tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/clergy-4461/articlesClergy – The Conversation2024-01-18T13:27:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210762024-01-18T13:27:58Z2024-01-18T13:27:58ZNicaragua released imprisoned priests, but repression is unlikely to relent – and the Catholic Church remains a target<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569921/original/file-20240117-20-1jrits.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C1%2C1017%2C656&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A priest and Catholic worshippers pray in front of an image of 'Sangre de Cristo,' burned in a fire on July 2020, at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/priest-and-catholic-faithful-pray-in-front-of-an-image-of-news-photo/1242786617?adppopup=true">Oswaldo Rivas/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bad news has been the norm for Catholics in Nicaragua, where clergy and church groups have been frequent targets of a wide-ranging crackdown for years. But on Jan. 14, 2024, they received a happy surprise: The government unexpectedly released two bishops, 15 priests and two seminary students from prison and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/14/nicaragua-bishop-rolando-alvarez/">expelled them</a> to the Vatican.</p>
<p>Those released included <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/rolando-alvarez">Bishop Rolando Álvarez</a>, a high-profile political prisoner who was detained in 2022 for criticizing the government and then sentenced to 26 years in prison for <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/nicaraguan-bishop-rolando-alvarez-receives-26-year-sentence/">alleged treason</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/dictatorship-banishes-monsignor-rolando-alvarez-and-18-other-religious-political-prisoners-to-the-vatican/">They also included</a> priests <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-arrests-four-more-priests-intensifies-crackdown-catholic-church-2023-12-30/">detained by</a> President Daniel Ortega’s government in late December 2023 <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2024-01/priest-arrested-in-nicaragua-following-mass-on-new-year-s-eve.html">for expressing solidarity</a> with Álvarez and other political prisoners. Days later, Pope Francis <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/world/europe/nicaragua-pope-francis-church.html">criticized the regime</a> in his New Year’s message and then <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/pope-francis-reiterates-concerns-about-crisis-in-nicaragua/">called for</a> “respectful diplomatic dialogue.”</p>
<p>Nearly six years after <a href="https://infobuero-nicaragua.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PUBLICADO-200908.-FUNIDES.-Nicaragua-en-movimiento-2016-2020-SEI_2020_01-2.pdf">mass protests erupted</a> against Ortega and then were brutally repressed, these prisoner releases offer some hope to Nicaragua’s opposition. As <a href="https://www.global.ucsb.edu/people/kai-m-thaler">my research</a> <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003197614-16/nicaragua-rachel-schwartz-kai-thaler">has shown</a>, however, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IICx95ZZzKjfHqiU-oVEityK70vwBv5f/view?usp=sharing">the Ortega regime is unrelenting</a> in trying to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2022.0023">retain power</a>, which suggests this is not necessarily a turning point. In fact, the government reportedly <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/dictadura-secuestra-al-sacerdote-ezequiel-buenfil-tras-el-destierro-de-19-religiosos/">took yet another priest into custody</a> on Jan. 16.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several rows of people seated in church pews, all looking ahead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569652/original/file-20240116-25-c9w6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nicaraguans attend mass in San Juan de Oriente on June 24, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-a-mass-during-celebrations-in-honour-of-san-news-photo/1259026822?adppopup=true">Stringer/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Why target the church?</h2>
<p>Ortega first led Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, after his left-wing revolutionary organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, spearheaded the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. In the 1980s, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.16993/ibero.38">FSLN clashed with the Vatican</a> and church hierarchy over the group’s socialist politics, even as many <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3712105">poorer Nicaraguan Catholics embraced them</a>.</p>
<p>When Ortega took office again in 2007, however, he did so <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20788575">with the blessing of Christian leaders</a>. During the 2006 elections, he had turned to <a href="https://doi.org/10.16993/ibero.38">alliances with Catholic</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-017-0005-6">Protestant elites</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0032">return to power</a> in exchange for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X08326020">adopting</a> conservative social policies like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61545-2">banning abortion</a>.</p>
<p>Over the next decade, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5129/001041522X16281740895086">Ortega remained popular</a>, presiding over economic growth in collaboration <a href="https://doi.org/10.15517/aeca.v43i0.31556">with business leaders</a> and developing new public infrastructure and services.</p>
<p>Yet he and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2010.00099.x">FSLN party he controlled</a> were also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2019.64">consolidating power</a> and <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/regimen-de-ortega-una-nueva-dictadura-familiar-en-el-continente/oclc/967515148">governing in an increasingly authoritarian</a> manner. Ortega won <a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/americas/nicaragua_2011_report_post.pdf">reelection in 2011</a> and then retained power in <a href="http://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0032">fraudulent elections</a> in 2016. Opposition candidates were disqualified, and Ortega’s running mate was his wife, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/americas/nicaragua-daniel-ortega-rosario-murillo-house-of-cards.html">Rosario Murillo</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3917/pal.112.0083">Unexpectedly</a>, Ortega’s popularity and his relationship with the church came crashing down in April 2018, when the government announced cutbacks in social security benefits for retirees. Nicaraguans from <a href="https://doi.org/10.5129/001041522X16281740895086">all backgrounds</a> <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7549585">took to the streets</a>, and Ortega and Murillo responded with a <a href="https://gieinicaragua.org/#section04">furious crackdown</a>, unleashing police and pro-government paramilitaries <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr43/9213/2018/en/">armed with military-grade weapons</a>.</p>
<p>Cathedrals and churches <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/bishops-journalists-attacked-church-nicaragua">tried to</a> <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/41597a7a2b9356e668ff2b579dc7cb1d/1">offer refuge</a> to protesters, but <a href="https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/media_center/preleases/2021/302.asp">over 300 people were killed</a>. Church leaders facilitated a national dialogue between the government and an opposition coalition, <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/nicaraguan-bishops-end-role-mediators-national-dialogue">but withdrew</a> as <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/06/nicaragua-aumenta-la-violencia-y-la-represion-estatal-a-pesar-de-los-multiples-esfuerzos-de-dialogo/">repression continued</a>.</p>
<p>When popular Catholic leaders <a href="http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/38768/">criticized violence</a> against protesters, the regime began viewing the church <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/22/world/americas/nicaragua-protests-catholic-church.html">as a rival</a> threatening Ortega’s waning legitimacy. Police, paramilitaries and FSLN supporters started <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-23/exiles-arrests-and-740-attacks-nicaragua-redoubles-its-persecution-of-the-catholic-church.html">harassing and attacking</a> clergy and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-religion-arson-rosario-murillo-latin-america-82bb721aa3ec25e4af34a26e75568599">Catholic institutions</a>.</p>
<p>In 2019, the pope <a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-9016f14a1a9b476ab5cb1d61397fc273">recalled Silvio Báez</a>, the auxiliary bishop of Managua and a prominent critic of Ortega, from Nicaragua. Yet other bishops and priests still found themselves <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/nicaraguan-president-daniel-ortega-goes-catholic-church-latest-effort-rcna44618">in the regime’s crosshairs</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people in baseball hats hold posters with pictures of a man in clerical robes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569647/original/file-20240116-15-mbn4il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nicaraguan citizens in Costa Rica demonstrate in front of the Nicaraguan Embassy in August 2022 to protest the detention of Bishop Rolando Alvarez.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nicaraguan-citizens-hold-a-demonstration-in-front-of-the-news-photo/1242597067?adppopup=true">Oscar Navarrete/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Some <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nicaragua-catholic-priests-exile-ortega-f5ae508a4295f7ae5b359f96064eea46">fled into exile</a> or were blocked <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/sacerdote-desterrado-silencio-de-los-obispos-no-ha-detenido-la-persecucion/">from entering</a> Nicaragua if they traveled abroad. Others who stayed were kept under surveillance. Priests who expressed support for political prisoners or continued to criticize the regime, even in vague terms, could be <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/catholic-clergy-report-surveillance-beatings-amid-nicaraguas-crackdown-2023-07-07/">arrested or beaten</a>. </p>
<p>The government expelled 12 formerly detained priests to the Vatican <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-sends-catholic-priests-rome-after-talks-with-vatican-2023-10-19/">in October 2023</a> after what the regime called “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-sends-catholic-priests-rome-after-talks-with-vatican-2023-10-19/">fruitful conversations</a>.” But Álvarez, the highest-profile political prisoner, was still held by the government and was stripped of his citizenship after <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-caribbean-daniel-ortega-rosario-murillo-c7930c6340472867148ca7e79e09f1eb">refusing to go into exile</a> in February 2023.</p>
<h2>Broader patterns of repression</h2>
<p>Attacks on the church <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/10/nicaragua-crackdown-religious-actors-further-imperils-return-democracy">are a symptom</a> of the Ortega regime’s absolute intolerance for dissent.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/nicaragua">over 3,000 nongovernmental organizations</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/nicaragua-has-kicked-out-hundreds-of-ngos-even-cracking-down-on-catholic-groups-like-nuns-from-mother-teresas-order-190222">shut down</a> since 2018, the church has become Nicaragua’s only <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/world/americas/nicaragua-catholic-church-daniel-ortega.html">major nonstate institution</a> with nationwide reach. </p>
<p>In a country where <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/Nicaragua/#report-toc__section-1">over 40% of the people</a> identify as Catholic, many normally turn to the church in times <a href="https://popolna.org/realidades-municipales-presentadas-en-informe-de-red-local/">of need</a>. Suppressing Catholic institutions means Nicaraguans must turn to the state for aid, which <a href="https://www.divergentes.com/nicaragua-un-espia-en-cada-esquina/">monitors citizens</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/pol.2013.10">has been accused of denying</a> services for perceived disloyalty.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/universidad-de-jesuitas-en-nicaragua-suspende-operaciones-tras-ser-acusada-de-ser-un-centro-de-terrorismo-/7227873.html">At least 27</a> Catholic and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/09/group-experts-nicaragua-finds-escalating-persecution-against-dissent-and-crackdown?sub-site=HRC">secular universities</a> have also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/17/nicaragua-seizes-catholic-university-accused-of-being-centre-of-terrorism">been closed or seized</a> by the government, as have <a href="https://latamjournalismreview.org/news/daniel-ortegas-war-against-journalism-54-media-outlets-have-been-shut-down/">more than 50</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-shuts-catholic-radio-stations-led-by-bishop-critical-regime-2022-08-02/">media outlets</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="T-shirts with pictures of a man in a blue jacket making a 'V' sign with his fingers, and shirts that say 'FSLN,' hang on display outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569651/original/file-20240116-22672-62jpa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">T-shirts depicting Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for sale in Managua in July 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/shirts-depicting-nicaraguan-president-daniel-ortega-are-news-photo/1539099812?adppopup=true">Oswaldo Rivas/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The government’s decision to expel clergy on Jan. 14 is also in line with its tendency to either <a href="https://www.articulo66.com/2022/09/29/estos-son-los-nicaraguenses-desterrados-por-el-regimen-ortega-murillo-en-lo-que-va-de-2022/">block opponents’ reentry</a> into Nicaragua or force them <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/husband-and-son-of-former-miss-nicaragua-director-expelled-and-banished/">into exile</a>. In many cases, Nicaragua has then revoked critics’ citizenship, as when it expelled 222 political prisoners <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/nicaragua-frees-222-political-prisoners-flies-to-us">in February 2023</a> to the United States.</p>
<p>When imprisonment or threats have not shaken critics’ resolve, Ortega and Murillo appear to have decided that <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/nicaraguas-political-repression-will-continue-despite-prisoner-release">keeping them abroad is best</a>. Not only does this reduce the risks of anti-regime action in Nicaragua, but it may diminish international scrutiny of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/10/government-critics-languish-nicaraguan-prisons">political prisoners’ mistreatment</a>.</p>
<h2>Cautious criticism</h2>
<p>Since 2018, repression in Nicaragua has come in waves, with the brutal violence that repressed the protests shifting toward <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/nicaragua">an environment</a> of <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/five-years-of-police-state-in-nicaragua-ban-on-assembly-protests-free-speech-and-elections/">constant surveillance</a>, legal actions against independent institutions and opponents, and periodic arrests. Moments of seeming calm, however, have often been followed by <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr43/4631/2021/en/">harsh crackdowns</a>, such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/20/nicaragua-trumped-charges-against-critics">a slew of arrests</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2022.0023">ahead of the 2021 elections</a>.</p>
