A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride

Friends, let me tell you it’s quite something to sit at a booth marked “Catholic” at a Gay Pride festival!

For a substantial part of the past two days I’ve been helping staff the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) booth at the Twin Cities LGBT Pride Festival in Loring Park, situated on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. The CPCSM booth also served as “home base” for Catholic Rainbow Parents and The Progressive Catholic Voice online journal.

As you can see from the photo above, we had a large banner that read, “Inclusive Catholics: Welcoming and Affirming Catholic Parishes and Communities.” Our booth was situated in a prime spot in Loring Park, a kind of “town square” location. We really couldn’t be missed! As a result, we had a lot of visitors and experienced a range of responses.

Above: Mary Lynn Murphy, co-founder of Catholic Rainbow Parents
chats with visitors to the CPCSM booth in Loring Park
on Saturday, June 28, 2008.

Many folks did a double take when they first saw our banner.

“Inclusive Catholics? Is that even possible any more?” asked one passerby.

“Gay friendly?” inquired another. “You guys can’t be Catholic!”

In light of the Church’s treatment of its LGBT members, another visitor asked: “Shouldn’t it read, ‘Abusive Catholics’? He was only half joking, and I thought to myself: Yeah, he’s got a point.

One visibly irate visitor scoffed: “You can’t tell me there’s inclusive Catholic parishes after what the archbishop just did to St. Joan of Arc [Church].”

A young gay man also cited the recent controversy concerning St. Joan of Arc Church, noting that it was “the last place where I felt accepted, and now that’s not the case. It sucks.”

“Welcoming parishes are getting fewer and further between,” sighed another passerby, while one woman lamented: “I’m just so angry that the Church is going so backwards”; a view echoed by another passerby who declared: “The Church is moving forward into the twelfth century!”

“Over the centuries the Church has constructed a self-serving mythology,” one man said. “The Church is more concerned about maintaining this mythology than actually helping people. As long as they’ve got a group of people who buy into this mythology without thinking or questioning, then they’re happy to let the rest of us walk out the door.”

A man in his sixties declared: “I’ve been pissed off with the Catholic Church for 45 years.” When I asked him to explain why, he simply replied: “It’s just not user-friendly.”

Another man shared with me how a lot of his friends weren’t Catholic anymore. “And I can see why,” he said. “The situation is bad and it’s only getting worse. I’m really unhappy with the new archbishop. He’s so out of it.”

“He’s misinterpreting God,” another visitor said of Archbishop Nienstedt.

Yet another visitor to our booth remarked: “The archbishop has shot himself in the foot, big time, by alienating not just gays and lesbians, but women and anyone who isn’t Catholic in the same way he is.”

One man shared his nickname for Archbishop Nienstedt: “I call him ‘Dr. No,’” he said with a chuckle. Elaborating, he said, “How can you spend your life saying ‘No!’ ‘No!’ ‘No!’? What a wasted life.”

In sharing her views of those who comprise the Roman Catholic hierarchy, one elderly woman leaned toward me and said with utter conviction: “If Christ were here he would throw them out of the Temple!”

One young man confessed: “I grew up Catholic but left because of its treatment of gays.” He looked sadly at our “Inclusive Catholics” banner and said: “It would be nice to see change. Then I’d come back.”

So many eyed our banner with sad, weary smiles. “I’ve been there,” their look seemed to say, “but I just couldn’t take the spiritual and psychological abuse anymore.”



Yet although some can no longer stay, many nevertheless expressed support for the efforts of CPCSM, Catholic Rainbow Parents, and The Progressive Catholic Voice online journal to help the Church develop a more informed, compassionate, and inclusive theology of human sexuality.

“You’re doing a wonderful service of witness to a Church leadership that has lost its way,” one transgender individual told us.

“The Church is a living Church,” an elderly man reminded us. “And only the people can make it change.”

Another passerby paused, looked at our “Inclusive Catholics” banner and beamed: “It just makes me happy to see those two words together! Thank you for being here.”

Following are some more images from the
Twin Cities 2008 Gay Pride celebration . . .

Above: Some young Catholic visitors to the CPCSM booth - Sunday, June 29, 2008.



Above: What a cutie!



Above: A Native American presence at Pride. The indigenous peoples of the Americans have, of course, the tradition of Two-Spirit people.



Above: Gay rugby players! How butch.



Above: The words ‘pride’ and ‘truth’ written on the bodies of these two young men reminded me of Mark Lachapelle’s observation in his recent letter to the Star Tribune newspaper: “Growing up to discover one’s true identity is not a choice,” he writes. “The choice is whether to honor the truth of one’s identity and to act on it with dignity and grace. I view GLBT Pride as a celebration of truth, not [of a] meaningless ‘lifestyle.’”

(To read Lachapelle’s letter in its entirety, see the postscript to the previous Wild Reed post, Star Tribune’s Coverage of Catholic LGBT Pride Service).



