WATCH is a Trojan horse to smuggle queer theory in the CoE. The giveaway is: The traditionalist position is no more than entrenched “discrimination and sexism,” which has “the worst impact on women who are also people of colour or disabled or from working class backgrounds or who are lesbian, bisexual or trans.” If one asked WATCH for a definition of ‘woman’ it would be something nonsensical about identity, not the commonly understood meaning of adult human female.
Also WATCH probably can’t see one logical outcome of its campaign. If the aim is to force the CoE to accept women priests in all sections of the CoE, then guaranteed within a short time it will also have to accept transwomen, ie men, as priests. So the CoE could end up with men in make-up and heels claiming to be women and discriminated against if they do not get picked for female priest roles.
You are right to want to let WATCH speak, Fr. Thomas. Over in the TERF corner of X that I frequent, we call this #Operation Let Them Speak, which means encouraging the queer theorists to explain exactly what it is they want. The answers are enlightening!
Voices from TERF island -- what is wrong with a trans woman or trans man being a minister of religion? Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for dressing as a man. I learn from Michel Foucault's thoroughly eye-opening 1974-75 seminar, Les Anormaux that hermaphrodites were seen as monsters, executed just for being that. Later they were obliged to choose and live according to one sex and to make no use of the other sex, so that a hermaphrodite who had chosen to live as a male could be executed for living with a female. Transphobia has deep roots.
Father, was that really why Joan of Arc was burned at the stake? It sounds like a bit of a wishful simplification. Went and by whom were hermaphrodites executed just for being that how does this compare to the abortion of a fetus simply for being female, which after all is the majority recent worldwide for abortions to take place? Is the Didache’s apostolic teaching against the common contemporary practice of exposing disabled infants on birth not safer ground than the coprophagic paederast?
If a man wishes to live as a woman or the other way round, and to be addressed as such, then kindness and decency dictate that one should respect that wish. But if said person demands that I actually believe them to be what they claim to be, and further that there isn’t potentially infinite range of genders and self constructed pronouns to the use of which we must all conform, then I reserve the right politely and respectfully to differ, without being called names - or losing my job, as has happened to friends of mine. I also reserve the right to question whether surgical and technological solutions to psychological problems are wise or justified, again without being accused of some kind of phobia.
AI verifies my memory: "On May 24 Joan signed a retraction, and, on the condition she would dress as a woman, her death sentence was reduced to life in prison. But four days later, she said the voices had returned and she was again found dressed in men's clothing. All 27 trial masters pronounced her a relapsed heretic." I also read here: "True, she was burned at the stake at the age of 19, but it wasn't for heresy or witchcraft, as the story often goes. In the end, the only crime that the Inquisition tribunal could formally charge the chaste maiden with was that of wearing men's clothes"(https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/joan-of-arc-trial.htm). Please reflect on who is misled by wishful simplification here?
When and by whom were hermaphrodites executed just for being that? "Specifically, the case of Antide Collas from 1599 corroborates the relationship between hermaphroditism and crime, indicating the perception of the hermaphroditic body as an obscene creature that had to be addressed according to the regulatory characteristics of the law. While Collas was accused for being a hermaphrodite after he/she was examined by doctors who concluded that both sexes were present, the existence of double genitalia was justified on the basis that he/she “had relations with Satan and it was this relationship that had added a second sex to his/her original sex.” Thus, the satanic implant of an additional sex undermined the gendered ontology of divine creation and necessitated the condemnation of the unnatural body, demanding at the same time the implementation of extreme penalty. In the end, Collas was burnt alive in Dole, although, according to Foucault, was one of the last cases for which such punishment was applied for that reason." https://escholarship.org/content/qt11v878w5/qt11v878w5.pdf?t=p5ofre
Foucault was not a pedophile: "A few days after publication of the Sunday Times article, these allegations were debunked thanks to a quick inquiry conducted by the reporters of the magazine Jeune Afrique in the village in question. For several days, on the social networks, individuals from the Maghreb, had already been emphasizing the dubious character of Sorman’s allegations, pointing out that the cemeteries are generally kept under a close watch to guard against desecrations. In Jeune Afrique, witnesses who had frequented Foucault reminded readers that “like in every village, one is never alone and the cemetery, especially in these maraboutic lands, is a sacred place that no one would dare profane for fear of upsetting the baraka of Sidi Jebali, the patron saint of places.” As for the boys frequented by Michel Foucault, one learns finally that they weren’t 8 or 9 years old as Sorman maintained, but 17 or 18, according to the “categorical” statement of “Moncef Ben Abbes, the veritable keeper of the village’s memory”. Nor was it a matter of “violating them stretched out on graves” but of “meeting up with them briefly among the trees, under the adjacent cemetery light”."
