A controversy surrounding Cardinal Newman helps to illustrated a point that I’ve been making about Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi for several years, now.
John Henry Newman is likely to be canonized next year. His Cause in Rome is to the point where canonization appears to be a foregone conclusion. As a result, there are those who desire to disinter his body so that it may be venerated, according to custom.
Newman asked in his last days that his body be buried beside his long-time best-friend and fellow priest, Ambrose St. John. The two were indeed buried side-by-side, and have remained so all of these years. There are those arguing that the two men should remain together, in honor of Newman’s wishes. And this has re-surfaced the old idea that Cardinal Newman may have been gay. Some have suggested that the two men were homosexuals–in desire but not in practice. (No serious people suggest that they had an affair.)
In The Tablet (Letters, 6 September 2008), Clifford Longley offers this helpful clarification: “Can [we] realistically say that Newman ‘desired’ St. John sexually? Desire denotes an ardent yearning or craving for something not yet achieved, which is how most dictionaries seem to define it. On the contrary, the relationship between the two men seemed to be a thoroughly relaxed and fulfilling one. Would that have been the case if there had been a thwarted passion between them?”
Just as in the case of Francis and Clare of Assisi, celibacy can be a way of simply removing sexual attraction from the equation of one’s relationships. Cynical people will say that this is not true. But it is. And that is exactly what Francis and Clare had between them: love without desire.
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