Segmented Secrecy as Catholic Ecclesial Practice: The Case of Gay Priests
-
Brett Hoover
Abstract
While social scientists have long studied secrecy as a cultural practice, theologians have neglected it as an ecclesial practice. This article examines “segmented secrecy” as an ecclesial practice, that is, secrets kept or divulged in different social networks in a segmented manner. That secrecy is examined in the lives of gay priests in Roman Catholic ecclesial settings in the United States. After a brief sociological analysis of secrecy, the theological analysis reckons first with the ethics of segmented secrecy, arguing for segmented secrecy as a “burdened” form of the virtue of honesty. Next it turns to segmented secrecy as an ecclesial practice, a provisional way of securing protection for marginal persons amidst the larger eschatological protect of the church in the world, despite some moral hazards involved.
Zusammenfassung
Geheimhaltung ist eine kulturelle Praxis, wie die Soziologie seit langem weiß. Die Theologie hingegen hat es bislang versäumt, das Geheimhalten von Informationen auch als eine kirchliche Praxis zu betrachten. Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die „segmentierte Geheimhaltung“ als eine gebrochene Form von Aufrichtigkeit. Er tut dies am Beispiel homosexueller Prieser in der römisch-katholischen Kirche in den USA.
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Vorwort – u. a. aus Anlass des 25-jährigen Bestehens dieser Zeitschrift
- Remarks and Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the IJPT
- Research Articles
- Poetic Listening in Pastoral Care: Listening to the Poems that People Are
- A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness
- Generalized Surrogacy and the COVID Crisis
- The Process of Leaving the Church Revisited. A Replication of Ebertz’ Study on Types of Church Leavers
- Coloring Things Together: Experiences of Leading Together as Pastor Couples in the Norwegian Pentecostal Movement
- Segmented Secrecy as Catholic Ecclesial Practice: The Case of Gay Priests
- RICE 2020: Exploring the Inclusivity of European Churches towards LGBTI People
- Research Report
- International Cooperative Research: Experiences and Insights from the Project on Confirmation Work in Europe
- Book Reviews
- Philipp Öhlmann, Wilhelm Gräb, Marie-Luise Frost. African Initiated Christianity and the Decolonisation of Development: Sustainable Development in Pentecostal and Independent Churches, Abingdon (Routledge) 2020, 354 pp., ISBN 9780367358686, £120.
- Christoph Krummacher, Kirchenmusik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), ISBN 978-3-159365-9, € 39,00
- Andreas Kubik, Theologische Kulturhermeneutik impliziter Religion. Ein praktisch-theologisches Paradigma der Spätmoderne, Berlin / Boston (Walter de Gruyter), 2018, 405 S., ISBN 978-3-11-057612-2, € 99,95 (Praktische Theologie im Wissenschaftsdiskurs 23).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Vorwort – u. a. aus Anlass des 25-jährigen Bestehens dieser Zeitschrift
- Remarks and Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the IJPT
- Research Articles
- Poetic Listening in Pastoral Care: Listening to the Poems that People Are
- A Sense of Something Else for Me: Search for Meaning in Life and Transcendence in Spouses of People with Mental Illness
- Generalized Surrogacy and the COVID Crisis
- The Process of Leaving the Church Revisited. A Replication of Ebertz’ Study on Types of Church Leavers
- Coloring Things Together: Experiences of Leading Together as Pastor Couples in the Norwegian Pentecostal Movement
- Segmented Secrecy as Catholic Ecclesial Practice: The Case of Gay Priests
- RICE 2020: Exploring the Inclusivity of European Churches towards LGBTI People
- Research Report
- International Cooperative Research: Experiences and Insights from the Project on Confirmation Work in Europe
- Book Reviews
- Philipp Öhlmann, Wilhelm Gräb, Marie-Luise Frost. African Initiated Christianity and the Decolonisation of Development: Sustainable Development in Pentecostal and Independent Churches, Abingdon (Routledge) 2020, 354 pp., ISBN 9780367358686, £120.
- Christoph Krummacher, Kirchenmusik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), ISBN 978-3-159365-9, € 39,00
- Andreas Kubik, Theologische Kulturhermeneutik impliziter Religion. Ein praktisch-theologisches Paradigma der Spätmoderne, Berlin / Boston (Walter de Gruyter), 2018, 405 S., ISBN 978-3-11-057612-2, € 99,95 (Praktische Theologie im Wissenschaftsdiskurs 23).
