Rev. Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert were ordained by Bishop Barry Clarke in June, Camara as a priest and Boisvert as a deacon; both Camara and Boisvert are married – to men.
Anyone still labouring under the misapprehension that the Anglican Church of Canada is not being consumed by an obsession with homoerotic sex, need look no further for illumination than to the preoccupations of those whom it is ordaining. Here is an extract from “Holy Sex” by Deacon Boisvert:
Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.
Just what the doctor ordered for ailing Canadian Anglicanism: phallic worship.
Here, in his book “Sacred Space”, Boisvert describes his life’s most “spiritual moments” in – where else – gay bars and bath-houses:
Because I am a gay man, my first time in a gay bar, my first visit to the baths, and most poignantly, the first time I stepped into the Stonewall Inn in New York City have also been uplifting, spiritual moments in my life.
I am looking forward to the gradual transformation of Christ Church Cathedral into a “Sacred Space”; my bet is that it will be a gay bathhouse – once the baptismal font has been enlarged.
Boisvert used to be a Roman Catholic, an affiliation that proved unsympathetic to his yearning to worship penises. Unsurprisingly, he has received a warm welcome in the Anglican Church of Canada as it sinks inexorably into Boisvert’s murky world of cruising other men looking for a spot of “Holy Sex”.
From here (page 4):
To say that Donald Boisvert has come out as a gay man would be an understatement. You could almost say he wrote the book (or books).
His ordination as an Anglican deacon by Bishop Barry Clarke June 3 is another event in his distinguished and public career as a scholar and activist concerned particularly with sexuality and the relation between sexuality and religion.
In a note for The Montreal Anglican in 2009, on the occasion of his being received into the Anglican Church by Bishop Barry Clarke, he wrote:
“I was raised a Roman Catholic; I studied for the Catholic priesthood; and I am a scholar of Catholic religious culture. I have a great deal of affection for the Catholic Church, in large part because it marks my cultural heritage and it guided me through my youth, but also because it still has a great deal to offer. But I am gay, and I have more and more difficulty with the Vatican’s archaic teachings on human sexuality, including its position on women and their place within Catholicism.
More broadly, however, the Catholic Church remains a deeply entrenched patriarchal institution, with an authoritarian and rigid governing structure.
It is difficult to refrain from speculating on why Bishop Barry Clarke would ordain someone whose chief interests lie in the exploration of the ritualistic aspects of sadomasochism and the holiness of male genitals. Is the bishop a witless lunatic, a closet adorer of phalluses, a neophyte practitioner of wanton sex looking for instruction?
Who can say – perhaps he just picked up Boisvert in a bathhouse.
Note: I’ve updated this article since Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert, while married to other men, are not married to each other as I had previously stated.
Why can’t these clowns just say OK, I’m gay, now let’s move on to how knowing Christ will save us” But no! They have to go on and on and on about the wonders of gayness and stay away from the C word. Blaaah
I am not easily shocked, but this insanity, and perversion, shocks, sickens, and saddens me. I cannot fathom the depths to which these immoral men have taken a former church of Christ.
“Flee sexual immorality….. you were bought at a price..” 1 Corinthians 17&20
A “gentle” condemnation from the Word of God for these beasts, these wolves, who in their ignorance and boldness, have cast aside their sheep’s clothing.
I will not make any comment on the use of the sheep, or a shivalingus for their unholy sacraments, for it would give them ideas. As soon as I can recover from my shock, I will pray for these fellows, and for the church they have destroyed, and for the tears and pain they have given our Lord Christ Jesus, after the price He paid for them.
What is obvious to me is that some clergy see their homosexuality as their calling and their priesthood as a career choice.
What I want to hear from pastors/priests are words proclaiming Christ crucified and risen rather than words proclaiming “I’m gay…I’m gay…I’m gay… and how marvellous it is in His Sight”
David, I think you got a detail wrong. Robert Camara is not married to Donald Boisvert, he was only present at that ceremony. There were two clergy were priested, Robert Camara and a woman, Rhonda Waters. And a third ordination, as a Deacon, was Donald Boisvert. And Boisvert is the gay man, the activist, and married to someone named Gaston, (according to the Montreal Anglican newspaper).
