Majority of Hispanic Catholics Support Same-Sex Marriage, a New Study Reveals

— While religion and sexuality have long been a clashing issue, a new study now reveals shifting patterns in such values and attitudes across the U.S.

About 20% of those who identify as LGBTQ are also Hispanic, according to a new study.

By

Sexuality among religious Latinos has long been a complex subject. While the place of same-sex marriage among major traditional religions has been contested over decades, a new survey shows that a number of religious Latino groups in the U.S., including Hispanic Catholics, support same-sex marriage and believe it should be allowed.

The study was conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, throughout 2023. With more than 22,000 adults interviewed, the institute seeks to form a detailed profile of the demographic, religious and political characteristics of LGBTQ Americans.

The analysis measures Americans’ attitudes on LGTQ rights across all 50 states on three key politics: nondiscrimination protections, religiously based services refusals and same-sex marriage.

The study comes at a contrasting time for Latino religious followers.

On one hand, Latino evangelical support for Christian nationalism is on the rise, with about 55% of Hispanic Protestants saying they supported or sympathized with the movement in 2023, a 12% increase compared to the year prior, NBC News reports.

“I believe that God is going to do something very great with the Latino people in the United States,” Pastor Dionny Baez told his protestant congregation in Miami.

On the other hand, the share of Latinos who are religiously unaffiliated (describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”) now stands at 30%, up from 18% in 2013.

Pope Francis presides over the Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on December 24, 2023
Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples back in December.

But when it comes to sexuality, the Hispanic profile in relation to religion and sexuality becomes more nuanced, according to PRRI.

In the U.S., roughly one in ten Americans identified as part of the LGBTQ community. Of this number, one in five are Hispanic (20%) the second largest race in the country to identify as part of this community.

Despite these numbers, support for LGBTQ people varied widely depending on the religion.

The lowest levels of support for nondiscrimination protections are from Hispanic Protestants (61%), followed by white evangelical Protestants and Muslims (56%).

Hispanic Catholics generally support such laws, but they saw one of the most dramatic declines between 2022 and 2023, decreasing 8 points (from 83% to 75%).

When it comes to same-sex marriage, a similar pattern emerges. While strong majorities of Christian nationalism Rejecters and Skeptics are in favor of allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry legally, most of those who are sympathizers and adherents of the movement oppose it.

89% of Hispanic Christian nationalism Rejecters favor same-sex marriage, followed by 70% of Hispanic Christian nationalism Skeptics who think similarly.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 55% of Hispanic Christian nationalism sympathizers oppose allowing same-sex marriage, compared to 75% of adherents who think the same.

Catholics have long opposed same-sex marriage, but lately there have been factions seeking to present a more open stance. One of them is spearheaded by none other than Pope Francis, who back in December formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples under certain circumstances.

While the Pope stressed that blessings in question must not be tied to any specific Catholic celebration or religious service and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union ceremony, he also requested for such blessings to not be denied, insisting that people seeking a relationship with God and looking for his mercy shouldn’t be hold up to an impossible standard to receive it.

“There is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness,” he said.

Complete Article HERE!

Polish Catholics get a new leader as the church struggles to reckon with sexual abuse

— The leaders of Poland’s influential Catholic Church have chosen moderate Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda to be their new principal, at a time when the church is struggling to reckon with the abuse of minors by some Polish clergy

Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda

The leaders of Poland’s influential Catholic Church on Thursday chose moderate Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda to be their new principal, at a time when the church is still struggling to reckon with the abuse of minors by some Polish clergy, while the number of Poles going to church has fallen sharply.

At a two-day conference, bishops and archbishops elected Gdansk Archpishop Wojda, 67, to replace the conservative Archbp. Stanislaw Gądecki, of Poznan, as the head of the Polish Episcopate, for a five-year term, a communique said.

More than 90% of Poles, a nation of some 38 million, are still officially members of the Catholic Church, but figures from 2022 showed less than a third of Catholics attended mass, according to the church’s statistical institute.

For 27 years, from 1990 until 2017, Wojda served at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelizations of Peoples, during the terms of three popes: Polish-born John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. He was then appointed archbishop of Bialystok, in eastern Poland, bordering Belarus. In 2021, he was made archbishop of Gdansk.

During his tenure in Bialystok, when thousands of migrants arrived at the border with Belarus, Wojda called for openness and tolerance, but also stressed that borders must be protected. At that time he also spoke strongly against equality parades of the LGBT+ community in the region and said homosexuality was a “sin.”

Observers do not expect Wojda to change the Church’s strongly defensive course in the face of revealed cases of abuse of minors by priests.

