Category: Support

Posted on

Four ways the Catholic Church can actually listen more to young people

— Pope Francis traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, for his fourth World Youth Day, to listen to the hopes, challenges and questions of over one million young Catholics from every corner of the global Church.

Pope Francis travelled to Lisbon, Portugal, for his fourth World Youth Day, to listen to the hopes, challenges and questions of over one million young Catholics from every corner of the global Church.

Pope Francis travelled to Lisbon, Portugal, for his fourth World Youth Day, to listen to the hopes, challenges and questions of over one million young Catholics from every corner of the global Church. He met with sexual abuse survivors, Ukrainian pilgrims, university students, young people suffering from illness; and he challenged them all to work for a “hope-filled future.”

A much smaller contingent of young people will have the Pope’s ear this October in Rome at the first of two month-long meetings of the Synod on Synodality, on the themes of Communion, Participation and Mission in 2023 and 2024. For the first time in history, lay people will have the right to vote in a synod, and among the voting members are college students and men and women in their 20s and 30s.

The Pope has said, “Synod means walking on the same road, walking together.” As we embark on this new path in the life of the Church, what are some guidelines to consider when thinking about listening to, and walking with, young people?

1. Youth do not share a common perspective
Young people are not a monolith. It can be unhelpful and reductive to speak about any group in the Church as a unified bloc. In a similar way, we should avoid speaking of “young people” as if they all share a common perspective on, or experience of, Church. There are young Catholics who are drawn to more traditional liturgies and those who feel at home in a Catholic Worker House, and some find deep meaning in both. There are young Catholics who feel hurt and alienated by the Church’s teaching on sexuality and others who see the Church’s countercultural witness as a bulwark in a destabilising, relativistic world.

There are hundreds of thousands more who have not set foot in a church since their baptism or confirmation. Outside the US Church, there are young people fighting in and fleeing from the war in Ukraine; young migrants risking their lives in the Mediterranean and on the Rio Grande; and others struggling in refugee camps across the Middle East and Africa.

When framed in this way, “listening to young people” can start to seem an impossible task. But this way of speaking may also shed some light on the sometimes opaque concept of synodality. If we are to truly listen to all these young voices, it will take more than a Vatican meeting or survey. It will require a new way of being Church, a Church that accompanies its people and is attuned to their hopes, doubts and lived experiences.

2. Offer something different
The Church must admit its failures and offer something different. The working document for the synod says that a synodal Church is one that “seeks to widen the scope of communion, but which must come to terms with the contradictions, limits and wounds of history.” Most young Catholics today have known only a Church marred by the sexual abuse scandal — but that does not mean they see it as ancient history. While the Church has made great strides in the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the revelations remain shocking for each new generation of Catholics as they mature. Church leaders must be forthright with young Catholics about past failures and transparent in their ongoing efforts to hold accountable those who covered up abuse. For young people to show up at the table, they have to trust they are speaking with adults who have their best interests at heart.

But the Church has failed young people in other, more subtle ways. It can be easy to blame secular culture, or even young people themselves, for the exodus of millennials and Gen Zers from the pews. And there is plenty to critique about modern society. But we should ask ourselves: Have we failed to offer something different? Studies show that Gen Z is the loneliest generation. If these young people are not finding community in parishes, have we been bold enough in searching for new models of relationship?

In a world marked by deep polarisation, have Catholics too often indulged in those divides instead of seeking to be agents of reconciliation?

Young people today are hungry for authentic communion, both with other people and with God, but they are sceptical of institutions and allergic to hypocrisy. To be credible in their eyes, Catholics should be honest about our shortcomings but unafraid to go against the grain of an increasingly flattened, materialistic world.

3. The Church cannot act like everybody else
Listening to young people does not mean idolising youth. In his book God Is Young, Pope Francis writes: “Adolescents seek confrontation, they ask questions, they challenge everything, they look for answers. I can’t stress enough how important it is to question everything.” But he has also said that the Church cannot think “she is young because she accepts everything the world offers her, thinking that she is renewed because she sets her message aside and acts like everybody else.”

