Tag: Gay Catholics

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Gay Marriage Sparks Catholic Church to Fire Music Director

By Kate Nagle

The former Music Director at the Church of St. Mary in Providence is speaking out, after being fired on Monday because he said “of the person I love”  — his male partner, whom he married in 2015.

In a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday, Michael Templeton, who resides in Warren, spoke to a conversation with church clergy that he said was “bizarre, unprofessional, and inappropriate,” which led to his firing as Music Director at the Catholic church, where he served for more than five years.

Michael Templeton
Michael Templeton

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“What I can tell you about the conversation, is that from what I’ve read, is it’s consistent with the other situations I’m aware of around the country — that they say because of the public nature of your ministry, and the inconsistency of your life choices, that we are requiring your resignation,” Templeton told GoLocalProv.com on Tuesday.

“My heart breaks because this brings to light what ‘safe’ means to people. I feel this action represented more than me in my role. It represents people who have been marginalized and thought of as ‘less than’ for a whole host of reasons,” said Templeton. “I came to St. Mary’s for what it is and who they welcome, whether they come from reformed lives of addiction, or come from divorce and are remarried, whatever the reason.  I want to be clear — I did not resign, I was relieved of my duties.”

The church did not respond to request for comment on Tuesday.

Rhode Island in Focus

Templeton spoke to his path to Rhode Island, and the role that Catholicism — and music, and education — has had had in his life.

“I went to St. Bonaventure for college. The Franciscan Friars there encouraged me to take a position at St. Francis [in downtown Providence],” said Templeton. “I was the Director of Adult Education and Music, which really brought me to this area.”

Templeton spoke to his degree in elementary education, which brought him briefly back to his home state of New York for a job in the public education system there, before he decided to return to Rhode Island.

“I came back to Rhode Island for the slower pace of life,” said Templeton. “I’ve been [at St. Mary’s] since I came back five years or so ago. At that time, their music director had quit unexpectedly and the pastor at the time invited me to come on board,  so I wanted to do right by the community.  A lot folks were there from the St. Francis days.”

Templeton said he was aware that his marriage to his partner in 2015 could put his position in jeopardy, but that he didn’t see it coming.

“What I can say is that I am aware of Catholic educators and administrators around the country facing this — I’ve seen this happen to some colleagues in the music ministry, and they’re all heartbreaking stories,” said Templeton. “These are people giving their best, they’re faith-filled Catholics. It chips away a little each time.”

Templeton said that his had not hidden his life, or his partner, while at the church.

“I have worked hard to live a life of integrity, which means never hiding,” said Templeton. “So it’s 2016. We all have to be concerned about our well-being. Yes, it’s an integral part of me, but only part of me — I’ve been fortunate to do things that I love with the talents and gifts I have.”

Pope Francis Pronouncement

When asked what he would say to Catholics who say that homosexuality — and gay marriage — are against the tenets of the church, Templeton offered the following.

“What I can I say? People need to follow their heart. I feel strongly I give the best I can and what that means is bringing people closer to God through music,” said Templeton. “I pray for those people to follow their heart and conscience. The God I believe in is a merciful God. The Pope has called us to a year of mercy and I invite people to heed that call.”

In 2013, Pope Francis had publicly said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about the possibility of gay clergy in the Catholic church.

“What I would say about that quote, and I don’t know its context, is regardless of what issue we talk about, it is central to the Pope’s message,” said Templeton. “There’s only one person that we’ll need to answer to at the end of it all.”

“I’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support,” said Templeton, following his dismissal. “Friends from high school, college, have all left amazing messages.  I’m not a media person, I’m not seeking attention. I just want to open the conversation again. I hope people keep their faith, hold their heart, and keep the conversation going on this.”

michaeltempletonscreenshot

Complete Article HERE!

