Will & Grace...and the SSPX

 

I was just starting college when the NBC sitcom Will and Grace premiered in 1998. (Then) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was quoted as saying that the sitcom "probably did more to educate the American public" on LGBT issues "than almost anything anybody has ever done so far". I was familiar with the show but didn't watch it regularly. It was also around this time one of my best friends in college came out to me as gay. Smithsonian curator Dwight Blocker Bowers stated that the sitcom used "comedy to familiarize a mainstream audience with gay culture" in a way that was "daring and broke ground" in American media. Which was certainly the case for me, as a 19 year old college sophomore. 

The fact was, there wasn't much resistance to the mainstreaming of gay culture, at least in the circles I was in. I had only been a Catholic for a year, and prior to that had no ideological opposition to homosexuality. My parents were pretty gay-accepting in general. I was starting to realize that there were a lot of "good Catholics" in our campus Catholic community who were active in retreats, mission trips, and service projects…and also gay. And I'm sure some of the priests were homosexuals as well. So for whatever reason, I never got the memo that there was anything inherently wrong about being gay, or living the gay lifestyle, as a new Catholic. 

For those not familiar with the show, Will (played by Eric McCormick) is a gay man who is a successful corporate lawyer who studied at Columbia University, where he met Grace (played by Debra Messing) as a freshman; they have been best friends ever since. He is very precise and obsessive when it comes to certain tasks, especially cleaning, dressing, and decorating. However, Will does have a very patient and compassionate nature towards those close to him, often to a fault. Grace--a straight, non-practicing Jewish interior decorator, is somewhat neurotic and relies on Will for moral and emotional support. The two secondary characters to these to primary ones are Karen, a wealthy socialite who serves as a Grace's assistant and has a penchant for food and alcohol; and Jack, a free-spirited and flamboyant gay actor who has been Will's longtime friend. All the characters are very likable, in their own way.

I don't think the mainstreaming of gay culture for the general non-gay public as a result of this pioneering show can be overstated. I have known many gay people like Will--good looking, successful, well-educated, caring, clean, nice, welcoming, non-judgmental, funny. None of those characteristics are antithetical to being a homosexual. In fact, I would argue, many of them are due in part to being someone who came from an underdog "class" (which homosexuals were up until the last half century). And aren't those admirable characteristics in any case?

Like many social minorities, gays had to prove themselves in a way--not that they weren't smart, capable, and able to be loving and compassionate towards others, of course. But it would not surprise me if they felt they had to work twice as hard to be accepted in a society that did not accommodate them, for their accomplishments and as people, and so they got really good and doing just that. They couldn't take anything for granted because they did not have that privilege. In many ways, I wouldn't be surprised if they took a cue from the epistle to Titus, "Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn't have anything bad to say about us" (Titus 2:8).

While I'm on the topic, an ancillary story that relates to this involves Elon Musk's father, Errol Musk, who called his son a “loser” and took the side of the bully who beat him up. “His father made him stand in front of him for two hours, while the father tells him he's a loser, that it was his fault.”  I think those kinds of traumas make an indelible impression on people, especially when they are young, that they spend a lifetime dealing with. There is this hole that achievement, success, recognition, solving the world's problems can never heal--and yet you keep trying, achieving, solving. At the end of the day, you're a billionaire genius that has advanced humanity...while your father still haunts you.

Now I don't want to speak for homosexuals, their psyche or lives, because I am not one and because like all things, there is great diversity among those in that population--it's not all Will and Jack caricatures. But I do have a theory that most gay people you or I know are "so nice!" or "awesome parents!", "more loving" or "less judgmental than most Christians" because they see Judeo-Christian morality as the father berating them for two hours for getting hospitalized by a bully. But in the end, they are going to beat them with their own hand. The wounding runs deep.

Now, I know this is going to be a jolting hard pivot given the subject matter, but the way I see the so-nice, uber-successful, less-judgmental, more-loving former minority of mainstreamed gays that rule the roost and make the rules in society today as having some parallels with the growing popularity of the Society of St. Pius X in the trad Catholic world. 