<p>Even as repression has mounted, the Vatican has <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/pope-worried-about-nicaraguan-bishop-s-prison-sentence-/6959873.html">been cautious</a> about criticizing Ortega and Murillo, and some Nicaraguans and <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/why-is-pope-francis-quiet-about-nicaragua">Catholics abroad</a> <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2022/08/nicaraguan-ngos-urge-pope-francis-to-speak-out-on-oppression">have urged the pope to do more</a>. Yet the Vatican’s restraint has not appeared to decrease <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/ortega-represses-151-priests-and-nuns-imprisonment-banishment-and-exile/">threats against clergy</a> or limits on activities <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-police-ban-catholic-procession-church-crackdown-2022-08-12/">like religious processions</a>.</p>
<p>In January 2024, however, Francis pointedly <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/pope-francis-reiterates-concerns-about-crisis-in-nicaragua/">called attention to the crisis</a> during two speeches, days after <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nicaragua-arrests-four-more-priests-intensifies-crackdown-catholic-church-2023-12-30/">a dozen priests</a> were arrested. One week later came the release of Álvarez and his colleagues – free to leave Nicaragua, but not to come back. </p>
<p>Catholic leaders remain Nicaragua’s <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/obispos-alvarez-brenes-y-baez-con-mas-alta-opinion-favorable-en-nicaragua/">most popular figures</a>, according to independent polling. This makes them a continued threat to Ortega and Murillo’s quest for <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/ortega-a-nicas-en-redes-sociales-si-publican-contra-mi-van-presos/">total control</a>. Ezequiel Buenfil Batún, the priest detained Jan. 16, belonged to a religious order <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/dictadura-secuestra-al-sacerdote-ezequiel-buenfil-tras-el-destierro-de-19-religiosos/">whose legal status was revoked</a> that same day, along with several other nongovernment organizations.</p>
<p>As many Nicaraguans <a href="https://confidencial.digital/english/luis-haug-nicaraguans-feel-they-are-hitting-rock-bottom/">lose hope</a> of conditions improving and dozens of political prisoners <a href="https://confidencial.digital/nacion/dictadura-mantiene-tortura-a-presos-politicos-que-realizaron-huelga-de-hambre-en-la-modelo/">remain jailed</a>, any positive news like the priests’ release is welcome. But it holds no guarantees of broader change ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kai M. Thaler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, church figures supported him. Violent repression after the 2018 protests has soured the relationship and made clergy targets for intimidation.Kai M. Thaler, Assistant Professor of Global Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2151322023-10-26T12:31:24Z2023-10-26T12:31:24ZPublic schools and faith-based chaplains: Texas’ new combination is testing the First Amendment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555647/original/file-20231024-15-yneqdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2114%2C1409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When public school counselors are in short supply, should chaplains be allowed to fill the gap?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/unhappy-young-girl-at-the-psychologist-royalty-free-image/1327949832?phrase=chaplain+counsels+a+child&adppopup=true">Vladimir Vladimirov/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1996, a school board in eastern Texas created a program called Clergy in Schools. Beaumont Independent School District recruited volunteer clergy <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/beaumont-school-district-target-of-lawsuit-over-2023594.php">to counsel K-12 students</a> on topics such as self-esteem, peer pressure and violence. The goal, officials said, was to create volunteer opportunities, encourage conversation about civic values and morality, and enhance safe learning environments.</p>
<p>Clergy in Schools didn’t last long. A federal trial court in Texas <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/224/1099/2490192/">invalidated the program</a> in 2002. The judge found that the program violated <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">the First Amendment</a>, according to which, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” More specifically, the court held that the program was unconstitutional because it was not neutral with regard to faith and conveyed the message that religion is preferable to a lack of religion.</p>
<p>But now, schools across the state are debating whether to open their doors to clergy. </p>
<p><a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB763/id/2686268">Senate Bill 763</a>, enacted in September 2023, allows school officials to hire unlicensed chaplains, either as staff members or volunteers. Those who can pass background checks will be allowed to perform duties typically provided by counselors, such as mental health support. Local boards have until March 1, 2024, to choose whether to allow chaplain programs in their schools.</p>
<p>SB 763 generates significant questions around the First Amendment. These questions are all the more high stakes given that the Supreme Court has recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-supreme-courts-football-decision-is-a-game-changer-on-school-prayer-184619">signaled shifting views</a> about the limits on religious activity in public schools – themes I teach, write and speak about regularly as <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/education/eda/russo_charles.php">a faculty member</a> specializing in education law.</p>
<h2>Lone Star State</h2>
<p>Across the nation, local boards have difficulty <a href="https://www.tasb.org/services/hr-services/hrx/recruiting-and-hiring/national-school-counselor-shortage-rates.aspx">filling counseling positions with qualified staff</a>. In fact, Texas ranks 23rd in the nation <a href="https://missoulian.com/news/national/most-states-have-a-school-counselor-shortage-heres-where-theyre-needed-the-most/article_1169c039-88da-5f13-8489-3ed8cdf09b76.html">in student-to-counselor ratios</a>, with almost 400 students for every counselor.</p>
<p>However, SB 763 was also enacted amid a seeming push to allow religion to <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/politics/article/republicans-push-christianity-texas-schools-17915163.php">occupy a greater place</a> in Texas’ public schools. </p>
<p>One bill <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/24/texas-legislature-ten-commandments-bill/">requiring officials to display</a> a 16-by-20-inch copy of the Ten Commandments in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/21/texas-bill-ten-commandments-public-schools-religion/">every public school classroom</a> was passed in the state Senate but died on the floor of the House in May 2023. <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB01396E.pdf#navpanes=0">Another bill</a>, passed by the Senate and sent to a House committee, would allow boards to require schools to provide students with <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/04/21/ten-commandments-and-prayer-in-public-schools-texas-senate-approves-religious-bills/">time to pray</a> or read religious texts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The multistory dome of a large building is seen between trees, with two flags flying in front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555649/original/file-20231024-23-l229tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Texas legislature has debated several proposals over the past year to give religion more of a role in public schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-exterior-of-the-texas-state-capitol-is-seen-on-news-photo/1661520774?adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shifts at SCOTUS</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court, too, has displayed a friendlier attitude toward prayer and religion in public education, as reflected in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/21-418">Kennedy v. Bremerton School District</a>: its 2022 decision upholding the right of a Washington state football coach <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-supreme-courts-football-decision-is-a-game-changer-on-school-prayer-184619">to pray on the field</a> at the end of games.</p>
<p>In so doing, the justices acknowledged that the Supreme Court abandoned the tests it used over the past 50-plus years to assess whether government actions appeared to endorse religion, and therefore whether they violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.</p>
<p>The most famous of these was often called “the Lemon test,” referring to the court’s 1971 decision in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970/89">Lemon v. Kurtzman</a>. In order to be permissible, the court ruled in Lemon, an activity involving religion and state had to <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/602/">meet three criteria</a>: that it have a secular legislative purpose; that its principal or primary effect neither advance nor inhibit religion; and that it not result in “excessive entanglement” between religion and the state – though the court did not define “excessive.”</p>
<p>The court also abandoned what was known as the “endorsement test,” which stems from 1984’s <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/465/668/">Lynch v. Donnelly</a>, in which a man <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1983/82-1256">challenged a Rhode Island city</a> over its Christmas display and Nativity scene – and lost. According to the endorsement test, a policy is permissible if a “reasonable observer” would not think it was endorsing or disapproving of religion. </p>
<p>Finally, in 1992, the court abandoned a test it applied only once, in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-1014.ZD.html">Lee v. Weisman</a>: coercion. The justices invalidated prayer at a public school graduation ceremony on the basis that it coerced people present into listening.</p>
<p>Instead of these tests, the court wrote in 2022’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf">Kennedy v. Bremerton</a> that “the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/21-418">historical practices and understandings</a>.’” However, it remains to be seen exactly what this means.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People kneel on a large piece of pavement, looking toward a large white building with columns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555651/original/file-20231024-29-2b6fmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People kneel and pray as Christian singer-songwriter Sean Feucht performs outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the Kennedy v. Bremerton ruling on June 27, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-kneel-and-pray-as-christian-singer-songwriter-sean-news-photo/1241572598?adppopup=true">Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Crossing the line?</h2>
<p>Even so, SB 763 raises at least three thorny issues about how to assess whether a policy violates the First Amendment.</p>
<p>Initially, assuming the lower courts apply the new test enunciated in Kennedy v. Bremerton – that the First Amendment must be interpreted in light of “historical practices” – there do not appear to be traditions supporting the presence of faith-based chaplains as staff members or volunteers in public schools, regardless of whether they were formally credentialed.</p>
<p>Second is the question of endorsing religion. As noted, the Supreme Court repudiated its earlier tests about whether a policy appears to “endorse” a particular religion or no religion, or coerced people into participating. But the fundamental principle still holds: The First Amendment prohibits government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” It thus appears that SB 763 straddles, if not crosses, the line into establishment. Having faith-based chaplains – a move <a href="https://bjconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/LETTER_-Texas-Chaplains-Say-No-to-Public-School-Chaplain-Programs.pdf">many Texas chaplains themselves oppose</a> – arguably puts the power of the state behind their actions.</p>
<p>Third is the question of which faiths will be represented and whether the chaplain program would appear to endorse some religions over others. Even if SB 763 were to survive a challenge on establishment clause grounds, one must question whether having chaplains from only some faith traditions is wise in an increasingly pluralistic American society, in which the number of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/">people no longer identifying with religion</a> is growing.</p>
<h2>Votes ahead</h2>
<p>Not surprisingly, SB 763 has its supporters and critics. A board member in one Texas district <a href="https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/north-east-independent-school-district-san-antonio-tx-chaplains/">described the bill</a> as “a great opportunity to bring some spiritual guidance into the schools.” Another supporter, without offering a rationale, suggested that affording religion a greater place in public education could help to make schools safer, including <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/politics/article/texas-republicans-tout-christianity-campus-deter-18073417.php">reducing the risk of mass shootings</a>.</p>
<p>Conversely, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/08/23/texas-school-chaplains-letter/">more than 100 chaplains</a> from various Christian denominations – including the Catholic Church, United Methodist Church and Seventh-day Adventist Church – as well as Jewish and Buddhist leaders signed <a href="https://bjconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/LETTER_-Texas-Chaplains-Say-No-to-Public-School-Chaplain-Programs.pdf">a public letter</a> opposing the bill. “It is harmful to our public schools and the students and families they serve,” the signatories wrote, because it neither prevents individuals from proselytizing in schools nor insures that they would have the necessary qualifications to serve students.</p>
<p>Boards have begun to vote on whether to allow chaplains in their schools. So far, boards <a href="https://www.keranews.org/education/2023-10-20/dallas-isd-wont-employ-chaplains-as-counselors">including those in Dallas</a> and <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/san-marcos-cisd-rejects-school-chaplains/269-026bbf9c-285c-4db5-be3d-14c09b40e678">San Marcos</a> have chosen not to do so, while others such as <a href="https://communityimpact.com/austin/round-rock/education/2023/09/26/round-rock-isd-officials-choose-volunteer-policy-for-local-chaplains/">Round Rock</a> <a href="https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/mineola-isd-approves-chaplains-as-counselors/">and Mineola</a> have decided to allow chaplains in their schools.</p>