Like you, I don’t agree with gay men being ordained as priests. They don’t represent Christ in any meaningful way. They represent something else. And, I notice, all the publicity goes to Boisvert, little goes to the two priests. All the sensations goes to the phoney, and the real priests are just quiet. The real clergy work quietly, without fanfare. The Holy Spirit works in hiddenness, away from the glare of the world’s publicity. So, I see the parable of the wheat and the tares being acted out here, good and evil growing side by side. And, the Anglican Bishops seem blithly unaware.
I hope you wouldn’t include same sex attracted men who have chosen to remain celibate in that.
I frankly find it very hard to believe that one guy said what he said (the part that you quoted him). That just seems so far out in left field as to be unbelievable. What source does that come from? Can it be verified or cross-referenced?
Boisvert writes, “Phallic worship… has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex.”
Yes indeed. Transgressive, Sinful. It has always been and still is.
The kicker, though, is this ironic statement:
“I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity.”
Gay sex does precisely the opposite of what Boisvert describes here. Gay sex isn’t centered on and certainly doesn’t celebrate male regenerative power. It is by its very nature barren and unproductive. If Boisvert was really celebrating this aspect of maleness he would be encouraging men to find wives, be fruitful, and multiply.
Sounds to me like this Biosvert character is just another homo-sex agenda driven fagot who is corrupting the Word of God into what he wants to hear, which is completely opposite to what God has said. How sad that our once Faithful Church has deteriorated to such a pathetic condition that we allow this person to pretend to be clergy.
I find the ordination of same-sex married clergy regretable. We haven’t fully resolved the SSB issue and now Montreal jumps the gun. I don’t feel comfortable with this and am sorry it happened.
But if they were just fornicators would it be OK?
Nope.
Pingback: Diocese of Montreal ordains two men, both married to other men « Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
This is sad. Homosexual attraction, like the urge to fornicate and to commit adultery is a result of our fallen nature. Those with that urge who control it are following God’s law, those who do not are breaking it.
Funny how the impulse to form monogamous lifelong unions is “an honourable estate” when straight people have the “urge.” Must be one of those irregular verbs. Straight people are breaking God’s law if they fornicate and commit and adultery – gay people are breaking it if they don’t.
I am not sure where to leave this question on your site, but perhaps this is as good a place as any.
Why would the congregants who have departed/are departing the ACofC parishes not join the Roman Catholic Church under the newly established Anglican Rite? I do understand that the Anglican Church is Reformationist, but in order to leave the Roman Catholic Church in the first place, 500 or so years ago, they went through a rather large change, not entirely of their own choosing. It would not be nearly so large a change now for the orthodox Anglicans to re-join the Roman Catholics, as it would be for them to remain with the ever more relativist ACofC. The new ANIC appears to hold many of the same views as the orthodox Roman Catholics, particulalry under the Anglican Rite. I realize that they tend to be more absolutely Bible-based, whereas the RCs generally dwell more on doctrinal interpretations of the Bible from throughout the ages, but their conclusions are often very similar, if not the same.
So why don’t those Anglicans leaving the ACofC go over to Rome, under the new Anglican Rite? I’m curious.
Hm-m-m. O.K. Is Mary’s Immaculate Conception of Jesus not stated in the Bible?
The RC’s contention that it is the one true church certainly beats ACofC relativism. And after all, the initiation of the Anglican Church was really a political move, by a disgruntled king; nothing to hang one’s hat on when it comes to Truth.
I have read that the concept of the Pope being considered infallible is a myth – not really so, but hard to shake.
We have lobbyists intercede for us all the time. Why not saints?
Why, David, would an organization such as the Anglican Church have that much more truth and validity behind it, especially considering how and why it was founded?
I spent time in the Roman Catholic Church as a child. We honoured Mary; we did not worship her in any sense.
And before anyone jumps in with the “idolatry” accusation, let me say that yes, Catholic churches very often have statues of the saints and the Holy Family, but because they are displayed in a church does not mean that anyone is worshipping these statues either. Do we worship paintings on the walls of our homes because they decorate, or uplift, or because the images therein symbolize greater issues? No. The statues are used in the same manner in a Catholic Church — no one idolizes them; they would think that anyone suggesting this is a bit crazy. Do we idolize statues in the public square? Most of us realize that these stand as memorials, not gods.
I think that Anonymous makes some valid points. Presently I feel that my personal religous beliefs have more in common with the Roman Catholics than with my own Anglican Church of Canada. Especially in regards to several very important issues.
