AwesomeDude Home

After their visit to the Keats house, Bryce again asked Damon what he wanted to do with the remainder of the afternoon.

“No more churches, no more ruins, no more museums,” Damon declared. “I really appreciate it all, and I think I’ve learned more than in an entire year at school, but I also think I’m about to my saturation point. Is there some place we can just sit and enjoy the great weather, and maybe talk about some of the things that have come up?”

“Sure. In fact, lots of places. Since we’re here in the Piazza di Spagna, there’s the Borghese Gardens just up the steps and around the corner,” Bryce replied.

And so they climbed the Spanish Steps, skirted the Church of Santa Trinità dei Monti, and entered the Borghese Gardens by the way they had exited the day before after visiting the treasures in the Galleria Borghese.

They strolled about for a bit, with Bryce essentially waiting to see what Damon had in mind. It was a pleasant afternoon, with a breeze which kept it from being too oppressively hot, especially in the delightful setting of these gardens, laid out in the early nineteenth century in what was then called the English style, less geometric and formal than the French style, such as they had experienced at Versailles. The Italian pine, cypress, and poplar trees gave the gardens a special, Mediterranean feel, while also providing some shade and color.

After a while, Damon began to open up. “You have to realize that in a way I’ve had dumped on me in six or seven weeks a load of things that it took you nineteen years to absorb.”

“I’m sorry if it’s been too much. I did not realize that you felt overburdened. I guess you’re right. I take so much for granted. I’m glad you finally told me to slow down,” Bryce apologized.

“It’s not that I’m not having a great time. And, really, it’s not so much that I feel pressured. But it is kind of like cramming for an exam. There’s just so much to absorb, and we never seem to have time to just talk about what it all means except on a very limited, specific to this issue, basis. I suppose we could wait until we get home, but today, after the tombs under St. Peter’s and all, I just felt like I was about to drown if I had to absorb one more important fact or site or idea,” Damon said, trying to explain why he needed a breathing space at this point.

“I see your point. I never meant to cram things down your throat. I guess I was just having so much fun showing off that I never considered how all this was affecting you. Again, I apologize, Boyfriend,” Bryce said.

“Like I said before, I’ve learned a lot since we landed in Lisbon,” Damon resumed the conversation. “And I really appreciate that. For one thing, I think I have maybe, just maybe, a better idea of how my boyfriend is put together.”

Bryce grinned. “Then I sure hope you find it worthwhile.” He leaned in and kissed Damon.

A middle aged Italian couple happened to pass at that moment. The man made a comment which, even though the guys did not understand the language, they knew was hostile and censorious, but the woman responded with something which sounded much friendlier, and she poked her companion as she spoke. He huffed, and they passed on.

“Pine? You mean, like a Christmas tree?” Damon was surprised, as what he was looking at were mature specimens, about twenty feet high, and with an umbrella kind of foliage.

“Well, there are different kinds of pine. Some of these plants have botanical tags on them. Here, let’s see what this one says,” Bryce responded. “Yes, it’s identified as Pineas pinea. Definitely pine, just a different branch of the family tree from what we’re used to at home,” he punned.

Damon resumed his musings. “I’ve been thinking about some of the things you say. I mean, most of it seems reasonable enough when you say it, but then I wonder whether there are hidden meanings, or maybe applications is better, that I’m not aware of.”

“I didn’t mean that. I don’t think you’d do that to me. But it’s like I said before, you’ve been absorbing these things for a lot longer than I have, and maybe there are connections I don’t see right away,” Damon continued. “I kind of know that a lot of what we’ve experienced is important, and I need to digest it, so I’m kind of feeling my way.”

He continued his musings. “Back in Clifton, I remember you telling someone, maybe David Simpson, about the distinction between doctrine and discipline in your religious outlook, and I thought at the time that made sense. Now, you talk about what is necessary and what is doubtful, and I see how this fits with what you said before, but I would not have thought about that without this trip. I’m wondering whether there are other things like that. That’s what I meant when I spoke of hidden applications before,” Damon explained.

“Okay. I see what you mean. But I don’t know exactly how to help, here. I can’t really pull up a list of connections or anything and lay it out for you. Why don’t you just talk about some things that seem kind of odd to you, and maybe we can latch onto something,” Bryce suggested.

Damon smiled. “There’s an awful lot that seems odd to me. For example, keeping parts of people in your churches. I know, I know, you said that was not one of those necessary things, but I still think it’s odd. And shitting on the papal throne,” he added with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.”

