Sr. Vassa not retracting, rejoices in increased attention and $.

If you have no context for the below comments by Sister Vassa, please go here for some background information.

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EMAIL OF THE WEEK, from a COUSIN of mine, about my recent correspondence with a woman with a homosexual son):

My dear sister,

What follows is a totally incoherent series of disjointed thoughts, about your email to the woman with the 14-year-old homosexual son. You know, it’s doing no favors to your reputation, which is my concern.

What is the planned course of action from here? Firstly the whole thing is totally ridiculous given the fact that you precursored (real word?) the whole thing by saying it's just your personal opinion and not the opinion of the Church.

Personally I'm a bit surprised that you decided to come so close to such a live wire topic, given that most of Modern Chistiandom is so divided on it. Can you offer some explanation on what compelled you to address this topic at all? I don't think you intended to align yourself with the gay community- I don't believe that's a priority for you. But surely you must have expected some backlash for this.

I often think about so many stupid things I do and prejudices I hold because of our guilt-ridden childhood, in our church-upbringing, and the one conclusion I always come to is that I'm always actually doing myself the biggest disservice. I am always actually the biggest malefactor of my own inner biases. How does this relate to this topic? I think you are really well intentioned, my dear sister, I always thought that about you. I think that you feel you can push the Church into new and better directions and to do so of course you need to push the envelope. But I fear you will get burned in doing so, as you tread onto unknown territory. You can’t handle it, I fear, because it’s your own territory that you are departing, when you push the envelope.

In any event, I think that this whole homosexuality issue is not really the right place to choose the field of battle. The idiotic backlash you're experiencing actually reveals a bigger problem. The problem is that our Church is full of religious prigs. I liked C.S. Lewis' idea that if you're a thief and an adulterer you're better off being that than a pious prig.

Anyway, I support you and I hope you're not taking this tempest in a teacup too close to heart. It too will pass and maybe in the meantime you might consider some retraction or explanatory follow up to this?

Love you, my dear sis!

X

SISTER VASSA’S RESPONSE:

Hey X!

Thanks for writing and caring, my brother. No, I didn't delete the post because I'm retracting it in any way. I just thought that, after three full 24-hour days of people fighting about it, it was enough. But please note that ca. 90% of the response I got has been positive. I have more followers now, on Facebook, and also more subscribers to my audio-podcasts. So, this isn't some kind of catastrophe or "failure," for me. OK?

I don't believe I said a single thing that is untrue, including my statement, in no uncertain terms, that active homosexuality is a "sin." And that one's denial of Holy Communion is a consequence. And that one shouldn't leave the Church nonetheless. Not everyone in "the gay community" (whatever that means) was thrilled with that. My point is, it is simply untrue that I have somehow "championed" the gay lifestyle. I don’t “champion” my own “lifestyle” either, you know. I just champion following my vocation, if you get what that means.

As far as my "reputation" goes, it's fine. In fact it's a lot better than the actual truth about me. I'm not saying that in "humility," I am just saying the truth of the matter. As you know, my dear brother, I am just a normal human being, so I don’t have any expectation that other people will particularly value what I do or do not think. Besides, this is not the first controversial subject on which I've written. Some people thought I committed church-political suicide when I published an article on those rules about menstruating women. But here I am. For some reason, people still seem to care what I think, to the point that they spend days arguing about it.

I don't claim to think or reply to questions perfectly, but I have found that I can't avoid some of these questions, and shouldn't. I think that for whatever reason, known only to God, I need to speak on certain issues, because I happen to be called to. And the stuff that I've written on problematic subjects has been occasioned by repeated questions I got on these issues. I've been in this game long enough, now, and as I get older I find that I want to actually say what I think, and share genuinely of myself, rather than repeat unhelpful formulas that are "safe," yet utterly useless because they are untrue and ignorant of our everyday realities. I want to be of some use to people, as far as I can from my little bell-tower, but I don't think we are really of any use to anybody when we're not genuine. Life is too short, for me to spend the rest of it just praising "the emperor's new clothes," when everybody knows he is naked. Now, I'm not being reckless, but I have become self-accepting enough, in my middle age, to say what I truly think, when I think some of my listeners could benefit from that. And some of this self-acceptance comes from the very loyal following I've built up these past years; people who support me and also pay my bills with their support, because I do speak to them genuinely.

So I don't regret publishing this email-and-response. You know, when C. S. Lewis was asked about homosexuality, he said, I can't speak about an enemy I haven't met in battle. It's akin to what Pope Francis said (Who am I to judge?) Were many people upset that both of these men refused to gay-bash or at least condemn the "sin"? Sure. But both those men "matter,"and people care what they thought/think, because they're "the real deal," rather than party-line mediocrities who just repeat "safe" formulas.

I miss you, and hope you're OK.

V
xxxooo