Images: Michael Bayly and Paul Fleege.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Inclusive Catholics Celebrate Gay Pride (2007)
Worldwide Gay Pride - 2008
Worldwide Gay Pride - 2007
Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”

Worldwide Gay Pride - 2008

All around the world, throughout the month of June, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people, their families, friends, and allies, participate in celebrations that affirm and celebrate the gift of all forms of non-heterosexual orientation and identity.

Here are just a few images gathered from the Internet of these global Pride events of affirmation and celebration. Happy Pride!



Above: Revelers take part in Toronto’s 28th annual Gay Pride Parade June 29, 2008. (REUTERS/Mark Blinch)



Above: Spectators attend the annual Gay Pride Parade on 5th Avenue in New York June 29, 2008. (REUTERS/Joshua Lott)



Above: Representatives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community participate in the first ‘Rainbow Pride Walk’ in New Delhi, India, Sunday, June 29, 2008.

Men wore sparkling saris, women wore rainbow boas and hundreds of people chanted for gay rights in three Indian cities Sunday in the largest display of gay pride in the deeply conservative country where homosexual acts are illegal. Gay rights supporters took to the streets of Calcutta, Bangalore and New Delhi to call for an end to discrimination and push for acceptance in a society where intolerance is widespread. (AP Photo/ Mustafa Quraishi)



Above: Gays and lesbians take part in a Gay Pride Parade in Mexico City, June 28, 2007. (REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar)



Above: A drag queen hands out leaflets during a Gay Pride Parade in Bilbao, Spain, June 28, 2008. (REUTERS/Vincent West)



Above: Marchers attend a Gay Pride Parade in Brno. Czech police were forced to intervene after right-wing extremists attempted to disrupt a Gay Pride parade in the country’s second largest city, Brno, on Saturday, leading to 15 arrests, police said. (AFP/Michal Cizek)



Above: Participants hold the rainbow flag during the first ever Bulgaria Gay Pride Parade in central Sofia. Bulgarian police arrested 60 people Saturday opposed to Bulgaria’s first gay pride march after they tried to storm the small group of about 100 marchers in the capital Sofia, the interior ministry said. (AFP/Boryana Katsarova)



Above: Two men kiss under a a rainbow flag during the Gay Pride Parade in Lisbon, Portugal, June 28, 2008. (REUTERS/Nacho Doce)



Above: Thousands of people take part in the Gay Pride Parade where gays, lesbians and transvestites demonstrate for equal rights and against discrimination, in Paris, Saturday, June 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)



Above: An Israeli air force soldier walks past a gay pride flag before the start of the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, Thursday, June 26, 2008. About 3,000 gays marched through Jerusalem in their annual Gay Pride Parade. The march and rally in a public park that followed proceeded without incident. Police said they had about 2,000 officers on duty to protect the marchers from protesters. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)



Above: Israeli participants attend the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem. About 2,000 people gathered in Jerusalem on Thursday for an annual Gay Pride Parade which in the past had been the focus of violent controversy. (AFP/Gali Tibbon)



Above: Two girls kiss during a Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, Thursday, June 26, 2008. About 3,000 gays marched through Jerusalem in their annual Gay Pride Parade. The march and rally in a public park that followed proceeded without incident. Police said they had about 2,000 officers on duty to protect the marchers from protesters. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

Opening image: The rainbow flag is waved during the Gay Pride Parade in Mexico City, Saturday, June 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Worldwide Gay Pride - 2007
A Simple Yet Radical Act
The Gay World Cup
Dan Furmansky: Why We Have Pride

Dan Furmansky: "Why We Have Pride"

The following was written in 2007 by Equality Maryland executive director, Dan Furmansky (pictured at right).

____________________________

Why We Have Pride
By Dan Furmansky

Gay Pride . . . is a relatively abstract concept for most Americans, who picture drag queens, rollerblading nuns, beer gardens, booths with gimmicky giveaways, and gyrating, half-naked cowboys on floats. Indeed, many straight Americans simply don't understand why there is Pride to begin with, and many consider it unsavory. Some LGBT Americans feel the same way. Personally, I love gyrating cowboys as much as the next red-blooded homosexual male, but I must confess that over the years I have found it a struggle to really connect with Pride and its core principles. However, speaking to religious groups the past few weeks and contemplating why we hold Pride festivities has reminded me what a deeply meaningful, deeply spiritual event in our lives Pride can be.

Pride is a day for LGBT people and those who care about social justice to recall where we’ve been as a people. Many of us know of the origins of Pride at Stonewall in NYC in the late 1960s, when drag queens and gay men fought back against police harassment and brutality and said, resoundingly, E-N-O-U-G-H. With this rebellion as its backdrop, Pride has emerged as a holiday of liberation, redemption, salvation, starvation, pain, celebration, progress and resolve. It's a holiday where we as a people celebrate where we have been and where we hope to go.

As many of you know, Equality Maryland has joined the ACLU in fighting for marriage equality in Maryland. Our organization submitted an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief in the case which focused on the history of discrimination against LGBT people. A run-down of this frightening discrimination crystalizes why there is a Pride holiday to begin with.