“I told you ...,” Bryce began, then he realized Damon was jerking his chain, so he responded by attacking his partner

They played around for several minutes, then calmed down, as Damon continued. “I’m not really sure I understand about monks and nuns either, but I guess that’s another not necessary thing.”

“Right. Not necessary in several senses. Obviously, it’s not necessary for anyone to be a monk or nun. Monks and nuns take a vow of chastity, so we would die out pretty quickly if we thought everyone had to be one or the other. There was a nineteenth century sect called Shakers who actually did believe that, and depended on conversions to stay alive. But I think they’re about as extinct as the dinosaur,” Bryce smiled. “In another way, monks and nuns are not necessary in that it’s not necessary that there be monks and nuns, although I think it’s a good idea. Having people who withdraw to some extent from the world, and think about more important things than how to make a buck, seems to me to contribute significantly to a healthy society. Though I do wonder about the Buddhists ....” Bryce sort of drifted off.

“You wonder about the Buddhists how?” Damon interrupted his trip to la-la-land.

“Well, I understand that Buddhists have monks who take what we might call temporary vows. That is, they are monks for only a period of time, then leave the monastery and get married and go about their ordinary lives. We don’t really have anything like that. What are called temporary vows in the Catholic tradition represent a kind of probationary period at the beginning of a monk’s or nun’s life in the monastery. At the end of that period, usually three years, either you take permanent vows or your leave the monastery. And, no matter what anyone says, leaving the monastery is kind of an admission of failure. We borrow so much nonsense from Eastern religions, I wonder why we can’t borrow something that kind of makes sense to me, at least, like Buddhist monastic vows,” Bryce mused.

“I have to admit, I never thought of that,” Damon responded. “Something else I never thought of, or expected to hear you say, was your comment that you thought priests and nuns should get married.”

“Whoa! I never said nuns should get married,” Bryce protested. “The whole idea behind monasteries is to withdraw from the world, and that involves celibacy. I have no problem with that. This idea of withdrawing from everyday cares in order to devote oneself to greater communion with the divine goes back to at least the second century, when Christians realized that the Second Coming, or the end of the world, was not about to happen in their lifetime. And it has always involved celibacy. I read a historical mystery novel once about an Irish nun in which it was said that the early Irish monasteries were places where monks and nuns had sex, which is a lot of baloney. That’s a simple misrepresentation of what were called double monasteries, with monks on one side, and nuns on another. St. Brigid’s monastery at Kildare had a wall down the middle of the chapel to keep the two apart. I don’t know if all of the double monasteries went that far, but that idea of monks and nuns having sex is just a way for the author to make money by titillating the ignorant public. If they did have sex, it was definitely a violation of their vows, not part of the establishment.

“No, I have no problem with monks and nuns, or friars and sisters, or any other designation for members of a religious order, taking a vow of chastity, even though that’s a misnomer. Chastity essentially means using sex properly. Even the most crusty Vatican bureaucrat would admit that there is nothing unchaste in a husband and wife having sex. What they really mean is celibacy. Anyway, my point the other day was that there is no necessary connection between the sacrament of Holy Orders, which bestows on the recipient certain graces, or gifts from God, which permits that person to do things the rest of us can’t, like preside at the Eucharist where bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus, or in the sacrament of penance or reconciliation, where the priest acts as a kind of conduit to forgive sins in Christ’s name .... I got lost in that sentence somewhere. Anyway, there’s no necessary connection between being a priest and being celibate, and in fact most priests were married for the first thousand years or more of the Church’s history. Celibacy grew out of the monasteries, and was imposed on the diocesan clergy by popes and bishops who were monks. It’s not quite as simple as that, but that’s the heart of it. It’s the ordinary diocesan priests that I had in mind when I made that comment about celibacy.

“My real point before was that I think it’s a consequence of having celibacy a mandatory requirement for the priesthood, including the bishops and popes, which has resulted in some screwed up ideas about sex, and the proper purpose of sex, in the pronouncements which come out of those same bishops and popes from time to time. There were conditions in the tenth and eleventh centuries which kind of made sense of the insistence on celibacy. It prevented the priesthood from becoming an hereditary caste, like the priests of ancient Israel. But those conditions have long since disappeared. It’s just that the Vatican bureaucrats have not adjusted to changed circumstances, as usual,” Bryce concluded his longer than expected explanation.