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Roman Catholic Tim Kaine says church may change same-sex marriage view

Democratic vice presidential nominee says ‘beautiful diversity of the human family’ should be celebrated, not challenged

emocratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine says he changed his views on same-sex marriage in 2005.
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine says he changed his views on same-sex marriage in 2005.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, is predicting the Roman Catholic church may eventually change its opposition to same-sex marriage.

Kaine, a Roman Catholic senator from Virginia, told Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner on Saturday that he had changed his mind on the issue and his church may follow suit one day.

“I think it’s going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, ‘It is very good,’” Kaine told the gathering in Washington. He then recalled Pope Francis’s remark that “who am I to judge?” in reference to gay priests.

“I want to add: ‘who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family?’ I think we’re supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it,” Kaine said.

While he pledged to fight for increased rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans, Kaine admitted he had opposed same-sex marriage until 2005.

“For a long time while I was battling for LGBT equality, I believed that marriage was something different,” he said.

As Virginia’s lieutenant governor when state lawmakers pushed for a constitutional amendment to keep marriage between one man and one woman, he recalled speaking to amendment supporters who said they hoped LGBT people would feel so unwelcome that they would move out of Virginia.

“When I heard the proponents describe their motivations, it became clearer to me where I should stand on this,” he said.

Voters approved the amendment in 2006. The US supreme court legalized gay marriage in all states in June 2015.

Before introducing Kaine, Human Rights Campaign’s president Chad Griffin called Republican nominee Donald Trump the “gravest threat” the LGBTQ community has faced in a presidential election.

Complete Article HERE!

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The only thing ‘odious’ at Paramus Catholic is bigotry

ate Drumgoole, center, and her wife, Jaclyn Vanore, rear left, during a court hearing. Drumgoole is suing Paramus Catholic High School, alleging it violated the state's discrimination law when she was fired because she's married to a woman.
ate Drumgoole, center, and her wife, Jaclyn Vanore, rear left, during a court hearing. Drumgoole is suing Paramus Catholic High School, alleging it violated the state’s discrimination law when she was fired because she’s married to a woman.

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

A New Jersey Catholic high school is being sued for firing a beloved guidance counselor and basketball coach because of her “odious” gay lifestyle.

This was the revealing word choice of Rev. Thomas Nydegger, second-in-command to Archbishop John J. Myers. We’ll get to that. First, though, there is a church v. state debate.

The Newark Archdiocese argues Kate Drumgoole wasn’t fired from Paramus Catholic because she was gay, but because she violated church tenets by entering into a same-sex marriage. It says this falls under an exception to the state’s anti-discrimination law that protects religious freedom, and that the First Amendment also guards religion against government meddling.

Drumgoole says this isn’t a First Amendment issue because she wasn’t involved in teaching religion. She says she was fired not because of her marriage but because of her sexual orientation, which is discrimination under state law.

How far we allow religion to go is a genuinely difficult legal question. What if a religion holds that races should not mix, as many Christian churches once did? Should that church have the right to fire teachers based on race? When does a claim of religious freedom become an excuse to justify bigotry?

Regardless of the legal debate, though, one thing is certain: The archdiocese has acted abysmally. Since learning that Drumgoole is gay, after photos of her 2014 wedding were circulated by a vindictive relative, the archdiocese has referred to her as “a poor role model.”

That’s rich. Countless teachers, parents and students at Paramus Catholic have vouched for her admirable leadership. Drumgoole was once a two-time captain and star player of the Paramus Catholic girls’ basketball team. She had risen through the ranks at her alma mater, and recently been promoted to an administrative role.

Myers, meanwhile, was protecting pedophile priests and using church money to build himself an opulent retirement mansion, while removing a popular gay priest from Seton Hall against the will of parishioners, accusing him of having an “agenda.” Right.

Myers’ second-in-command, Rev. Nydegger, wrote that Drumgoole’s former work as a guidance counselor “makes her gay marriage and gay lifestyle (whether overt or covert) particularly odious.”

Odious, as defined by Merriam Webster online, is “deserving hatred or repugnance.” So what Nydegger said is, quite literally, hateful.