The brief talked about times when people could be sentenced to death for committing acts of sodomy. Until 1961, all fifty states outlawed sodomy – thus rendering it illegal for gay men and lesbians to engage in intimate acts with loved ones. The first reported sodomy case in the United States was a decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals. In that case, the Court upheld an indictment charging the defendant with the crime of sodomy, “that most horrid and detestable crime (among Christians not to be named).” From 1946 through 1965, there were a total of 384 sodomy, crimes against nature, and sexual perversion arrests in Baltimore alone.

This is why we have Pride.

The brief talked about LGBT people being labeled insane by the psychiatric community until the 1970s. Gay men and lesbians could be institutionalized and subjected to “therapies.” These ranged from the comparatively less invasive – such as psychotherapy and hypnosis – to the more severe, such as aversion therapy, castration, hysterectomies, lobotomies, electroshock treatment, and the administration of untested drugs.

Just take a moment to digest this information: They cut our brains.

This is why we have Pride.

The brief talked about stakeouts of gay establishments, decoy operations, surveillance, scrutiny, and potential attack. It talked about people being denied hire or being fired from their jobs. It recalled 1953, when President Eisenhower set forth Executive Order 10,450, which required the dismissal of all government employees who were “sex perverts,” including homosexuals, from both the civilian and military branches of the Federal government. This ban – which presumably affected many gay and lesbian Maryland residents in the Washington metropolitan area – remained in effect until 1975.

It was only six years ago that Maryland banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination against transgender individuals is still legal in all of Maryland except Baltimore, and a bill to make this discrimination illegal failed in Senate committee this year by one vote.

Legislatures and courts have denied gay men and lesbians the ability to adopt children and, in some instances, even to visit or raise their own offspring. These practices are not a thing of the past and some states, like Florida, have enshrined it as the law of the land.

Nor is the epidemic of violence against the gay – and especially transgender – community, which is well-chronicled by the FBI, a thing of the past.

Same-sex couples personally know what it’s like to walk down the street and fear that you are standing too close to your partner, or that a crowd of young people will harass you if you appear “together.” They know what it means to think twice before kissing a partner goodbye in your front yard, at the airport, wherever, all for fear someone will be made uncomfortable, or worse, become aggressive.

The brief is a mere backdrop to a case that, if positively decided in our favor, has the potential to change so many lives for the better. When I think about why we have Pride, I think about Lisa Polyak and Gita Deane, the lead plaintiffs who have endured so much to be at the forefront of the fight for marriage equality.

Lisa and Gita told me just last week that their youngest daughter wanted to have a play date after school with a classmate, so they called up the classmate’s parents and left a message. They received a voice mail back saying “we respectfully decline your invitation.” Lisa followed up and asked if another day would work better. The classmate's father told her, “we understand your civil liberties, but we have our religious beliefs and we are teaching them to our daughter.”

“Let me get this straight,” Lisa said. “You don’t want your daughter to come over because our daughter has two mothers?”

“Correct,” he replied.

We have Pride not just for ourselves, but for our children. We have Pride for the Kevin-Douglas Olives among us. Kevin, who lives in Baltimore, is locked in a legal battle with his deceased partner’s estranged parents. Honoring the will of his partner of seven years, Russell, Kevin buried him in a Quaker cemetery with an adjoining plot for himself. Russell’s parents, who never accepted their son, have sued to have the will overturned and the body exhumed and moved to the family’s plot. Now, Kevin is in an ongoing legal struggle that is costing him thousands upon thousands of dollars, just to make sure his partner’s last wishes and the integrity of their relationship is preserved.

Yes, there are a million reasons why we have Pride.

Last month I got a call from a woman whose elderly uncle lost his partner of decades. Because of the crippling inheritance tax assessed on the Takoma Park house he shared with his partner, her uncle will likely be forced out of his own home. If the couple had been married, he wouldn’t be taxed on half the home as though he were inheriting from a perfect stranger as opposed to the man he loved and shared his life with for decades.

Pride is about us as a people. About our struggle. Our ongoing struggle.

It’s about taking a break from comments by General Peter Pace, and reports of people beaten at Moscow’s gay pride parade, and arrests in Iran, and all the Republican candidates for President saying Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is working just great.

During Pride, we forget about the society that does the things to us that force us to create Pride to begin with. We ignore the source of that pain and we get onto our floats and wear crazy skimpy outfits and drink in beer gardens and eat meat on a stick and embrace our honest selves and visit pride booths and make unusually large donations to LGBT rights organizations (!) and visit LGBT affirming congregations. We celebrate our cultural diversity as a community, and for many of us our Pride in being both racial and sexual minorities in society.

But Pride is so much more.

Pride is about where we’ve been as individuals that brought us to this day, today.

We have Pride because I was called a faggot in Junior High School and pushed into lockers and had my books scattered and went home with black and blue marks on my thighs and arms. We have Pride because as I personally came to the realization that I was gay at the age of 19, I had one thought that ran through my head day after day after day for months on end: I wish I were dead, I wish I were dead, I wish I were dead...

