Catholicism is engaged in an internal war over the future of its LGBTQ members. Gay Catholics either can embrace the celebration of Pride, or stay as far away as possible. They can see a brighter, more welcoming future — or hear of their condemnation to hell for engaging in intimate acts.
In 2013, Pope Francis said: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord, who am I to judge?” That quote was the beginning of a new era in how the Vatican discussed the gay Catholic population.
In the wake of the 2016 Pulse shootings, Father James Martin — a Philadelphian by birth and a Jesuit by practice — fashioned an international ministry to sexual minorities, first by his response to the massacre (stating in a video message that Catholics needed to “stand in strong and public solidarity” with the LGBT community), and then by writing the game plan for doing so with his book Building a Bridge. In the years since the publication of the book, Martin has expanded the ministry to include international speaking engagements, a website, and national conference. Martin’s ministry has received the blessing of Pope Francis, who commended his pastoral zeal and desire to be close to people.
So the church is making progress, right?
Well, maybe not. A another sizable contingent of church leadership has ramped up public attacks on the gay community in the wake of the Supreme Court Obergefell decision in 2015, which legalized civil gay marriage. Pride celebrations, in particular, have been a source of outrage, with numerous Catholic leaders calling these events inappropriate. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., said these gatherings engage in “promoting a culture contrary to Catholic faith.”
Taking matters one step further, the group Catholic Vote recently embarked on a national campaign titled “Hide the Pride,” with a goal of “checking out” all LGBTQ-related books from public libraries to keep children from reading them.
Corners of Church leadership are contributing to the aggressive, often threatening dialogue. Church Militant, a lay apostolate that purports to present news “through an authentic Catholic lens,” refers to Father Martin as a “sodomy-pushing Jesuit,” while Life Site News is currently asking readers to sign a petition telling the secretary of defense that Pride Month is making our country weaker.
Yet there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. The cardinal of Munich has approved of blessing same-sex unions. Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich called for a change in the church’s teaching on homosexuality earlier this year, specifically stating the church’s assessment of gay relationships as being sinful was incorrect. The recent elevation of San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy to cardinal in May puts one of the most gay-friendly bishops in America in a position to shape policy and elect the next pope. And the Catholic Theological Society of America, the largest professional society of theologians in the world, this month issued a statement calling for church leaders and government officials to reconsider any policy positions that may have contributed to LGBTQ hate.
Here in Philadelphia, a change in leadership might create a more receptive ear to the needs of LGBTQ Catholics. Archbishop Nelson Pérez recently sat down with a group of gay Catholics to discuss how the church might better hear and address their needs. Such an assemblage, and more importantly a demonstrated willingness to listen, represents a different approach than that of past Philadelphia church leadership.
So what is the garden variety gay Catholic supposed to make of these mixed signals and conflicting voices? I have wrestled with this question myself. Perhaps the best answer is to let the discussion flow, watch, and — most importantly — speak up on a local level. In holding this conversation publicly, we can only hope for a more welcoming seat at the table, and a reexamination of the traditional approach to ministry to the gay Catholic.
In the nineteen-fifties, Ravenhall, a salt-water swimming pool in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, was a destination for summer day trippers from the sweltering city, including Martin Scorsese’s family and friends, who often went there from Little Italy. On one such outing, Scorsese, in his early teens, was told that there was something he had to see. “Ravenhall was the neighborhood bathtub, so to speak, a big pool where everybody would go, and it was packed,” Scorsese recalled last week. “Some old wiseguys would be there, in cabana sets, playing cards. And there was a steam room. And one day we were there, and we heard, ‘Hey, hey, come here, they got some fag in the steam room, they beat him up. Come see the blood! You can’t miss this!’ I never saw the guy, but I saw the blood. We’re talking the mid-fifties, the Red Scare period. The aliens are coming to destroy America and the Catholic Church, and they’re Communists, and, for all we know, gay.”