“So, if I get you, you’re saying that this requirement that all priests be unmarried is one of those disciplinary things, or something that’s doubtful,” Damon interpreted.

“Not exactly. Disciplinary, definitely. But not really doubtful. I mean, it’s open to question whether priests in the Roman rite should be required to be celibate, but not whether they are required to be. From what I’ve read, whole slews of priests got married back at the time of the Second Vatican Council, and all of them were required to cease functioning as priests if they wanted to remain Catholic.”

“That’s what we normally think of as Catholic – the way the Church developed in the Western world. But there are several Eastern rites, like the Byzantine and Maronite, for example, and in some of them, priests can marry,” Bryce informed his interlocutor.

“Oh, yeah. Every bit as Catholic as I am,” Bryce replied. “Oh, and one more fact. The Vatican has agreed that if a priest or minister of another church converts to Catholicism, and is married, he can be ordained as a Catholic priest and still be married. So, you see, everyone knows that the priesthood and celibacy are not necessarily connected.”

“Interesting,” Damon mused. “Now, you said you think the Vatican is all screwed up when it comes to sex.”

“But you still said the other day that you agreed with the Vatican on abortion.”

“True, but abortion is not about sex. It’s about life. I simply do not understand all these people who claim to be humanists and supporters of humane causes who are perfectly willing to kill an innocent human being when it suits them. But this is an issue about which I get very emotional. I simply cannot understand people who believe in God and in the reality of the human soul and who still think it’s okay to kill another person when it suits them to play God, deciding who deserves to live and who dies. I think we’d better leave this to another day if you still want to simply enjoy the fine weather and location here in the Borghese Gardens,” Bryce declared.

“There are some really tragic cases where abortion seems the best way out,” Damon could not resist commenting.

“I’m aware of that. But, wouldn’t those humane purposes be fulfilled much better by avoiding conception altogether? I realize that does not apply to rape, as that’s not a voluntary act on the part of the mother, but all the other situations are ones in which someone chose to engage in sex resulting in conception,” Bryce insisted.

“True, I guess,” Damon conceded. “But your bishops and pope don’t seem to like contraception any more than abortion.”

“And I think they are making a major mistake there,” Bryce said. “You’re right, of course. They keep linking contraception, abortion, and what they call protection of marriage, by which they mean no gay sex. I don’t see the three as connected at all. I think I’ve made it clear that I favor contraception, and not abortion, and from personal experience you should know how I feel about gay sex.”

“I am. Consciously, and, I hope, respectfully, but definitely. I think they’re making a huge mistake, morally and politically, by insisting on linking these things. I’m not going to picket the Vatican or attempt to bomb the bishop’s residence, or anything else silly like that, but I am convinced in my own conscience that they are wrong. And I am not the only one who thinks so, and still remains Catholic. Let’s face it, Damon. With over a billion members, the Catholic Church is a major player on the world stage, especially when it comes to moral issues. It’s kind of self-defeating for someone like me, who is convinced of the validity of so much of Catholic teaching, to drop out because I disagree with this one teaching. A non-dogmatic teaching, I hasten to add. That’s simply removing any incentive for change from within. It’s true I’m gay. But that’s not the only, or even the most important thing about me. My whole identify is not contained in my sexual orientation. I’m human. I’m a rational animal. I think I’m fairly intelligent. I’m compassionate, I think you’ll agree. I think I’m a pretty good friend, and a loyal one. None of those things has any connection with whether I’m gay or straight. Being rational and intelligent, I guess, are things given me, but being compassionate and a good friend are choices. Just like being Catholic is a choice. In a way, I think being a gay Catholic is kind of a mission given me by God. I, and others like me, have the mission of making the Church leaders realize that they are mistaken on the issue of being gay. It’s not something ‘inherently disordered,’ as they said, but part of God’s plan for the human race. And I’m not about to abandon my responsibility in this matter,” Bryce insisted.

“I can see that you’re committed, but I do have to wonder about your chances of success,” Damon said.

“I’m not alone, you know. Most of the bishops might disagree with me today, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many, if not most, theologians would agree. I have tried to work out my position within the bounds of Catholic theology,” Bryce asserted. “In fact, if you’ve had enough of the Borghese Gardens, let’s try to find a gay bookstore, or at least one away from the Vatican, where I might find a book I read last year, and which had a statement in it very much to the point.”