<p>SB 763 raises serious questions about what crosses the line toward establishing religion that, I believe, will likely result in litigation. Thus, both sides – whether in favor of or opposed to having chaplains in schools – should be mindful of the aphorism to “be careful what you wish for.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles J. Russo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent Supreme Court decisions have signaled a shift in how the country’s highest court interprets the limits on religion in schools.Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079532023-07-27T12:26:11Z2023-07-27T12:26:11ZJust about anybody in America can officiate a wedding, thanks to the internet – and one determined preacher<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539099/original/file-20230724-12442-v5wcun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who did the honors: clergy, a justice of the peace or just a friend? More and more weddings are performed by someone ordained online.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/happy-groom-piggybacking-bride-in-vineyard-royalty-free-image/1445187947?phrase=wedding&adppopup=true">Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wedding season is here again, and my calendar is filling up – not just as a guest.</p>
<p>Over the past 15 years, I have officiated over 20 weddings for friends and family, plus nearly 200 more as a part-time professional wedding officiant. These weddings have ranged from simple elopements to fancy ceremonies before hundreds of guests. They have taken place at farms, beaches, mountaintops, hotels, wineries and warehouses – but never at a church. They have been secular, spiritual, religious and interfaith.</p>
<p>I became a nominal minister through the website of <a href="https://www.ulc.org/">the Universal Life Church</a>, a nondenominational church that offers free, lifelong ordination to anyone, regardless of their beliefs. <a href="https://www.universalchurch.org/about-us#:%7E:text=Since%20our%20founding%2C%20we%20have,regardless%20of%20religion%20or%20background.">More than 20 million people</a> have been ordained so far. Just type in your name, email and mailing address and you will receive confirmation of your new status as a clergyperson, able to perform any legal marriage. You can adopt any religious title you please or none at all.</p>
<p>In the U.S., many, if not most, weddings today are officiated <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/06/27/126426016/more-couples-have-friends-perform-wedding">by a friend</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/style/noticed-need-a-minister-how-about-your-brother.html">relative of the couple</a> rather than a traditional clergyperson or civil official authorized to perform the ceremony. According to the wedding planning website The Knot, 51% of couples in 2020 <a href="https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-religion-weddings-4fcbe095c77babeb79fc2464d5af0574">had a friend or family member officiate their wedding</a>, up from 37% in 2015. Though there are multiple ways for a layperson to get ordained, the <a href="https://www.ulc.org/">Universal Life Church</a> is most popular.</p>
<p>When two friends whom I had introduced to each other asked me to officiate their wedding back in 2008, I was touched and honored. Each experience of performing a wedding for friends or family has moved me deeply. Since I’m <a href="https://www.cappscenter.ucsb.edu/people/dusty-hoesly">a scholar of religion in contemporary America</a>, they also piqued my interest in what <a href="https://www.livescience.com/56094-friends-family-officiate-weddings.html">this trend</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110458657-013">says about religion and wedding rituals today</a> – questions that sparked <a href="https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.be">my subsequent research on the ULC</a>. </p>
<h2>Mail-order ministry</h2>
<p>The Universal Life Church was founded in 1959 in Modesto, California, by <a href="http://www.ulchq.com/founder.htm">Kirby J. Hensley</a>, an itinerant minister from North Carolina who could not read or write yet created Baptist and Pentecostal congregations across America.</p>
<p>Hensley’s religious views <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1036791669?oclcNum=1036791669">were hard to categorize</a>, and the congregations that he formed kicked him out when disagreements arose. So he wanted to found a church where anyone could believe, teach and practice whatever they wanted, free of constraints imposed by religious or government authorities. The ULC’s only doctrine is <a href="https://store.ulc.net/aboutus.asp">to “do that which is right</a>,” which each person can define for themselves.</p>
<p>Hensley offered free mail-order ordinations and soon began mass ordinations at spiritual conventions and college campuses, where he was a popular speaker. Classified ads in the magazines Rolling Stone and Fate helped grow the church’s popularity, as did a flurry of news reports.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph shows a balding man giving a talk while wearing glasses, a suit and a polka-dot tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539409/original/file-20230726-29-hdbd0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rev. Kirby Hensley, photographed in 1986.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-rev-kirby-hensley-has-ordained-more-than-13-million-news-photo/837081604?adppopup=true">Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most people got ordained as a lark: after all, why not? Others felt a spiritual calling. Ordination also appealed to young men hoping that a ministerial credential could help them <a href="https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/universal-life-church/">avoid the Vietnam War draft</a>. Some became ministers, created their own churches chartered under the ULC and claimed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/20/us/irs-is-challenging-mail-order-pastors.html">income and property tax exemptions</a>. In 1995, the church began offering ordination online. </p>
<p>After Hensley’s death in 1999, his wife, Lida, took over. Since her death in 2006, their son Andre <a href="https://amp.modbee.com/living/article3118424.html">has led the church</a>, which <a href="https://www.ulchq.com/">still meets weekly</a> in a church building in Modesto, California. </p>
<p>However, most people <a href="https://getordained.org/">seeking ordination</a> online today wind up using an offshoot of the Universal Life Church, not <a href="https://www.ulchq.com/">the original website</a>. </p>
<p>In 2006, <a href="https://www.themonastery.org/">the Universal Life Church Monastery</a> based in Seattle <a href="https://www.modbee.com/living/article3118424.html">split off from the rest of the ULC</a> under the leadership of minister George Freeman. The ULC Monastery’s websites now dominate the online ordination business, claiming to receive <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2015/02/05/how-online-minister-ordination-mills-work-or-dont/">1,000 requests each day</a>.</p>
<h2>My wedding, my way</h2>
<p>The ULC is most famous for ordaining people to officiate weddings for friends and relatives. Couples want unique, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/04/more-couples-having-friends-officiate-their-weddings/586750/">customized ceremonies</a> that reflect their values and beliefs. They want their weddings performed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/fashion/weddings/a-word-from-your-officiant-for-better-or-worse.html">by someone they know</a>, trust and care about and who will deliver a ceremony tailored to them. Typically, they want a nonreligious wedding.</p>
<p>These desires reflect two key trends in the wedding industry and in American religion: <a href="https://www.corpmagazine.com/features/cover-stories/modern-weddings-are-more-personalized-than-ever-say-bridal-consultants/">personalization</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/684202">secularization</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a teal dress uses a silver cord to bind the hands of a person in a white dress and a person in a blue suit, who face each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539412/original/file-20230726-29-r5g1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tying the knot – literally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/traditional-handfasting-ceremony-during-the-wedding-royalty-free-image/1438085024?phrase=wedding+vows&adppopup=true">Wirestock/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<p>With 29% of Americans reporting <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/">no religious affiliation</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/">up from 7% in the 1990s</a>, fewer couples identify with any religion, and far fewer belong to a congregation.</p>
<p>Most of these couples want a secular or spiritual officiant who reflects their beliefs and who will help them tailor the ceremony to their interests and values. And while these couples could have secular civil ceremonies at city hall, those are usually not personalized and the officiant is a stranger.</p>
<p>Most of the couples who use an online-ordained officiant say they and their weddings are nonreligious. However, they use the ULC’s religious status to ensure the legal validity of their marriages, showing how blurry <a href="https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.be">the line between secular and religious</a> can be in America today.</p>
<p>The ULC has transformed not only how people get married, but also who can get married. The church has authorized same-sex weddings since at least 1971, when Kirby Hensley <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1036791669?oclcNum=1036791669">presided over a wedding of two women</a>. According to my research, Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556">2015 Supreme Court</a> case that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-day-in-court-for-jim-obergefell-the-face-of-the-historic-gay-marriage-case/2015/04/28/99a00bdc-eda5-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">legalized same-sex marriage nationally</a>, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-jim-obergefell-became-the-face-of-the-supreme-court-gay-marriage-case/2015/04/06/3740433c-d958-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html">married</a> to his late partner John Arthur by Arthur’s aunt, who was ordained by the ULC for the occasion.</p>
<p>The church’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20141219074338/http:/kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-titles/religion/11097/universal-life-church-ordained/">six-decade history</a> reflects major, long-term transformations in American society. While the ULC often serves as a religion of convenience, it has allowed many spiritual and secular people to practice what is sacred to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dusty Hoesly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A professor who has researched the Universal Life Church unpacks why many couples now prefer to hand-pick loved ones to perform their ceremonies.Dusty Hoesly, Postdoctoral Researcher in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1935022022-12-01T13:40:39Z2022-12-01T13:40:39ZWho’s giving Americans spiritual care? As congregational attendance shrinks, it’s often chaplains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497717/original/file-20221128-4841-1rdrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C6%2C990%2C674&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A chaplain hugs a registered nurse at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chaplain-kevin-deegan-hugs-registered-nurse-connie-carrillo-news-photo/1302733890?phrase=hospital%20chaplain&adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Americans picture a chaplain, many of them likely think of someone like Father Mulcahy, the Irish American priest who cared for Korean War soldiers in the classic TV show “M.A.S.H.” </p>
<p>The reality is much more complex. Today’s chaplains are <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/this-chaplain">diverse</a> in gender, age, religious background and sexuality. They serve people from all backgrounds, including those with no affiliation. And their roles may become more significant as more Americans step away from traditional religious congregations. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/">Three in 10</a> adults in the United States say they are atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.” </p>
<p>I have spent the past 15 years interviewing, shadowing and writing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12582">about chaplains</a>: religious professionals who work outside of congregations in health care, the military, prisons, higher education and other institutions. My latest book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spiritual-care-9780197647820?cc=us&lang=en&">Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains</a>,” describes who they are, what they do and how it connects to broader aspects of American religious life. In a <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Survey-of-Demand-for-Chaplaincy-among-US-Adults-Chaplaincy-Innovation-Lab-2022.pdf">recent survey</a> that colleagues and I conducted at Brandeis University in partnership with the polling firm Gallup, we found that a quarter of people in the U.S. have been assisted, counseled or visited by a chaplain at some point in their lives.</p>
<h2>Brief history</h2>
<p>In the U.S., chaplains have been present in the military since the Revolutionary War – initially all Christians. <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/working-papers/mapping-jewish-chaplaincy">Jewish leaders</a> began to work as chaplains with the advent of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bmznx6">Jewish hospitals</a> in the 19th century. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, a rabbi named Arnold Fischel <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/rabbi-chaplains-of-the-civil-war/">lobbied President Abraham Lincoln</a> to let Jewish chaplains serve in the military. Lincoln stretched the phrase in federal legislation that required chaplains to be of “some Christian denomination” far enough to formally include Jews as chaplains in government positions for the first time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A stamp with a black and white illustration of four men and a boat, with the words 'These immortal chaplains...interfaith in action.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497720/original/file-20221128-20-3ska04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A stamp honoring four U.S. military chaplains – Catholic, Protestant and Jewish – who died after helping soldiers escape a sinking ship during World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/four-chaplains-royalty-free-image/177385842?phrase=chaplain&adppopup=true">AlexanderZam/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<p>The number of non-Christian chaplains has increased ever since. While rabbis frequently visited Jewish inmates, it was not until 1895 that New York state funded an <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Cadge-and-Horowitz-Mapping-Jewish-Chaplaincy-Full.pdf">official Jewish chaplain position</a> in the state prisons. </p>
<p>Non-Christian chaplains began appearing on college and university campuses in the 1920s. Today, there are campus chaplains from a broad range of religious and spiritual backgrounds, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-harvards-humanist-chaplain-shows-about-atheism-in-america-168237">including humanists</a> who see and emphasize the goodness in all people. They are often able to quickly connect with young people, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/">one-third</a> of whom are not religiously affiliated. </p>
<p>Chaplains have become increasing diverse in other ways, as well. Little has been written about <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/working-papers/black-chaplains">chaplains of color</a>, for example, but African American newspapers suggest that the first Black chaplains served in the military, which was <a href="https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=726#:%7E:text=On%20July%2026%2C%201948%2C%20President,to%20integrating%20the%20segregated%20military.">segregated until 1948</a>.</p>
