Homosexuality: Representing the Devil or a Spiritual Gift? Two Opposing Views in the Same Marian Devotion

Abstract

This article analyzes opposing discourses on homosexuality forwarded by two different Catholic social actors. These are linked to the messages of the Lady of All Nations, a Marian apparition site in Amsterdam.

These different actors are understood as competing moral communities (Hunt, 2009), especially about the issue of what constitute European values. Both discourses can be seen as examples of the minoritizing yet universalizing view on homosexuality (Kosofsky Sedgwick, 1990, p. 85). The devotion to the Lady of All Nations serves as a site for promoting competing discourses (Hermkens, Jansen, & Notermans, 2009).

Keywords:

• homosexuality
• Marian apparitions
• Catholic fundamentalism
• queer spirituality
• Lady of All Nations

Notes

1. Fundamentalism is not understood as a militant form of Catholicism, but “as a ‘religious way of being’ that manifests itself in a strategy by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive identity as a people or group in the face of modernity or secularization” (Ruthven, 2004, p. 8). A specific quality of Catholic fundamentalism is that it opposes political as well as liturgical renewal (O'Meara, 1990).

2. Since the Vatican talks only about homosexuality and does not refer to other forms of non-heterosexuality, we will also focus on homosexuality when referring to the Vatican's rhetoric.

3. (The Lady of All Nation [message 34], July 2, 1951) Pressured by Rome, the words “who once was Mary” were changed into “ the Blessed Virgin Mary” in 2006 under continued protest of many believers who think that the prayer given by the Lady should not be changed. (All messages quoted from www.de-vrouwe.info)

4. The exact number of members could not be established as the members of the group in Amsterdam refused to talk to us and no information about membership is given on their Web site www.familiemariens.org, accessed November 7, 2012.

5. Interestingly, this statement contains the only reference to female homosexuality and all the pictures Sigl presented showed only gay men. This near invisibility of lesbians is, however, characteristic of many discourses on homosexuality, religious and political.

6. Eternal Word Television network was launched on August 15, 1981, and is now one of the largest religious media network in the world. It was started by Mother M. Angelica, a Poor Clare Nun. It broadcasts family and religious programming in English and Spanish.

7. Gebetstag der Mutter aller Völker. Die Frau aller Völker als Mutter der Barmherzigkeit, 1. and 2. Lectures by P.M. Sigl, Heroldsbach 31 May 2008. DVD of PDF-Familie Mariens, 73 and 83 minutes.

8. The group's Web site can easily be found on the Internet, but the members have explicitly asked not to mention the name of the group in this article. So for ethical reasons we do not give here the identifying Web site address.