Still, I feel that the set of beliefs that I do have are most in accordance with what we might call “traditional Anglican” beliefs. And I find that I am most in agreement with The Reformed Episcopal Church (which is one of the founding Churches of the Anglican Church in North America). Unfortunately for me their only Parish in Ontario is in Hamilton, which is quite a distance from where I live.
I hope you do get to make it out to S. George’s, even if just from time to time. They are a very friendly bunch with a reverent liturgy and a warm atmosphere and, unlike their single-issue hobbyhorse-riding counterparts in the Network, have always made me feel welcome on my visits. It’s my church of choice when in the Hammer since S. Luke’s lost Fr Hudson.
And thus the endless loop of question begging begins: gay and lesbian unions are immoral because they are not marriages, and are not marriages because they are immoral. Far from negating the argument, this demonstrates it perfectly. If they aren’t marriages, then they are a separate category of relationships, which gets us right back to the question of how the church is to order and sanctify the domestic church in such cases. Your answer is “Definitely not through marriage!” So one way or another, you end up undercutting the exclusivity of status of marriage.
Of course in point of fact, the “definition” of marriage, as far as the Anglican Church is concerned, is found in its liturgies, and none of the features our rite lists are by definition heterosexual (S-G couples can, and do, offer mutual help and comfort, bring new life to the world, and so on). You are free to hold a private definition, but I am less concerned with whether the individual servant of God David chooses to accept our formularies than with what they themselves have to say: for my part, I “regard as marriages” what the book says on the tin.
AMP, I agree with you that it is our choices that matter, but you misconstrue the choice that gay Christians are faced with. The fact that we may not be predetermined to our sexual orientation by genetics does not make them a matter of choice. Not everything is either genetic or voluntary: plenty of things are neither. The choice the gay Christian has is thus the same as any other: whether to exercise their sexuality in aa life of hedonistic self-indulgence, or to submit to the characteristics the church deems necessary to a relationship of integrity. By your logic, that choice is clear for heterosexuals, while for gays one is just as good as the other.
I suspect no one “likes to be told” to abandon their family and home: the rich young man certainly didn’t. Before you judge gay Christians for demurring from the answers they get in “true” churches, consider what your opinion would be if you and your spouse, or your parents, were held to the same standard.
Gay and lesbian unions are immoral because they are fornication.
Thank you, Lisa, for the link about Camille Paglia. I have read of her here and there over the years, but the whole feminism focus in the past several decades was generally larded with nonsense, and so I read it only on a needs basis. Ms. Paglia’s work was often described in the context of feminism.
What I can say is that I admire her razor-sharp intelligence, and her willingness to go out on a limb for what she believes. She strikes me as a very intelligent and creative Bipolar, in fact. I am not sure that I believe what she believes, however. I applaud her ability to see beyond the norm, but her context still seems limited, too often, to the greater pop culture, though perhaps I just do not know her work well enough to judge. In addition, there seems to be a lot of ego in her work, rather than viewpoints that support something a bit more noble. I would veer more towards the work of Melanie Phillips, or what I imagine Elizabeth Wiltsee might have written had she not been ill. Ms. Paglia reminds me in many ways of the late Christopher Hitchens.
Machiavelli was said to have been brilliant too, but not to the benefit of humankind, and not with an eye to God.
Let me ask you, as you are the thinking type, how you square the contrary aspects here — a person whose work you very much admire, whose behaviour in private life arises from a state that you find immoral?
You would really need to read her work, Anonymous. Which I don’t see as limited in context to pop culture at all; or that she is a Bipolar or anything like Christopher Hitchens. Rather, it overwhelmingly affirms the greatness of Western civilization, and esteems the value of art and religious traditions.
How do I square my appreciation for her work with my own views on morality? I hope I am slow to presumption and sparing in passing judgement, for one thing. I think of her as the anomaly she is, for another. In another time, she might very well have lived in a convent and simply devoted herself to scholarship. For all her identification as lesbian — which seems to me to be one of regret rather than in any way careerist or opportunist as is in vogue now — that’s pretty much the life she has made for herself even so.
Lisa, I agree that I really don’t know the work of Camille Paglia well enough to comment in-depth. You yourself seem to be most thoughtful, however, and so if you confirm value in it, I will assume it is there. The mention of Bipolar Disorder was mainly because of the intensity, and certain other traits, that come across in the interviews of Ms. Paglia’s that I have read; it is a condition that confers advantages as well as disadvantages.
