There’s No Joy in Mudville, or in LA

You are almost certainly aware of the debacle with the LA Dodgers and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI).  If not, a little bit of background may be helpful before considering some of the spiritual aspects of the sordid affair.

The SPI was founded in 1979.  They describe themselves as a “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns … devoted to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment.  We use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.”

SPI’s website shows that they loosely model their community after authentic Catholic consecrated religious communities.  Potential “sisters” even enter a process that has four steps – volunteer, postulant, novice and fully professed.  In the ceremony for becoming a sister they take vows, and receive the “black veil.” They also complete a “rosary of perpetual indulgence.”  I don’t want to know what that is.

The SPI In Action

The sisters don’t dress up like nuns.  They dress up like nuns from a clown show in the third ring of hell.  Their public display in garish outfits is what they call “manifesting.”  You’ve likely seen the pictures and, as is said, once you see them you can’t unsee them.

They take mock-religious names, like “Sister Shalita Corndog” and “Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch” (one of the founders).

The SPI host many events as part of their “community service.”  In April they celebrated the clownfuc#er, “we invite you to Cirque Dis So Gay, a fully immersive GENDER FUC#ING experience.”  In June they will host a Trans-Tastic Soccer Games – with a session specifically for youth.

They are also notorious for their Easter “celebration” with the crowning of “Foxy Mary” and “Hunky Jesus.”

What brought the SPI to wide attention in Catholic and Christian circles was the decision by the LA Dodgers to honor the SPI.  The Dodgers are giving SPI the baseball team’s Hero Award.  The award is in recognition of SPI’s “twenty-seven years of service to the LGBTQIA2S Community”.

SPI On the Interior

SPI’s website includes individual bios, and assorted public interviews.  As such, we can glean a little about the interior life of some of SPI’s members.  Quite a few of the sisters seem misguided and disenfranchised.  It’s easy to see that they would find an organization like SPI to be welcoming and provide a sense of belonging and purpose.

More than a few of the members also appear to dabble in the occult (Wicca and Santeria) and a hodge-podge of other pantheistic practices.  Others seem to have more hardened hearts, outright aggression toward religion, and perhaps are more calculating in their motives.  Some of them have probably experienced being hurt, whether actual or perceived, by mainstream religion.

How This Should Work

Our spiritual minds are hard-wired to form value judgements.  That is one of the core functions of our intellect.  The intellect is passed an image from our physical brain, and it judges what that image represents.  It extracts the essence of that image.  That is what makes us different from chimpanzees.

In a sane world, anyone would see men dressing up as a garish cartoon version of a nun and doing it again and again and again and again, and immediately recognize it for what it is.  Such behavior isn’t a matter of “irreverent wit.” It is a cry for help.  Lest there be any doubt, check out this video of SPI’s Easter “celebration” (note that it is not for the faint of heart; don’t dwell on it for long).

A sane world would model Christ – who always led with “accompaniment” but in the service of lifting people from their bondage.  But we are not in a sane world, we are in a fallen world.  Our intellects are darkened.  Without God’s grace and our participation with that grace, people don’t see things for what they are.

The root issue isn’t an award from a baseball team, it is that SPI’s behavior is disordered.  And they are enabling and leading others down the same disordered path.

The Catholic Response

It has been heartening to see a fairly uniform response from the Catholic world.  Many of the Catholic hierarchy have spoken out publicly against the Dodgers’ decision.

Catholic Vote has been leading public awareness about the SPI, encouraging a boycott, and mounting an impressive ad-campaign.

Most importantly, on the spiritual front, there will be a Eucharistic Procession to Dodger Stadium on June 16.  The procession is being spearheaded by Virgin Most Powerful Radio and Bishop Strickland.  It is intended to make reparation for the many offenses that are bound up in this entire mess.

Generally speaking, however, the bishop’s response focusses on the SPI’s anti-Catholic bigotry.  As offensive as that is, it does not address the root issue.  I have to wonder if the SPI sisters dressed up as fairy princesses and acted out pagan rituals, would the bishops still be publicly rebuking the Dodger’s decision?

Joe Biden and our Shared Suffering

One high-profile exception on the Catholic front is Joe Biden.  He hasn’t given a specific opinion on the SPI matter, but in the midst of it and leading up to so-called pride month, his presidential Twitter account released a message generally in support of the LGBTQI+ community.  On June 4 he tweeted “When one group’s dignity and equality are threatened, we all suffer.”

MSN picked up on this and linked it to Mr. Biden’s profession to be Catholic.  In an article proclaiming ‘Biden’s Defiant Gay Pride Support’ author Claude Wooten wrote, “America’s Catholic president borrows his own promise and outlook language from the Bible, specifically Corinthians 12:26, which reads that ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.’”

But such hermeneutics miss the mark.  Yes, when one member (or group of members) suffer we all suffer, but Mr. Biden and MSN misdiagnose the suffering:

• When people suffering with conditions such as gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction, are goaded deeper into the disorder rather than treated therapeutically, we all suffer.
• When high-profile Catholics suffer from a severe lack of judgment, and publicly lead others into error, we all suffer.
• When children suffer the loss of their innocence by being exposed to filth, we all suffer.
• When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our Blessed Mother suffer mockery and blasphemy, especially in a public spectacle, we all suffer.

America Magazine also Misses the Mark

America Magazine waded into the fray with an article, “Drag queen ‘nuns’ will be included in LA Dodgers Pride Night. I have complicated feelings about it.”

Before considering those “complicated feelings” let’s be clear that this issue isn’t a “feelings” sort of thing.  It is a “thinking” sort of thing.  And it ought not be complicated.

The article’s author says, “What causes me some unease about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, however, especially at this particular moment, is that their costumes mock women who wield relatively little power, especially in the church.”

Taking the author at his word, he experiences “some unease” from just two related things.  The SPI’s costumes mock a particular subset of women and that subset of women wield relatively little power.

So, if nuns had “power” all would be well?  If this wasn’t some twisted form of Marxist class warfare, there would be no unease?  Or, if the SPI still mocked Catholicism, and still profaned Christ and our Blessed Mother, and still publicly celebrated deviant behavior, but they dressed as “plain clothes nuns” there would be no unease?

A Long Time Coming

Should this sad event come as any surprise?  The SPI claim the LA Dodgers have been working with them for 10 years.  And Major League Baseball seems to be as bought into the “pride” movement as every other woke organization.

Baseball was an important battle ground for the Second Commandment. At the turn of the last century, in state after state, there were legal, political, and social battles over whether baseball games should be allowed on Sundays.  Winning arguments for Sunday baseballs games typically cast them as patriotic and good for communities.  Behind the scenes, however, baseball ownership was mostly interested in selling tickets.  In 1933 the last jurisdiction, Pennsylvania, voted in favor of Sunday baseball.  And we know the history of Sunday sports ever since.

Whether Sunday sports should be regulated isn’t the issue, however.  What is the issue is that we are now at a point where society has lost all reverence for the Sabbath.

Baseball, America’s pastime, is the wedge that broke the dam.  Now the Sabbath is flooded with all manner of profanity.  A century later there is a direct spiritual link to that loss of reverence and the present Dodgers-SPI brouhaha.

This is where the Eucharistic Procession gets to the spiritual heart of the matter.  The issue is much broader than the Dodgers or the SPI.  And we can all share in the work of reparation.

Several times in scripture the most unwitting characters are guided to speak directly to Truth.  Think Balaam and Caiaphas.  And now Biden and MSN.

When one member suffers, we all suffer.