One night after my grandfather’s funeral, I was so consumed by my own depression and my fear of coming out to a cruel society that I considered driving my car off an embankment. I pictured my car careening into a tree, a branch shattering the windshield and cracking my skull so I would die instantly.

That is why we have Pride. Because nothing about my story is unique. Because while I was born gay, I wasn’t born with a propensity to hurt myself.

So many of us struggle to own our proper dignity, value, and self-respect. And Pride is our chance to take pleasure and satisfaction in the achievement it took for us to get to the place where we could celebrate Pride.

This year, more than ever, remember Pride as a spiritual holiday. Take some time to think about where you’ve been and what it took for you to win the war with yourself that society imposed upon you. Share your coming out story with someone. Or ask someone to tell you what it took for them to come out of the closet.

Finally, no matter how safe your personal bubble may be, remember that the collective struggle is far from over. We all have a role to play in this movement towards greater understanding, and we are meant to be here in this moment in time to play our part. One day, there will be nothing bittersweet about Pride any longer – just a remembrance of the struggle that once was. Until then, we continue to honor our community and ourselves. And we celebrate.

Dan Furmansky

Star Tribune’s Coverage of Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer service

An article in yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Wednesday’s CPCSM Pride Prayer Service.

As I noted in my previous post, for many years the parish of St. Joan of Arc in South Minneapolis has hosted a Pride Prayer Service during the week leading up to the Twin Cities LGBT Pride Festival. The church’s 2008 Pride Prayer Service was scheduled to take place on Wednesday night. Yet last week the chancery of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis issued a directive that “people who fully adapt to the GLBT lifestyle are not permitted to . . . be the subject of a prayer service that endorses that lifestyle.” The parish complied, canceled its LGBT Pride Prayer Service and, in its place, hosted a “peace service.”

In response to these events, the 30-year-old Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, the organization to which I have the honor of serving as executive coordinator, decided to continue the tradition of a Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service. Furthermore, so as to acknowledge and honor the good work that the community of St. Joan’s has done in relation to initiating and hosting such a prayer service for many years, it was deemed appropriate to hold CPCSM’s inaugural Pride Prayer Service at the entrance of the parish, a half hour before the community’s replacement “peace service.”

Many in attendance held signs expressing both their concern about the chancery’s actions and their hope/prayer that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church will one day be open to God’s presence in the lives and relationships of LGBT people. (One sign, for instance, read: “It’s time we listened to the experiences of LGBT Catholics.” Another: “There is a part of God’s truth in each one of us - gay or straight.” And my all-time favorite: “The Body of Christ has gay genes too!”)

Following are highlights from the Star Tribune article (accompanied by a few comments of my own in bold):

Saying they don’t want to go back in the closet, gay and lesbian Catholics and their supporters took their annual prayer service celebrating gay pride outdoors Wednesday night.

Lucia Engelhardt, 2, was helping her sister Anna, 9, carry a sign reading “Gay love is not a mortal sin.”

Their 7-year-old sister, Ingrid, also carried a sign supporting gays in the Catholic Church.

“We’re here to support our gay friends,” said their mother, Stephanie Vagle. “And to show our displeasure with the Catholic Church over this issue,” their father, Bill Englehardt, quickly added. [Interestingly, some so-called traditionalist Catholic bloggers have been mocking the Pride Prayer Service (and those who participated in it) by claiming that it was attended only by people of a certain age. For example, one site referred to participants as “seniors at St. Joan of Arc, [faithfully] dissenting from Church teaching.” It seems such comments are based on photos taken clandestinely by another blogger of the same ilk. Did he not see younger people? Or did he choose only to photograph certain types of people to fit his agenda? Regardless, the Star Tribune article attests to the fact that young adults and children were among those who gathered. Fox Nine News, incidentally, said the prayer service drew “close to 300 people.”]

The service, which was led by lay people, included readings, songs and prayer.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, City Council Member Gary Schiff and state Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, also attended.

Rybak said that anytime there are people in need, Joan of Arc members are the first to respond. “We want them to know the community stands with them,” he said.

The Rev. Jim Cassidy, acting pastor of St. Joan’s, said the ruckus over the service that usually coincides with gay pride week celebrations erupted when the diocese received e-mails depicting the service as an official gay pride event.

“That’s never been the case,” Cassidy said. “It’s an in-house prayer service that celebrates the GLBT members of our community.” [Not so. St. Joan of Arc’s annual Pride Prayer Service has always been a celebration of and for LGBT Catholics everywhere, not just those who attend St. Joan of Arc parish.]

But in an effort to defuse the controversy, Cassidy said he re-fashioned the prayer services and met with archdiocese official Dennis McGrath Wednesday morning to review what he planned for the service.

“We can pray with gay and lesbians members,” Cassidy said.

But under the guidelines set by the archdiocese, St. Joan of Arc won’t celebrate their identity, Cassidy said.

“I don’t see it as hair-splitting,” he said. “I see it as a way to build bridges ... between the church and all people who feel disenfranchised.” [How exactly is it a way to “build bridges,” I wonder.]

Michael Bayly, executive director of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, said his group respects the decision by St. Joan of Arc to comply with the archdiocese’s edict.

