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Pope Benedict XVI will be in Washington next week. His relentlessly anti-gay doctrinal stances have alienated some of the country’s
67 million Catholics. (Photo by Gregorio Borgia/AP)
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“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
“The church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
“Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependence would be used to place them in an environment” inappropriate for their full human development.”
“The church, while deeply respecting the people in question, cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture.”
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO J
COMMENTS
 
Gay Catholics in Washington and New York have announced plans to greet Pope Benedict XVI on his first visit to the United States next week with peaceful protests and public statements declaring their intention to remain in the church, despite official teachings calling homosexuality an “objective disorder.”
Members of the national gay Catholic group Dignity said they hope the pope’s visit will draw attention to a phenomenon that often has gone unnoticed by the public and the media. While the Catholic hierarchy in Rome continues to condemn homosexuality as contrary to church teachings, they point to a growing number of Catholic parishes, priests and lay leaders throughout the U.S. who are welcoming gay people into their fold.
“Many of us believe the real church is not just the pope and the hierarchy in the Vatican,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA. “More and more people are coming to believe the essence of the church is the people who make up the parishes, including the priests and the laity. They are the folks who come to know and understand everyone who worships together, including GLBT people.”
But Duddy-Burke and other gay Catholic activists acknowledge that the church hierarchy, especially Pope Benedict and the hard-line conservative cadre of cardinals appointed by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, play a powerful role in setting the tone and policies that touch directly upon the parishes, priests and rank-and-file Catholics everywhere.
Benedict himself has been credited with playing a pivotal role in strengthening the church’s opposition to homosexuality during his tenure since the early 1980s as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under his former name of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
It was during that period that Ratzinger pushed through a controversial October 1986 letter to Catholic bishops declaring homosexuality an “objective disorder” and describing sexual relations between gay people as an “intrinsic moral evil.”
The 1986 declaration retained an earlier Vatican policy that recognized a homosexual “inclination” as being “innate” and not a sin. However, theologians and gay Catholic activists said the new terms of “objective disorder” and “intrinsic moral evil” set the tone for harsher policies toward gays among bishops and cardinals in the U.S.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Mt. Rainier, Md. based group that advocates for reconciliation between gay Catholics and the church, noted that the 1986 declaration included additional language that prompted most U.S. bishops to ban Dignity from holding any of its activities, including its weekly Sunday Mass, in Catholic churches.
Although Dignity was not mentioned by name, church leaders immediately recognized that Ratzinger and Vatican officials were referring to Dignity and similar gay Catholic groups when they stated in the 1986 declaration, “All support should be withdrawn from any organizations which seek to undermine the teaching of the Church … Special attention should be given to the practice of scheduling religious services and the use of Church buildings by these groups.”
Prior to the declaration, many U.S. Catholic churches and religious institutions, including Georgetown University in Washington, allowed Dignity to hold religious services at their facilities. Under pressure from the Vatican, Georgetown officials forced Dignity to move. Since then, the group has held its weekly Mass at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church near Dupont Circle.
The 1986 Vatican edict and other church pronouncements critical of homosexuality, along with separate positions by the church opposing legal rights or recognition for same-sex couples, led many gay Catholics to question whether they should remain in the church, DeBernardo said.
Gay journalist Chuck Colbert, who has written for the National Catholic Reporter, a publication independent of the church, said many gays left the church, with some joining more gay-friendly Christian denominations like the Episcopal Church or the United Church of Christ.
Colbert and DeBernardo said many others, however, chose to remain with the Catholic Church, partially because their strong Catholic upbringing established the church as central to their identity.
Officials with Dignity and New Ways Ministry say the gay Catholics who remained in the church, along with their families and friends, appear to have started what some believe has been a quiet but steady change in the church at the parish level over the past 20 years.
New Ways Ministry has compiled a list of more than 200 gay-friendly Catholic parishes in the United States. Many of them have established official gay outreach ministries and allow gay parishioners and their friends and family members to hold meetings in the churches, which are announced in the official church bulletin.
In Washington, St. Matthew’s Cathedral and Holy Trinity and St. ...
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