“If you don’t mind, not yet. We came up here because I need time to kind of digest some of what I’ve learned since we landed in Europe. Well, you answered some of my questions, but you raised even more. I think we can leave the issue of abortion for another time as I see this is something that disturbs you a great deal,” Damon observed.

“True. And it’s not just a matter of agreeing with the Vatican. It’s a matter of being logically consistent, but not now,” Bryce pled.

“Okay, we’ll talk about other things. What was that poem we read in English? Something with a funny name? From Alice in Wonderland?” Damon tried to distract his partner.

“I think you’re thinking of the conversation with the Walrus in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass. It’s called ‘Jabberwocky.’ ‘The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings,’” Bryce quoted.

“That’s it,” Damon agreed. “In class we got bits and pieces thrown together, so it’s no wonder I got the two stories mixed up. But that’s exactly what I had in mind.”

“Speaking of which, what else is on your feeble mind?” Bryce taunted his boyfriend.

That, of course, led to more horseplay, and an admonition by a passing Roman to be more respectful of the grounds.

“How about this,” Damon ventured. “You seem pretty religious, but I’m not at all certain about how you think about the Bible. Is that a safe enough topic for discussion?”

“Yeah, I guess. And, Damon, I don’t mean to cut you off. I really just want to enjoy the afternoon, and I know that a discussion about abortion will get me all worked up. Really, some other time, okay?” Bryce pled.

“Okay. When the Bible speaks about the greatness of God, or about the fact that God is the beginning and origin and purpose of all that is, or about the saving work of Jesus, or about God loving his creation, then it is the inspired word of God. But there are many books that make up the Bible, and each had a human author who expressed the divine message in ways which seemed appropriate to the society in which he lived. Consequently, we need to interpret the Bible in light of those times and circumstances, to separate the permanent divine word from the human commentary,” Bryce proposed.

“And who is to determine what is the divine word and what is human commentary?” Damon asked. “You know there are those who say you have to accept the literal meaning of every verse in the Bible.”

“Yes. Those people are called fundamentalists, and you know what I think of them,” Bryce responded. “They essentially reject reason and logic, one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. They use logic as some kind of mental gymnastics, when they use it at all, to try to make the Bible conform to their narrow theology. I have encountered quite a few fundamentalists in my time. Nebraska is not exactly immune to the breed. What I have seen tells me they are basically not only irrational, but also inconsistent.”

“Well, let’s leave out the Old Testament for now. Rejecting the testimony of science and insisting on a creation in 4004 B.C. simply boggles the mind. Let’s just look at the Gospels. Now the fundamentalist says we must accept the literal meaning of the written words, and not try to twist them or interpret them, but I have never yet met one who took Jesus literally where he says at his Last Supper, ‘this is my body’ and ‘this is my blood.’ Every last one of them will tell you this is symbolic, not literal. Where is the consistency there? And even when, in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink of his blood, you will not have life in you,’ they still reject the literal meaning of the words. Remember, Jesus frequently referred to himself as the Son of Man. Then Jesus says to his apostles when those who won’t accept his words turn away, ‘Will you leave, too?’ and still the fundamentalists reject the literal meaning. I just don’t get it. What it seems to me is that they have adopted somebody’s interpretation, probably somebody back in the sixteenth century, and accepted this as true without ever thinking it through. As I said, they are inconsistent and essentially reject reason, so that’s not surprising,” Bryce concluded.

“No argument. I cannot explain it. I believe it solely because Jesus said so. But he did say so,” Bryce insisted.

“Anything else?” Damon encouraged his boyfriend, wanting to understand as much as possible.

“If you read the Gospels, Jesus is pretty definite. Divorce and remarriage is not permitted. He said Moses permitted it because of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites, but he also said marrying someone who was divorced was the equivalent of adultery. And yet, every fundamentalist group I know of permits divorce and remarriage. In fact, I’ve even encountered a minister in one such group who was married several times, with each of the previous spouses still living. What’s the difference between him and the Hollywood glitterati, who engage in what is called serial polygamy? Just another example of not following through with the insistence on literal acceptance of the Bible when it does not suit them,” Bryce declared.

“The Church. That’s why Jesus gave us the Church. It’s not just a convenient human contrivance, it’s the Body of Christ on earth. It is the living God,” Bryce insisted.

“The pope and the bishops, who say such nasty things about us gays, are the living God?” Damon objected.