“We don’t agree with that directive but we understand that St. Joan of Arc is in a very difficult position, a terrible bind,” he said. “So we’re more than happy to take on that prayer service that they can’t do now.”

Bayly said the service outside church doors is meant to give voice to gay, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.

“GLBT people in the Catholic Church, I think, want to be heard, they want some sort of recognition of their experiences,” he said.

That’s fine, according to McGrath. Just not inside the church. “We’re not going to have a prayer service that promotes pride in gay and lesbian activities that includes sex outside of marriage,” he said. [O.K., then let gay folks marry! It seems the logical solution if having “sex outside of marriage” is the problem.]

The service inside the church Wednesday drew a standing-room-only crowd, including some who had taken part in the outdoor event. It didn’t appear to violate the archdiocese's guidelines, as it urged worshippers to embrace peace and diversity of skin color, political views, religious beliefs and sexual orientation.

To read this article in its entirety, click here.

__________________________________

6/28/08 Update: The following two letters-to-the-editor have been recently published in the Star Tribune:


The Final Holdout

The conflict between the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and parishioners of St. Joan of Arc over their Gay Pride celebration serves to illustrate the importance of two data just published by the Pew Forum in its study of Religion in America.

Its survey indicates that a majority of U.S. Catholics (58 percent) currently favor acceptance of gay lifestyles and that such approval is proportionately greater in the Catholic Church than in other Christian churches or in the nation as a whole.

The same survey indicates that 77 percent U.S. Catholics believe that Christian doctrines are open to a variety of defensible interpretations and not restricted to just one.

These dispassionate statistics disclose stubborn realities of modern Catholicism that cannot possibly be extinguished by mere official rulings.

Without sympathetic dialogue, the hierarchy and the people will continue to pass as ships in the night except when collisions briefly focus their attention.

James Gaffney
St. Paul


Talk About LGBT Lives, Not “Lifestyles”

Why is the word “lifestyle” used to describe the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals, as if we were some kind of homogenous cult? It’s such a broad, yet loaded, term, lacking in specificity, that it serves to reduce individuals to some kind of stereotype or caricature.

In fact, the “style” of life that a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person may live is far more likely to mirror the lives of others in the general population than to completely distinguish him or her. “Lifestyle” implies choice, but growing up to discover one’s true identity is not a choice. The choice is whether to honor the truth of one’s identity and to act on it with dignity and grace. I view GLBT Pride as a celebration of truth, not the meaningless “lifestyle.”

Mark Lachapelle
St. Louis Park


Images: Michael Bayly.

Recommended Off-site Link:
Gay Catholics Pray Away: Hundreds Gather Outside St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church - Andy Birkey (EleventhAvenueSouth.com, June 26, 2008).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
250+ People Attend Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service
The Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service That Is and Isn’t Happening
More Media Coverage of the Upcoming Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service
What is a “Lifestyle”?
Thoughts on Archbishop Nienstedt
Celebrating and Embodying Divine Hospitality
300+ People Vigil at the Cathedral in Solidarity with LGBT Catholics
Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”: A Suggested Trajectory
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent
The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
Coming Out: An Act of Holiness

250+ People Attend Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service in Minneapolis

Let us build a house where all are named,
their songs and visions heard,
and loved and treasured, taught and claimed
as words within the word.
Here the outcast and the stranger
bear the image of love’s face;
Let us bring an end to fear and danger:
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome in this place.

These words were sung at the beginning of CPCSM’s inaugural LGBT Pride Prayer Service, held late yesterday afternoon outside of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis.

For many years the parish of St. Joan of Arc has hosted a Pride Prayer Service during the week leading up to the Twin Cities LGBT Pride Festival. The church’s 2008 Pride Prayer Service was scheduled to take place last night. Yet last week the chancery of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis issued a directive that “people who fully adapt to the GLBT lifestyle are not permitted to . . . be the subject of a prayer service that endorses that lifestyle.” The parish complied, canceled its LGBT Pride Prayer Service and, in its place, hosted last night a “peace service.”

In response to these events, the 30-year-old Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), the organization to which I have the honor of serving as executive coordinator, decided to continue the tradition of a Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service. Furthermore, so as to acknowledge and honor the good work that the community of St. Joan’s has done in relation to initiating and hosting such a prayer service for many years, it was deemed appropriate to hold CPCSM’s inaugural Pride Prayer Service at the entrance of the parish, a half hour before the community’s replacement “peace service.”

Of course, the local chapter of the nation’s largest Catholic LGBT organization, DignityUSA, has been hosting an annual LGBT Pride Liturgy for over twenty years, to which Catholics of the archdiocese are welcomed to attend. (This year’s Dignity Twin Cities Pride Liturgy will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 27, at Prospect Park United Methodist Church in Minneapolis.)

Both the president and executive director of DignityUSA, Mark Matson and Marianne Duddy-Burke respectively, sent CPCSM a joint message of support, which was shared at the Pride Prayer Service last night. This message said:

The entire membership of DignityUSA stands with you tonight as you witness to your rights to be full members of the Church, no matter if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight. We stand with you to celebrate the expansive, inclusive love of our God, and to pray for the day when this same inclusiveness will be a hallmark of our Church.