<h2>The work today</h2>
<p>Today chaplains work in a variety of settings. Beyond the military, federal prisons and veterans’ centers, they are also present in most health care organizations, and places as surprising as <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/08/06/chaplain-provides-friendly-face-spiritual-and-mental-support-to-olympians-amid-unusual-games/">the Olympics</a>, <a href="https://vt.public.ng.mil/News/News-Article-View/Article/2203632/from-vermont-to-antartica-and-back/">research stations</a> in Antarctica, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx025">airports</a> and some <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/29/1132633475/in-the-face-of-political-violence-one-group-recruits-poll-chaplains">polling places</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in an orange vest bends over as he prays with a man in a football uniform, seated next two other players in a locker room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497716/original/file-20221128-12-3vvhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chaplain Earl Smith of the San Francisco 49ers with Dre Greenlaw and Azeez Al-Shaair in the locker room before a game in September 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chaplain-earl-smith-of-the-san-francisco-49ers-with-dre-news-photo/1423802849?phrase=chaplain&adppopup=true">Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images Sport via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In interviews I conducted with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spiritual-care-9780197647820?cc=us&lang=en&">chaplains in greater Boston</a>, all said they work around end of life care, and almost all engage with people’s big-picture life questions – what one chaplain described to me as people’s peripheral vision, the questions hovering just out of sight until a crisis forces them into view. Rather than offering answers, chaplains offer a listening ear. Describing her work in a hospital, one explained her role as creating “a bit of a holding space” and to “validate what a person is feeling and give them some sense of hope or stability in the midst of chaotic times.”</p>
<p>According to our <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Survey-of-Demand-for-Chaplaincy-among-US-Adults-Chaplaincy-Innovation-Lab-2022.pdf">recent survey</a> on demand for chaplains’ services, about half of people who connected with a chaplain did so in health care settings, including hospices. Respondents said that chaplains listened to them, prayed, offered spiritual or religious guidance, or comforted them in a time of need. “He was just so compassionate with my mom and I when we lost my grandfather, and it was a sudden loss,” one participant recalled of meeting with a chaplain. “I knew then God had sent him there to help me deal with the pain and loss.” Another said: “We talked for hours and he truly seemed to understand the path my life had been on. I will never forget his kindness!”</p>
<p>Others said chaplains helped them negotiate conflict, advocated on their behalf, or directed them to resources. Loss, mental and emotional health, death and dying, and dealing with change were frequent topics of conversation. Respondents described chaplains as compassionate, good listeners, knowledgeable, helpful and trustworthy. Those who were not religiously affiliated interacted with chaplains in similar ways as those who are not. </p>
<h2>Religious leadership looking forward</h2>
<p>In many churchyards across the U.S., “<a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/03/15/thousands-of-churches-close-every-year-what-will-happen-to-their-buildings/">for sale</a>” signs have been hammered into the ground as places of worship fail to keep afloat. Attendance and membership <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx">have been declining</a> for years, and many congregants who switched to virtual attendance during the pandemic are <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/news/churches-reopen-attendance-remains-flat">not coming back</a> in person.</p>
<p>As membership in formal religious groups <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx">continues to decline</a>, enrollment in theological schools is shifting, with growing numbers of new students and programs <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11089-020-00906-5">focused on chaplaincy</a> as opposed to more traditional work in a congregation. About a quarter of new students in the Master of Divinity programs at Boston University and Union Theological Seminary in fall 2022 were in a chaplaincy track. That number is closer to three-quarters at Iliff School of Theology and at Emmanuel College in Canada.</p>
<p>Chaplains have long provided spiritual support, and continue to do so as religious demographics shift. They meet people as they are, where they are, and they will provide more and more spiritual care for the future. Closed churches do not signal the end of religious leadership, but a change in where and how it is provided.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from the Charles H. Revson Foundation.</span></em></p>Chaplains have always provided spiritual care outside traditional houses of worship, but their significance is growing as Americans’ religious identities change.Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1741932022-01-07T13:29:19Z2022-01-07T13:29:19ZWomen are finding new ways to influence male-led faiths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439740/original/file-20220106-23-wdopex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of women religious leaders is growing, but the 2018-2019 National Congregations Study, which surveyed 5,300 U.S. religious communities, found that only 56.4% of these communities would allow a woman to “be head clergy person or primary religious leader.”</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PatriarchalFaithsWomensRolesBuddhists/9235011302194770bf3fe7dc798ed7d3/photo?Query=women%20in%20religion&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=418&currentItemNo=75">AP Photo/Young Kwak</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In some religions, women are barred from serving as clergy or excluded from top leadership roles. Nonetheless, women have broken into influential roles in these male-led faiths. How are these women forging new pathways in these traditionally patriarchal religions? </p>
<p>The Associated Press, Religion News Service and The Conversation held a webinar with academics, journalists and religious leaders to discuss the future of women in faith leadership on Dec. 9, 2021.</p>
<p>The panel featured <a href="https://huronatwestern.ca/profiles/faculty/ingrid-mattson-phd/">Ingrid Mattson</a>, chair of Islamic Studies at Huron University College at Western University; <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/emiliem-townes">Emilie M. Townes</a>, dean and distinguished professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt Divinity School; <a href="https://www.purdue.edu/research/staff/biographies.php?id=122">Carolyn Woo</a>, distinguished president’s fellow for global development at Purdue University; and <a href="https://denison.edu/people/jue-liang">Jue Liang</a>, visiting assistant professor of religion at Denison University. <a href="https://twitter.com/roxyleestone">Roxanne Stone</a>, managing editor of Religion News Service, acted as moderator. </p>
<p><em>Below are some highlights from the discussion. Please note that answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
<p><strong>Some of the women [faith leaders I’ve spoken] with [talk] about how leadership isn’t just in titled positions, but in influence. What is your definition of leadership? In the male-led faiths that you’re paying attention to, are you seeing any examples of women taking on nontraditional, unofficial leadership roles?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Carolyn Woo:</strong> I think leadership is the ability to have a vision that really advances that particular organization and serves that organization, and the capacity to translate that vision into action. I think influence is very important. I think informal influence for women comes from the fact that perhaps [they] are very invested with [their] work and have expertise and have good relationships with people and credibility. Those are informal sources of influence, but it is not fair. Women shouldn’t only operate with informal power – not because it is not useful, but because they also deserve formal recognition of their position. Formal positions allow you to have a vote. You don’t have to whisper it to somebody else. </p>
<p><strong>Jue Liang:</strong> The Buddhist way of thinking about leadership is more in the identity or the role of a teacher or a role model. Everyone has the potential to become enlightened, just like the Buddha. [In Buddhism] leadership is considered, at least in theory, open to all. [Historically, it has not been] the case. But through education and ordination, we’re [seeing] more [role] models that are inhabiting the body of women. [Leading] more women to think, “Maybe I can do that too.”</p>
<p><strong>Are women who have informal or non-clergy roles of influence – say in publishing, social media or academia – able to maintain that informal influence long term?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Emilie M. Townes:</strong> I think our ability to lead and influence is going to be tenuous [in any circumstances]. Influence is always going to be dependent on whether or not people are listening. I think it becomes even more tenuous if you are in a more conservative setting that has a hierarchy of roles where the thought of challenging is just not a part of everyday life. </p>
<p><strong>Ingrid Mattson:</strong> I see a lot of self-censorship. When I speak to women religious leaders about issues that impact women, there’s a lot of caution that the majority exercise. They feel like their authority is very tentative and that all it takes is a few guys calling them a radical feminist [to lose their influence]. The women who are ready to step out have other sources of support. They are at universities or women’s organizations, so that even if they are dismissed in this way, they still have a basis for support.</p>
<p><strong>When we talk about these issues [that women in male-led major religions face], there is almost an assumption that change is inevitable, that younger generations are just not going to stand for this. And that if women do not start to have more top leadership posts in some of these traditions, that they’re not going to survive. What are your thoughts on that, and where do you think we’re headed?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Carolyn Woo:</strong> Changes are inevitable, but the direction and the sources of those changes are not homogeneous. You have young people who walk away from the church and become disaffiliated. On the other hand, I also see women who have started ministries for women athletes. Within the Catholic Church, [women have started ministries] to try to understand our own menstrual cycles so that they could appreciate the female body. </p>
<p><strong>Emilie M. Townes:</strong> Change is happening, but I always look at the structures of the change happening. [We may have more women seminary students than men], but if the basic structure of the church remains the same, the roles perpetuate the structure. I like to think more in terms of transformation. I think it pushes us further along. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://vimeo.com/655441151/80896b131a">Watch the full webinar</a> to hear more detailed answers to these questions and to hear the panelists discuss stereotypes women leaders face, the future of women’s leadership in the Catholic Church, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Muslim women leaders and more.</em> </p>
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<p>[<em>The most interesting religion stories from three major news organizations.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-best-of-1">Get This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Three female academics discuss how women are forging new pathways in faith leadership throughout religions that traditionally have been patriarchal.Emily Costello, Director of Collaborations + Local News, The Conversation USThalia Plata, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1512582020-12-11T05:41:45Z2020-12-11T05:41:45ZWith Raphael Warnock’s reelection, Congress’s club of pastor politicians holds on to one of its few members<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499661/original/file-20221207-24-cn92lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C25%2C3347%2C2222&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks during a campaign event in December 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/georgia-democratic-senate-candidate-u-s-sen-raphael-warnock-news-photo/1446752093?phrase=raphael warnock church&adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sen. Raphael Warnock’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-walker-warnock-runoff-3d4e4d1ab1760792454e1cbd618ce332">victory</a> against Republican challenger Herschel Walker means that the U.S. Senate will have two ordained ministers serving in its chamber. The other is <a href="https://www.lankford.senate.gov/about/bio">Sen. James Lankford</a> of Oklahoma. <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46705">Only about 1% of members</a> of the U.S. House of Representatives are ordained ministers. </p>
<p>Their numbers are scarce despite the fact that members of the clergy often possess speaking skills, have an impulse to serve and boast strong ties to their communities – all qualities that are useful in politics. Furthermore, Americans are among <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-are-far-more-religious-than-adults-in-other-wealthy-nations/">the most religious people in the Western world</a>.</p>
<p>So why do so few clergy serve in Congress? And what kind of effect might this have on the priorities and policies that emerge from Washington?</p>
<h2>Lawyers, business people lead the pack</h2>
<p>In the “Congress and the Presidency” course that I teach, I discuss the prior professional careers of members of Congress and the way those backgrounds can influence lawmaking.</p>
<p><a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45583.pdf">Almost half of U.S. senators</a> worked as attorneys prior to their political careers, and <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/documents/Lawyers.pdf">138 current members</a> of the House of Representatives have law degrees. Other than politics, law is the most common former profession of Democrats in Congress, while <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Chpt-1.pdf">business is the most common former profession of Republicans</a>. </p>
<p>Lawyers in Congress can write legislation using language that can guide administrative agencies and judges, with an eye toward shielding laws from potential legal challenges. The downside of this practice is that legislative text can be weighed down in legal jargon that only other lawyers can understand.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the growing ranks of Republican members of Congress with business backgrounds reflects the party’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2012/08/14/deepening-divide-between-republicans-and-democrats-over-business-regulation/">ideological opposition</a> to government regulation of the private sector.</p>
