The Rainbow Catholics are failing
Gay Catholic activists are celebrating the recent Synod on Synodality session on homosexuality, and many orthodox Catholics see it as a loss.
But it’s actually a win.
If the only thing they have to celebrate is a document that merely publishes “testimonies” of gay people…it means their days of gay Catholic activism are numbered.
The “major step forward.”
This week, the Vatican’s Synod Office released the final report of Study Group 9, the working group tasked with handling the Church’s most “controversial” issues, including the pastoral treatment of LGBTQ Catholics.
Fr. James Martin, an outspoken advocate for so-called “gay Catholics,” called it “a major step forward for the Catholic Church.” He also praised the group for changing the term from “controversial issues” and instead using the term “emerging issues.”
The report also includes “testimonies” from two LGBT Catholics, treated as “cases in listening” that aided the group’s theological discernment. One from the United States, one from Portugal. They are presented as moral witnesses who can aid the Church’s theological reasoning.
The report says the Church’s task is “not merely to resolve problems but to build the common good through relational conversion, shared learning and transparency.”
Translation: We are going to feel our way to changing Church teaching on homosexuality.
Beige Rainbow Catholics
About thirty years ago, Bishop Robert Barron coined the term “beige Catholicism” to describe a faith that has been bleached out by its attempt to reconcile itself with secular liberalism.
It is Catholic when it wants status in a Catholic room. And it is liberal when it wants status in a liberal room.
This Study Group report in particular, and “gay Catholic” activism in general, is a textbook case of beige Catholicism. Despite flying rainbow flags and celebrating the “diversity” of human sexuality, they are beige. They are like every other boring, old, tired liberal institution in this country.
When faced with the Beige Rainbow, orthodox Catholics tend to despair and whine. “Oh, how far we’ve fallen!” But to do that in this instance is a mistake. The fact that LGBT activists are celebrating this document is a good sign for orthodox Catholics. This is all they have (and it isn’t very much.)
Their desperation is the tell
Here is what beige Catholics will not say out loud.
For decades, the project was simple. Make Catholicism palatable to secular liberalism. Soften the hard edges so we don’t upset the New York Times. Position the Church as a broadly progressive institution that just happened to have some old-fashioned liturgy and a complicated history.
That project depended on liberalism itself being the dominant, confident, unchallenged ideology. As long as liberalism was in charge, beige Catholicism could position itself as the “reasonable” middle ground; Catholic enough to be Catholic, liberal enough to keep its cocktail party invitations.
But liberalism is no longer in charge. It is collapsing under its own contradictions.
And Beige Catholicism is collapsing with it.
This Study Group report is what desperation looks like. No one is paying attention to the Synod on Synodality anymore. Even the reactionary trad outlets barely mention it. But the Beige Catholics have to celebrate it because they staked their entire reputation on leading the charge to change Church teaching on sodomy.
No one cares
When you see Fr. Martin or anyone else calling Study Group 9 “a major step forward,” don’t panic. The reality is that no one cares.
A small group of loud and connected influencer types is pushing the narrative that the Church is changing its teaching on homosexuality. One of the two “testimonies” was written by the same guy from the controversial “gay blessing” picture featuring Father Martin.
But outside that bubble (and the group of reactionaries who make money off anger), this issue is not top of mind for anyone. Beige Catholics are losing ground in the Church. All of their allies jumped ship long ago.
Young Catholics are not converting because the Church sounds like the New York Times. They are converting because the Church says something the world does not. Beige Catholicism cannot compete with that. It never could. It only ever borrowed plausibility from the wider secular liberal order. Young people can get that anywhere. Why join the Church?
We are looking at the desperation of a project that knows its time is up. These poor people spent their lives trying to make Catholicism look like liberalism, and now have to manufacture significance out of a document nobody outside their circle is reading.
Beige Catholicism is on life support.
Maybe we can put a little pillow over it to help the process.