Well said, but I imagine Benedict Arnold XVI is still attending to his jet lag while preaching tolerance, love and commune between religions from Jordan to the Holy Land. Even there he gave a half messages that pleased no one.

Rabbi Jesus must surely be laughing at human folly.

I noticed you quickly down-played her obvious trans man-like life by saying she would be a lesbian today. "Cross-dressing teenager?" Is that the best you can do? Her history says nothing about who she found attractive, but a lot about her male attitudes and actions. Yet, you assume that she would be a lesbian today.

You and I had a private discussion about your obvious lack of understanding and compassion for trans people and this article proves it. Thanks for making my point.

Joan of Arc has been a long-time historical interest of mine. I've concluded that few people in history have been lied about more, by both Catholic and Protestant officialdom. The real nature of her story, and her real political significance in her time, has been buried under a lot of myth-mongering by both branches of Western European Christian religion.

No wonder the Catholic Church waited so long to canonize her! They had to make sure they buried the truth deep enough, so they could claim her as their own champion -- whereas in her time she (and the king she helped to crown) were regarded as enemies of the See in Rome. It's time for current historical investigators to take a more honest look at this long-misinterpreted yet truly amazing story of "the girl in armor."

I've written about Joan for Gay & Lesbian Review, focusing on her long-ignored relationship with the Angevins, that powerful royal house that put her in political orbit. Without their material help and support, she would never have vauled to such high visibility. Even in the Middle Ages, being "sent by God" didn't help you win if the smart money didn't back you up with soldiers and cannons.

BTW, on her orientation -- I'm with Monica. There's no evidence that Joan was a lesbian, or had relationships with women. If she did, the Inquisitors would have made an issue of it. They had already used charges of homosexuality against the Templars a century before.

However, there is evidence that suggests Joan was a case of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS). A number of historians agree on this.

Another BTW:

For those who wonder what Joan looked like -- last year I wrote a Bilerico piece on a medieval portrait that may answer that question. Check it out at http://www.bilerico.com/2008/10/solving_a_mystery_what_did_joan_of_arc_l.php

I also think it's interesting to look at Joan in comparison to the other female mystics of her day, esp. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. They each approach spiritual authority and power in different ways; Julian and Margery being much more contemplative--but Julian doing so as an anchoress and Margery as a pan-European pilgrim (and the mother of 14 children). (I know Saints and Society, by Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell talks about this, but only scratches the surface of the ton of stuff on 14C women's mysticism. Tangentially, in a later period (16C), I'll suggest Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith Brown, which also addresses deviance, sexuality, and power. My erstwhile focus as a medievalist was in the 12C, so I'm stretching my limits here, but I'm guessing the above may be of interest to a few readers.)

Probably because I know little about Joan of Arc, the point that stood out to me was that she spoke from the heart. While corporate effort makes the going smooth, it is slow and frequently misguided. It takes someone standing up above the shoulders of the crowd and shouting to steer the crowd in a new direction. It won't happen unless it makes the crowd initially uncomfortable, because there is no growth or change in comfort.

One thing I really like about Bilerico is the diversity of points of view with a common goal: positive change. It is peopled by those heroes of which Tony speaks, exhibiting "inspiration and enthusiasm and vision." I find them respectful in their differences, as witnessed even in the comments above; and I cheer you all on wholeheartedly.

Father Tony, you may consider reading a bit of the English writer Thomas Carlyle regarding heroes -- I suggest Past and Present, notably.

In the time I've been reading Bilerico, you have offered a consistent and laudable awareness of the relationship between the Catholic faith and the gay and lesbian peoples within it.

You have been equally consistent in one of the most doggedly rude of the church views, wherein the lives of transfolk are ignored, and tend to apparently keep to what is an older ideal predating the present pope that transfolk are to be celibate.

Where are the catholic women? In these days, they are busy following the advice of the titular head of their order. Or leaving the faith.

I'm nominally Episcopalian when it comes to christian ideology, so I suspect that you will ignore me with the same precision with which you ignored Monica.

That's ok.

I'll note that you and I share at least seminary in common, so I'm outside the bounds of laity in commentary enforced by the church, and note that I find your particular interpretation of what a modern day Joan would be like to be cissexist and culturally insensitive.

