The World is Flat and other pedigogical advice according to the Vatican

After graduating from graduate school, May of 2016, at California State University Long Beach with an MFA in Acting my thoughts were all about that College BFA or BA program, to find employment as an Assistant Professor of Acting. I find yet again, I make plans, and God laughs or as my voice teacher Andrea Caban says, “Your plan is shit!” God’s plan is not unlike my plans…however, it has taken longer than I had hoped. I am teaching acting and directing for BFA Acting Students, but I had to start back at the beginning. This is a tremendous privilege and honor now, to have taught prek-college students…at the time, it felt like such a loss to go into anything less than “the academy.” It has been an anthropological learning experience no doubt. I have witnessed and been part of the behavior and learning habits of infants to teenagers to adults. The classroom as been a place of incredible joys and also personal emotional growing pains as I have lost my patience, argued with students, and made many mistakes - breaking the Socratic oath to “Do No Harm” always sucks for both student and me. There is only way to learn and that is from doing, and luckily my students have been extremely forgiving…and I am grateful for them. I still have the opportunity to amplify their voice, to act as a guide on their way to their hopes and dreams, and I am in love with that process. The engine of the actor, and to all its complexities, is infinitely fascinating to me, and I love helping students achieve awareness.

I was baptized in the Catholic faith, confirmed Catholic, and have participated in countless weddings, baptisms, and funerals. I am a godfather to my niece. I have struggled with my faith because of my sexuality, but at moments, especiallly in my youth, found great comfort being a Catholic. I have had nothing but positive experiences with priests and Jesuits in the Catholic Church. I have worked for Catholic Schools. I worked at Alphonsus Academy, a private Catholic School, as an Theatre Arts Integration Specialist while continuing my private practice, working as an education artist for Lookingglass, and acting and directing with my collaborators. My Aunt Debbie is a retired Catholic School principal. When she encouraged me to take the job I said, “But Aunt Debbie what about my being…” and she said, “What you being Gay??!! Well David, that’s none of their business.” Ah yes, and it wasn’t. I’ve learned that it wasn’t a topic of conversation, and it never came up around faculty, so in plan english, I hid….again. I gained some great tools and have some fond memories of the school. I know elementary school teachers and Secondary schools suffer from a lack of resources and time and so those teachers who find their joy full time at an Elementary school are heroes. I would very quickly learn that those who continue to be of service for High School students are navigating some interesting emotional territory between the school administration, the learning needs of teenagers, and the parents. The following year I accepted employment at Eastside Catholic Highschool, a private Catholic school in Sammamish, Washington. The theatre students there were at various stages of learning and talent, but a handful were/are highly gifted. I learned first hand how much parents can care for their kids, and even when it is overwhelming, it has been easy to look at that north star and go, “It is their child, they want the best for them.” I was offered a contract for a second year, and was prepared to accept it when the Vatican released a document June 10th, called, “Men and Women: He Created Them. Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory and education.” Not God created them, but “HE” created them. The Vatican’s policies regarding sex and gender are fear-based, homophobic, and pay little regard to science or mental health. Jim Martin, progressive Jesuit, proposes a bridge to the Vatican when it comes to a conversation with the LGBTQIA, and he is in the minority. There is very little hope when it comes to humanity when considering the totality of this document, and the opening paragraph, “the disorientation in regard to anthropology which is a widespread feature of our cultural landscape has undoubtedly helped to destabilize the family as institution,…” and goes on to further dictate and not receive. What is troubling to me? The appalling lack of diversity in the writing of this document. What is troubling to my friends? “The entire document is a nightmare,” said my good friend and teacher Alexandra Billings. I and other fine arts teachers were aware the document was coming from different sources in the Seattle Archdiocese, however there are a few outspoken and progressive Priests who have been wholeheartedly sad with regards to this document. One priest emailed me, “there is very little hope, or silver lining to find..” when it comes to ministery embracing, uplifting, and celebrating the Queer community. To the priests and Jesuits I have reached out to and have gotten back to me, thank you. To the one who told me I needed, “conversion with regards to the Church's teaching on this issue,” I say, NO. The ramifications and upset within the LGBTQIA community are potent, and any documents regarding educational policies that use legal concerns as a way to repress and oppress teenagers are cruel.