<p>Each party’s recent presidents reflect their orientation: The last three Republican presidents – Donald Trump, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush – all worked in business prior to entering politics. Joe Biden joined Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as presidents who graduated from law school.</p>
<h2>From the outside looking in</h2>
<p>Members of the clergy, however, are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Chpt-1.pdf">far down the list of congressional occupations</a> – behind agriculture, engineering, journalism, labor, medicine, real estate and the military.</p>
<p>Only one former U.S. president, James Garfield, has ties to a previous life at the pulpit – and even those are tenuous. While Garfield is sometimes described as an <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/james-a-garfield">ordained minister</a> with the Disciples of Christ – and he did preach to congregations as a young man – there <a href="https://www.rbhayes.org/research/hayes-historical-journal-president-garfield-s-religious-heritage/">don’t appear to be any clear ordination records</a>. <a href="https://www.biography.com/us-president/james-garfield">His primary professions</a> before entering politics were as a Civil War general, teacher and attorney.</p>
<p>It’s possible that the lack of clergy members in Congress may bring less attention to spiritual issues in Washington. Morality may be deemed less important, while crafting public policies that help the less fortunate get short shrift.</p>
<p>At the same time, the clergy has long played an active role in American politics outside of elective office, usually working to influence policy and politicians.</p>
<p>Prominent evangelical preachers <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/jerry-falwell-jr-says-big-tech-snowflakes-trying-censor-trump-hopes-anti-trust-lawsuits-will-1510378">Jerry Falwell Jr.</a>, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article247126671.html">Franklin Graham</a>, <a href="https://gazette.com/elections/focus-on-the-family-james-dobson-family-institute-among-colorado-springs-ministries-pushing-to-reelect/article_c7cab60e-0395-11eb-ba20-b3dcb16dd2be.html">James Dobson</a> and <a href="https://www.kcm.org/node/39240">Kenneth Copeland</a> all spoke out in favor of Trump’s reelection.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman brushes makeup on Franklin Graham's forehead as he stands at a podium during the 2020 Republican National Convention." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374000/original/file-20201209-17-159kbya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evangelist Franklin Graham has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/evangelist-franklin-graham-prepares-to-address-the-news-photo/1228232906?adppopup=true">Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/1988-jackson-mounts-serious-challenge-loss-one-state-ends-quest-n1029601">Reverend Jesse Jackson</a> and <a href="https://legacy.npr.org/programs/specials/democrats2004/sharpton.html">Rev. Al Sharpton</a> have each run for the Democratic nomination for president, while Rev. William Barber has garnered attention in recent years for leading “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/29/woe-unto-those-who-legislate-evil-rev-william-barber-builds-a-moral-movement/">Moral Mondays</a>” protests to advocate for civil rights and progressive causes in Raleigh, North Carolina.</p>
<h2>Legal and papal pushback</h2>
<p>In the past, there have been legal and doctrinal restrictions on clergy members serving in government. </p>
<p>Up until the 1970s, several states had <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/381/327/2005934/">constitutional restrictions</a> against clergy members serving in the state legislatures, which often serve as a stepping stone for candidates to run for national office.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/435/618/">in an 8-0 decision</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that such state restrictions violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The decision allowed Rev. Paul McDaniel, a Baptist minister, <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu:8443/first-amendment/article/911/clergy-bans-on-holding-office-by">to run to be a delegate to a Tennessee state constitutional convention</a>.</p>
<p>Church policy can also discourage clergy running for office. Two Catholic priests who had served in the House of Representatives ended their candidacies in 1980 when Pope John Paul II declared that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/05/05/pope-bars-priests-from-serving-in-public-office/2297aec6-86f7-454e-8e88-cdbbebd7621f/">he would begin strictly enforcing</a> a canon law that priests should not serve in public office.</p>
<p>One of them was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29drinan.html">Father Robert Drinan</a>, who had served five terms as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts. Drinan was known nationally as a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and he had introduced the first impeachment resolution against President Richard Nixon. Drinan’s <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/books/2017/08/bold-acts-priest-congress">support of abortion rights</a> was especially controversial among Catholic church leaders.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rep. Robert Drinan, wearing his clerical collar, poses in front of the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373989/original/file-20201209-13-1tpzpir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After Pope John Paul II demanded all priests withdraw from electoral politics, Rep. Robert Drinan decided not to seek reelection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-elect-robert-f-drinan-at-a-press-conference-said-he-news-photo/515398542?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Separation of church and state a core value</h2>
<p>Another reason for low numbers of clergy in national elected office may be tied to the country’s longstanding tradition of separating religion from government. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html">famously wrote</a> that the language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution indicated “a wall of separation between Church & State.”</p>
<p>While most Americans remain religious, the fundamental belief that religion and politics should operate in separate spheres remains strong in the United States. <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/11/15/americans-have-positive-views-about-religions-role-in-society-but-want-it-out-of-politics/">A 2019 Pew Research Forum survey</a> found that 63% of Americans thought that houses of worship should stay out of politics, while 76% of Americans agreed that houses of worship should not openly support political candidates.</p>
<p>Finally, clergy may be at a financial disadvantage when seeking a national political office. The majority of members of Congress last year <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/">were millionaires</a>. </p>
<p>With the possible exception of some <a href="http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/definition.html">megachurch leaders</a>, most members of the clergy do not enter their profession for financial reasons, and you won’t see many with the means to self-finance their campaigns.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Dec. 11, 2020</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Speel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Clergy often possess the rhetorical skills and community ties that can launch political careers. Yet traditionally, few have held elective office.Robert Speel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Erie Campus, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1286942020-01-08T12:19:38Z2020-01-08T12:19:38ZWhat did the Romans do in the year 0? A fake theologian explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308662/original/file-20200106-123411-yitc9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Theologians deal with some serious questions. Here is Saint Augustine, a Christian theologian and philosopher.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/series-great-scientists-aurelius-augustine-blessed-1488356273">German Vizulis/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the centuries, theologians have wrestled with many <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0040571X9609900203?journalCode=tjxa">knotty questions</a>, such as: Does God exist? What is the purpose of life? And why do innocent people suffer? </p>
<p>A layperson might suppose theology, the study of God, to be so serious that theologians never crack a smile.</p>
<p>The mention of <a href="https://magazine.uchicago.edu/9502/Feb95Bibfeldt.html">Franz Bibfeldt</a>, however, can melt even the iciest solemnity among not only theologians, but also clergy, students of religion and even atheists. As one reviewer <a href="http://www.ethicsandculture.com/blog/2016/celebrating-bibfeldt">wrote</a>, “The world needs a little more Bibfeldt.”</p>
<h2>The authorized story</h2>
<p>It was many years ago while studying at the University of Chicago Divinity School that I first encountered the name Franz Bibfeldt, along with two widely divergent accounts of his life and career. </p>
<p>The first and rather dubious biography, composed by some playful scholars and marinated in mirth, holds that Bibfeldt was <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unrelieved_Paradox.html?id=RnGIngEACAAJ">born</a> in Sage-Haast bei Groszenkneten in Germany in 1897. It states that as a young man, Bibfeldt stumbled upon his first original insight when he began to study the early Christian church. </p>
<p>At the time of Christ’s birth, Bibfeldt allegedly asked, how did the Romans manage to shift from counting down the years – 100 B.C., 50 B.C., 10 B.C. – to counting upward – A.D. 10, A.D. 50, A.D. 100 – especially since they never interposed a year 0?</p>
<p>His biographers go on to allege that Bibfeldt mined this discovery in his dissertation, “<a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/bookend/bookend.html">The Problem of the Year Zero</a>.”</p>
<p>Bibfeldt’s subsequent work was <a href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.BIBFELDT">wide-ranging</a>, his biographers explain, noting his response to the great Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard. </p>
<p>In his masterpiece “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Either_Or.html?id=GJHlYmo7kXEC">Either/Or</a>,” Kierkegaard contrasts two sharply opposed approaches to life, the pleasure-focused and the responsibility-focused. Opting for a more inclusive approach, Bibfeldt is said to have responded with a work entitled, “Both/And,” in which he promoted a combination of both approaches. </p>
<p>When this work met with criticism, Bibfeldt, his biographers note, produced a sequel that received appropriately mixed reviews, “Either/Or and/or Both/And.” </p>
<p>The name Bibfeldt has become associated with the theology of Both/And, which denies nothing to anyone. The theologian’s mission, Bibfeldt seems to suggest, is to reconcile everything to everything. </p>
<p>Some have claimed that Bibfeldt even managed to reconcile life and death. His most groundbreaking work is said to give voice to perhaps that most oppressed of all groups – the <a href="http://eerdword.com/2012/11/01/happy-birthday-franz-bibfeldt/">dead</a>. In one paper on the topic, Bibfeldt is noted to have highlighted the “ennui, the awful day-in-day-out life of the dead.” He is said to have drawn attention to the high rates of depression of the dead attending their “sedentary lifestyles” and the fact they were denied “any meaningful work and sense of accomplishment.” </p>
<p>At this point, many <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/bookend/bookend.html">readers</a> might be asking, was Bibfeldt for real? </p>
<h2>The unauthorized story</h2>
<p>Not exactly. </p>
<p>There is a second, better-documented <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/By_Way_of_Response.html?id=EeomAQAAIAAJ">account</a> of Bibfeldt’s origin and inspiration. </p>
<p>In this <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/By_Way_of_Response.html?id=EeomAQAAIAAJ">version</a>, which began unfolding in the 1940s, Bibfeldt first appeared when a student at Concordia Seminary, Robert Clausen, found himself locked out of the school library the weekend before his term paper was due. Unable to access the texts he intended to cite, Clausen instead decided to rely on his imagination and made them up. One such theological source was Franz Bibfeldt.</p>
<p>As the story goes, Clausen and a classmate, Martin Marty, now an emeritus faculty member at the University of Chicago, spent the next three summers working as manual laborers and embellishing the Bibfeldt legend. Marty published a 1951 review of Bibfeldt’s book, “<a href="http://www.illuminos.com/mem/articlesAbout/uCMagProfile.html">The Relieved Paradox</a>,” in the Concordia Seminarian. </p>
<p>Many professors, bookstores and publishers were soon in on the joke. But not everyone was <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unrelieved_Paradox.html?id=RnGIngEACAAJ">amused</a>. </p>
<p>When some of Bibfeldt’s features were deemed to bear too close a resemblance to members of Concordia’s faculty, Marty lost his fellowship to study overseas and was instead assigned to a congregation whose job requirements included graduate study at Chicago. </p>
<p>For this reason, to this day <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unrelieved_Paradox.html?id=RnGIngEACAAJ">Marty</a> cites Bibfeldt as “the theologian who had the greatest influence on my work.” He also praises Bibfeldt as a powerful reminder that “a person need not exist in order to influence lives.” Marty should know, because he has been one of the most important contributors to the Bibfeldt legacy.</p>
<h2>Bibfeldt’s legacy</h2>
<p>In one sense Bibfeldt is unreal, perhaps even a hoax, though he is the product of no malicious intent. And yet, in another sense, he lives on.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308667/original/file-20200106-123403-qt9q0r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the sketches of Franz Bibfeldt receiving an honorary degree.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://magazine.uchicago.edu/9502/Feb95Bibfeldt.html">The University of Chicago Magazine Feb 1995</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today the University of Chicago is the world center for Bibfeldt studies. It has established not an endowed chair in his name but a <a href="https://magazine.uchicago.edu/9502/Feb95Bibfeldt.html">stool</a>, which produces an annual stipend of US$29.95 for the person who delivers the annual Bibfeldt lecture – provided he or she can come up with a nickel in change. </p>
<p>In a Feb. 1995 issue of the University of Chicago Magazine, some graduate students even sketched <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=images+of+Franz+Bibfeldt&client=firefox-b-d&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=HjW-j5x-_4_CSM%253A%252CTzupPERfiA8rVM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRKeoorUgrxIpp5GjIoeUhW7ydrZg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiTs6Hy6u_mAhVba80KHcWxBz4Q9QEwAXoECAgQCQ#imgrc=HjW-j5x-_4_CSM:">images</a> of Bibfeldt. As the magazine states, these students depicted the theologian receiving “an honorary degree from Twaddle Community College, catching a Sox game, and suffering delusions of grandeur.” </p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p>
<p>Some might see in Bibfeldt’s satirical origins a failure to take God seriously enough. But the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unrelieved_Paradox.html?id=RnGIngEACAAJ">dozens of theologians</a> who have spoken and written on him see another lesson – the imperative not to take ourselves too seriously. Bibfeldt, his creators contend, stands for being everything to everyone. His example serves as a reminder that life challenges each of us to become someone and to help others do the same. </p>