A number of Poland’s archbishops and bishops have retired or stepped down, with the Vatican’s approval, for ignoring or trying to cover up abuses cases and for downplaying the trauma of the victims.

In some of the cases, the perpetrators have been indicted in court cases and ordered to pay damages to the victims. In a recent case, the diocese of Kalisz paid 300,000 zlotys ( $76,000) to the victim of a pedophile priest, in September.

The previous right-wing government forged close ties with the Church and supported some of its institutions financially, winning the gratitude of many believers. That government was also of similar mind with the Church on condemning abortion and promoting traditional family values.

The current pro-European Union government is seeking to cut the Church’s links to politics and also to limit its privileged financial position that exempts the church from taxation.

Historically, the Catholic Church has been held in high esteem by Poles, having been close to the nation and supporting its culture and freedom drives during the country’s division in the 19th century, during World War II and during more than 40 years of Moscow-controlled communist rule, until 1989.

Complete Article HERE!

Banned priest Tony Flannery to break silence on fate of the Catholic Church

Fr Tony Flattery has been unable to celebrate mass publicly since his faculties were revoked in a Vatican crackdown on liberal views.

By Lorna Siggins

Banned Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery plans to question the survival of the Roman Catholic church at a public talk in Galway shortly before Easter Sunday.

Fr Flannery (77), who was suspended from public ministry by the Vatican in 2012, intends to give his views on whether “religious belief as we have known it can survive in modern Ireland”.

He also intends to pay tribute to Pope Francis for “freeing up discussion, areas of study and the search for the truth”.

The Redemptorist priest had been disciplined in 2012 for publicly expressing support for women’s ordination and same-sex marriage, and for expressing more liberal views on homosexuality.

Although he has been outspoken since his suspension and was profiled in a recent TG4 documentary, he has not given a public talk with a question and answer session in six years.

He says the talk he intends to give in the Clayton Hotel, Galway on March 27 was scheduled to be given in church property several months ago.

However, when the organisers learned that the ban imposed on him applied not only to speaking in churches but to speaking in “all church-owned property”, a new venue had to be found.

Fr Flannery says that in spite of his suspension, he has “studied and read” and has been contemplating “how best to address the falling attendances at Mass” and “the falling away in general from the Catholic faith”.

“If we take the traditional indications of the health of the faith as measured by the Catholic Church… then all the signs are that it is in serious trouble, and that the faith is in the terminal stage of ill health,” he says.

“Churches are emptying or are being frequented only by the older generation,” he says, noting that “seminaries are closing down, and priest numbers are declining rapidly”.

“There appear to be few, if any signs of new growth – but that is by no means the full story.

“We are living in a really interesting time in the [Catholic] church since the arrival of the papacy of Francis. Even in the 11 years since his appointment he has brought about a great deal of change,”he says.

“I have no doubt that the biggest legacy Pope Francis will leave from his time in charge is that he has freed up discussion, areas of study and the search for truth in the church – all of which had been seriously restricted for many centuries by rigid imposition of official teachings.

“The “pre-Francis” church had adopted the position that it had the full truth, and that it had nothing to learn from the world.

“Francis, on the other hand, realised that in order for the church to be relevant, it must engage with modern life, and be part of the debate about the future of the world and of people.”

He cites as examples of that attitude change “the extent to which Francis has engaged in the debate about the destruction of the environment and the necessity of facing up to climate change”.

Fr Flannery says all are welcome to his talk in Galway’s Clayton Hotel, Briarhill, on March 27, and will allow for a question and answer session.

Last year, the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) and Lay Catholic Group (LCG) called for him to be restored to the ministry and said he had experienced a “grave injustice”.

Complete Article HERE!

Pope Francis laicizes North Dakota priest after sexual assault guilty plea

By Daniel Payne

Pope Francis has ordered the laicization of a North Dakota priest who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman in that state.

Diocese of Fargo Bishop John Folda said in a statement this month that former priest Neil Pfeifer “received a dispensation from the clerical state (laicization) from Pope Francis” effective March 8.

Pfeifer himself “sought the dispensation after adult women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct,” Folda said in his statement.

“Mr. Pfeifer pleaded guilty on July 13, 2023, to a misdemeanor charge of sexual assault in Stutsman County,” the bishop said.

Laicization is the term for when a priest has been dismissed from the clerical state. An individual who is confirmed as a priest will always remain one, but laicization takes away his ability to licitly execute the functions of the priesthood, except in the extreme situation of encountering someone who is in immediate danger of death.