There are many young people in the Church — and many more who have left — who want to see Church teaching, especially where it relates to women, LGBTQ people and divorced Catholics, better aligned with more modern values. Those voices will be represented at the synod and should be listened to, not for show but with an ear for where the Holy Spirit may be working through them. Serious discernment will be needed to find our way forward, and that will require the wisdom from within the Church that has spanned the ages, too.

4. Be willing to accept
Ask for more, not less, from young people. Among the delegates from the United States who will have the right to vote in October’s synod is Julia Oseka, a junior at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. When asked what emerged from her synodal conversations over the past two years, she said, “[T]he feeling that young people are not merely the future of the Church, but also the now of the Church.” While much discussion around the synod has rightly focused on Catholics with one foot in and one foot out of the Church, we should not neglect the millions of young people already active in the Church who are eager for their gifts to be more often accepted.

There are small steps we can take today, like making sure young people are invited to serve on parish councils — and that parish meetings accommodate the schedules of working adults and young parents — that could foster greater involvement among young people. But as the synod looks at more fundamental structural reforms to Church governance, participants should not overlook or underestimate the skills, energy and dedication young people are already prepared to offer the Church.

Young people will always be among us, and as Pope Francis said at his first World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, they are sometimes called to “make a mess.” The Church’s job is not to clean up after them but to harness their restless, creative energy in service of the kingdom.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

‘Blatantly homophobic’

— Missouri Catholic school accused of expelling A-student to punish mom

By

A Catholic school near Kansas City, Mo., has expelled an A-student because his mother objected to a ban on LGBTQ+ books, according to a report.

The Kansas City Starreported that St. John LaLande Catholic School in Blue Springs disenrolled Hollee Muller’s 11-year-old son Hunter after “prayerful consideration.”

A July letter from the school said both parents “stated both verbally and in writing you do not agree with nor do you support the teachings of the Catholic Church. After prayerful consideration and discussion among our school administration it is obvious we no longer have a partnership with you, since the values of your family are not in alignment with those of our school. Therefore, the school administration has made the decision to disenroll your child from our school.”

But the Mullers are longtime and active members of the church. Muller’s husband Paul even attended the school as a child, the report stated.

Muller said the problem began when a new priest “came rolling in hot” and started banning books, including a book about a polar bear with two mothers.

“I don’t think being blatantly homophobic is a teaching of the Catholic Church,” Muller told the paper. The school also banned the Duolingo language app for translating words like “gay” and “lesbian.”

Another news source, CNN 10, was discontinued “because its parent company is too liberal,” one mom said.

“I don’t consider myself liberal, but banning books, and Duolingo? Don’t punish the child for the parent. And honestly, Hollee did nothing wrong,” she said.

School officials declined to comment, but a statement suggested the Mullers broke a “Family-School Covenant.”

“When a family challenges Catholic teaching and curriculum decisions through sustained complaints to the school and diocesan administration, irreconcilable differences can arise. In these situations, it is in the best interest of the family and the school to separate,” the statement said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Gotta have faith

— LGBTQ-inclusive spirituality books, part 1

by Brian Bromberger

At a time when evangelical/fundamentalist Christians are renewing their backlash against queer people, it’s imperative to remember there are other Christians appalled at this injustice and lack of compassion, who are supportive of their queer brethren, especially mainline Protestants and progressive Catholics.

Spurred on by the pandemic, these books mostly written by queer believers who want to supply succor and strength to those who have remained in the institutional church.

In this survey, many of these books are forming a nascent queer spirituality, which not only affirms LGBTQ people as loved by God and recognize the goodness and beauty of their experiences sexual and otherwise, but with spiritual practices helps them develop an existential well-being enabling them to weather oppression. We begin with Christianity, with other faiths in next week’s issue.

Called Out: 100 Devotions for LGBTQ Christians by E. Carrington Heath, $20 (Westminster John Knox Press)
Heath is a nonbinary Senior Pastor of the Congregational Church in Exeter, New Hampshire. These 3-5 minute devotions consist of a bible verse, a reflection, then a short prayer. Designed for progressive Christians, he covers topics such as coming out, relationships, chosen family, religious trauma, with such enticing titles as ‘Afraid of God?,’ ‘Alligators and Ice,’ ‘Open to Rearranging,’ ‘Compassion for the Bully,’ and ‘The Gifts of the Disagreeable.’ Perfect for a quick read right before you start your day for inspiration, strength, and fortification.