Hermaphrodites, in the sense you are using the term, don’t exist. Some people have disorders of sexual development and are born with ambiguous genitalia, but they are nonetheless male or female. No one is ever born with both sets of genitalia.
I haven’t said that trans women (ie, men) or trans men (ie, women) shouldn’t be allowed to be priests. My point is if you impose women priests on all sections of the CoE while insisting the term ‘woman’ also includes trans women, the outcome will be trans women taking priestly roles intended for women. This is happening in sports, all-women shortlists, prizes for women, forums where women discuss female issues, such as miscarriage, endometriosis, breast cancer, etc.
Queer theory, devised by Michael Foucault, among others, tells us we must accept trans women in these activities, despite the fact that many of these men suffer from autogynephila, ie, a fetish and mental health condition. They are turned on by wearing female clothing, imposing themselves in private female spaces, such as toilets and changing rooms. Some of them take drugs to stimulate their ‘breasts’ to lactate. Look up what has happened to La Leche, a charity which promotes breast feeding and has now fallen apart because trans women, ie men, insist they must be included. Understandably, members of the board have resigned in protest.
Fortunately, yesterday on TERF island the Supreme Court confirmed that ‘woman’ means biological woman in law, thus protecting our rights under the Equality Act. Hopefully this will give the CoE pause for thought before trans women, ie, men, queue up to become women priests.
"Hermaphrodites" was the language of the time; today we say "intersex"; the point is that challenges to crude binaries have ignited irrational and murderous attitudes. Can the Supreme Court of the UK be guilty of such? Very much so. When it comes to psychology the Law is always an ass. I heard the defence lawyer in David Norris's case against the Victorian antigay laws invoke the authority of the emperor Justinian (David replied: "Was he not the fellow who thought sodomy caused earthquakes?"). As to Michel Foucault, just as Caravaggio has emerged as the greatest Italian painter of his time, Foucault may be emerging as the greatest French thinker of his time (outshining Deleuze, Lacan, Derrida, Lévi-Strauss), because he always argues in close contact with details drawn from deep research and always with an educative zeal and a passion for justice.
People with disorders of sexual development (DSDs) have repeatedly asked that the term ‘intersex’ is not used because it implies they are between sexes, which they are not.
Are you saying that the decision of the Supreme Court is murderous and irrational? Really? A child of five can tell the difference between a man and a woman, and the vast majority of the population agrees with the Supreme Court that the word woman means biological woman.
Foucault famously argued in 1978 that the age of consent should be abolished and there is nothing wrong with the sexual abuse of children. Should this man’s abhorrent views guide the UK’s highest court on the protection of the rights of women and girls? Surely not.
"A child of five can tell the difference between a man and a woman." And a child of five is liable to hate "sissies" -- hopefully when that child of five grows up it will have a wider and subtler view of sex and gender.
Foucault correctly predicted that the pedophile would be the scapegoat of choice in the 21st century (since Jews and gays were no longer available for the role). Trump's effort to scapegoat trans folk is not working.
Spot on, Father. England will be blessed to have you again battling the bad dragons as a champion of the Church. Japan, on the other hand, will be impoverished--although I'm sure you are leaving behind a heap of felled dragons.
Two questions:
1. Is your refusal to use the Oxford comma ideological?
2. How do the Brits justify spelling "jail" as "gaol"?
Tom, I doubt if you have any audience for these views in the Anglican Church in Japan, which accepts women priests, bishops and deacons without demur. When you say that WATCH has a problem with the Word of God, you really mean with biblical literalism or fundamentalism. "The ordination of women to the priesthood, and even more so to the episcopate, requires a liberal approach to the reading of Scripture and considerable scepticism of received tradition. It is therefore hard to deny that the more women bishops there are, the more liberal the church must become. Evidence certainly suggests as much.." Yes, but exactly the same is true of the (1) the church's volte-face in regard to Judaism (in Vatican II's Nostra Aetate), (2) church acceptance of LGBT folk, (3) church condemnation of slavery -- since the end of the 19th century.