This summer, Scorsese, who is now seventy-nine, is working at his town house on the Upper East Side with his longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, on his next film, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” (Based on the book by David Grann, it tells the story of a plot to murder members of the Osage Nation who were thriving in the Oklahoma oil boom of the nineteen-twenties.) Meanwhile, a different Scorsese production is available on AMC+, Sundance TV, and various on-demand platforms: “Building a Bridge,” a documentary about James Martin, a Jesuit priest and popular author, who is based at America, the Jesuit magazine, in New York, and who in recent years has devoted himself to Catholic outreach to the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Scorsese told me about the incident at Ravenhall during a conversation at his home, which Martin joined by Zoom. I had asked Scorsese how homosexuality was spoken about in the Italian American Catholic enclave of his childhood.
“It was never mentioned by priests, never mentioned in the pulpit, never mentioned in the house, never talked about at all,” Scorsese said. “Anything out of what would be considered the norm was to be ostracized, humiliated, made fun of.” But then Scorsese, who had a large extended family, learned that an older cousin with whom he was very close was gay. “There was this ‘raging bull’ kind of masculinity” at that time, so “it was an extraordinary trauma for all the uncles, my father, everyone.” He added, “They even had one of my uncles ‘talk to him,’ so to speak: ‘And if this doesn’t work, I’ll break his legs.’ ” It never went that far, Scorsese said, but, “at one family event, everyone was arguing, it became tense—‘highly charged,’ as they say. After that, things calmed down, but I’ll never forget those nights.”
The cousin, though, also confided in Scorsese, who, because he had asthma, did not engage in many neighborhood exploits. “One night, as we were walking, he said, ‘I hang out with these guys, and I’m like them.’ I was stunned.”
“That’s pretty extraordinary,” Martin said, “that someone in the fifties would say something, not knowing whether you would reveal it to your friends or your family. That takes a lot of guts.”
“Yeah, it did,” Scorsese said. “But he knew what he felt, he knew who he was, and he trusted me. He knew that I was an outsider, too. He knew I didn’t belong with the street toughs.”
Martin, who is sixty-one, is a grandson of Sicilian immigrants on his mother’s side. He grew up near Philadelphia, graduated from the Wharton School of Business, and worked for General Electric, in Connecticut, before entering the Society of Jesus, in 1988. Through his articles for America, and then a series of books, he became involved in arts projects with a Catholic dimension. He acted as an adviser to the Off Broadway production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” (and later presided at the funeral Mass for Philip Seymour Hoffman, who directed it); served as “official chaplain” to “The Colbert Report” (Stephen Colbert is Catholic); was an adviser on Scorsese’s 2017 film “Silence” (which is about Jesuit missionaries in Japan in the seventeenth century); and played a cameo role in “The Irishman,” as a priest performing baptisms. His Facebook page is widely read as a bulletin board of events in the Catholic and Jesuit world, and his Twitter account has more than three hundred thousand followers. “Terrible news from the Jesuit Curia: Two Jesuits murdered in Mexico,” a recent post reported. “May they rest in peace.”
“Building a Bridge” was made by Evan Mascagni and Shannon Post. (Their previous documentary, “Circle of Poison,” examines the devastating effects of selling pesticides abroad that are banned for use in the United States.) It’s based on a short book that Martin wrote after the mass shooting in 2016 at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, in which forty-nine people were killed. He noticed that the Catholic hierarchy had made scant reference to gays or homosexuality in its response, and it prompted him to try to “build a bridge” between the Church and L.G.B.T.Q. people. “Father Martin’s message resonated with us both personally, with me as a Catholic and Shannon as a queer person,” Mascagni told me. The filmmakers followed Martin for several weeks in 2018 and 2019, as he met with gay people and the parents of gay people in Catholic schools and parishes. In one scene, at a book-signing event, he is approached by a young person in tears, who tells him, “I’m not out to my family,” because “they talk so badly” about homosexuality. He says to give them time.
