So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you.
Mary Oliver, So Every Day
At the meeting of Synod last week some words for an apology to gender-diverse and sexuality-diverse people were adopted by the Synod. The apology will be formally offered by the Archbishop on behalf of the Anglican Church Southern Queensland at an occasion that will allow as many as possible to be present.
The words of the apology can be viewed by clicking here.
The words of the apology were developed by a committee which was formed by Diocesan Council, at the Synod’s request, following a resolution of Synod passed in 2022.
It took the committee some eighteen months to develop the words. During that seemingly lengthy process the committee sought to honour the Synod’s request that the words of the apology be developed in consultation with gender-diverse and sexuality-diverse people, and their families, who had been hurt by the church. Developing the wording of an apology by working with those who have been injured is an important part of developing an apology that is meaningful, genuine and effective; as is an expression of the resolve for things to be done differently into the future.
I outlined the hallmarks of a meaningful, genuine and effective apology in my mover’s speech. To read the text of the speech click here.
Developing the words of an apology in response to listening to the lived experience of the people who have been injured is a way of saying to them, ‘We hear you. We see you. We honour your experience and the reality of your pain.’
In an attempt to capture the importance of this aspect of making an apology, the first thing the text expresses is an apology for the times when ‘We have not accepted that you are who you are.’
It seems to me that these words demonstrate an acknowledgement by the Synod of what was the key failure of the past; a failure to honour people’s lived experience; a failure to seek to understand how life was for them and a failure to seek to understand who they experienced themselves as being.
Instead of listening and trying to appreciate and understand, many parts of the church responded to people’s lived experience by seeking to impose on them an ideological understanding of the human person; an ideology that saw the church denying, clinicalising or otherwise rejecting people’s ontological understanding of who they are and what it is for them to be them. In other words, they were told they could not or should not be who they are. And then rejected.
A couple of speakers at synod tried to lead us back down the road that had gotten us into the trouble we found ourselves having to apologize for by referring to transgender people as an expression of an ideology. Fortunately these attempts did not gain any attention and the synod soon resolved that it wanted to embrace a better future and move on.
The idea of people’s ontological understanding of themselves as being an expression of ideology, however, needs to be dealt with if we are not to find ourselves making the same mistakes in the future. A recent Vatican document dealing with the understanding of gender seeks to make the same point that those few speakers were seeking to make at Synod.
It seems to me that we need to recognise that it is the people who are accusing others of being an expression of ideology who are, in fact, making the ideological statements. They have an ideological understanding of humanity, sex and gender that they want to impose on others. People who understand themselves to be transexual, asexual, non-binary, bisexual, gay or lesbian are not making an ideological statement but seeking simply to express who they understand themselves to be. They have not made a choice driven by an ideological principle. They are simply honoring the fact that they are part of the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God…
Peter Catt is dean of St John’s Cathedral, Brisbane. This reflection originally appeared on the Cathedral website.
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