We thank the people of St. Joan of Arc for their many years of opening wide the parish doors, for daring to speak our names in worship and fellowship, for demonstrating that true welcome does not demand silence, secrecy, or pretense. We encourage the Archdiocesan leadership to enter into dialogue with the members of this parish – straight and gay – so that they may better understand the important ministry that is provided here.

Finally, know that thousands and thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Catholics and our families all across the country, will be encouraged by and grateful for your witness here tonight. By participating in this prayer service, you demonstrate courage, one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. May what you do tonight inspire many others to exercise this gift and stand in solidarity with all who are marginalized or persecuted, especially by religious leaders.

After processing from the parking lot of St. Joan of Arc to the entrance of the church (a procession led by Catholic Rainbow Parents’ co-founders Mike and Mary Lynn Murphy), those who gathered for CPCSM’s Pride Prayer Service sang together, prayed together, and heard from a number of speakers.

Our opening prayer was a taken from a collection of liturgies especially developed for the LGBT community, and entitled Courage to Love. Written by Justin Tanis, this “call to worship” reads as follows:

One: For all who have taken the risk of loving another,

Many: We thank you, O God of Courage.

For all who integrate their sexuality and spirituality,

We praise you, O God of Life.

For all who have colored outside the lines
that others have placed around them,

We rejoice with you, O God of Creativity.

For all who have lived true to the inner voice within,

We celebrate with you, O God of Integrity.

For all who proclaim their pride at who you created them to be,

We dance with you, O God of Joy.

For all that you are in our lives, and all the gifts that you
have given us, and most especially, for the unique creation
that is each one of us,

We honor you, O God of All.

Above (from left): Mary Beckfeld, Mary Lynn Murphy, and Georgia Mueller eloquently share their perspective as parents of adult gay children. All three women are co-founders of Catholic Rainbow Parents.

The message on Mary’s sign is in response to Archbishop John Nienstedt’s November 2007 statement that those who “actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin.” Many interpreted this as saying that parents and family members who affirm and support their LGBT children in forming loving and committed relationships, in living relational lives of honesty and integrity, are “cooperating in a grave evil” and “guilty of mortal sin.”



Above: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak shares with the crowd his gratitude and admiration for the many years of social justice ministry undertaken by the community of St. Joan of Arc Church.



Above: Minnesota Senator D. Scott Dibble (DFL) and Minneapolis Council Member Gary Schiff.

Both men attended CPCSM’s Pride Prayer Service not as elected officials, but as Catholic gay men concerned by the recent actions of the chancery forbidding St. Joan of Arc hosting it’s traditional Pride Prayer Service. Both also expressed hope for change within the wider Catholic Church around the issue of homosexuality.



Above (from left): CPCSM co-founder, David McCaffrey; Minnesota Senator D. Scott Dibble (DFL); and Minneapolis Council Member Gary Schiff.

Both Scott and Gary’s heartfelt testimonies reminded me of the insights shared by Thomas Stevenson in his book, Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men. Like Scott and Gary, the “witnesses” in Stevenson’s book demonstrate how “loving, compassionate affirmation of their homosexuality frees them from the destructive denial, hiding, or fighting of their homosexuality.”

Writes Stevenson:

This freeing of themselves as homosexual opens up to new life that is marked by honesty, peacefulness, wholeness, and the experience of the naturalness, goodness, and giftedness of their homosexuality.

. . . At the center of Catholicism is the love of God for us, this love of God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit for us that in turn transforms us for loving others and returning love to God.

Our witnesses return again and again to this Center, and in their consciences make distinctions about what is not essential in Church teaching, what, according to their lights, is not loving. They do not give up on this Center; rather they challenge from it. To give up on this Center, this Love which is salvific, would itself be destructive.

[We can be gay and Catholic by] returning again and again to this Love.

I adapted our “sending forth” prayer from an “LGBT Pride Blessing” written by Justin Tanis. It reads as follows:

Holy One, known to us in many ways,
be present with us now.
We ask for your blessings as we go forth
rejoicing as a community of
LGBT Catholics and allies.

Bless our pride.
Let it be a humble reflection of gratitude
for who it is you have created us to be.

Bless our celebration.
Let it be an expression of
our trust and joy in your loving presence
within and among us.

Bless our hopes and dreams.
May they herald the building of a Church
that is more reflective of your inclusive love.

Bless those who oppose us.
May our integrity inspire and change hearts and minds.

Bless our differences as a source of our strength
and a sign of our respect for one another.

Bless those for whom it takes great courage to be here.
May they may feel the abundance of life.

Bless our calls for equality and liberation.
May we may both speak and hear your vision
of justice and peace.

Bless each one of us here today with your presence
and our presence with one another.

All this we ask of you, compassionate God,
for you are ever faithful to us.
Rejoice with us today and every day.

Amen.