Greetings, Father. I hope all is well with you. You are quite right that these views have no audience in the Anglican church in Japan, which is one of the reasons why I have left it. It’s a decision I am very happy with, as I can now be far more honest in my preaching and teaching. For example, at one point, I was asked to provide some words about the Prodigal Son for a diocesan newsletter, but was censored from saying that the parable reveals Jesus as an icon of the Father on the grounds that this argument could be could be used, potentially, to exclude women priests. I was making no such point and had no such intention, but the very fact that it could be construed as such meant that it was Verboten. This is the theological climate that WATCH and their allies are creating. It would not bode well for your work on Nicaea, I fear.
I am by no means making any reference to biblical literalism or fundamentalism. That is far too easy a target. Yes, there are Evangelicals who argue against the ministry of women as leaders or teachers of any kind on the grounds of proof texts from Saint Paul. That is what I would consider a fundamentalist approach. However, if by fundamentalism, what means regarding scripture as the authoritative revelation of God not merely as a collection of proof texts but in its overarching narrative and particularly in the person of Christ, faithfully recorded by the apostles, then I stand guilty. I’m not sure what any church, the Roman Catholic Church included, would be without such a notion of the authority of scripture. My trouble with WATCH is that they are, in fact, a sort of fundamentalist group themselves: where the Evangelical fundamentalist might take one specific reading of Saint Paul on the atonement and make the entire scriptural narrative fit to that reading, cutting off any bits that are inconvenient, WATCH make all scripture conform to its fundamental doctrine of critical theory, again ignoring any inconvenient passages to fit its own entirely secularist narrative. This is when they even bother to cite scripture at all, rather than, as the link I have shared demonstrates, relying nakedly on the force of legal power and secular analysis.
I would need to know precisely what you mean by fundamentalism to make any more detailed comment, but as far as I’m aware, it is a 19th century American Protestant movement in reaction to certain excess of natural theology misapplied as social theory following the discoveries of Darwin. When evolution was used to justify racial theory and eugenetics, a literal approach to scripture became a fallback. This is clearly not the context in which the entire church Catholic has always insisted on an all male priesthood. Such fundamentalism is anachronistic when applied to the apostles and to the fathers. They, as you know (and I include Saint Paul in this) were capable of what we would now call both literal and allegorical approaches to scripture, none of which offer a particularly convincing justifications for the ordination of women to the priesthood. It is not so much a matter of “the Bible says” as of coherence with the entire theological matrix of scripture, tradition and reason. But as I said, I do not mean to rehearse all those arguments here. My desire is rather that’s the church retain a place for those who hold to the older, and in my view more coherent view, and to fight against those who would banish us from the church. Make no mistake, that is their explicit intent.
Forgive my bluntness, but the three examples you cite, I think, are canards. You know that no more about this than I do, but I rather thought that Nostra Aetate was less an aggiornamento assault on some supposed fundamentalism held by the Catholic Church in the past, but was the fruit of the resourcement approach spearheaded by Henry de Lubac, supported by a young Ratzinger, neither of whom are often accused of liberalism. The quite proper turn away from supercessionism to a recognition of the Jews as a people sui generis was motivated not by a liberal relativisation of scripture, but precisely by reference to it, and to the Fathers, read in their own regard rather than through the narrow lens of Neoscholasticism. Does that sound right to you? If so, then it is precisely by appeal to the authority of scripture, rather than to denigration or relativisation of the same, still less by conforming it to a modernist narrative, that the church revised her position on Judaism.
The same can be said about slavery. As you know, it was Evangelical Protestants in England who called for the end of slavery precisely by appeal to sacred scripture and by demonstrating that previous readings of the Bible had been misguided. In other words, their appeal was not to the supposed scientific developments (anyone for phrenology?) or social norms of the day, but to the authority of scripture. This is entirely different from the approach that WATCH is taking. Indeed, if we do follow their approach to the end, it will as I say lead to unqualified acceptance of abortion and euthanasia, and whatever else society may suddenly deem just this is not to deny that there may be theological arguments in favour of both of those developments, though I think the church is quite right to be very cautious of accepting them, but to say rather that WATCH’s approach will prevent the theological discussions even from happening, delegating all such decisions to the Guardian editorial team and ultimately to the State. Further, when we are talking about slavery in the ancient world, we are talking about something quite different from that practice in the 19th century, and the Rosie lenses of presentism may blind us to the fact that the life of a Celtic slave under the Romans could be a great deal better and safer than that of some of our modern workers who are slaves in all that name. The Commandments of the Torah call for greater care of slaves than many modern companies afford their employees, especially in parts of the third world. Ancient slavery, of course, also had nothing to do with race. But if we are in the mood for boiling some old canards, I will simply point to 1930s Germany and the various 20th century communist utopias as examples of what happens happens when the sanctity of human life is conceded to supposedly scientific modern norms.