Most of today’s individuals who identify with the gay agenda are keen on tearing down western civilization and its traditions. She has my admiration if she is bucking that trend.
There are still celibates in the modern world, Lisa. Convents and religious communities continue to exist, though the numbers are certainly fewer. I had an excellent Sister/Scholar who taught me as an undergrad at a Catholic university. And celibacy as a private individual is always an option, religious vows or not. So couldn’t Ms. Paglia have chosen the celibate life, with an intense devotion to her scholarship, as one sort of solution here? Not perfect, but many of us make sacrifices in life, one way or another.
This reminds me of the anomaly that Groucho Marx described in saying, “I don’t care to belong to any club that would have me as a member,” only this is its antithesis — Ms. Paglia does want to belong to the club that would not have her as a member.
My apologies to everyone for getting off on this tangent.
I know Bipolar people and I don’t see that in Camille. I see an Italian, an up-state New Yorker, and a bit of an exaggerated personality; and somebody who’s had to fight a cabal to be heard.
I’m far more concerned about the general thrust of the culture toward producing what Robert Bly calls ‘half-adults’ than I am about the particulars of Ms Paglia’s private life. It’s by her work she would rather be known too. As to maintaining perspective, let’s remember, Admiral Horatio Nelson had a mistress ….
Lisa, permit me to play Devil’s Advocate as well, by saying that you have lost me on the Camille Paglia analogy. I thought the whole thrust of this recent discussion was that homosexual unions are immoral — and then suddenly we discount the private life of anyone practicing homosexuality if we agree with their academic work? Following that line of thought, why don’t we discount it for everyone whose career we admire? The logic falls apart here. You were so sure in your statement above …… What happened? Either it is right or it is wrong, period. It is as if we are selling a dispensation to Camille Paglia because she has produced academic work that appeals. I agree that no human being is perfect, but why even bother thinking about sin if we can just brush it off with, “Oh, well.” So if someone practicing homosexuality did not produce work that appealed, then the homosexuality would be wrong? How many other people does the work have to appeal to? Do you see where I am going here? What are the parameters of accepting homosexuality, or not accepting it? As I say, you had just stated unequivocally that you think it is immoral, so this is confusing.
Yes, I don’t approve of Paglia’s homosexuality. But her homosexuality is not the point of her academic work, which constitutes a major achievement, any more than Nelson’s adultery, which I also don’t condone, was the point of his Naval career.
Here’s a three hour interview with her. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Cami
David, I have to say that I truly admire your wit and bravado. Not everyone has the guts to announce that the Emperor has no clothes. Personally, I would seek a parish/denomination in which the life of the unborn child is respected, and where marriage is recognized as a union between one man and one woman, unrelated ….and that this is paid more than lip service. No polygamy, no incest, nothing other than this. I could feel even more at home if they refrained from the anti-Israel nonsense I have heard at several Christian churches. And to wrap it up, I wouldn’t say no to an appreciation of fine arts in Christian worship — there is godliness in that, too. But I don’t want this to sound like a dreaded bucket list. What it seems to come down to is how one defines Christianity — what are the crucial elements? And what is the “nice to have?”
Indeed, it takes real guts to calumniate the families of new clergy from behind the veil of the intertubes -_-
Oh, I think they’re the ones hiding behind the institutional power of the Church caught up with the temporal and fleeting fashion of pop psychology and identity politics.
David, on the other hand, is but a singular voice using what slender means there is available to him to assert the business of the Church — as the Church itself ought — is the psycho-biologically sound and spiritually transcendent.
Yes, Bravo, David.
Here, here.
Geoff
You are making my head spin. Please help me understand your position.
Do you believe that homosexual sex is a sin? If you do, how can you condone a gay marriage that essentially incorporates sin?
I do not believe in “homosexual sex” so you will have to clarify what you mean by that. The only thing that makes sex “homosexual” is who is doing it. If an act is immoral, it is immoral, regardless of who is doing it. If it is not, it cannot suddenly become immoral when someone else does it. In my experience, “homosexual sex” is most often a euphemistic misnomer for rectal intercourse, to which I would answer that I am not inclined to defend the practice for gay or straight couples. Your question is a good one, though, but it applies to all marriages. Placing what is otherwise a sin into a context where it can be condoned (dare we even say celebrated?) is exactly what marriage does, and earlier prayer books were rather more frank about the “remedy against fornication” aspect.