My deepest thanks to all of you reading this who were present at this truly inspiring prayer service. Everyone I spoke to at the conclusion of the service felt renewed and uplifted by the time we spent together in prayer, song, and celebration.

A special thanks to our speakers: David McCaffrey; Catholic Rainbow Parents Mary Beckfeld, Mary Lynn Murphy, and Georgia Mueller; Mayor R.T. Rybak, Senator Scott Dibble, Councilor Gary Schiff, and Dignity Twin Cities president, Brian McNeill.

Also, a BIG thank you to Kathleen Olsen and Ray Makeever for sharing their musical talents.

And finally, on a personal note, CPCSM’s inaugural LGBT Pride Prayer Service took place on my friend Jeremiah McGowan’s birthday. I want to take this opportunity to thank him, his partner Kristy, and the whole McGowan family for their love, acceptance, and support of me as a Catholic gay man, especially during my closeted years in Australia and my often stumbling journey toward a life of greater self-awareness, integrity, and grace.


Images: Michael Bayly.

Recommended Off-site Link:
Gay Catholics Pray Away: Hundreds Gather Outside St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church - Andy Birkey (EleventhAvenueSouth.com, June 26, 2008).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service That Is and Isn’t Happening
More Media Coverage of the Upcoming Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service
What is a “Lifestyle”?
Thoughts on Archbishop Nienstedt
Celebrating and Embodying Divine Hospitality
300+ People Vigil at the Cathedral in Solidarity with LGBT Catholics
Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”: A Suggested Trajectory
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent
The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
Coming Out: An Act of Holiness

More Media Coverage of Upcoming LGBT Pride Prayer Service

Do you want my honest opinion on today’s Star Tribune story (reprinted below) about the growing controversy surrounding the canceled LGBT Pride Prayer Service at St. Joan of Arc?

I’m somewhat disappointed.

For a start, I know of no LGBT individual who talks about celebrating their “lifestyle.” The gift of their sexuality, maybe. Their orientation. Their relational capacity. But not their “lifestyle.”

As LGBT persons, we’re well aware that “lifestyle,” as Paula Ruddy points out, has become a “pejorative word used to denigrate gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender persons. It’s a propaganda word, meant to segregate a group by its sexual practices and to exclude them from social acceptance.”

Accordingly, it’s disappointing when reporters fail to recognize and acknowledge that it’s a loaded term applied by others to LGBT people rather than a term that comes from LGBT people themselves to describe their reality - a reality that cannot be limited to certain sexual activities.

Furthermore, chancery spokesperson, Dennis McGrath, maintains that the Church “welcomes” LGBT persons. Yet an authentic welcome allows people to speak for themselves, respects their experiences and insights, and is open to dialogue and to the growth and change that often results from such mutual sharing. None of these attributes are present in the Church’s “welcome” of LGBT persons.

Another disappointment: Contrary to what the Star Tribune article says, the prayer service that I and others are planning for tonight outside of St. Joan of Arc is not about “condemning” Archbishop Nienstedt - or anyone else for that matter. Neither are we calling the prayer service we’re planning a “rally” or a “protest.” It’s a Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service.

(And as I stated in my last post, we’re gathering tonight, June 25, at 6:30 at the entrance of St. Joan of Arc (4537 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis) to keep alive the tradition (began by St. Joan of Arc Church) of a Catholic prayer service to mark the beginning of LGBT Pride celebrations in the Twin Cities, to express pride in our LGBT loved ones and their lives of integrity, and to give thanks for the gifts that LGBT people bring to the Church. Of course, it’s important to remember that the local chapter of the nation’s largest Catholic LGBT organization, Dignity, has been hosting an annual LGBT Pride Liturgy for over twenty years. This year, Dignity Twin Cities’s Pride Liturgy will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 27, at Prospect Park United Methodist Church in Minneapolis.)

And then there’s this quote of mine in the Star Tribune article: “The archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for, and that deeply concerns me. . . . This certainly does not celebrate the presence of God in the lives of gay people. They are dictating to gay people how to have a good life” . . . without bothering to listen and learn from LGBT people’s experience of God in their lives and relationships . . . is what I believe I also said. You know, I’d so much rather e-mail a statement to a reporter then talk to him/her over the phone. They never seem to get it right! Or worse, they try to reduce what you say to a sound bite!

Oh, and on a purely superficial level, I dislike the photo of me that accompanies the article. It seems to depict me rearranging my desk! In fact it’s my dining room table, and rearranging various items on it in preparation for being photographed is exactly what I was doing! It seems so prosaic. At least my flowering African violet and Jon Giuliani’s beautiful portrait of St. Francis of Assisi got in the shot! The sign behind me, by the way, reads: "Sexuality, gay or straight, is a sacred gift."

Along with the Star Tribune photographer, three TV news crews came to my home yesterday to interview myself and other members of CPCSM. (Scott Goldberg of KARE 11 News is pictured at left talking to Paula Ruddy and Mary Lynn Murphy.) Yeah, I know, I probably should have changed into a nice dress shirt. Oh well, at least the T-shirt I was wearing had a positive message: “Advice from a River: Go with the flow; immerse yourself in nature; slow down and meander; go around obstacles; be thoughtful of those downstream; stay current; the beauty is in the journey!”