It is no surprise to me that the Catholic Church is slow to growing human recollection that sexuality and gender is and can be fluid, and debatably you may disagree, and I’m fine with that, I’m fine with opposing views. You might judge my lifestyle and activities as sinful, I think that is an emotionally and spiritually abusive viewpoint. At the end of the day, what good does exclusion from the open arms of sacrements do? Not much. My problem comes from the top, from the Vatican, who have consistently referred to the “moral evil” or “disordered” nature of the same-sex attraction and love between beings. My anger is with the Vatican’s hypocrisy, from the lack of listening and dialogue with the LGBTQ + community, which this same document proposes church leaders do. Most do not in evidence to the feedback I recieved before writing this blog. The Archdiocese of Indianapolis demanded two teachers lose their jobs for being “married” One Jesuit school, Brebeuf, denied their intervention in their academic choices, the other, Chapel, submitted due to financial dependence.

The administration at Eastside Catholic Highschool listened to my concerns and understood why someone like me, who works in the arts, might find the Vatican’s policies upsetting, traumatizing, and inhuman. When did heterosexuals become the ideal model of godliness....is it really all about revenue and procreation. The Catholic Church and the Vatican have done a 180 from Christ’s mission, but this isn’t new…this is their history. I can no longer fight the beast from within it’s belly. If the Church refuses to evolve their views on sex, gender, and safe sex practices to match medical findings that align with mental and spiritual health and the safety of our children, then we all lose. When it comes to morality, the church has a significant healing process to undergo with the amount of sexual abuse and pedophiles within its ranks, continually being covered up and litigated as the vicitims continue to come forth and the abuse is still being exposed.

As a teacher, I am aware of my mistakes. I have been impatient. I’ve lost my temper and raised my voice even though I wished to be cool and collective. I leaned to hard when all the student needed was a guide. I have learned to pay attention and let these students teach me. The joy continues to be creating plays, teaching acting. I’ll do that for a moment and step aside from Catholic school so I can feel comfortable in my skin walking down the halls. The leaders have a lot to do, for if good human beings feel uncomfortable walking in the territory of its institutions, something has been turned upside down. If an administration can not celebrate the faculty for finding reciprocal love but instead initiate policy to terminate…something has gone wrong - being afraid of someone's gender and sexuality does not give anybody moral high ground….it makes that person dangerous. So when I read, “Men and Women: "He” created them - God Made “Man” in his Image, I have to go….wait a minute…whose writing this shit. When I read the word “Homosexual” which is a modern word, and wasn’t in the bible until 1946 as it has been countlessly stated by scholars that the Bible was mistranlated from “Man shall not lie with a boy” to “Man shall not lie with a Man” and Homosexual should not be in our translated contemporary Bibles. So when I see the word “Homosexual” as, not even behavior or lust or sex but as a person which I am, which isn’t a choice, in the same parathentical as rape, pedophile, porn, incest, then I get upset. I get really upset. And I am not alone. I wish I had kind, caring, intelligent religious leaders in the Catholic Church who could understand the severity of abuse they have caused children, teens, our youth, our future…the rest of us are recovering, and becoming increasingly aware of how dangerous and harmful the Vatican can be, and that the Catholic Church needs to reconcile the corruption from within, to stand as a source of good or a redeeming model of Christ’s mission. And until the Church reconciles its wrong doing and gets right with the holy spirit, it will continue to be looked at as an outdated relic of greed and power, synonymous with misogyny and will become synomous with biological and ontological ignorance, spiritual sickness, pedophilia, rapists, and cruelty… and so I believe