Queering Black Churches: Dismantling Heteronormativity in African American Congregations by Brandon Thomas Crowley, $29.95 (Oxford University Press)
Thomas, an African-American minister and a lecturer in Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School, provides an systematic approach for dismantling heteronormativity within African American congregations by first outlining a history of trans-and-homophobia in black congregations.

Then using the lenses of practical theology, queer theology and gender studies, he examines the theologies, morals, values, and structures of black churches and how their longstanding assumptions can be challenged. Drawing on the experiences of several historically Black churches that became open and affirming (United Methodist and Missionary Baptist examples) he explores how those churches have queered their congregations based on the lived experiences of Black Queer folks trying to subvert their puritannical ideologies.

Crowley wants to move beyond surface-level allyship toward actual structural renovation. At times theoretical, he winds up offering practical proposals for change that can be a valuable resource for students clergy, and congregants.

The Gospel of Inclusion, Revised Edition: A Christian Case for LGBT+ Inclusion in the Church by Brandan J. Robertson, $23 (Cascade Books)
An exercise in queer theology, Robertson is the Lead Pastor of an LGBTQ Missiongathering Christian Church in San Diego who makes a compelling case for queer inclusion based on an original contextualized reading of the six traditional passages referring to homosexuality in the Bible. He suggests that the entire thrust of the Christian gospel calls the church towards the deconstruction of all oppressive systems and structures and the creation of a world that celebrates the full spectrum of human diversity as honoring God’s creative intention.

Family of Origin, Family of Choice: Stories of Queer Christians by Katie Hays and Susan A. Chiasson, $21 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
A social scientist and a pastor asked their LGBTQ friends from church to help them understand how they navigate relationships with their affirming, non-affirming, and affirming-ish families of origin, even as they also find belonging in other families of choice. These are first-person personal stories and testimonies written by queer evangelical Christians as they come to terms with their sexuality and its impact on those closest to them. Useful for both cis-het and LGBTQ Christians who are interested in reconciliation and resiliency rather than walking away from the pain inflicted on them by the institutional church.

Queer Holiness: The Gift of LGBTQI People to the Church by Charlie Bell, $22 (Darton, Longman, and Todd)
Bell is a gay psychiatrist and ordained deacon in the Church of England. The book is a critique of that denomination’s treatment of queer Anglicans, but is also trying to develop a healthy LGBTQ spirituality that’s psychologically sound. Human experience, science, and reason are essential elements in developing a theology that celebrates God’s diversity in sexuality. “The Church has failed to provide good role models for LGBTQI people and we are wounding the body of Christ if we don’t repent and change our ways.” Bell is calling queer Christians to be prophets to the Church.

LGBTQ Catholics: A Guide To Inclusive Ministry by Yunuen Trujillo, $19.95 (Paulist Press)
Immigration attorney Trujillo has written a guidebook on how to start an inclusive LGBTQ ministry at your church, including the different types and levels, their purpose, their structures, the most common challenges, and best practices. She believes in a listening church and church of supporting people where they are, in whatever part of the journey they are in. She longs to see the day when queer Catholics will no longer need to ask, “Why stay?” LGBTQ Catholics are no longer invisible and dialogue has commenced. This seminal book focuses on Catholic parishes, but much of the guidelines would fit a church of any (or non) denomination.

LGBTQ Catholic Ministry: Past and Present by Jason Steidl Jack, $27.95 (Paulist Press)
A good companion book to Trujillo, Jack, who teaches religious studies at St. Joseph’s University in NY, provides a history of queer-friendly groups that have ministered to LGBTQ Catholics in the last 50 years, including Dignity (LGBT rights and the Catholic church), New Ways Ministry (support for queer priests and religious), Fortunate Families (straight allies/families), St. Paul the Apostle (a Paulist pro-LGBTQ parish in Manhattan), and Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit, whose ministry is trying to bridge the gap between the institutional church and the LGBTQ community. The book culminates in trying to create a new understanding of church that includes queer people and combats homo/transphobia.