<p>His story doesn’t just tell us what to think; instead it challenges each of us to think for ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Theologian Franz Bibfeldt may never have lived, but his legacy continues in many important ways – most of all not to take ourselves too seriously.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1028422018-09-16T20:17:20Z2018-09-16T20:17:20ZAfter a long struggle, the Uniting Church becomes the first to offer same-sex marriage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236334/original/file-20180914-177944-t9gxq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=287%2C0%2C3425%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For some, this recent decision is a source of celebration and perhaps even symbolic, finally, of full equality in the church for gay and lesbian members.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From Friday, September 21, the Uniting Church (UCA) will be the first of the three major Australian Christian denominations to endorse same-sex marriage, and thus the first to offer gay and lesbian Christians the option of a church ceremony.</p>
<p>This move comes nine months after <a href="https://theconversation.com/flood-of-same-sex-weddings-in-january-after-historic-parliamentary-vote-88785">same-sex marriage was made legal</a> in Australia, and as a result of a decision made at the Uniting Church’s national Assembly in July 2018. </p>
<p>It permits those being married in the UCA to choose between <a href="https://assembly.uca.org.au/marriage-services">two authorised marriage liturgies</a> - one that continues to use the traditional language of “husband and wife” and one that speaks of the union of “two people” and is therefore open to same-sex couples.</p>
<p>The choice also allows clergy, like myself, to exercise individual freedom of conscience. Ministers will not be compelled to marry a same-sex couple if it goes against their personal understanding of marriage. This freedom reflects the diversity of opinion on the matter while upholding a fundamental commitment of the UCA to maintain diversity in unity. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/same-sex-marriage-is-legal-so-why-have-churches-been-so-slow-to-embrace-it-91564">Same-sex marriage is legal, so why have churches been so slow to embrace it?</a>
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<p>While a shock for some, for others this change has been painfully slow. It is the result of decades of conversation, education, resourcing, discernment, and debate that began in the early 1980s.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the UCA Assembly - the church’s national council responsible for policy and doctrine – actively encouraged conversations about sexuality and theology. </p>
<p>They produced Bible studies and other resources for congregations. They also commissioned doctrinal groups to examine the matter in response to growing requests for clarity on such matters from their regional bodies.</p>
<p>Notable among these resources was the 1997 Report <a href="https://assembly.uca.org.au/images/stories/resources/Uniting_Sexuality_and_Faith_1997.pdf">“Uniting Sexuality and Faith”</a>, which proposed the development of liturgies to bless same-sex couples.</p>
<p>At a national level, motions relating to sexuality were often on the Assembly’s agenda. In 1997, the big issue was whether LGBTIQ Christians could be full members of the UCA, with the implication that such members could then serve on leadership committees and have equal status within the church. </p>
<p>No decision was made at that time, in part because of the UCA’s commitment to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xojuCr30_I4">Aboriginal and Islander Christians </a>, who were unprepared to accept such a move towards inclusion. The Assembly advised continued respectful conversation.</p>
<p>In 2003, the issue was whether lesbian and gay Christians could be ordained as ministers in the Uniting Church. The reality was that several gay and lesbian clergy had been ordained, some of whom were out, and others who had kept their sexuality private.</p>
<p>As the Assembly itself has noted at times, homosexual people have always been involved in the church. The question is, how openly and what can the church say theologically about the diversity of human sexuality? </p>
<p>Ordination of openly gay clergy signified a shift away from the traditional view that anything other than a heterosexual orientation was sinful and towards a view that considers diverse sexualities part of God’s good creation. </p>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/287370360">Over 75%</a> of that meeting supported the motion that sexuality was not, in itself, a barrier to ordination, making it the first Christian denomination to allow ordination of openly gay ministers. </p>
<p>At each of these stages, opponents claimed decisions that increased inclusion of LGBTIQ Christians would split the church or be its demise. While such data is notoriously difficult to track, there is little evidence great numbers have left over such decisions. Nor has the church been split.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236356/original/file-20180914-177965-ekj58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Other Christian denominations around the world already allow same-sex marriages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Critics of the UCA’s marriage change, both within and external to the UCA, have argued this decision sets the UCA at odds with worldwide Christianity. That is not quite accurate. While the majority of Christian institutions worldwide continue to limit marriage to the traditional arrangement of one man and one woman, several mainstream churches already marry same-sex couples.</p>
<p>Australia’s Uniting Church now stands with Canada’s United Church of Christ, the USA’s Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA), the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and closer to home, the Methodist Church in New Zealand in marrying same-sex couples. </p>
<p>Many other churches are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/19/church-of-scotland-same-sex-marriage-draft-laws">moving in this direction</a> or offering blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.</p>
<p>Unlike the aforementioned decisions, the 2018 Assembly vote about marriage was conducted behind closed doors in a private session. As historian, Dr Avril Hannah-Jones, points out in her recent <a href="https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56288">article</a>, one of the significant shifts that allowed the motion to go to a vote was a statement by the UCA’s Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress that acknowledged a diversity of views in their own communities. </p>
<p>This meant they would not be moving to block such a change. In doing so, they embodied the “unity in diversity” that is almost a catch-cry of the UCA.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-christians-arguing-no-on-marriage-equality-the-bible-is-not-decisive-82498">To Christians arguing 'no' on marriage equality: the Bible is not decisive</a>
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<p>None of these decades-long decisions have been easy or without controversy or personal cost to many, something acknowledged by Dr Deidre Palmer, UCA President, in her <a href="https://uniting.church/pastoralletter/">pastoral letter</a>.</p>
<p>But the outcome of that work can now be seen in a Christian denomination that could remarkably quickly respond to a change in the federal Marriage Act with a same-sex service of their own. Fundamental differences remain, certainly. </p>
<p>But I suspect the church that was birthed by bringing together three different denominations in the 1970s knows how to handle diversity and should be well equipped to live with the tension of differing views within its people.</p>
<p>Change of this nature is never easy for an institution and especially for the church where tradition is so highly valued. For some, same-sex marriage challenges their belief in a literalistic interpretation of the Bible, although the UCA’s own stance towards the Bible is one that takes the text seriously but not literally.</p>
<p>For others, this recent decision is a source of celebration and perhaps even symbolic, finally, of full equality in the church for gay and lesbian members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn J. Whitaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Uniting Church has been grappling with questions of faith and sexuality for decades - and its openness has led to relatively smooth changes to doctrine and practice.Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of DivinityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016992018-08-21T10:32:26Z2018-08-21T10:32:26ZCivil lawsuits are the only way to hold bishops accountable for abuse cover-ups<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232688/original/file-20180820-30590-1v77kzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Victims or their family members react to a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that identified more than 1,000 child victims of clergy sexual abuse. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Matt Rourke</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, a Pennsylvania <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/163-grand-jury-report-on-catholic/0cd27c9ad02aee539650/optimized/full.pdf#page=1">grand jury</a> documented 70 years of concerted efforts by Catholic bishops in that state to conceal more than 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse by priests – including rape, sadomasochism and producing child pornography. </p>
<p>These revelations are shocking but not surprising given the history of the church’s sexual abuse scandal. </p>
<p>Since 1984, similar disclosures from around the country have made national headlines and brought shame to the church. </p>
<p>Yet the <a href="http://www.bishopaccountability.org/criminal/charges_for_enabling/">few criminal prosecutions</a> of church officials for such cover-ups have either been dropped or resulted in small fines or, in one case, probation. </p>
<p>Civil lawsuits – legal claims brought by abuse victims for money damages – have consistently been the only effective way to make Catholic church officials publicly and concretely accountable for their decadeslong cover-up of unspeakable crimes. I argued this in my 2008 book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Holding-Bishops-Accountable-Lawsuits-Catholic/dp/0674028104">Holding Bishops Accountable</a>.” It is still true today.</p>
<p>But victims seeking justice for abuse that in many cases occurred decades ago face a significant legal impediment to mounting such lawsuits – statutes of limitation that limit the number of years that a victim has to file a lawsuit. </p>
<p>Unless lawmakers across the country pass reforms to extend or suspend the statute of limitations in their states, I believe that the church will never provide a full accounting of the scandal.</p>
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<span class="caption">Philip Gaughan, center, sued the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2011 alleging clergy covered up sexual assault allegations against a Roman Catholic priest who molested him in the 1990s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Matt Rourke</span></span>
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<h2>A brief history of the scandal</h2>
<p>Church files around the country contain complaints of child sexual abuse by priests <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.md.priestlist26sep26-story.html#">dating back to the 1930s</a>. By the 1970s, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/1996_Sipe_PreliminaryExpert.htm">supported the development</a> of programs within the church specifically designed to treat priests who sexually abused minors. </p>
<p>From the 1960s to the 2000s, when victims complained to church authorities, bishops quietly referred priests to treatment programs and then transferred them to other parishes where congregants were unaware of the danger that they posed. Church officials also admonished victims not to voice their complaints to anyone else lest they bring <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/08/16/roman-catholic-church-pennsylvania-playbook-cover-up-abuse/1014258002/">scandal</a> on the church.</p>
<p>In 1984, a Louisiana lawyer <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/catholic-church/betrayed-by-silence/ch1/">successfully sued</a> the Lafayette diocese on behalf of a 10-year-old boy and obtained a million-dollar verdict. The boy was one of dozens of victims molested by <a href="http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/Gauthe_Gilbert_J.htm">Father Gilbert Gauthe</a>. </p>
<p>The lawsuit revealed that church officials <a href="http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/Gauthe_Gilbert_J.htm">moved Gauthe</a> and other priests from parish to parish for more than a decade whenever victims complained. </p>
<p>Subsequently, state authorities prosecuted Gauthe for his crimes, and he went to prison. Additional lawsuits brought on behalf of abuse victims against the Lafayette diocese for covering up similar crimes forced the diocese to pay those victims more than <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3Kw0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT75&lpg=PT75&dq=gauthe+22+million&source=bl&ots=ACDR2dGLXp&sig=4FxeyvQOmTHd4EdjEVClxTtM-Vs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVp9bYpvvcAhUOC6wKHexXAccQ6AEwBXoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=gauthe%2022%20million&f=false">US$22 million</a>.</p>
<p>Prior to civil lawsuits like those in Louisiana in the 1980s, public officials, including police and prosecutors, typically <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qXFjAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=there+was+a+conspicuous+lack+of+public+agencies+with+a+desire&source=bl&ots=n1QRbRSHYX&sig=gAvYES4Sbok_eLtkT9m9mo_UwV4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHycjSlvLcAhXDmOAKHd7DBCQQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=there%20was%20a%20conspicuous%20lack%20of%20public%20agencies%20with%20a%20desire&f=false">refused to investigate or prosecute</a> perpetrators because they were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JIN6y8DIHE0C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=philip+jenkins+before+1984,+there+was&source=bl&ots=I546xvJZrY&sig=bobKSzoykLLgDEJqE2XpoTQD708&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj92KKqlvLcAhWiVN8KHb6MAwUQ6AEwBXoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=philip%20jenkins%20before%201984%2C%20there%20was&f=false">unwilling to confront powerful local Catholic bishops</a> eager to conceal crimes by priests. </p>
<p>By contrast, trial lawyers, motivated by a mix of righteous indignation and the prospect of <a href="http://archive.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/091103_lawyers.htm">lucrative contingency fees</a>, filed a growing number of civil lawsuits against church officials. </p>
<p>The Gauthe case in 1984 set off a slow and steady chain reaction. Litigation generated media coverage. Media coverage emboldened increasing numbers of victims to come forward. As an increasing number of victims realized that they had not only been abused by priests but betrayed by bishops, they filed new lawsuits. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JIN6y8DIHE0C&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=as+we+have+seen+the+gauthe+litigation+generated+stories&source=bl&ots=I546yrK5o_&sig=kjLTwkbqC1kV963LtI6K4CAGjR4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiipce5_PPcAhWhy4MKHX0AA6kQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=as%20we%20have%20seen%20the%20gauthe%20litigation%20generated%20stories&f=false">Successive waves of litigation</a> pushed the scandal into national headlines in the mid-1980s, again in the mid-1990s and, most dramatically, in 2002.</p>