Contrast that with what Pope Francis said about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?” The Pope argues the first purpose of the church is to proclaim God’s merciful love for all people, and says it should seek forgiveness from gays for the way it has treated them.

Drumgoole’s firing is the perfect example. Thousands of Paramus Catholic alumni expressed outrage in a letter to school administrators: “You institutionalize the kind of oppressive worldview that leads students to bully and verbally abuse other students based on their sexual orientation,” their petition says.

More than 50 gay or lesbian people across the nation have been fired or had employment offers rescinded since 2010, New Ways Ministry, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics, told the Bergen Record.

The church’s hypocrisy is striking. Other faculty members at Paramus Catholic are divorced and remarried, at least one has a child out of wedlock, some cohabitate with members of the opposite sex, at least one other teacher is gay, and nude photographs of another teacher have been circulated online, according to Drumgoole’s lawsuit.

None of those teachers have been fired for violating church tenets. Drumgoole, apparently, was singled out. Her lifestyle is not “particularly odious” because of church tenets — it’s because of church bigotry.

Complete Article HERE!

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Catholics hold ‘Liturgy of Apology’ to LGBTI People

‘We wanted to make sure the event was ethical, respectful and safe for all’

(L-R) Justin Koonin, ACON President, Chris Pycroft, co-convenor NSW GLRL, Chris Pycroft, Co-Convenor, Natalie Cooper, PFLAG Secretary Organization and Father Peter Maher.
(L-R) Justin Koonin, ACON President, Chris Pycroft, co-convenor NSW GLRL, Chris Pycroft, Co-Convenor, Natalie Cooper, PFLAG Secretary Organization and Father Peter Maher.

NEWTOWN’S Catholic Church has become one of the world’s first churches to apologise to LGBTI people for the hurt caused by the action and inaction of Catholic and Christian people and churches.

In June, Pope Francis called for an apology to gay and lesbian people and St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Newtown become one of the first to respond holding a Liturgy of Apology organised by the Rainbow Catholic Interagency for Ministry on Friday.

“It was difficult to choose which personal stories to share during the liturgy; each individual’s story is so powerful, unique and precious,” Francis Voon, a Catholic organiser said.

“As organisers we wanted to make sure the event was ethical, respectful and safe for all. There are so many heartbreaking stories of our LGBTIQ siblings.

“Some have been badly hurt by us as a church community. Others we have failed completely, to the point of suicide, because of prejudice, ignorance and fear, and worse still, in God’s name.

“Tonight, with Pope Francis’ encouragement, in the name of God, we apologise for religious LGBTIQ-phobia, and we pledge to work towards healing and reconciliation in this Year of Mercy.”

One of the stories shared at the liturgy of apology was of a gay man who attempted suicided after he was forced to undergo gay conversion programs promoted by the church.

The liturgy included a symbolic Well of Tears which the congregation was invited to interact with and triggered a lot of emotion for people at the event.

“It was a powerful and raw moment of letting go and of forgiveness” said an attendee.

“I came tonight with trepidation and deep reservation having not been to church for over 20 over years, having been deeply hurt by homophobic actions and words of Catholic church leaders. I feel hope and peace. That there are many ordinary and good Catholic people working hard to hold the church accountable for the violence they have inflicted on LGBTIQ people, including LGBTIQ Catholics here and elsewhere”.

Dignitaries from various Catholic parishes and other faith communities attended the event to hear St Joseph’s parish priest Father Peter Maher issue the apology to the LGBTI community.

“I couldn’t believe the diversity of communities leaders who are here this evening for this historical ceremony, and the fact that Christian leaders actually came up to us and other LGBTIQ folks saying how sorry they are for the way by which the church has in the past and some parts that still lend support to those who wish to vilify and hurt LGBTIQ people,” Benjamin Oh, Chair of the Rainbow Catholics InterAgency for Ministry said.