God’s Works Revealed: Spirituality, Theology and Social Justice for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Catholics by Sam Albano, 29.95 (Paulist Press)
Albano is the national secretary of DignityUSA and lays out well-argued theological arguments critiquing the Catholic Church’s treatment of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Catholics as unjust and ignores their inherent dignity as God’s creation. He proposes a Catholic vision for same-sex marriage, a queer liberation theology, and an LGBTQI spirituality of suffering. He has some bold proposals but the schema is marred by its lack of inclusion of transgender Catholics, especially since he believes LGBTQI Catholics are called to be God’s friends in creating, loving, serving, and raising this world to new life.

I Came Here Seeking A Person: A Vital Story of Grace, One Gay Man’s Spiritual Journey by William D. Glenn, $29.95 (Paulist Press)
Glenn, a SF Bay area transplant, who began as a devout Catholic boy joining and later leaving the Jesuits religious order. He progresses go AIDS counselor and then later President of the SF AIDS Foundation, clinical psychologist, spiritual director, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, as well as with husband Scott Hafner, is the cofounder of its Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion. The book highlights key moments illustrating the above milestones in his life.

The title comes from Trappist author Thomas Merton, “suggesting the human journey is a series of seekings, the encounters we have with ourselves, others, and the divine presence.” He writes that the book isn’t a classical memoir, but “a recounting of two dozen+ encounters I have experienced that changed the direction of my life both in almost imperceptible ways and in ways that were utterly transformative,” whether it be a book, a person, a dream, an intuition, or a prayer experience. It’s evocative rather than full of biographical details.

It’s an honest, warts and all account of Glenn’s spiritual journey often moving and inspiring, integrating all his milestones through both a Jungian psychological lens, but also an Ignatian (founder of the Jesuits) spirituality prism too. The best chapters are the ones about AIDS and how it impacted his life. Also, Paulist Press, a mainstream Catholic publisher, is to be commended for producing four queer religious books in the last year, atoning for their previous absence of titles through the decades.

Gay Catholic and American: My Legal Battle for Marriage Equality and Inclusion by Greg Bourke, $26.00 (University of Notre Dame Press)
Compelling and inspirational memoir about information technologist Bourke, who became an outspoken gay rights activist after being dismissed as a troop leader from the Boy Scouts of America in 2012 and his historic role as one of the named plaintiffs in the landmark U. S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. After being ousted by the Boy Scouts, he became a leader in the movement to amend antigay Boy Scouts membership policies.

The Archdiocese of Louisville, because of its vigorous opposition to marriage equality, blocked Bourke’s reutrn to leadership despite his impeccable long-term record as a distinguished boy scout leader. Bourke describes growing up in Louisville, Kentucky living as a gay Catholic. With his husband Michael De Leon he has been active in a Catholic Church for more than three decades, bringing up their two adopted children in the faith. Bourke proud to be gay and Catholic was tenacious enough to fight for inclusion, that they are not mutually exclusive. Heartwarming and deeply affecting with the inside story behind the historic Obergefell case.

The Queer Bible Commentary, 2nd Edition, edited by Mona West and Robert E. Shore-Goss, $112 (SCM Press)
First published over a decade ago, it has been newly revised including updated bibliographies and chapters with new voices taking into account the latest literature relating to queer interpretations of scripture. Contributors, both English and American, draw on feminist, queer, deconstructionist, utopian theories, the social sciences and historical-critical discourses. The focus is both how reading from lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender perspectives affect the interpretation of biblical texts and how biblical texts have and do affect LGBTQ+ communities.

It’s scholarly but accessible to the educated reader with cutting-edge contributions exploring faith, gender, sexuality, bodies, activism, and queer rights. Probably definitive for now and yes very expensive, but it’s the type of book you will use continually whether it be for preaching, education, or your own spiritual enrichment. Extensive citations allows one to research topics and themes. Indispensable and monumental.

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians, Updated and Expanded Edition with Study Guide by Austen Hartke, $20 (Westminster John Knox Press) and Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey with Scripture, $19.99 (Wm. Eerdman’s Publishing Co.)
Both these authors weave their personal trans experiences into reflections on well-known biblical stories, such as eunichs for Christ/Acts’ Ethiopian eunich, Jacob wrestling with God, sex worker Rahab and the Israelite spies, Ezekiel and the dry bones, the transfiguration of Jesus, and trans implications of the resurrection, not as a moment but a process. They reveal how these stories have helped shape their own identities. Both believe transgender Christians have unique and vital theological insights for the church, especially new ways to think about gender with clever chapter titles like “God Breaks the Rules to Get You In” and “The Best Disciples Are Eunuchs.”

