Friday, January 27, 2006
FR. RICHARD ROHR AGAIN
Catholic Culture reports:
The Albuquerque-based Center for Action and Contemplation, founded by the nationally known writer and lecturer Fr. Richard Rohr, has begun an eight-week discussion series, "Exploring Developments in the Church's Tradition on Homosexuality." The series is offered by the Bridge Building Community at the center; the group began about a year ago under the inspiration of New Ways Ministry leaders Jeannine Gramick and Robert Nugent. The Bridge Building Community comes together periodically "to discuss a variety of topics, from the Scripture and its reference to homosexuality, to practical aspects of living as gays and lesbians."
The Center for Action and Contemplation is housed on the property of Holy Family Parish, whose pastor is Fr. Jack Robinson. Fr. Robinson is scheduled to hold a retreat at the center in late June (1997) which is titled "Coming Out, Coming Home: A Place in the Church for Lesbians and Gays." Clearly, the CAC is reaching out to the homosexual community. The quality of that outreach — the depth of its compassion and Christian charity — must be measured against its fidelity to the truth. To that end, it is valuable to examine some of the teachings Fr. Rohr has given to men, many of them homosexual, in the past.
Fr. Rohr spoke at the March, 1997 New Ways Ministry Symposium in Pittsburgh (see the Wanderer's coverage of the symposium, March 20th and March 27th, 1997 issues), delivering a talk titled, "The Men's Movement: Homoeroticism and Homophobia." His tone was intimate, and at times almost tender, as he described his years of work in the "men's movement," providing retreats and spiritual direction.
Continue reading...
Under the heading "Magicians and Lovers" Fr. Rohr writes:
Fr. Rohr then went on to discuss personality archetypes. Rohr has been one of the loading proponents of the enneagram, a system of character assessment, and the following section of his talk revealed another system of personality typing which Rohr and his audience clearly found fascinating. The typologies have became an occult language in which hidden, secret ideas may nonetheless find expression: "As you know . . . we've been given, by Robert Moore and others, [archetypes] for the male, and they still seem good to me, as much as I've worked with them: King, Lover, Warrior, Magician. [These archetypes] are now being worked with by gay men to see what exactly might be the shape of those same archetypes [for the homosexual]. Are they different archetypes, or do they simply have a different character? This is merely in the early stages. I just came from the Franciscan House in Chicago, where our young friars are studying, and one of them there is doing research on this. I asked if I could share some of what he's come to, because it does almost perfectly match my own experience.
"What was first said was that gay men were almost always Lover archetypes, or maybe Magician archetypes.