Melody Gardiner from Australian Catholics for Equality said “Saying sorry is a good start. There are thousands of LGBTIQ people and families in our parishes and many more who no longer feel they belong or are welcome. The majority of Australian Catholics support and celebrate LGBTIQ people, we are their families and friends.”

“Some church leaders don’t care to hear our stories, let alone ask for forgiveness for what they have done to us. Tonight is the beginning of new possibilities for our Catholic and Christian communities here in Sydney and across Australia.

Rainbow Christians globally are watching and we hope to see other Churches and communities follow the example Liturgy of Apology we have seen tonight”.

Complete Article HERE!

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Lesbian Nuns and gay Priests: From The Late Late Show to Maynooth

By Páraic Kerrigan

A PhD Candidate in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University, suggests the recent Maynooth ‘scandal’ implies that some have not kept pace with changing attitudes to sexuality in wider Irish society.

Maynooth seminary

THE recent Maynooth ‘scandals’, to use the convenient media shorthand, seems to suggest that despite the major progressions surrounding LGBT rights in Ireland some attitudes remain relatively unchanged.

In particular, this remains the case for the more conservative pockets of Irish society and especially the Catholic Church.

Ireland and the Church has been subject to many sex scandals since the early 1990s but it appears that when it comes to members of our clergy and our convents being gay, (or straight for that matter) well, then all hats, or soutanes, are off.

We only have to look to an episode of The Late Late Show from a little over thirty years ago to see the moral panic that can be generated on the acknowledgement that priests and nuns can have a sexuality too.

On the release of their book, Breaking Silence: Lesbian Nuns on Convent Sexuality, Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan appeared on The Late Late Show to promote its release in Ireland.

Both Manahan and Curb were ex-nuns and lesbians who had risen to notoriety following the book’s release in the US.

Controversially, the publication contained within it interviews with women who entered convent life, only to later discover that they were lesbians.

Prior to its launch in Ireland, Nell McCafferty correctly predicted the book was ‘enough to create furore and a minor furore there will no doubt be’.

Immediately upon its release, a text acknowledging that nuns also have sexual inhibitions, and gay ones at that, was considered so heinous that the Irish customs authorities seized 1,500 copies on its arrival to the island.

It wasn’t just the customs authorities that were so scandalised. Middle Ireland wanted to have their say too.

In fact, they were so infuriated by both Curb and Manahan, that they mobilised themselves into a picket and protested outside of the Buswells Hotel on Molesworth Street, where the pair had been staying.

When The Late Late Show announced in the RTÉ Guide that same week that the ex-nuns would be making an appearance on that Saturday’s edition of the show, the telephone switchboards at RTÉ lit up with protest calls.

On the night of the broadcast itself, the shocked and appalled members of conservative Catholic Ireland held a vigil outside of the Montrose studios, where they erected a statue of the Virgin Mary, while being led by a priest through decades of the rosary as he was amplified from an ice-cream van on site.

Despite the furore caused during the week, the interview with the nuns ended up being not all that scandalous.

Despite getting one of the highest audience figures for any Irish TV show during the 1980s, the interview was fairly tame by Late Late standards.

Even Sr. Maura, an Irish nun from the Daughters of Sion who was on the panel that night, made the rather progressive comment reminding the Irish audience that the clergy don’t ‘leave their sexuality at the door’ when they enter religious life.

 

“Strange goings on” and “a quarrelsome” atmosphere led to Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s decision.

Perhaps it was this attitude that may have benefitted Archbishop Martin in his recent press statements on ‘the strange goings-ons’ at Maynooth.

Despite major changes to public attitudes since 1985 in wider Irish society, however, homosexuality is still clearly viewed as a problem by the church.

Looking at Late Late incident and the Maynooth story in tandem highlights that the church’s attitude to homosexuality has not changed but at least Ireland’s Catholic elite have not yet descended on St. Patrick’s seminary at Maynooth with an ice-cream van and a statue of the Blessed Virgin.

Complete Article HERE!