I would say that if a child is involved, the “who is doing it” does become an issue, most certainly. I am sure there are other cases, too, in which the “who” or even the “why” are going to matter, in terms of what is or is not a sin. Just off the top of my head, I think most good people would find it just a little more reprehensible that a person in a position of trust had committed an unacceptable act against someone in their power, for instance, than if, say, a peer had done the same thing. Who does something, and why they do it, does indeed matter.
Really? Would you not think it pretty wide of the mark if someone tried to sell you on the idea that pædophilia was immoral only if one committed by someone of one gender, but not of another?
I agree. As Gore Vidal famously said, “there are no homosexuals, only homosexual acts.”
The rest is easy to sort out. Marriage is between one woman and one man. ALL other sexual liaisons constitute fornication or adultery.
So we’re back to gays being SOL. Marriage is both the only relationship which can tend to salvation, and also closed to gay people. In other words, we can just go to hell, literally and figuratively.
And Jesus wept for the hardness of their hearts …
You don’t make any sense, Geoff. Let’s put in ‘sibling-partnered’ in place of ‘gay’ in what you just said and see how it reads:
“Marriage is both the only relationship which can tend to salvation, and also closed to sibling-partnered people.”
On the matter of what is and is not marraige, from Mark Chapter 10:
“And the Pharises came to him, and asked him, Is it lawfull for a man to put away his wife? Tempting him.
And he answered, and saide vnto them, What did Moses command you?
And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of diuorcement, and to put her away.
And Iesus answered, and said vnto them, For the hardnesse of your heart, he wrote you this precept.
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male, and female.
For this cause shall a man leaue his father and mother, and cleaue to his wife,
And they twaine shalbe one flesh: so then they are no more twaine, but one flesh.
What therefore God hath ioyned together, let not man put asunder.
And in the house his disciples asked him againe of the same matter.
And he saith vnto them, Whosoeuer shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
And if a woman shall put away her husband, and bee married to another, she committeth adulterie.”
Seems pretty clear and direct to me. God is the one who creates marraiges, and He will make them a joining of a man to his wife. Therefore, no such thing as a “gay” or “same-sex” marraige.
Funny how the no poofters crowd are so keen to truncate the quote there. “Not all can accept this teaching …” Doesn’t sound like such a full stop after all does it?
Yes, and if you read a little further it is clear from the context that ‘not all can accept this teaching’ refers to Jesus’ teaching on divorce.
Friend, since you don’t care what the bible says, only how it can be twisted to serve a vile purpose, I suggest that you not jeer at the those who do. It adds hypocrisy to dishonesty.
And if we did not know that unnatural vice was wrong, horrible and disgusting, we would learn it from its apologists. Any evil cause can be “defended” by the tactics that you are using here. If someone has to engage in these kinds of tactics and deceit for their cause, it’s not a cause worth holding.
Geoff,
What are you talking about? The passage of Matthew 19:11-12 is actually
“But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
It has become quite obvious that you are the one who is being selective in what you are quoting, you are the one who is deliberately taking the Word of God out of context, you are the one who is purposefully twisting the Holy Bible into something you prefer (which it is not). Seems that you are one of those who are not able to receive it. My heart feels sorry for you, and I pray that you realize the error that you have made and that you will bring yourself to reconciliation with God.
Geoff
Please. Simple questions, simple answers.
Same-sex sexual relations is a sin. Sexual relations outside of marriage is a sin.
I am aware of two members of the same sex who live in a platonic relationship, even though they are attracted to each other physically. Is that a sinful relationship? is that a marriage?
Geoff – I’ve met quite a few of the Zacchaeus Fellowship folks. I’m sure they’d be surprised to discover that their life stories are ficitious.
Only if they’re so deep into the lie they believe it themselves.
Geoff
Why get so angry? Your salvation doesn’t depend on what we think. It depends on what God thinks.
Man. Just found this thread. It is _awesome_. Can I post the whole thing to Facebook? Not that I would — wouldn’t be polite, and it says some very nasty things about many people I love and respect in my own church — but it would be amazing to watch.
A judge could send an inocent man to jail. A responsible citizen could lock up in a room a serial killer for life. Just saying.