Martin has said that he doesn’t seek for the Church to change its teachings on homosexuality; he merely wants it to treat gay people with “respect, compassion, and sensitivity”—a position stated in the Catechism. The film sets his efforts in counterpoint with those of Michael Voris, of the traditionalist outlet Church Militant, who hosts a video, shown in the film, decrying “homo heresy” in the Church. “Martin is a twisted pervert,” Voris says in another clip. “There isn’t a doctrine or teaching of the Church that he wouldn’t twist and pervert with his sick mind so as to excuse his acceptance of homosexual lust.” Scorsese signed on as executive producer of the film during post-production after Martin told him about it—and he sent Mascagni and Post suggestions to reëdit some sections. “Evan got a call from Marty, and he says it was the highlight of his life,” Martin said. “ ‘Guess who I got a call from?’ ”
Scorsese told another story: around the time that his cousin confided in him, he had a revelation about a young man everyone knew in the neighborhood. He “looked like Tony Curtis in ‘City Across the River,’ ” Scorsese recalled. “He was a rock—tough, but not belligerent.” He had a car that he drove to make deliveries in the area, and Scorsese and his friends once asked to go along “because we liked to go riding in cars and nobody had a car.” When the deliveries were done, the young man said he had to make one more stop, and drove to Washington Square Park, where a group of “clean-cut young men,” with “button-down collars, chinos, blond hair,” called him by name. He got out of the car, and a “flamboyant” man joined them, and, Scorsese said, “Next thing we know, he’s bringing him in the car,” saying, “ ‘I’m just gonna drop him at the subway station at Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue.’ And we’re in the back, looking at this guy, who is sort of exotic, and also sort of threatening, because we had never experienced it, and we start giggling.” The young man said, “ ‘Don’t pay any attention. They don’t understand.’ And we stopped. ‘They don’t understand.’ We never said a word about it, but it was an extraordinary moment,” Scorsese said.
Scorsese had two more cousins who were also “that way,” as it was said in the family. One cousin was in a relationship for twenty-odd years, and eventually got married. The other, Scorsese said, “was younger than me. I saw him take his first steps. Then I lost touch with him. The last time I spoke to him, he was in the hospital.” This was in the early nineties. He had AIDS, and died soon afterward.
Even in a very traditional Italian American family, then, ways were found to address homosexuality obliquely. But, in the public world of Catholicism, in Scorsese’s account, gay people were excluded and shunned. “The exclusion is what got me,” he said. “I loved my cousins. They were good people, and I saw the suffering they went through, and the suffering of the people who cared about them.” He added, “Catholicism is supposed to be about inclusion. If the outsider is out there—is my naïve way of thinking—that’s what you have to embrace. The outsider is not to be excluded: that’s a human soul. It’s who the person is. It seemed very clear to me that this was a shortcoming of the Church.”
That shortcoming became particularly vexing to him during the nineteen-eighties. Protestant fundamentalists railed against homosexuality—the Reverend Jerry Falwell characterized AIDS as divine retribution (“A man reaps what he sows”)—and were joined by some traditionalist Catholics. (Fundamentalists also protested Scorsese’s 1988 film “The Last Temptation of Christ.”) The Catholic archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O’Connor, reaffirmed the Church’s position that homosexuality is “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” as the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared in a 1986 document, “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.” He spoke out against violence directed toward gay people, but denounced gay sexual activity and relationships. He lauded AIDS hospices in Catholic hospitals, but fought gay-rights legislation, and opposed condom use and sex education. And, at St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit parish on West Sixteenth Street, his archdiocese ended the practice of holding masses that served as gatherings for Dignity, a movement of gay Catholics, which had become rituals of grieving for a community ravaged by AIDS. It “was a painful moment for L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics in New York,” Martin told me. “Many people saw it as a sign of exclusion not only from that parish but from the Church as a whole.”
Scorsese saw the tensions expressed in dramatic fashion in 1991. “I was in a taxi going down Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center on my right, St. Patrick’s Cathedral on my left,” he recalled. “All of a sudden, I hear, ‘Fuck you! Fuck! You!’ I turned around, because Fifth Avenue is a place where you don’t expect to hear that. And I see a guy—glasses, blazer, well dressed—screaming at St. Patrick’s from across the avenue. ‘Fuck you, O’Connor! You’re nobody’s father!’ I’ve never heard such anger. It came from deep in his soul.” Scorsese noted, “He may have just lost his partner, or his brother. And that brought it all home.”