They unpack the terminology, sociological studies, and theological perspectives that affect transgender Christians, contradicting the notion God makes mistakes. Hartke is the founder of Transmission Ministry Collective, an online community dedicated to the spiritual care, faith formation, and leadership potential of transgender/gender-expansive Christians.

He has an MA in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Studies. Kearns is an ordained priest, playwright, and theologian, who has given popular TED talks. Both books provide scriptural ammunition against religious critics who attack trans people as defying God’s binary creation of man/woman, promoting a more diverse, expansive view of the divine. “We know what it is to not fit in, to have to fight for a place for ourselves in the world and in the church.”

Help keep the Bay Area Reporter going in these tough times. To support local, independent, LGBTQ journalism, consider becoming a BAR member.

Colors of Hope: A Devotional Journal from LGBTQ+ Christians, edited by Melissa Guthrie, $16.99 (Chalice Press)
Inspired by the colors of the original Pride flag, the book explores the themes of sexuality, life, healing, sunlight, nature, art and magic, harmony and serenity, and spirit matched with a color encompassing a weekly scriptural reading and a daily reflection or activity that reminds readers we are all children of God.

Then each section has faith sharing questions, making this book ideal for prayer, Bible, meditation, and recovery groups plus the wider non-LGBTQ church, since the whole project is inclusive and the broadest spirituality imaginable. Each of the contributors are part of Alliance Q, the queer affirming ministry of the Disciples of Christ (a very progressive Protestant denomination). “What color is hope? Hoping in color brings the joy, beauty, and power of the rainbow to life.” Hope is presented here as an embodiment of all faiths and an act of resistance.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Our Lady of Pride

— Santa Muerte Loves Her Queer Children

By Andrew Chesnut

Santa Muerte, a folk saint of death, opens her arms to all LGBTQ+ people. Although there are many queer-coded saints within the Catholic Church, from Saint Sebastian to Joan of Arc to Juana Inés de la Cruz, none is more comforting to many LGBTQ+ Mexicans and other LGBTQ+ individuals around the world than La Santísima. It may seem strange that people who fight for their identities and existence on a daily basis would embrace a figure of death, but for queer devotees A.B. and Ash Mestizo, she is a source of solidarity and comfort.

A.B. is a nonbinary person living in Canada who was raised in the Catholic Church but parted ways with it many years ago due to continued homophobia and transphobia. They have struggled with mental illness all their life, acknowledging that “it is a battle which, I expect, I will lose one day.” Two and a half years ago, they attempted suicide but stopped as a divine presence called out to them. It was only until this year, describing the experience to a friend, that their friend suggested it may have been Santa Muerte’s voice in the darkness.

Similarly, pansexual Ash Mestizo was born into a Nicaraguan Catholic family. Although his grandmother was extremely devout, running the whole family’s spiritual health like many Latinx matriarchs, his mother was a free spirit who took advantage of the family’s inherited spiritual gifts. Seeing her use these gifts–connecting her and other members of the family to the spirit world and allowing superhuman abilities, Mestizo sought answers in Catholicism, then Evangelical Protestantism, Viccan, Asatru, ancestral folk magic, and finally sorcery.

After Mestizo’s children were born, he became involved in LGBTQ+ and BIPOC activism, climate advocacy, and anti-racism work, putting away their magical practice and ancestor veneration. It was only when his grandmother died that he needed a connection to the spirit world, right at the time that he found Santa Muerte. Ash “saw in her [his grandmother], the Latinx women I’d known, who raised me, who’d given me my heritage and my spirituality and my magic.”

This was one of the reasons A.B. was worried about joining the New Religious Movement (NRM) of Santa Muerte. Because they have no Spanish or Indigenous roots, A.B. first believed devotion to the skeleton often wearing a black cloak or wedding dress, , would be cultural or religious appropriation. However, as they have come to discover through Facebook groups like Devoted to Death, led by Dr. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (2017, Oxford University Press), Santa Muerte is one of the most universal faith figures as what she represents is the one experience that unifies and equalizes everyone, and her group of followers is growing meteorically, as far away as Poland and Ukraine.

