Doctorate and he
travels to Asia a lot (two countries came up in conversation: India and Taiwan). He was the first
member of Valour in his home country and he had to go through a screening
process when he was chosen. He is very devout and is thinking of pursuing a
Masters in Psychology to help people through their problems.
Finally there is R from
Campeche who is an accountant and probably one of the best personalities that I have encountered here yet. He is not afraid to speak of
terms likes salvation and God, and aside from the speakers, he is the only one
who has done so yet. He has lived in chastity for 8 years, and he only had 3
incidents that may have caused his downfall. He has been successful at
conquering the vice of masturbation, and from that he has received many graces.
He seems happy as well, and his group in Campeche is one of the biggest that there
is—13 in all. He seems happier and more
sincere than some of the other members and I admit I am favorably impressed
with his spirituality, though he seems a bit hard on the way he expects people
to behave.
The “ambiente”
It is not festive, though everybody seems to be happy; the surroundings
I admit are quite breath taking and if one can get away from the rounds of
conferences and masses, walking the grounds is very conducive to spiritual
feelings. Walking towards the kiosk in the lake feels as surreal as waking up in
a fairy tale, where the princess will meet her prince and maybe be rescued from
him. Rescue is the key word here… why is it so important for the Catholic
Church to do this? I’d like to think the motives are sincere, and I am sure
talking to all the people that I have that they are here for a crystal motive,
they are catholic and their same sex attraction is incompatible with their
belief system. But unlike other groups they are not trying to eradicate it, why
they do is sublimate it. They believe that same sex attraction may have been
caused by a series of actions done by their parents in their childhood. The
theme that seems to be prevalent is father issues; the father was not present
or did not know how to relate to the child, and the lack of this father figure
made the child look to other men to define his identity. Not many authors have
been mentioned that sustain this theory, no scientific arguments sustain this
either. Interestingly, this does not mean that the child is mentally ill as he develops
these same sex attractions, as was considered before 1974; it is just the way
it is. It is a possible explanation, though as everybody remarks here, this
could change if other causes for homosexuality appear in the future. But even
if they did, it is true that SSA’s must live their lives in chastity. Chastity
has a long standing tradition in the Church, and I will have to contrast this
with Protestant’s negative views on chastity, but this tradition which is
imbued throughout the conferences with a lot of importance gives the Catholic
Church an edge that other Christian churches do not have.
Maybe a history of
chastity would be important to develop these ideas… anyway what the conferences
are meant to do then is to support the people with SSA to remain celibate. The
decision to do so is heavily rewarded here. Lay and secular members have
thanked us from the podium for being celibate, despite the fact that many (2 or
3) of the conferences seem to reaffirm how important heterosexual love is. I
know I’ll find the Catholic arguments that favor chastity and find many
historical explanations, but what also seems important is that chastity
reaffirms the natural law model, and reaffirms the family. If questions of
loneliness or sickness arise in old age, it is left to God to take care of
these things; faith is that belief that God will help us sort through whatever
trial we may face. Loneliness seems to be the cross to bear, I guess. A had a
story; in Mexico City—where Valour has a good rapport with the LGBT community
according to him—men who are gay face their demos alone on their last days.
Their friends and family forsake them and in their last hours the only persons
who take care of their needs are the priests.
This poses another
thing that is interesting but disturbing to me personally; the priest’s
authority is overreaching. If the priest says something it is greeted with more
appreciation than if it was said by a lay person. They also love the stories of
conversion from an overtly sexualized person who was not Catholic and who later
changed in both counts. What moved them more were sentimental stories rather
than intellectual discourse. It seems like it is more a good feeling fest, than
a place where Thomas Aquinas’ principle of natural law is discussed, but then
again this is my first meeting and maybe this has been talked about in the
past. The people who come here are not looking for answers, they already have
them. The Church backed by a sector of psychology reaffirms that what Valour stands for is
correct. Little discussion of Thomas Aquinas, Augustine or Alphonsus of
Liguori. The bestselling book is one about chastity as a way of getting to know
God. The movement is growing, but the dissonant voices, like John's are not
heard here. It is a triumphant discourse that is talked about here was
Catholicism is winning, or so it would seem.
A problem has been the
society that is outside these seminary walls (where I could honestly live for
the rest of my life). The world is besotted with a relativism that encourages
people to do their worst, particularly murder, be it in the form of abortion or
a school shooting or the random murder of
a little girl by her neighbor. In this world that is in such a chaos the
problem is that God and his commandments have been put aside, by people who
know no better. In the middle of this ocean of anarchy, the bulwark of order IS
THE Catholic Church who possesses truth. The truth is revealed in the gospels
and enforced by the good people who are here and everywhere doing the work of
the Lord.
With every talk they
feel empowered and entertained; the speaker has said what we all believe is
true, the world is dangerous even if you believe in God you are in danger, but
as a Catholic or a Christian (culture wars are true, no attacks on fellow
Christians at all, just a few dismissive mentions) you can find peace on earth
and a guarantee that you will live in heaven when you die.