Three decades later, it’s unclear how much the situation for gay people in the Catholic Church has improved. Certainly, there are signs of change. The present archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, celebrated Mass at St. Francis Xavier, and “mentioned the L.G.B.T.Q. ministries as one of the many signs of welcome in the parish,” Martin told me. In July, 2021, Pope Francis sent Martin a handwritten letter, in Spanish, supporting his work with L.G.B.T.Q. people. “God’s ‘style’ has three elements: closeness, compassion, and tenderness,” Francis wrote. “Thinking about your pastoral work, I see that you continually try to imitate this ‘style of God.’ ” This past weekend, Fordham University, a Jesuit institution, hosted Outreach, a conference, organized by Martin, on the place of L.G.B.T.Q. people in the Church, featuring the mix of workshops, listening sessions, and liturgies that makes up his ministry these days.
And yet, this past spring, the Nativity School of Worcester, in Massachusetts, a Jesuit school for low-income students, got an open letter from the local bishop, Robert J. McManus, directing it to stop flying the rainbow and Black Lives Matter flags—or else to cease calling itself Catholic. (McManus said that the Church “stands unequivocally behind” the phrase “black lives matter,” but not what he called the movement’s view on the “role of the nuclear family.”) The school’s leaders refused to take down the flags, and, this month, the bishop signed a decree stripping the school of its Catholic affiliation. And, Pope Francis’s expressions of support notwithstanding, Catholic teaching is still set firmly against homosexual activity: in March, 2021, Francis signed off on a “responsum” to questions about same-sex relationships, declaring that even their “positive elements,” such as stability, “cannot justify these relationships,” and that God “does not and cannot bless sin.” Francis is eighty-five and in declining health, and there are rumors that he will retire, and the next Pope, possibly a more conservative figure, could well bolster the existing declaration that homosexuality is an “objective disorder,” in effect undoing the symbolic gestures that Francis has made. And now that the U.S. Supreme Court—which has five conservative Catholics among its nine Justices—has ruled that, as the Catholic bishops have long maintained, a woman’s right to abort a fetus is not protected by the Constitution, it’s possible that the right to same-sex marriage (which the bishops also oppose) will be challenged next.
For Scorsese, the new documentary is not so much evidence of social change as an agent of it. Recalling his own coming of age, he said that motion pictures had a major role in opening up the culture of the fifties, when the arts were regulated by an interlocking directorate of law, press, clergy, and business figures, and the candid depiction of sex of any kind was discouraged. In doing so, they challenged the production code—buttressed by the Catholic Church—that had restricted the content of movies. “I saw the change happen. It was an explosion,” Scorsese said. (Films such as “The Children’s Hour” (1961) and “Advise and Consent” (1962) presented homosexuality as a road to perdition—things turn out badly for the protagonists—but at least they depicted it as a complex and personal reality.) Similarly, “Building a Bridge” might help to open up a Church that is leery of discussions about homosexuality, especially if it is shown in parishes and schools in places where anti-gay forces are strong. “Many Catholics, not knowing any L.G.B.T. people, are ready to condemn them: ‘I don’t need to meet them, don’t need to talk to them, I’ll just condemn their life style,’ ” Martin said during our conversation. He hopes that the film will enable Catholics who might never knowingly encounter L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics directly to encounter them onscreen—a small step, but a necessary one
From welcoming trans women at the Vatican to promoting LGBTQ outreach around the world, some advocates say Pope Francis has created a space for inclusion without fear.
A rainbow shines over St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on Jan. 31, 2021.
During the characteristically bombastic celebrations for Pride Month in many countries all over the world this June, the Catholic Church, guided by Pope Francis, has quietly shown welcome to the LGBTQ community, while avoiding changes to doctrine.
“Catholic LGBTQ ministry has been expanding astronomically in the last decade,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director at New Ways Ministry, a Catholic outreach program aimed at promoting inclusion and justice for the LGBTQ community, in a comment to Religion News Service on Friday (June 24).
“Pope Francis’ welcoming statements and gestures are the main reason for this greater openness to LGBTQ people,” he added.
Six transgender women from different cultural and social backgrounds walked into the Vatican for a private audience with Pope Francis on Wednesday (June 22). The meeting was not announced on the pope’s daily schedule and was organized by Sister Genevieve Jeanningros, 79, known for her work with marginalized groups, including circus performers, the homeless and members of the trans community.
Jeanningros, who does her ministry from a chapel located in a small caravan parked next to a funfair in the Roman port town of Ostia, has known the pope since his election in 2013. She told the Italian online media outlet Fanpage that she asked Francis if she could bring more than one person to the Vatican, to which he allegedly answered: “Bring them all.”