“No. Not the pope and the bishops. The entire Church. That includes me. The entire people of God. The pope and the bishops are just the leaders, the upper echelons. They are not the whole story. Remember what I said all along about what is doctrine and what is discipline, what is necessary and what is doubtful. When the Church in council proclaims a doctrine, and says that anyone who disagrees is anathema, that is the Holy Spirit speaking. That is the voice of God. That is a definitive ruling on what the revelation, the Bible, means. That is the Church acting as the visible Body of Christ on earth. But the day to day rulings of the bureaucracy are just human efforts, no matter how well intended, to interpret the world of God for us today,” Bryce gave his understanding.

“Any support for this, or is this just the Gospel according to Bryce?” Damon goaded him.

“I said before there was a book I wanted you to see. Well, if we want to have a chance to find it before we take off for our meeting with Father Long, maybe we should put aside serious discussion for a short time, and think about leaving these delightful surroundings, and plunging once more into the turmoil of everyday Mammon,” Bryce suggested.

“Not yet. Let’s spend some time here just relaxing. No more serious discussion for now. My brain is tired,” Damon declared.

“Hoo, boy. Just wait until I remind you of that when we’re back at the hotel,” Damon clowned.

And so it was, Bryce and Damon spent the rest of the afternoon in the Borghese Gardens, enjoying the scenery, observing Romans and tourists, and relaxing. It was well after five o’clock when they left. But when they did, they followed a route laid out by Bryce leading them to a bookstore identified on his iPhone as a gay one with an English language section, which he hoped would have the volume he wanted.

On the way, they encountered the Pantheon. Bryce said nothing, as Damon had made it clear that he did not want more monuments.

“Well, in ancient Rome is was a temple to all the gods. That’s what ‘pantheon’ means. In the medieval and Early Modern world, it was a church. After the Italian national government took over Rome in 1870, it became a monument to the royal family,” Bryce informed him.

Damon heaved a huge sigh. “Okay, let’s go in. But I suspect you of selecting this route just to get us inside this monument.”

It was an impressive piece of architecture, and one of the few free standing domes from the ancient world remaining in Rome. But they did not remain long, out of deference to Damon’s declared holiday from monuments, and Bryce’s desire to reach the bookstore before their meeting with Father Long. They found the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele and followed it to the Piazza Chiesa Nuova, from which it was only a short jag to the Via dei Bianchi Vecchi. There, at number 116, they found the Libreria Babele.

There were many volumes which looked interesting on display, but most were in Italian, of course. There was also an extensive collection of gay pornography, whose allure the guys managed, with some difficulty, to resist. In the end, Bryce had to ask the proprietor, who spoke excellent English. Yes, there was a small section on theology related to gay issues. There, Bryce found the volume he was looking for entitled Kissing the Dark, a 1999 publication by the Irish Benedictine monk Mark Patrick Hederman. Bryce purchased the work, as he felt it inappropriate to stand there and use it to make his point without benefit to either the author or the bookseller. But no sooner had he paid than he drew Damon’s attention to pages 58 and 59, where it reads as follows.

It may have been a necessary strategy for the survival of the human species to insist that all sexual energy be directed towards procreation and the survival of an unlikely species in a lethally hostile world. Annihilation and the extinction of the race was a possibility. Now, however, as we enter the twenty-first century, the demographers assure us that we will be adding a further billion people to the family every ten years and by the end of the next century the number and the timespan will increase and decrease in an incremental and exponential fashion. In such circumstances does it not become obtuse, to say the least, to keep on insisting that all sexual energy must be directed toward people production? Surely any diversification or redirection of this energy must be seen as a welcome decrease in the mounting pressure.

When we hear of the increase in the homosexual population and the decrease both in the desire for and the number of children in the average family in Europe, we should be rejoicing in nature’s capacity to adapt and its versatility in face of restricting circumstances, rather than reiterating anachronistic maxims and condemning variations on the stereotyped profiles of men and women, marriages and partnerships.

It must have become abundantly clear by now that all partnership is not with a view to procreation and that all men are not made in the image of Johnny Weismuller or Sylvester Stallone, nor all women produced in packages modeled on either Maria Goretti or Marilyn Monroe. There is a spectrum of male-female identity and each of us is situated somewhere along that rainbow of possibility that makes our particular sexual identity as personal and as unrepeatable as a fingerprint.