As far as LGBT goes, that acronym is already outdated, and the fact that it is semper reformanda by the addition of potentially infinite extra characters shows that once you have walked down that path, there is no end to it. The LGB part refers to supposedly inherent and unchanging directions of one’s sexual desires, and implies that an entire identity can and should be built on those, already surely a premise open to question. The T, as you have noted in another post here, refers to something rather different, which can only be justified by a nominalist disjunction between the sexual binary and a potentially infinite range of speculative genders. It is no surprise then that the LGB and the T find themselves at odds and theirs is a house divided. Add the Q to the mix, and the very premises on which the LGB and the T exist are called into question. But as soon as these, I think, rational objections are raised, all the proponent of such innovations needs to do is add the suffix “-phobia” to silence all further conversation or criticism. We have moved a long way from the psychological definition of homophobia as hostility towards on a sexual for the fear that one might be one oneself, to the modern range of portmanteaus including Islamophobia, which are simply slurs used to shut people up. WATCH are experts in this.
My only caution, dear Father, which you are most within your rights to reject as the folly of a younger man, is that if you make friends of these people, they will not hesitate to cancel you when you fall behind the latest to development of their dogma. Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment. And a gospel without mercy is not one that I care for.
WATCH is a Trojan horse to smuggle queer theory in the CoE. The giveaway is: The traditionalist position is no more than entrenched “discrimination and sexism,” which has “the worst impact on women who are also people of colour or disabled or from working class backgrounds or who are lesbian, bisexual or trans.” If one asked WATCH for a definition of ‘woman’ it would be something nonsensical about identity, not the commonly understood meaning of adult human female.
Also WATCH probably can’t see one logical outcome of its campaign. If the aim is to force the CoE to accept women priests in all sections of the CoE, then guaranteed within a short time it will also have to accept transwomen, ie men, as priests. So the CoE could end up with men in make-up and heels claiming to be women and discriminated against if they do not get picked for female priest roles.
You are right to want to let WATCH speak, Fr. Thomas. Over in the TERF corner of X that I frequent, we call this #Operation Let Them Speak, which means encouraging the queer theorists to explain exactly what it is they want. The answers are enlightening!
Quite - the more they speak, the less anyone sane will be inclined to listen. Thank you.
Voices from TERF island -- what is wrong with a trans woman or trans man being a minister of religion? Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for dressing as a man. I learn from Michel Foucault's thoroughly eye-opening 1974-75 seminar, Les Anormaux that hermaphrodites were seen as monsters, executed just for being that. Later they were obliged to choose and live according to one sex and to make no use of the other sex, so that a hermaphrodite who had chosen to live as a male could be executed for living with a female. Transphobia has deep roots.
Father, was that really why Joan of Arc was burned at the stake? It sounds like a bit of a wishful simplification. Went and by whom were hermaphrodites executed just for being that how does this compare to the abortion of a fetus simply for being female, which after all is the majority recent worldwide for abortions to take place? Is the Didache’s apostolic teaching against the common contemporary practice of exposing disabled infants on birth not safer ground than the coprophagic paederast?
If a man wishes to live as a woman or the other way round, and to be addressed as such, then kindness and decency dictate that one should respect that wish. But if said person demands that I actually believe them to be what they claim to be, and further that there isn’t potentially infinite range of genders and self constructed pronouns to the use of which we must all conform, then I reserve the right politely and respectfully to differ, without being called names - or losing my job, as has happened to friends of mine. I also reserve the right to question whether surgical and technological solutions to psychological problems are wise or justified, again without being accused of some kind of phobia.