One of the trans women who visited the pope, Alessia, said the meeting with Francis “was emotional” and “they felt welcomed.”
“On Pride Month I think this is an important message,” she said. “The best part of having spoken to Pope Francis is that it was simply a meeting among people and not focused on our differences.”
Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sept. 5, 2021.
Pope Francis “has given people courage, and his approach of dialogue and accompaniment has given people a Catholic explanation for how LGBTQ inclusion can be authentically Catholic,” DeBernardo said.
The Catholic Church has not made any changes to doctrine concerning LGBTQ people, and according to its catechism, homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” But Pope Francis’ message of welcome and inclusion toward marginalized people has had ripple effects in the Catholic Church, effects that have become especially evident during this Pride Month.
One example, DeBernardo said, “is how many Catholic parishes now participate in pride parades and festivals.” New Ways Ministry, founded in 1977, was accustomed to only one such example a year. “Now, Catholic parishes’ participation in pride events is becoming a normal part of pride celebrations, and a normal part of Catholic parish life.”
On Father’s Day (June 19), Alex Shingleton and Landon Duyka, a civilly married gay couple with two daughters, stood before congregants at Old Saint Patrick’s Church in the Archdiocese of Chicago to read a reflection on the homily.
“In all honesty, if you had told us as young boys who wasted countless hours of our lives in church trying to ‘pray the gay away’ that we someday would be standing in front of all of you in our Catholic Church talking about our family on Father’s Day, we would never have believed you,” they said in their reflection.
The Vatican City flag, left, and a pride flag.
Cardinal Blaze Cupich of Chicago has been an outspoken advocate for redoubling the Catholic Church’s effort to promote inclusivity and welcome of LGBTQ persons.
The Jesuit university of Fordham in New York City will be hosting a conference June 24–25 called “Outreach 2022: LGBTQ Catholic Ministry Conference,” which will address questions on how to minister to LGBTQ individuals in parishes, schools and at work. Bishop John Eric Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, will be the keynote speaker at the conference, which will also tackle questions on mental health, race and theology for LGBTQ Catholics.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, in Germany, the Catholic Church has undertaken a “Synodal Path,” a massive consultation among bishops and the laity, to address issues ranging from female ordination to sexuality.
LGBTQ activists and supporters gather for the first-ever pride parade in the central city of Plock, Poland, on Aug. 10, 2019.
Pietro Morotti and Giacomo Spagnoli, a gay couple in Bologna, Italy, were among those who voiced on social media their disappointment in the Vatican ban. And this year, on June 11, after being civilly married, the couple walked to their nearby church of San Lorenzo di Budrio for an intimate “Thanksgiving Mass” with friends and priests. News of the event led to indignation by some Catholics, who saw the ceremony as in direct violation of the Vatican’s doctrinal decision.
The Rev. Maurizio Mattarelli, who oversees a parish group for the accompaniment of LGBTQ faithful called “In Cammino” (On the Way) told local media that the couple participated in his program and had been part of his parish for 30 years.
“Just a word of advice, don’t make theoretical judgements,” he said. “Try to get to know these two people, or homosexual couples, who participate in our group, in person.”
“The church is called to unite, not divide,” he added.
In a statement June 19, the Archdiocese of Bologna clarified the Mass was not a blessing of the union, adding that the diocese stands in opposition to “all discrimination and violence based on sexuality.”
The head of the Archdiocese of Bologna, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, was recently selected by Pope Francis to head the Italian Bishops Conference — a promotion viewed by some as the pope’s encouragement for a change of direction among the traditionally conservative episcopacy in Italy.
In 2018, Zuppi wrote the preface for the book “Building a Bridge” by the Rev. James Martin, promoting welcome and outreach to the LGBTQ community. In 2020, the cardinal wrote another preface for a book by Italian journalist Luciano di Moia, “The Church and Homosexuality,” offering pastoral guidelines to minister to gay Catholics.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the new head of the Italian bishops conference, talks during a press conference in Rome, Friday, May 27, 2022.
“When our communities will begin to truly see people as God sees them, including homosexual people and everyone else, they will naturally begin to feel part of the ecclesial community, on the way,” Zuppi wrote in the preface to the book by di Moia.
