From Dignity USA:

Panel: “The Theological Mandate for LGBTI Justice Work”
Global Network of Rainbow Catholics
Chicago, IL
4 July 2019

Bryan N. Massingale, S.T.D.
Fordham University
New York, USA

I come to this conversation as a Black, gay priest and theologian. I am informed not only by my sexuality, my faith, and my study of the Church’s ethical beliefs, but also by the traditions of Black freedom struggles in the US, struggles which, at their core, are matters of the soul and the spirit.

I share this because I cannot stand before you as a “hybrid car” that runs now on gas, and then on electricity. The headline is not, “A Priest Comes Out.” This is what happens when people use only that part of my (or your) identity that makes them comfortable, while bracketing the other concerns and facets that are integral to who we are. For example, even though I spend my life dealing with race and racism, in LGBTI settings most people do not want to deal with that; they want to deal only with my writings and thoughts on sexuality – the “sex stuff.”

DignityUSA

From New Ways Ministry:

Today’s post is from guest blogger Jason Steidl, a Lecturer in the Religious Studies Department at St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn and Long Island. He is a member of the ministry team for Out at St. Paul, the LGBTQ ministry of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan.

Part of being both LGBTQ and Catholic is grappling with sin in the church. While the church calls itself the “sacrament of salvation,” we see its faults first hand: teaching that describes queer desire as intrinsically disordered; schoolteachers fired from their jobs for marrying their same-gender partners; clericalism that keeps healthy gay priests closeted as it promotes the self-loathing ones. Most recently LGBTQ Catholics have been scandalized by the hypocrisy of Church leadership condemning our intimate relationships, even though they have facilitated the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.

Source: Review: New Book on Sin in the Catholic Church Has Lessons for LGBTQ Catholics – New Ways Ministry

Citing the recent successful pilgrimage to Rome by members and supporters of the LGBT+ group based at London’s Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, The Tablet (16 March 2019) describes the Church’s traditional language about gay men and women, especially the phrase “intrinsically disordered”, as “frankly incomprehensible”.

It continues: “The reconciliation of the Church with its gay and lesbian members cannot simply mean trying harder to persuade them to adhere to traditional teaching. If they fail, they can experience a burden of anxiety, guilt, and low self-worth which is a breeding ground for mental illness”.

The leading article acknowledges that “at a pastoral level there is increasing acceptance that gay Catholics benefit, just as others do, from being in loving, stable, long-term relationships”.

Source:  Quest

LGBT Catholics Westminster meet Pope Francis

by Rose Gamble

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Cardinal Nichols said being in Rome was a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to enjoy the beautiful environment and ‘most especially, to deepen your faith’

LGBT+ Catholics Westminster meet with Pope Francis
Photo:

LGBT+ Catholics Westminster met with Pope Francis during their pilgrimage to Rome.

On Ash Wednesday, 6 March, the 16 pilgrims, including parents and family members alongside LGBT Catholics with Pilgrimage Chaplain, Fr. David Stewart SJ, had privileged seats at the morning Papal Audience in St. Peter’s Square. At the end of the General Audience the group was invited to meet Pope Francis. Each pilgrim received a gift of a rosary from Pope Francis who shook hands with the group’s members.

The Vatican summit on the Protection of Minors in the Church has ended, and its effectiveness is being debated widely in the press.  Did it succeed in making progress on preventing and dealing with clergy sexual abuse?  Are the survivors of sexual abuse pleased or not with the results?  Is there hope that the Catholic Church will be different because of what transpired over three days of meetings in Rome?

A main theme at the summit was how the problem of clericalism has hampered the life of the Church and has been the main cause of the sex abuse crisis.  Although clericalism had emerged as an important theme before the summit, it was amazing to see how many speakers condemned it as a significant problem that the hierarchy must work to eradicate.

Summit the Beginning of the End of Clericalism? – New Ways Ministry

Two days ago, I posted that it seemed that the Vatican’s Protection of Minors in the Church summit was not discussing the  repeatedly debunked idea that gay priests are the cause of the clergy sex abuse crisis.  My evidence for this claim rested on the fact that in none of the Vatican’s written or oral reports did the topic come up, and when journalists raised the issue in interviews and press conferences, the theory was roundly rebuked. Two other press outlets, The New York Times and America magazine,  ha

Source: The Last Word on Gay Priests and Clergy Sexual Abuse? – New Ways Ministry

So, the other shoe has finally dropped. The veil has been removed from what the French rather gloriously call a secret de Polichinelle ― an open secret: one that “everybody knows” but for which the evidence is both elusive and never really sought. The merely anecdotal is, at last, acquiring the contours of sociological visibility.

The structure of the clerical closet

Frédéric Martel’s book In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality and Hypocrisy is the first attempt of which I am aware at a properly researched answer to the question: “How and why is it that the principal institutional obstacle to LGBT rights at the worldwide level appears itself to be massively staffed by gay men?”

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Source: Welcome to my world: Notes on the reception of Frédéric Martel’s bombshell – ABC Religion & Ethics

People looking at cardinals’ vestments on display in the window of the Gammarelli tailor shop in Rome, 2014. (CNS/ Reuters/Max Rossi)

Deep inside Frédéric Martel’s earth-shaking exposé of clerical corruption, I came across the maxim attributed to Oscar Wilde, “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” In the Closet of the Vatican takes its reader deep inside the corridors of the Vatican as well as the apartments of curial cardinals and archbishops, where many, if not most, of the prelates Martel interviews lead lives of luxurious duplicity.

Source: Duplicity, hypocrisy of the prelates exposed in Martel’s ‘Closet’ book | National Catholic Reporter

A new report, shown exclusively to this programme, has revealed the psychological effect on people of faith who have undertaken so-called “gay conversion therapy”.

The study found that religious lesbian, gay and bisexual people experienced “significant harm”, with more than half reporting mental health issues, and nearly a third saying they had attempted suicide.

Source: The impact of gay conversion therapy on mental health in UK – Channel 4 News

A lead organizer for the Vatican’s summit on clergy sexual abuse this week has said homosexuality is neither a cause of abuse nor a central problem in the priesthood.

Answering journalists’ questions at a Vatican press conference on Monday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago offered generally positive statements in support of gay priests. Cupich is a lead organizer for the summit, “The Protection of Minors in the Church,” beginning today, February 21, and running to February 24. A full schedule and program for the summit can be found here. For a brief explainer about the summit, click here.

Source: Cupich: Data Clear that Homosexuality Not a Cause of Clergy Sexual Abuse – New Ways Ministry