<p>The media coverage of clergy sexual abuse during these periods of heightened attention to the scandal was based primarily on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JIN6y8DIHE0C&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=reliance+on+litigation+documents+and+plaintiffs%27+attorneys+as+news+sources&source=bl&ots=I546yrLYn1&sig=Olbq0ms09_wwCo8nHBmvX8bcAjs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDrMvl_PPcAhUrw4MKHa4XA5kQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=reliance%20on%20litigation%20documents%20and%20plaintiffs'%20attorneys%20as%20news%20sources&f=false">documents from lawsuits</a>. The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/10/28/the-real-people-behind-spotlight-characters/SktMepoMe7ZB2c0cIF90HI/story.html">Spotlight Team</a>, as the movie about their work makes clear, relied heavily on the <a href="https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/fall17/mitchell-garabedian-vs-the-catholic-church/">pioneering work of trial lawyers</a> in their reporting on the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese. </p>
<p>As media coverage stoked growing public outrage, grand jury investigations and criminal prosecutions eventually followed, starting with a 2002 Westchester County, New York, <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/reports/WestchesterGrandJuryReport.pdf">grand jury report</a> that documented efforts by church officials to cover up sexual abuse of children by priests. </p>
<h2>‘A few bad apples’</h2>
<p>Catholic bishops and other church defenders have consistently attempted to blame the scandal on <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-lytton/lawsuits-once-again-help_b_382381.html">“a few bad apples”</a> in the priesthood. They have offered periodic <a href="http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/gregory-bishops-can-never-say-we-are-sorry-enough-for-tragedy-of-abuse.cfm">public apologies</a> and instituted a series of <a href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/charter.cfm">reforms</a>. However, only five U.S bishops have <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/removed/">resigned</a> for their <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/08/16/catholic-church-child-abuse-pennsylvania/">active concealment of clergy sexual abuse</a>.</p>
<p>In the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/16/us/ap-us-clergy-sex-abuse-.html">calling for a Vatican investigation</a> of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who stands accused of molesting children and young seminarians for decades. </p>
<p>This focus on McCarrick’s crimes is a new version of the bishops’ “bad apples” strategy of deflection. The real issue is not the abusers but the church officials who provided them refuge from prosecution and, in the process, enabled them to abuse <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/USCCB_Yearly_Data_on_Accused_Priests.htm">thousands more victims</a> with impunity.</p>
<p>Bishops are also again offering public displays of contrition and promises of reform. In many cases, they have apologized for the misdeeds of their <a href="https://triblive.com/local/allegheny/13973429-74/pittsburgh-bishop-zubik-apologizes-for-abuse-in-diocese-denies-cover-up">predecessors and peers</a>, emphasizing that much of the abuse alleged in the recent Pennsylvania grand jury report is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/639380193/pope-francis-expresses-shame-and-sorrow-over-latest-abuse-allegations">from decades ago</a> and that church reforms have dramatically <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/10-years-after-catholic-sex-abuse-reforms-whats-changed/2012/06/06/gJQAQMjOJV_story.html?utm_term=.9c3cb16d3515">reduced the incidence of abuse</a>. </p>
<p>But this misses the point. Although the abuse in many cases took place long ago under the watch of prelates who have since died or retired, the cover-up continues today. It has taken 35 years of civil litigation, investigative journalism and grand jury probes to uncover what appears to be merely a small portion of an ongoing conspiracy at the highest levels of the church to conceal crimes. </p>
<p>In 2014, Pope Francis appointed a special commission to advise him on responding to the scandal. But the pope has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/world/europe/vatican-abuse-panel-marie-collins.html">failed to implement</a> its recommendation to establish a Vatican tribunal to hold bishops accountable for their misdeeds. In the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the pope offered <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pope-francis-response-sexual-abuse_us_5b7a9ebfe4b0a5b1febd0318">an apology</a> but no concrete plans to further investigate the cover-up or sanction the bishops responsible for it.</p>
<h2>Civil lawsuits</h2>
<p>I believe that civil lawsuits remain the most effective way to hold the bishops accountable. </p>
<p>The Vatican remains unable or unwilling to sponsor a credible investigation and to punish bishops who continue to conceal sex crimes. Criminal prosecution is not an option because in most cases the statute of limitations has expired and <a href="https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Ex+Post+Facto+Laws">cannot be retroactively extended</a> due to a series of <a href="https://verdict.justia.com/2013/06/14/the-supreme-court-renders-another-decision-interpreting-the-ex-post-facto-clause">U.S. Supreme Court rulings</a>.</p>
<p>As they have in the past, more civil lawsuits filed by victims could compel bishops to disclose additional information still hidden away in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-church-secret-files-20130528-story.html">secret diocesan archives</a> and to answer questions under oath in recorded <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/us/excerpts-from-cardinal-law-s-deposition-in-a-sex-abuse-suit.html">depositions</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, civil lawsuits would continue to provide a platform for ongoing media coverage and would likely provide <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19762878/ns/us_news-life/t/la-archdiocese-settle-suits-million/">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> in settlements for victims. </p>
<h2>Statutes of limitation</h2>
<p>Civil litigation has been most effective in a handful of jurisdictions where state legislatures have passed laws <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/extending-statute-limitations">extending or temporarily suspending the civil statute of limiations</a>. </p>
<p>This allows victims who come forward decades after their abuse to file lawsuits. To be sure, there are valid concerns about the difficulties of obtaining reliable evidence decades after an event. Nevertheless, I believe these concerns are outweighed by the need for full disclosure and accountability. </p>
<p>Church leaders, however, have led <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-as-pope-visit-nears-us-sex-victims-say-church-remains-obstacle-to-justice-2015-9">successful lobbying efforts</a> to defeat such legislation, including in Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>Whether the Pennsylvania grand jury report will generate the necessary pressure to convince legislators to extend or suspend the statute of limitations and open up the door to more civil litigation <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/16/us/pennsylvania-child-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations/index.html">is not clear</a>. But the only realistic path to holding bishops accountable is through that door.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy D. Lytton is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute, and the American Association for Justice.</span></em></p>In the wake of new revelations about clergy sex abuse and cover-up in Pennsylvania, civil lawsuits brought by abuse victims may be the only effective way to hold Catholic church officials accountable.Timothy D. Lytton, Distinguished University Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956942018-07-09T10:28:27Z2018-07-09T10:28:27ZHow the Catholic Church came to oppose birth control<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226532/original/file-20180706-122265-1v4apf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope Paul VI banned contraception for Catholics in the 1968 encyclical, "Humanae Vitae."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jim Pringle</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s strict prohibition against artificial contraception, issued in the aftermath of the development of the birth control pill. At the time, the decision <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">shocked</a> many Catholic priests and laypeople. Conservative Catholics, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">praised the pope</a> for what they saw as a confirmation of traditional teachings.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=8S1ydcsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F6AaDdh2HOAlzKGJw3Xk7ZwuHYTAvpym2jdDa8KTvuGKSxei-9Oix4I84Ka55hX765CxCjr35WrEqZX0DxcLADUp0HY8Q">scholar</a> specializing in both the history of the Catholic Church and gender studies, I can attest that for almost 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception has been one of constant change and development. </p>
<p>And although Catholic moral theology has consistently condemned contraception, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">it has not always been the church battleground</a> that it is today. </p>
<h2>Early church practice</h2>
<p>The first Christians <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">knew about contraception and likely practiced it</a>. Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek and Roman texts, for example, discuss well-known contraceptive practices, ranging from the withdrawal method to the use of crocodile dung, dates and honey to block or kill semen. </p>
<p>Indeed, while Judeo-Christian scripture encourages humans to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A28&version=KJV">“be fruitful and multiply,”</a> nothing in Scripture <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">explicitly prohibits contraception</a>. </p>
<p>When the first Christian theologians condemned contraception, they did so not on the basis of religion but <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">in a give-and-take with cultural practices and social pressures</a>. Early opposition to contraception was often <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">a reaction to the threat of heretic groups,</a> such as the Gnostics and Manichees. And before the 20th century, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">theologians assumed</a> that those who practiced contraception were “fornicators” and “prostitutes.” </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1309.htm">purpose of marriage</a>, they believed, was producing offspring. While sex within marriage was not itself considered a sin, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15071.htm">pleasure in sex was</a>. The fourth-century Christian theologian Augustine characterized the sexual act between spouses as <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360211064.htm">immoral self-indulgence</a> if the couple tried to prevent conception. </p>
<h2>Not a church priority</h2>
<p>The church, however, had little to say about contraception for many centuries. For example, after the decline of the Roman Empire, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Contraception.html?id=9-R4QgAACAAJ">the church did little to explicitly</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Theology_of_Marriage.html?id=sASAQgAACAAJ">prohibit contraception</a>, teach against it, or stop it, though people undoubtedly practiced it. </p>
<p>Most penitence manuals from the Middle Ages, which directed priests what types of sins to ask parishioners about, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">did not even mention contraception</a>.</p>
<p>It was only in 1588 that Pope Sixtus V took the strongest conservative stance against contraception in Catholic history. With his papal bull “Effraenatam,” he ordered all church and civil penalties for homicide to be brought against those who practiced contraception. </p>
<p>However, both church and civil authorities refused to enforce his orders, and laypeople virtually ignored them. In fact, three years after Sixtus’s death, the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">next pope repealed</a> most of the sanctions and told Christians to treat “Effraenatam” “as if it had never been issued.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/como-vino-la-iglesia-catolica-a-oponerse-al-control-de-natalidad-99634">Cómo vino la Iglesia Católica a oponerse al control de natalidad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>By the mid-17th century, some church leaders <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">even admitted couples might have legitimate reasons to limit family size</a> to better provide for the children they already had.</p>
<h2>Birth control becomes more visible</h2>
<p>By the 19th century, scientific knowledge about the human reproductive system advanced, and contraceptive technologies improved. New discussions were needed. </p>
<p>Victorian-era sensibilities, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">deterred most Catholic clergy</a> from preaching on issues of sex and contraception. </p>
<p>When an 1886 penitential manual instructed confessors to ask parishioners explicitly whether they practiced contraception and to refuse absolution for sins unless they stopped, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">“the order was virtually ignored.”</a> </p>
<p>By the 20th century, Christians in some of the most heavily Catholic countries in the world, such as France and Brazil, were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">among the most prodigious users</a> of artificial contraception, leading to dramatic decline in family size.</p>
<p>As a consequence of this increasing availability and use of contraceptives by Catholics, church teaching on birth control – which had always been there – began to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">become a visible priority</a>. The papacy decided to bring the dialogue about contraception <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Devices_and_Desires.html?id=Im8RdEyDX8cC">out of scholarly theological discussions</a> between clergy into ordinary exchanges between Catholic couples and their priests.</p>
<p>Regarding his frank 1930 pronouncement on birth control, “Casti Connubii,” Pope Pius XI declared that contraception was inherently evil and any spouse practicing any act of contraception <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+T.+Noonan+contraception&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj55YrnnbPbAhXjIjQIHbfPAqcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=John%20T.%20Noonan%20contraception&f=false;%20https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html">“violates the law of God and nature” and was “stained by a great and mortal flaw.”</a> </p>
<p>Condoms, diaphragms, the rhythm method and even the withdrawal method were forbidden. Only abstinence was permissible to prevent conception. Priests were to teach this so clearly and so often that no Catholic could claim ignorance of the Church’s prohibition of contraception. Many theologians presumed this to be an <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">“infallible statement”</a> and taught it thus to Catholic laypersons for decades. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">Other theologians saw it</a> as binding but “subject to future reconsideration.”</p>
