Back in the U.S.A.

It’s hard to believe but it’s been almost a week since my return to the U.S. from Australia.

I’m really happy to be resuming my work as executive director of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) and reconnecting with my friends in the Twin Cities.

On the night of my arrival (Thursday, January 25) several friends organized a wonderful party to welcome me back.










Since then I’ve been kept busy with completing CPCSM’s annual membership report to Community Solutions Fund - one of our chief funders. With this task complete (as of this afternoon), I can now turn my attention to planning CPCSM’s next Rainbow Spirit journal and our spring program of educational events.

In addition to CPCSM-specific programs and initiatives, there’s a couple of other upcoming events with which I’m looking forward to being involved.

Next Thursday, for instance, I’ll be facilitating a discussion on the book Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men with members of the Basilica of St. Mary’s Boulevards group.

Then in March, my friend Julie Madden and I will lead a workshop entitled “Breaking Bread: Gay and Lesbian Parish Ministry” at New Ways Ministry’s Sixth National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality.

Held this year in Minneapolis, New Ways Ministry’s 2007 symposium is entitled “Outward Signs: Lesbian/Gay Catholics in a Sacramental Church.”

Speakers and workshop presenters include author Brian McNaught (speaking on “Baptism and the Experience of Coming Out”); Archbishop Francis Hurley (“Healing Our Wounds and Building a Eucharistic Community”); internationally-renowned advocate against the death penalty, Sister Helen Prejean (“Reconciliation, Liberation, and Lesbian/Gay People”); author Gregory Maguire (“Gay Parenting in a Sacramental Church”); and theologians Margaret Farley (“Matrimony and Same-Sex Relationships”); Richard McBrien (“Ordination to the Priesthood and Gay Men”); Diana Hayes (“The Sacrament of Reconciliation and Homophobia”); Luke Timothy Johnson (“Word Made Flesh: Scripture and Homosexuality”); and James Alison (“Faith and Coming Out”).

As you can see, it’s going to be a incredible gathering of some of the most preeminent Catholic thinkers and pastoral ministers, and I’m honored to have been invited to join their ranks as together we discern and facilitate discussion on the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Catholic Church.


See also the previous Wild Reed post: CPCSM's Year in Review.