Especially since you confuse cross dressing with sexual orientation, indicating you lack a particular awareness of what it is indicative of and leap directly towards something you can understand and grasp --you tread a tricky spot where your interpretation is damned no matter how you base it.

But that's not uncommon, nor is it news to transfolk, since such claiming of our selves for the purposes others seems to be a trend that many queer fathers have engaged in for centuries.

So I understand how you are just following what you know, but I cannot excuse you for your insensitive and fixed position, and instead shall simply note that Joan was celibate, cross dressed, identified as a woman, never a man, and was a Protestant long before Luther, given she felt the need to interpret for herself what she heard -- who was God (a rather protestant concept).

So I find it fitting that a catholic father speaks of someone who was canonized despite being catholic only by default and applies an ideal to her that wasn't present for even further a time.

She was trans, father. Gifted by God with Grace directly.

IT may strike you as odd, but i too am deeply iterested in Roman Catholicism -- in religion in general, really -- and very much favorable towards the survival of all of it.

Like you, it was writ in me deeply as a youth in two different religions and three different cultures and often was horribly painful and usually negative.

And, rather than many of what we have as kith around us, I take a stance of understanding that they are all critical to our being people (no doubt informed by my actual faith, regardless of the nominal aspect).

You are indeed on steady ground in your search for real heroes. Among them, for example, you can count yourself -- truly, I believe that, and my commentary, however pointed, is not meant to take away from that part of what you write.

as for transfolk and our obsession with semantics and identity -- note that my final assertion about her being trans is *equally* shaky as yours of her being lesbian -- such things are a matter of the time and tides of the day, and in those days, like so much of history, culturally, they were not separate, but one.

Identity is forged in semantics, and our identity is consistently compromised and taken over, and the semantics, Father, count. It was semantics that established the aforementioned separation creating protestantism, a many hundred year protest by men and women over the various abuses by various Popes such as the one in seated now.

But it is beyond semantics, Father -- this is deep seated and emotional, and semantics are critical -- for the emotion i am speaking of is nt on our side, but on the side of those who step into unity with hand wringing and waffling and uncertainty.

Which is you, father. And you can indeed rise above that teaching just as I rose above the teaching I had (however unintentional) and embrace it, rather than ignore it.

Past and Present contains a statement by which I choose to do things:

We demand arrestment of the knaves and
dastards, and begin by arresting our own poor selves out of that fraternity.

There is no other reform conceivable. Thou and I,
my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us,_one_ non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroesto begin with:

--Courage! even that is a whole world of heroes to
end with, or what we poor Two can do in furtherance thereof!

And you are part of this particular war, for this is not a war of self chosen sides, Father, but one of those who see us as all of a kind and those who do not, and while you draw breath and abandon in your efforts those who are trans, you will find that you are also drawing breath and abandoning those who are gay and lesbian and bisexual.

For we are all of one kind, one sort, and only semantics separates us.

As for the Joan reference - trans vs lesbian: I always thought of Joan as a lesbian too. She did crossdress - she wore pants. Lots of lesbians "crossdress" now too by wearing pants - it's just that the standards for that tiny bit of tearing down a gender wall has changed.

Joan had many manly qualities of the day - leadership, willingness to speak her mind, wore pants, fought in battle, etc. But I know many strong lesbians who would be willing to do the same - many modern day soldiers, for example - but that doesn't make them trans.

I do find it interesting that we (as LGBT and feminist activists) claim to want to blur the strong definitions between gender binaries, but in this instance the discussion has mostly focused on which identity to classify her as. Why can't she have been both trans and a lesbian? Or why not neither option and simply a strong willed heterosexual woman? Does it really matter?

Or would be better off summing up Joan of Arc's life Tony's line: "popularity is its own reward and that heroes are lonely and often meet with bad final chapters"

Part of this "conversation" (one one way, as far as I'm concerned) has not been resolved to my satisfaction. And, as it's been pointed out many times before, my concerns don't count in some people's eyes. Of course, I don't see it ever getting resolved. So, it will be for another time and another subject. Have fun.