Along with the promotion of Zuppi — considered ‘papabile’ by some, meaning eligible to be elected pope — Pope Francis has also been making moves to diminish the power of the Vatican’s doctrinal department this year. His Apostolic Constitution, “Praedicate Evangelium” or “Preach the Gospel,” published in March, stripped the department of some of its teeth, placing an emphasis on dialoguing with those who hold dissenting opinions, rather than imposing sentences.
LGBTQ outreach and ministry “used to be something that was done rather secretly, with pastoral leaders wanting to stay under the radar,” said DeBernardo, but thanks to the efforts of Francis and others, he believes this work can now be done without as much fear of controversy or reprimand.
“In more and more parishes, LGBTQ people are not only welcome, but are becoming ministry leaders in all kinds of activities and programs, not just LGBTQ outreach efforts,” he said.
As the Archdiocese of Chicago calls for liturgical orthodoxy in its implementation of Traditiones custodes, at least one parish has permitted lay people to give a homiletic reflection, despite the Church’s requirements that a homily be given at Sunday Mass, and that homilies can be preached only by ordained ministers.
Instead of a homily after the Gospel, the celebrant invited two men to the ambo to offer a Father’s Day “Gospel reflection,” which the priest said was a custom in the parish.
The two men – identified as Alex Shingleton and Landon Duyka – described as “miracles” their same-sex civil marriage and the adoption of two daughters, comparing those moments to the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the Gospel reading.
“This week Chicago is celebrating Pride, and today is Father’s Day, and conveniently we tick both of those boxes,” one of the men said, to laughter from the congregation.
“Let’s be honest, there are probably not too many gay dads speaking on Father’s Day at many Catholic Churches on the planet today.”
Canon law stipulates that a homily is “reserved to a priest or deacon” and “must be given at all Masses on Sundays and holy days of obligation which are celebrated with a congregation.”
While the parish did not refer to the men’s reflection as a homily, it came after the Gospel reading -when the homily usually takes place – and immediately ahead of a blessing for fathers, and then the recitation of the Creed.
An excerpt from the 6/19/22 “Gospel reflection” at Chicago’s Old St. Pat’s Parish, about which the Chicago archdiocese has declined comment. pic.twitter.com/t01wcVwt8n
During their reflection, the men said they had felt unwelcome at other Catholic churches over the years, but were impressed by St. Patrick’s message of “radical inclusivity.”
They recalled attending an LGBT meeting when they first came to the parish, at which they recalled a priest saying that “that while other Catholic churches and their leaders may be tone deaf, Old St. Pat’s has figured it out.”
“Today we had the Gospel where Jesus fed the masses from five loaves and two fishes – clearly a miracle. Something that is unexplainable, unexpected, and truly marvelous, where something that started small became a huge blessing,” Shingleton said.
“Well, our journey to fatherhood has been marked by a series of events that started small, but became huge blessings. And while they may not meet the strict definitions of miracles – meaning no one will be gaining sainthood here today – they are unexplainable, unexpected, and truly marvelous nonetheless.”
The men said that they discussed wanting children on their first date, in 2004.
“The first miracle of our story came in 2007, when gay marriage – which was then called civil union – became legal in the United Kingdom, which is where I’m from,” Shingleton said.
They described their adoption of two baby girls as additional miracles, given that they took place at a time when many states did not allow same-sex couples to adopt.
“The final miracle in our story is here – Old St. Pat’s,” Duyka said.
The pair has lived in many different cities, and experienced many different Catholic parishes, Duyka added. In many of these churches they felt unwelcomed, he continued, citing a homily that described gay marriage as sinful and parishioners who would not shake their hands during the Sign of Peace.
“We wanted to raise our children in the Catholic Church…” he said. “On the other hand, we didn’t want to expose our children to bigotry and have them feel any shame or intolerance about their family.”
The men said they felt affirmed at Old St. Patrick’s, where they have now been members for 10 years.
“On this Father’s Day, during Pride, we pray that if you are ever given the opportunity to stand up for families like ours, that you will do so,” Duyka said. “Because our voices are very strong, but they are not nearly loud enough without yours.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that people who identify as LGBT “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
“The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan,” the CDF added, in a text approved by Pope Francis.