According to Dr. Chesnut, Santa Muerte is the “fastest growing new religious movement in the Americas.” The COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to this growth, with Chesnut referring to her as the newest plague saint, but one of the largest group of her followers are LGBTQ+ people of faith, often those raised in the Catholic Church but felt abandoned and traumatized by a Church that viewed their identities as a sin, continue not to recognize gay marriage, and limit access to gender affirming healthcare.

According to a 2020 study published by the Williams Institute, almost half (46.7%) of LGBT adults are religious, with almost 25% of religious LGBT adults identifying as Roman Catholic. It’s estimated that 1.3 million LGBT Roman Catholics live in the United States, and of these 1.3 million, LGBT adults are more likely to be highly or moderately religious if they are Latinx. Even so, of the 65% of Latinx individuals who were born in the US and raised Catholic, 23% said that they no longer identify as Catholic, including Mestizo, largely due to  sex abuse within the Church, queerphobia, treatment of those in poverty or on the margins, and religious trauma.

Caption: “Our Lady of Pride”

I founded and currently direct Queer and Catholic, A CLGS Oral History Project based out of the Pacific School of Religion, and have discovered many LGBTQ+ people of faith who feel disenfranchised inside the Church. Yet, at the same time, they feel tied to it because it is all they have ever known spiritually, or often in the case of Latinx, Irish, Italian, or Polish Catholics, the Church is an integral part of their identities. Every celebration, from birthdays to baptisms to saint feast days to funerals is celebrated inside the Church so to leave would be recognizing a spiritual and cultural death that many queer people fear.

Mestizo is no longer Catholic or Christian , but still finds meaning in the Catholic interpretation and worship of Santa Muerte. “The Catholic-style interaction with Her made sense as someone who grew up with that modality of engagement with the Divine.”

The Church they once loved (and still often do love) does not love them back and creates a culture where families abandon and persecute them. But many still yearn for spiritual meaning and comfort in Catholic material cultures, so they turn to folk Catholicism, including the NRM of Santa Muerte. It is liberation through acceptance of death, as death is more imminent for those who live on the fringes of life, including LGBTQ+ individuals. LGBTQ+ folks are often thrown out of their homes, disowned by family and friends, undergo conversion therapy, or worse, all of which cause massive trauma and put queer lives in danger. “Some of us are too visible at the wrong moment,” A.B. writes, “and are murdered for it.”

“Queer folks have already failed at being acceptable to the Church and to society at large,” A.B. explained, “We have already failed at being acceptable to our families. If you’re already dead, why worry? Love fully. Fight recklessly. Seize joy where it lies, for as long as it lasts.”

Santa Muerte is therefore a personified version of Memento Mori, or a culture that forces people to confront their own mortality and eventual demise. In doing so, she cleanses LGBTQ+ people who often hide their entire lives out of fear or internalize the guilt and shame vocalized by the Church, their family members, and others, allowing her LGBTQ+ devotees to let go of the social baggage that they carry. Her devotion also resonates with people of the LGBTQ+ community who have lost friends and loved ones to the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, when the government left LGBTQ+ people for death. Santa Muerte stands defiantly draped in the AIDS quilt.

For people living their lives in fear of murder, torture, or worse because of who they are, death strangely is the one true constant, the one true comfort and absolute, the one experience that unifies all people–everyone will die.

A.B. finds comfort in knowing that Santa Muerte will call out to them again, trusting that when she does, they will be ready to pass peacefully in her embrace. This comfort is the result of the physical and emotional trauma religious institutions and societies inflict on their LGBTQ+ members, but in embracing it, it helps people like A.B. “find the strength to fight a little longer; maybe she will quiet some of that deep pain and help you to turn your anger away from yourself and towards the enemies who put you in the shadows. A soldier who knows they’re about to die has nothing to fear.” At the same time, it also provides Mestizo with mental strength and helps him to find a fuller life as “witchy, queer, healthier, happier.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Catholic diocese agrees to pay $100 million settlement to hundreds of abuse victims

— The bankrupt Diocese of Syracuse in New York will have to pay at least half out of its own pocket and could dig into funds donated by parishioners to cover most of the remainder.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse.