Most of my readers probably are familiar with the standing of the SSPX in the Church today, but for those who aren't, it can be hard to explain. The long and short of it is, they do not have a canonical status, and their ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries. Rather than get into the weeds on this very historical and complicated matter, I would point you to Cathy Caridi's Canon Law Made Easy blog here here and here to get some background education on the Society as it relates to Canon law (Note, I realize these links are outdated, but many of the information as a primer still stands, with a few exceptions).

The pandemic was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Society. During COVID, many newbie trads and trad-adjacent Catholics saw the SSPX keeping churches open when normie parishes were shuttering their doors left and right. Society priests could be heard speaking out against "the jab," and were bold and unapologetically Catholic in their teaching and their witness. The priests were solid, the liturgies were beautiful, and people were starting to get trad-exposed to not only the FSSP, the ICKSP, the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, but the Society as well. Just as you may have trouble telling the difference between a Russian Orthodox or an Eastern Rite (Byzantine) Catholic liturgy (both use the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom) were you to wander into either, one might also struggle to tell the difference between these various traditionalist groups (and "trad-lite" in the case of the Canons Regular). And, if we're being honest, the SSPX is the O.G. of traditionalism, with Levebvrists predating the ICKSP and FSSP who were formed in response.

So, why wouldn't one just attend a Society chapel (they are not called parishes because they do not have a standing in the Church and are not part of one's local diocese) on Sundays since their priests validly celebrate the Latin Mass, are solid in their teaching, have evangelical zeal, and seem beyond reproach in their witness to the faith? 

Just as many homosexuals are "beyond reproach" in the externals of being "super nice," "extremely welcoming," "non-judgmental," "compassionate," "loving parents to children," etc. and may be better people than your own parents, friends, and family members, there is a problem: the Catholic Church still defines homosexuality as objectively and intrinsically disordered, and She has spoken:

 

"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (CCC 2357)

That means you can do all sorts of PR acrobats like Fr. James Martin attempts to contort around this point; but at the end of the day, you can't square it. While most of the world has largely ceded to the gay-affirming culture (which is no longer a "sub" culture), the only holdouts are those religious conservatives who in fact are not taken in by all the ancillary reasons for tactic approval of homosexual acts, homosexual "marriage," or mainstreaming homosexuality as simply a "different' lifestyle choice on par with that of heterosexuality. 

I have found, likewise, that there is this sort of cognitive dissonance in the trad world (that I myself struggle with as well)--a kind of sympathy to the Society that elevates them over the beige normie suburban parish Novus Ordo, all things being equal, while downplaying that their ministers do not exercise legitimate authority within the Church and have no standing. I've written as well about my own reservations over the marriage issue here. SSPX apologists will often point out that the ushering in of the New (Protestantized) Mass justifies an "emergency" situation such that because it puts the faith of Catholics in danger (that is, attendance at the New Mass), that one is under no obligation to attend it even if it is one's only option; ie, they are obligated to avoid it and stay home instead. In the eyes of the Society, the New Mass is objectively wrong. 

SSPX priests, and those who assist at SSPX masses, can of course be good and pious people full of charity and good will, and reverent in their worship. I know some. But to me, the Society as a whole seems like a form and growing sect of neo-Donatism, and because many of their priests and those who live out the Catholic faith under their auspices appear to be beyond reproach in their piety, knowledge of the faith, and devotion, it can be confusing to ordinary Catholics who may prioritize traditional worship over the other more stodgy issues (such as rightful authority to exercise ministry, and obedience and fidelity to the Holy See), even if that traditional worship is illicit.

For this reason, the SSPX is off the table for us, even though everything about them is attractive in a way for me. It's not just a "different" liturgical entity equal among others, but one that--at least at present--has not been reconciled with Rome and thus should, at the very least, been approached mindful of that fact. It's also very hard to articulate for the average Catholic, especially when you have very knowledgeable and passionate pro-SSPX apologists online green-lighting them, and cringey anti-SSPX hyper papalists doing the opposite.  

It's uncomfortable for me to say this, but I'd take the most banal beige and uninspiring Novus Ordo Mass over the most beautiful and inspiring SSPX TLM if it meant maintaining unity with Rome. I judge no one else for choices to the contrary. We will all go before God having to draw account. And no man can go against his conscience.