And in 2006, the U.S. bishops’ conference explained that “the Church does not support the adoption of children by same-sex couples, since homosexual unions are contrary to the divine plan.”
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal explains that “the homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person.”
The Archdiocese of Chicago was among the first U.S. dioceses to announce a comprehensive liturgical policy after the Congregation for Divine Worship issued instructions on the Extraordinary Form of the Mass last December. The instructions accompanied Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Traditionis custodes.
Citing an opportunity for the priests of the archdiocese to promote unity within the Church, Cardinal Blase Cupich banned the celebration of Mass in the ad orientem posture – facing east, away from the congregation – without permission.
Priests who have permission to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Mass must also celebrate the Novus ordo one Sunday a month, as well as on Christmas, Triduum, and Pentecost under the Chicago policy, and readings must be proclaimed in the vernacular at Latin Masses.
In a January 5 letter announcing new norms, Cupich urged Chicago priests “to faithfully adhere to the liturgical norms, so that as the Body of Christ, our worship of God may always enrich and never diminish the faith of our people.”
Citing Benedict XVI, the cardinal encouraged Masses “being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this missal.”
Irish American Michael O’Loughlin understands how far gay Catholics have come, and how far we all still have to go before something like real progress is made.
June is widely known as Pride Month, an effort to acknowledge the obstacles that gays, lesbians, and many others have had to overcome in America.
To a group that calls itself CatholicVote, well, that’s precisely the problem. They seem to believe that shame is so much better. This despite all the evidence to the contrary painfully provided by many — though not all — within the church this group claims to follow.
“A controversial conservative Catholic organization is urging parents to ‘Hide the Pride’ during Pride Month — by checking out any LBGTQ-related books they see at their local libraries so that no children will see them,” TheHill.com reported last week, adding that CatholicVote cites “recent polls” which show “American moms and dads do not want their children exposed to sexual and ‘trans’ content as part of their education.”
I don’t know whether to howl with rage or yawn at the sheer boredom of all this.
Well, to paraphrase George Carlin, if there are still any books left after certain folks have burned the ones that really bother them, you should check out the one Michael O’Loughlin recently wrote.
O’Loughlin, after all, understands how far gay Catholics — yes, you read that right, Catholic voters — have come. And how far we all still have to go before something like real progress is made.
“In many ways,” O’Loughlin told the Irish Voice, sister publication to IrishCentral, recently, “knowing all this history makes it easier to weather the current onslaught of bigotry. Because I have a better sense now of how others endured it, fought it, and overcame it.”
O’Loughlin’s book “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear,” begins with a central conflict in not just his own life, but in that of so many other Irish Catholics, on both sides of the Atlantic.
“I am gay and I am Catholic,” O’Loughlin writes. “And I struggle continuously to reconcile those two parts of my identity.”
Such a noble yet rare thing to do these days. To work to try and bring something together, even as so many others are shouting and ranting and raging. Or just walking away and bitterly giving up.
The folks at CatholicVote may not be impressed. But a fellow in the Vatican sure was.
Late last year, O’Loughlin wrote an op-ed essay in The New York Times, explaining that his extensive talks with people trying to reconcile their faith and sexuality — “the fellowship, gratitude and moments of revelation we exchanged…had a profound effect on my own faith.”
In fact, O’Loughlin, whose grandfather came to the US from Tuam, Co Galway, decided to write a letter to Pope Francis.
“To my surprise, he wrote back,” O’Loughlin writes.
Pope Francis responded, in part, “Thank you for shining a light on the lives and bearing witness to the many priests, religious sisters and lay people, who opted to accompany, support and help their brothers and sisters who were sick from HIV and AIDS at great risk to their profession and reputation.”
O’Loughlin had to admit that the Pope’s “words offer me encouragement that dialogue is possible between LGBT Catholics and church leaders, even at the highest levels.”
So, along the same lines, on June 24 and 25, Outreach 2022 will take place at Fordham University in New York City.
While the CatholicVote folks are content to divide in the hopes of conquering well, something, folks like Father James Martin, and Sister Jeannine Gramick, will gather to discuss what Catholics and the LGBTQ community have in common. They will work to make the world a better, not more hostile, place.