AI verifies my memory: "On May 24 Joan signed a retraction, and, on the condition she would dress as a woman, her death sentence was reduced to life in prison. But four days later, she said the voices had returned and she was again found dressed in men's clothing. All 27 trial masters pronounced her a relapsed heretic." I also read here: "True, she was burned at the stake at the age of 19, but it wasn't for heresy or witchcraft, as the story often goes. In the end, the only crime that the Inquisition tribunal could formally charge the chaste maiden with was that of wearing men's clothes"(https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/joan-of-arc-trial.htm). Please reflect on who is misled by wishful simplification here?
When and by whom were hermaphrodites executed just for being that? "Specifically, the case of Antide Collas from 1599 corroborates the relationship between hermaphroditism and crime, indicating the perception of the hermaphroditic body as an obscene creature that had to be addressed according to the regulatory characteristics of the law. While Collas was accused for being a hermaphrodite after he/she was examined by doctors who concluded that both sexes were present, the existence of double genitalia was justified on the basis that he/she “had relations with Satan and it was this relationship that had added a second sex to his/her original sex.” Thus, the satanic implant of an additional sex undermined the gendered ontology of divine creation and necessitated the condemnation of the unnatural body, demanding at the same time the implementation of extreme penalty. In the end, Collas was burnt alive in Dole, although, according to Foucault, was one of the last cases for which such punishment was applied for that reason." https://escholarship.org/content/qt11v878w5/qt11v878w5.pdf?t=p5ofre
Foucault was not a pedophile: "A few days after publication of the Sunday Times article, these allegations were debunked thanks to a quick inquiry conducted by the reporters of the magazine Jeune Afrique in the village in question. For several days, on the social networks, individuals from the Maghreb, had already been emphasizing the dubious character of Sorman’s allegations, pointing out that the cemeteries are generally kept under a close watch to guard against desecrations. In Jeune Afrique, witnesses who had frequented Foucault reminded readers that “like in every village, one is never alone and the cemetery, especially in these maraboutic lands, is a sacred place that no one would dare profane for fear of upsetting the baraka of Sidi Jebali, the patron saint of places.” As for the boys frequented by Michel Foucault, one learns finally that they weren’t 8 or 9 years old as Sorman maintained, but 17 or 18, according to the “categorical” statement of “Moncef Ben Abbes, the veritable keeper of the village’s memory”. Nor was it a matter of “violating them stretched out on graves” but of “meeting up with them briefly among the trees, under the adjacent cemetery light”."
Hermaphrodites, in the sense you are using the term, don’t exist. Some people have disorders of sexual development and are born with ambiguous genitalia, but they are nonetheless male or female. No one is ever born with both sets of genitalia.
I haven’t said that trans women (ie, men) or trans men (ie, women) shouldn’t be allowed to be priests. My point is if you impose women priests on all sections of the CoE while insisting the term ‘woman’ also includes trans women, the outcome will be trans women taking priestly roles intended for women. This is happening in sports, all-women shortlists, prizes for women, forums where women discuss female issues, such as miscarriage, endometriosis, breast cancer, etc.
Queer theory, devised by Michael Foucault, among others, tells us we must accept trans women in these activities, despite the fact that many of these men suffer from autogynephila, ie, a fetish and mental health condition. They are turned on by wearing female clothing, imposing themselves in private female spaces, such as toilets and changing rooms. Some of them take drugs to stimulate their ‘breasts’ to lactate. Look up what has happened to La Leche, a charity which promotes breast feeding and has now fallen apart because trans women, ie men, insist they must be included. Understandably, members of the board have resigned in protest.
Fortunately, yesterday on TERF island the Supreme Court confirmed that ‘woman’ means biological woman in law, thus protecting our rights under the Equality Act. Hopefully this will give the CoE pause for thought before trans women, ie, men, queue up to become women priests.
"No one is ever born with both sets of genitalia." But how then are we to interpret stories such as this: https://www.newvision.co.ug/news/1505225/mother-intersex-child-desperate-help
"Hermaphrodites" was the language of the time; today we say "intersex"; the point is that challenges to crude binaries have ignited irrational and murderous attitudes. Can the Supreme Court of the UK be guilty of such? Very much so. When it comes to psychology the Law is always an ass. I heard the defence lawyer in David Norris's case against the Victorian antigay laws invoke the authority of the emperor Justinian (David replied: "Was he not the fellow who thought sodomy caused earthquakes?"). As to Michel Foucault, just as Caravaggio has emerged as the greatest Italian painter of his time, Foucault may be emerging as the greatest French thinker of his time (outshining Deleuze, Lacan, Derrida, Lévi-Strauss), because he always argues in close contact with details drawn from deep research and always with an educative zeal and a passion for justice.