Someone who has lost the clerical state also no longer has the canonical right to be financially supported by the Church.

Often, a man who is laicized is also dispensed from the obligation of celibacy and permitted to marry, though this is not always the case, especially when someone has been involuntarily removed from the clerical state.

Folda in his statement noted that the decision to laicize a priest “is not made by the local diocese or bishop but is determined by the Holy See.”

“Laicization means that Mr. Pfeifer has been returned to the lay state and may no longer exercise priestly ministry,” the bishop said. “As a result, in accord with canon law, he may no longer celebrate Mass, hear confessions, or administer other sacraments.”

“Laicization does not invalidate sacraments that he previously administered,” the prelate added.

“When members of the clergy or others representing the Church abuse someone, they violate a sacred trust,” Folda said in his statement.

The diocese announced in 2021 that Pfiefer had been appointed the pastor of St. James Basilica in Jamestown, St. Margaret Mary in Buchanan, and St. Mathias in Windsor.

Pfeifer’s term at those parishes was to last for six years, until 2027.

Complete Article HERE!

Right-Winger Accuses Gay Dad of “Criminal Sexual Conduct”

— José Rolón is speaking out against a right-winger’s accusation that he is sexualizing his children by exposing them to LGBTQ culture.

José Rolón (left) – Photo: TikTok. Stew Peters – Video screenshot – StewPeters.com, via Instagram

By

José Rolón, who has 150,000 followers on Instagram and over 500,000 followers on TikTok under the user name @nycgaydad, found himself bombarded with threats from right-wing users after conservative commentator Stew Peters tagged him in an Instagram video.

In the video, Peters called Rolón a “creep” and a “pervert homo,” and called for his public execution. He also accused Rolón of “criminal sexual conduct,” tagging the New York Police Department and urging them to investigate the gay widower.

“Some pervert homo has access to at least four kids around the clock all the time,” Peters said, misstating the number of Rolón’s children. “He can take them to drag conventions and then post the evidence, post pictures and videos of criminal sexual conduct … and somehow not end up in jail, or better yet, the gallows.”

The video has since been removed from the platform.

The “sexual conduct” Peters appeared to be referring to is a post in which Rolón took his children to RuPaul’s Drag Con and bought what he thought were rainbow-colored bracelets, only to realize that they were in fact cock rings.

Rolón made a video about the incident, saying he was “mortified” by his mistake. He also claimed to have spoken with the vendor, who he said tried to warn him but didn’t know how, because his children were so excited by the “bracelets.”

Peters expressed outrage that “this homosexual” takes his children to drag shows and allows them to see “cross-dressing wigs” in his closet

He aired a clip from one of Rolón’s videos, in which the children joked that they have rainbows and disco balls over their house.

Rolón was horrified by Peters’ commentary. “I just couldn’t believe the things that were coming out of his mouth,” he told The Advocate. “He tagged the NYPD and requested for them to investigate me for not only sex crimes, but also [for me to] be met at the gallows. That, to me, is the line that was [most] shocking. … This man is actually calling for my hanging in public.”

Rolón began getting threats and was deluged with negative comments accusing him of “grooming” his children by exposing his children to LGBTQ content.

In an Instagram video, he accused Peters of spreading “misinformation,” and called him a “D-list version of Tucker Carlson.” “It’s people like you that are destroying this country,” he says in the post.

Rolón told The Advocate he struggled with the idea of speaking out against Peters, but felt he needed to respond publicly to ensure his own children’s safety and dispel misconceptions about gay parents.

“In our community, we’re often faced with this question of do we ignore it so that we don’t give this person a voice, or make it so that people are aware of the kind of people that are out there spreading misinformation about our community,” Rolón said. “I made the decision to talk about it because I think it’s important.”

While Peters blurred the faces of Rolón’s children in his Instagram clip, he did not do so in the full segment on Rumble, a video-hosting platform popular among conservatives.

The full video, which runs more than 50 minutes and targets LGBTQ parents as unfit to raise children, covers a significant amount of time criticizing Rolón’s parenting and shows his children’s faces, without safeguarding their identities.

Rolón told The Advocate he is seeking legal advice and weighing whether to take legal action against Peters and Rumble for not blurring his children’s faces in the longer video.

He also noted that he has had to take measures, including changing his schedule to ensure only he can pick up his children from school in order to protect them.

“My kids were initially allowed to self-dismiss from their school, and they are no longer able to self-dismiss,” Rolón said. “It’s forcing us to be a little bit more vigilant and just take extra precaution. These are the things that our community is constantly having to deal with.”

Complete Article HERE!