<p>In 1951, the church modified its stance again. Without overturning “Casti Connubii’s” prohibition of artificial birth control, Pius XI’s successor, Pius XII, deviated from its intent. He approved the rhythm method for couples who had <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">“morally valid reasons for avoiding procreation,” </a> defining such situations quite broadly.</p>
<h2>The pill and the church</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Museum of Sex, in New York, marks the 50th anniversary of the world’s first oral contraceptive in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 1950s, however, options for artificial contraception were growing, including the pill. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0PgkAAAAYAAJ&q=Bromley+Catholics+on+Birth+Control&dq=Bromley+Catholics+on+Birth+Control&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjumsaDurXbAhXdFjQIHRF0DeEQ6AEIJzAA">Devout Catholics wanted explicit permission to use them</a>. </p>
<p>Church leaders confronted the issue head-on, expressing a variety of viewpoints.</p>
<p>In light of these new contraceptive technologies and developing scientific knowledge about when and how conception occurs, some leaders believed the church could not know God’s will on this issue and should stop pretending that it did, as Dutch Bishop William Bekkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">said outright on national television</a> in 1963.</p>
<p>Even Paul VI <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">admitted his confusion</a>. In an interview with an Italian journalist in 1965, he stated, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The world asks what we think and we find ourselves trying to give an answer. But what answer? We can’t keep silent. And yet to speak is a real problem. But what? The Church has never in her history confronted such a problem.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were others, however, such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani</a>, leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the body that promotes and defends Catholic doctrine – who disagreed. Among those adamantly convinced of the truth of the prohibitions was the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/John_Cuthbert_Ford_SJ.html?id=F8luZnjkVdAC">Jesuit John Ford</a>, perhaps the most influential U.S. Catholic moralist of the last century. Although no Scripture mentioned contraception, Ford believed the church’s teachings were grounded in divine revelation and therefore not to be questioned.</p>
<p>The question was left for consideration by the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, held between 1963 to 1966. This commission by an overwhelming majority – a reported 80 percent – recommended the church <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">expand its teaching</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">to accept artificial contraception</a>. </p>
<p>That was not at all unusual. The Catholic Church had changed its stance on many controversial issues over the centuries, such as slavery, usury and Galileo’s theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">Minority opinion</a>, however, feared that to suggest the church had been wrong these last decades would be to admit the church had been lacking in direction by the Holy Spirit. </p>
<h2>‘Humanae Vitae’ ignored</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest in Charleston, S.C., in 2012, against a federal mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control for workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bruce Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paul VI eventually sided with this minority view and issued “Humanae Vitae,” <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">prohibiting all forms of artificial birth control</a>. His decision, many argue, was not about contraception per se but the preservation of church authority. An <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">outcry ensued from both priests and laypeople</a>. One lay member of the commission <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">commented</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It was as if they had found some old unpublished encyclical from the 1920s in a drawer somewhere in the Vatican, dusted it off, and handed it out.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much has changed in the Catholic Church since 1968. Today, priests make it a pastoral priority to encourage sexual pleasure between spouses. While prohibitions on birth control continue, many pastors <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Vatican_Diaries.html?id=i_aMPEpHpBkC">discuss the reasons</a> a couple might want to use artificial contraception, from protecting one partner against a sexually transmitted disease to limiting family size for the good of the family or the planet. </p>
<p>Despite the changes in the church’s attitudes about sex, the prohibitions of “Humanae Vitae” remain. <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/09/28/4-very-few-americans-see-contraception-as-morally-wrong/">Millions of Catholics</a> around the world, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5lf4xeSt5-AC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=Ruth+Macklin+Cultural+Difference+and+Long+Acting&source=bl&ots=_OUwvw8IKP&sig=KyE41_vBGQXQ9rxGaQANdbSbayY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDmImKq6vbAhV0JDQIHVr9AusQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=Ruth%20&f=false">have simply chosen to ignore them</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa McClain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>July marks 50 years of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical prohibiting contraceptive use. For many years prior to it, the church had not been so explicit on its stance. How did it become such a thorny issue?Lisa McClain, Professor of History and Gender Studies, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113372012-12-21T00:07:02Z2012-12-21T00:07:02ZWhy Anglican women can be bishops in Australia but not England<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18718/original/z3m6hkqy-1355699300.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C2382%2C1555&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Four years ago, Kay Goldsworthy became the first Australian female bishop – so why are UK women bishops banned?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Lincoln Baker</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty years ago, Anglicans in Australia and England independently passed legislation to allow for the ordination of women as priests.</p>
<p>Now the Anglican Church of Australia has just <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbanes-first-female-bishop-not-one-for-cliches-20121202-2aowj.html">appointed</a> its fourth female bishop, while the Church of England has narrowly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/20/church-of-england-general-synod-no-women-bishops_n_2166366.html">failed to adopt legislation</a> that would allow for the country’s first female bishops.</p>
<p>Currently women can become priests but not bishops throughout England. By contrast in Australia it’s up to the individual diocese, so in some parts of the country women are able to be neither bishops nor priests and in others they can be both. And while 74% of the members of the English General Synod – the Church of England’s parliament – voted in favour of female bishops, a similar vote in the Australian General Synod would struggle to pass.</p>
<p>How is it, then, that women can be bishops in Australia but not England?</p>
<h2>A history of confusion</h2>
<p>Anglicans have been debating the ordination of women for over a century. The issue arose as part of debates about gender that dominated late nineteenth-century discourse in Britain and its colonies.</p>
<p>If women could be admitted to universities, could they study theology? If women could vote and stand for public office, could they take part in the councils of the church? If women could be lawyers and doctors, could they be priests and bishops?</p>
<p>Ever since these question were raised, Anglicans have struggled to agree on precisely why women should continue to be barred from ordination.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18742/original/662zjtth-1355707640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rev. Canon Marion Free, an Anglican priest from Brisbane is one of many female priests in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Gabrielle Dunlevy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opponents argue that Jesus appointed only male disciples as his apostles, while St Paul instructed women to be silent in church, and told wives to submit to their husbands. Women are therefore prohibited from exercising authority over men in the church.</p>
<p><a href="http://fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=759">A growing number of Anglicans</a> have claimed that new understandings of scripture and tradition actually require the church to ordain women, following the pattern of earlier revolutions on issues such as slavery. </p>
<p>Some Anglicans have asserted that the Anglican Church simply does not have the authority to permit women to be deacons, priests or bishops. Change would require agreement from at least the Roman Catholic and probably the Eastern Orthodox churches. </p>
<p>Others point to historic innovations authorised by Anglican monarchs, parliaments and synods, such as the ordination of married clergy, or reform of the liturgy.</p>
<h2>The Australian church</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, women were accepted as priests by Anglicans in Hong Kong, the United States of America, New Zealand and Canada. In each case the decision was made by an assembly of laity, clergy and bishops through legislation.</p>
<p>In the Church of England consensus built gradually in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1992, England’s General Synod <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/11/newsid_2518000/2518183.stm">adopted a Measure</a> permitting the ordination of women as priests (but not bishops) with the requisite support of two-thirds of each of the synod’s three Houses - bishops, clergy, and laity.</p>
<p>This measure provided for the ordination of women in all parts of the Church of England, though a parish could refuse to have a woman appointed as its priest.</p>
<p>In 1993, the General Synod made further provision for those who could not accept the ordination of women in the form of an <a href="http://www.ebbsfleet.org.uk/actofsynod93.htm">Act of Synod</a>. This Act, still in force, requires the appointment of male bishops who do not support the ordination of women to act as “episcopal visitors” on the request of parishes who will accept neither a female priest nor a male bishop who ordains women. Around 2 to 3% of English parishes have taken up this option.</p>
<p>In Australia the largest diocese, Sydney, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/going-backwards-into-the-future-20121130-2am0e.html">has consistently opposed the ordination of women</a> on the grounds that the Bible does not permit women to exercise authority over men in the Church.</p>
<p>On account of Sydney’s size, its opposition made it almost impossible to achieve a two-thirds majority of laity, clergy and bishops in Australia’s General Synod to allow the ordination of women as priests. Moreover, there was widespread disagreement in Australia about what legislative change (if any) was required before women could be ordained. </p>
<p>In 1992, the impasse was broken by the carriage of legislation in the Australian General Synod that, in a diocese which chose to adopt the law, removed any legal barrier that might exist to ordaining women. Since then, 18 of Australia’s 23 dioceses have adopted that law and proceeded to ordain women as priests.</p>
<h2>The move to women as bishops</h2>
<p>Once women were ordained as priests, the question of their eligibility for appointment as bishops was raised. The theological arguments were essentially the same as those for and against women in the priesthood, except that the significance of the change was higher on account of the degree of authority exercised by a bishop.</p>
<p>As the Anglican Communion is held together by bonds of fellowship, expressed by the collegiality of its bishops, and not by formal ties of law, Anglicans recognised that each member church would make its own decisions in its own time.</p>
<p>North American Anglicans began consecrating <a href="http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=88202">women as bishops in 1989</a>, followed by <a href="http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/dr-penny-jamieson">New Zealand in 1990</a>. By 2012, women had been appointed as bishops in places as diverse as Cuba and Swaziland. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, both the English and Australian General Synods continued to wrestle with the issue of whether women should be able to become bishops.</p>
<p>In Australia, legislation for women as bishops failed to achieve a two-thirds majority in each of the General Synod’s three Houses in 2004. Passage of legislation seemed impossible for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>But in 2007 a <a href="http://www.anglican.org.au/content/home/about/students_page/Are_women_able_to_be_priests_in_the_Anglican_Church_of_Australia.aspx">surprising legal ruling</a> by the church’s Appellate Tribunal declared that by removing legal barriers to women being ordained priest in 1992, the church had removed any barrier to their ordination as bishops without the need for any further intervention.</p>
<p>In 2008, the first two Australian female bishops were consecrated, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mum-of-twins-becomes-first-female-bishop/2008/04/11/1207856832362.html">one in Perth</a> and <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/from-rookie-to-melbourne-bishop-meet-barbara-darling/2008/04/25/1208743253124.html">one in Melbourne</a>, followed by a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-31/nsw-first-female-anglican-bishop-ordained/3924902">third in 2012</a>, with a fourth to be ordained in Brisbane in 2013.</p>
<h2>Two worlds, the same church</h2>
<p>Thus, while the theological issues are identical, history and governance has created different situations for Anglicans in Australia and England.</p>
<p>Australian Anglicans have never adopted legislation specifically providing for women as bishops, yet there will soon be four female bishops here. Women still cannot be ordained as priests or bishops in some dioceses. </p>
<p>In the UK, female priests have been allowed but not women bishops – an absence that is felt all the more acutely because the church is so closely linked to the state, with bishops sitting in the House of Lords and a female monarch as the church’s Supreme Governor.</p>
<p>The challenge for Anglicans is to live with this diversity. Whether in Australia, England, America or Africa, they must come to terms with what it means for the church that women can be ordained in some places and not others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Sherlock is a member of the Anglican Church of Australia and is a supporter of the ordination of women.</span></em></p>Twenty years ago, Anglicans in Australia and England independently passed legislation to allow for the ordination of women as priests. Now the Anglican Church of Australia has just appointed its fourth…Peter Sherlock, Vice-Chancellor, University of DivinityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.