People with disorders of sexual development (DSDs) have repeatedly asked that the term ‘intersex’ is not used because it implies they are between sexes, which they are not.
Are you saying that the decision of the Supreme Court is murderous and irrational? Really? A child of five can tell the difference between a man and a woman, and the vast majority of the population agrees with the Supreme Court that the word woman means biological woman.
Foucault famously argued in 1978 that the age of consent should be abolished and there is nothing wrong with the sexual abuse of children. Should this man’s abhorrent views guide the UK’s highest court on the protection of the rights of women and girls? Surely not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
"A child of five can tell the difference between a man and a woman." And a child of five is liable to hate "sissies" -- hopefully when that child of five grows up it will have a wider and subtler view of sex and gender.
Foucault correctly predicted that the pedophile would be the scapegoat of choice in the 21st century (since Jews and gays were no longer available for the role). Trump's effort to scapegoat trans folk is not working.
correction: for living as a female with a woman
Excellent Father and will be wonderful to have you back in England. May St Margaret watch over you as you travel.
Bless you, Father, and thank you.
Limey Humor
Spot on, Father. England will be blessed to have you again battling the bad dragons as a champion of the Church. Japan, on the other hand, will be impoverished--although I'm sure you are leaving behind a heap of felled dragons.
Two questions:
1. Is your refusal to use the Oxford comma ideological?
2. How do the Brits justify spelling "jail" as "gaol"?
Bless you, Father.
1. No, just inconsistent.
2. 1066.
Tom, you should not accept anonymous commentators. Otherwise your website will be open to every kind of hateful ranting.
Tom, I doubt if you have any audience for these views in the Anglican Church in Japan, which accepts women priests, bishops and deacons without demur. When you say that WATCH has a problem with the Word of God, you really mean with biblical literalism or fundamentalism. "The ordination of women to the priesthood, and even more so to the episcopate, requires a liberal approach to the reading of Scripture and considerable scepticism of received tradition. It is therefore hard to deny that the more women bishops there are, the more liberal the church must become. Evidence certainly suggests as much.." Yes, but exactly the same is true of the (1) the church's volte-face in regard to Judaism (in Vatican II's Nostra Aetate), (2) church acceptance of LGBT folk, (3) church condemnation of slavery -- since the end of the 19th century.
Greetings, Father. I hope all is well with you. You are quite right that these views have no audience in the Anglican church in Japan, which is one of the reasons why I have left it. It’s a decision I am very happy with, as I can now be far more honest in my preaching and teaching. For example, at one point, I was asked to provide some words about the Prodigal Son for a diocesan newsletter, but was censored from saying that the parable reveals Jesus as an icon of the Father on the grounds that this argument could be could be used, potentially, to exclude women priests. I was making no such point and had no such intention, but the very fact that it could be construed as such meant that it was Verboten. This is the theological climate that WATCH and their allies are creating. It would not bode well for your work on Nicaea, I fear.
I am by no means making any reference to biblical literalism or fundamentalism. That is far too easy a target. Yes, there are Evangelicals who argue against the ministry of women as leaders or teachers of any kind on the grounds of proof texts from Saint Paul. That is what I would consider a fundamentalist approach. However, if by fundamentalism, what means regarding scripture as the authoritative revelation of God not merely as a collection of proof texts but in its overarching narrative and particularly in the person of Christ, faithfully recorded by the apostles, then I stand guilty. I’m not sure what any church, the Roman Catholic Church included, would be without such a notion of the authority of scripture. My trouble with WATCH is that they are, in fact, a sort of fundamentalist group themselves: where the Evangelical fundamentalist might take one specific reading of Saint Paul on the atonement and make the entire scriptural narrative fit to that reading, cutting off any bits that are inconvenient, WATCH make all scripture conform to its fundamental doctrine of critical theory, again ignoring any inconvenient passages to fit its own entirely secularist narrative. This is when they even bother to cite scripture at all, rather than, as the link I have shared demonstrates, relying nakedly on the force of legal power and secular analysis.