By Corky Siemaszko

The Diocese of Syracuse, New York, has agreed to a $100 million settlement with parishioners who claimed they were preyed on by priests, the biggest payout by a Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. since at least 2018.

But, for now, not a dime of that money is coming from the six insurance companies that cover the Diocese of Syracuse, lawyers involved in the case said Friday.

Instead, as part of its bankruptcy proceedings, the diocese itself will have to shell out $50 million, the parishes in the diocese will have to contribute $45 million, and other entities aligned with the diocese will pay $5 million, to settle the 411 abuse claims filed by 387 people, the lawyers said.

This means that, when the ushers pass around the collection baskets at Sunday Mass at churches across the Diocese of Syracuse, some of that money could be used to pay the victims, Danielle Cummings, a spokesperson for the diocese, confirmed.

“People do give money to the parishes in the general collection,” Cummings said. “And unless they specify that this donation is going to a special project, yes, it could wind up going towards the settlement.”

That said, Cummings added, the diocese intends to “pursue our insurers” while also looking into financing to pay the diocese’s portion of the settlement.

Also, individual parishes may have to tap their savings and investments, Cumming said.

“Statewide insurers have denied, delayed, and ducked their obligations,” attorney Jeff Anderson, who represented the priest sex abuse victims, said earlier in a statement. “It is yet another example of their nefarious strategies employed across the State of New York and the nation.”

Attorney Cynthia LaFave, who worked on the case with Anderson, and another lawyer involved in the settlement who spoke on background, said the Diocese of Syracuse was carrying insurance designed to protect the church from sex abuse lawsuits.

But because they are still negotiating a final settlement with the diocese, LaFave said she could not identify these insurers.

“Yes, they have carried insurance throughout the years, in fact, they have several insurers,” LaFave told NBC News. “But we’re not allowed to discuss that while we are in the midst of settlement discussions.”

In a statement, the diocese said the insurance companies have yet to reach an agreement with the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which is a federally appointed body that represents the interests of the victims.

“As we recently completed our third year of mediation, the assigned mediator in the case did not include insurance carriers in this proposal, as they have yet to agree on coverage issues with the Creditors Committee,” the statement said. “The mediator’s priority was to reach a settlement with the Diocese and its entities first and then pursue insurers.”

Bishop Douglas Lucia

In an open letter to his flock Thursday, Bishop Douglas Lucia acknowledged the settlement will be a heavy lift for his diocese.

“I can tell you as shocking as the settlement amount may seem to leaders of our own parishes and Catholic entities, more appalling and heart-rending to me is the pain and mistreatment experienced by the survivors of child and adult sexual abuse at the hands of those they thought they could trust,” Lucia wrote. “I cannot apologize enough for the abuse which happened or for any neglect in dealing with it. This is why the final settlement will include commitments meant to strengthen our safe environment protocols to further ensure the past does not repeat itself.”

Kevin Braney, chair of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors and a sex abuse survivor, said the settlement is a “significant step forward in the healing process.”

“I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my fellow survivors and their families, for their endurance as they have patiently awaited this news,” Braney said in a statement to local media.

The proposed settlement, which still requires court and creditor approval, appears to be the largest in the U.S. since the $210 million settlement reached in 2018 by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and 400 sex abuse survivors.

But $170 million of that money was paid out by the Minnesota archdioceses’ insurance companies, according to news accounts from that time.

The largest Roman Catholic priest sex abuse settlement thus far in the U.S. happened in July 2007, when the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $660 million to 508 victims.

Two months later, the Diocese of San Diego agreed in September 2007 to pay nearly $200 million to 144 priest abuse victims, according to news reports.

Those payouts were expected to be paid by a combination of the church’s cash and insurance.

The Diocese of Syracuse filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 after the state of New York temporarily suspended its statute of limitations to give people who claimed they were sexually abused the chance to sue for damages.

Five of the seven other Roman Catholic dioceses in New York State have also sought bankruptcy protection after they were deluged by lawsuits filed by victims of predator priests.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!