From Frank DeBenardo, at New Ways Ministry:
Three Catholic LGBTQ leaders have proposed “Kick-starting a new Catholic conversation” on sexuality and gender, with the focus of the discussion being the first-hand personal experiences of LGBTQ people instead of church teaching.
Mary Hunt, Marianne Duddy-Burke, and Jamie Manson penned an essay for The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) in which they call for a conversation where LGBTQ people, not church figures, will be the primary authorities. They write:
“We are Catholic lesbian/queer women who enjoy our sexuality and rejoice in our relationships. We love out loud. It is time to listen to the experiences and expertise of people who speak with integrity rather than authority, whose lives are not circumscribed by clericalism, people who are free to be honest and transparent.
“We need wisdom from many Catholic perspectives, not limiting ‘Catholic’ to institutional church teaching on matters on which the vast majority of Catholics have left the hierarchy behind. It is time to grow up and use ‘I’ statements instead of making pronouncements or pretending to be above the fray.”
Frank’s point is well made. The call to tell our stories is sound – I think it was the theologian Alain Thomasett who described it as a form of “narrative theology”. The Catholic writer Dugan McGinley called his account of published gay Catholic stories, “Acts of faith, acts of love”. Indeed, telling our stories do amount to acts of faith, even as “sacred texts“– testimony. What surprises me with this call, is that it described as “kick-starting a new conversation”. In fact, we’ve been telling our stories for decades. The problem as you point out, is that for too long, not enough senior Catholic leaders have listened. Thankfully, there are now signs that this is finally starting to change.
More at : New Ways Ministry
Related posts:
- Our Stories As “Sacred Texts”
- Telling our LGBT stories is prophetic
- WHY Our Stories Matter
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