_________________________________

Uproar Over Prayer Service for Gays Grows

By Herón Márquez Estrada
Star Tribune
June 25, 2008

As he has done for a number of years, Michael Bayly will arrive tonight at St. Joan of Arc Church ready to celebrate his God, his faith and his homosexuality.

But this year, Bayly and other Catholic gays and lesbians will not be allowed to celebrate their lifestyle in the church sanctuary following an edict handed down by Archbishop John Nienstedt, who has barred the annual gay pride prayer service at the south Minneapolis church.

In protest, Bayly and others have decided to hold their own lay service outside the church tonight. They are also calling for a mass rally at the church tonight to condemn the archdiocese.

The annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service, designed to coincide with gay pride week celebrations, instead will be characterized as a “peace” service, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for Nienstedt and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“Celebrating the GLBT lifestyle is contrary to the teachings of our church – plain and simple,” McGrath said.

The ban has caused an uproar inside and outside the church, which for years has been known as a liberal bastion supporting GLBT people.

Most of the anger has been focused on Nienstedt, who took over as archbishop recently and almost immediately angered local gays.

This is “yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at GLBT persons and their families under Archbishop Nienstedt’s reign of homophobic hatred,” David McCaffrey, a board member of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), said in an e-mail Monday to members.

“The archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for, and that deeply concerns me,” said Bayly, executive director of the CPCSM. “This certainly does not celebrate the presence of God in the lives of gay people. They are dictating to gay people how to have a good life.”

The Rev. Jim Cassidy, acting pastor at St. Joan’s, said he respects the wishes of the archdiocese and is just happy that the service was not canceled.

“The archdiocese, for all parishes, is the front office and we need to respect that,” Cassidy said Tuesday. “There is no welcome mat being pulled here.”

Also Tuesday, McGrath defended the archdiocese and Nienstedt, saying that gay and lesbian relationships, especially if they are consummated, are contrary to church doctrine.

McGrath said Nienstedt decided to act after he was notified by callers about the GLBT service at St. Joan, which has a large homosexual contingent.

McGrath said Nienstedt simply did what any archbishop in the country would do in a similar situation. He said the decision does not signal that the archdiocese is taking a conservative turn in the Twin Cities.

He said that former Archbishop Harry Flynn, who recently retired, would have made the same decision if he had known about the service.

“We weren’t aware of it,” McGrath said Tuesday. “We have 219 parishes. We don’t sit and monitor all of them.”

Gay activists and parishioners at St. Joan scoffed at the notion that the archdiocese did not know about the service.

They pointed out that not only has it been going on for at least five years – timed to coincide with the Twin Cities GLBT Pride Parade – but the service has been widely advertised in church bulletins and on the Internet.

“St. Joan's has always been very up front about this,” Bayly said. “There are always watchdogs quick to let the archdiocese know what is going on.”

McGrath said the parish decided to change the service’s theme to peace. But he also cautioned the church, which serves an estimated 4,000 families, to change the focus so that the service is not about the gay and lesbian lifestyle.

“We don’t want it to be a rose by any other name,” McGrath said. “Homosexuals are welcome in the church. We don't extend that to a full gay or lesbian lifestyle that includes sexual activity.”

Parishioners said that they were notified of the service change Sunday and that many in the congregation were dismayed.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, what are they doing?’” said Gerry Sell, who joined the church in 1965 and said she will likely join the protest outside the church. “I felt like I was split down the middle. I was furious, but then my heart was torn in half.”

This is not the first time that the archdiocese has come down hard on St. Joan of Arc.

In recent years, the parish was ordered by the archdiocese to remove gay pride material from its website.

The archdiocese also told the church to stop allowing those not ordained to speak at mass. Discussion topics have included scripture, missionary work and homosexuality.

Sell and others believe the archbishop's action, combined with the other past disputes, might finally drive people away from the Catholic Church.

“I have grown up with the strong belief . . . that my God is a loving, inclusive God,” said Mary Coleman of St. Paul, who joined St. Joan almost 20 years ago. “My God loves my brother, who happens to be gay, as much as he loves me. I am not sure I can stay in a church that doesn’t love and accept my brother the same way it loves and accepts me.”

Staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report. Heron Marquez Estrada • 612-673-4280


Image 1: Michael Bayly
Image 2: Joey McLeister, Star Tribune.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Catholic LGBT Pride Prayer Service That Is and Isn’t Taking Place
The Talk of the Archdiocese
Thoughts on Archbishop Nienstedt
An Asinine Decision by the Chancery
The Shrinking Catholic Tent
Reflecting on Inclusive Language
Celebrating and Embodying Divine Hospitality
300+ People Vigil at Cathedral in Solidarity with LGBT Catholics
Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”: A Suggested Trajectory
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent
Thoughts on Authority and Fidelity
What it Means to be Catholic
Celebrating Our Sanctifying Truth
The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
Coming Out: An Act of Holiness