I would need to know precisely what you mean by fundamentalism to make any more detailed comment, but as far as I’m aware, it is a 19th century American Protestant movement in reaction to certain excess of natural theology misapplied as social theory following the discoveries of Darwin. When evolution was used to justify racial theory and eugenetics, a literal approach to scripture became a fallback. This is clearly not the context in which the entire church Catholic has always insisted on an all male priesthood. Such fundamentalism is anachronistic when applied to the apostles and to the fathers. They, as you know (and I include Saint Paul in this) were capable of what we would now call both literal and allegorical approaches to scripture, none of which offer a particularly convincing justifications for the ordination of women to the priesthood. It is not so much a matter of “the Bible says” as of coherence with the entire theological matrix of scripture, tradition and reason. But as I said, I do not mean to rehearse all those arguments here. My desire is rather that’s the church retain a place for those who hold to the older, and in my view more coherent view, and to fight against those who would banish us from the church. Make no mistake, that is their explicit intent.
Forgive my bluntness, but the three examples you cite, I think, are canards. You know that no more about this than I do, but I rather thought that Nostra Aetate was less an aggiornamento assault on some supposed fundamentalism held by the Catholic Church in the past, but was the fruit of the resourcement approach spearheaded by Henry de Lubac, supported by a young Ratzinger, neither of whom are often accused of liberalism. The quite proper turn away from supercessionism to a recognition of the Jews as a people sui generis was motivated not by a liberal relativisation of scripture, but precisely by reference to it, and to the Fathers, read in their own regard rather than through the narrow lens of Neoscholasticism. Does that sound right to you? If so, then it is precisely by appeal to the authority of scripture, rather than to denigration or relativisation of the same, still less by conforming it to a modernist narrative, that the church revised her position on Judaism.
The same can be said about slavery. As you know, it was Evangelical Protestants in England who called for the end of slavery precisely by appeal to sacred scripture and by demonstrating that previous readings of the Bible had been misguided. In other words, their appeal was not to the supposed scientific developments (anyone for phrenology?) or social norms of the day, but to the authority of scripture. This is entirely different from the approach that WATCH is taking. Indeed, if we do follow their approach to the end, it will as I say lead to unqualified acceptance of abortion and euthanasia, and whatever else society may suddenly deem just this is not to deny that there may be theological arguments in favour of both of those developments, though I think the church is quite right to be very cautious of accepting them, but to say rather that WATCH’s approach will prevent the theological discussions even from happening, delegating all such decisions to the Guardian editorial team and ultimately to the State. Further, when we are talking about slavery in the ancient world, we are talking about something quite different from that practice in the 19th century, and the Rosie lenses of presentism may blind us to the fact that the life of a Celtic slave under the Romans could be a great deal better and safer than that of some of our modern workers who are slaves in all that name. The Commandments of the Torah call for greater care of slaves than many modern companies afford their employees, especially in parts of the third world. Ancient slavery, of course, also had nothing to do with race. But if we are in the mood for boiling some old canards, I will simply point to 1930s Germany and the various 20th century communist utopias as examples of what happens happens when the sanctity of human life is conceded to supposedly scientific modern norms.
As far as LGBT goes, that acronym is already outdated, and the fact that it is semper reformanda by the addition of potentially infinite extra characters shows that once you have walked down that path, there is no end to it. The LGB part refers to supposedly inherent and unchanging directions of one’s sexual desires, and implies that an entire identity can and should be built on those, already surely a premise open to question. The T, as you have noted in another post here, refers to something rather different, which can only be justified by a nominalist disjunction between the sexual binary and a potentially infinite range of speculative genders. It is no surprise then that the LGB and the T find themselves at odds and theirs is a house divided. Add the Q to the mix, and the very premises on which the LGB and the T exist are called into question. But as soon as these, I think, rational objections are raised, all the proponent of such innovations needs to do is add the suffix “-phobia” to silence all further conversation or criticism. We have moved a long way from the psychological definition of homophobia as hostility towards on a sexual for the fear that one might be one oneself, to the modern range of portmanteaus including Islamophobia, which are simply slurs used to shut people up. WATCH are experts in this.
My only caution, dear Father, which you are most within your rights to reject as the folly of a younger man, is that if you make friends of these people, they will not hesitate to cancel you when you fall behind the latest to development of their dogma. Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment. And a gospel without mercy is not one that I care for.