Three Years and Counting!
Today marks the third anniversary of Bondings 2.0! Wow! Does time fly by when you’re having fun!
When I wrote the first blog post on November 28, 2011, I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I hoped that I would be able to do blog posts about three times a week. Well, since that late November Monday, not one single day has gone by where we haven’t been able to find something worth blogging about. That says less about our determination and more about the fact that there is so much news about Catholic LGBT issues around our country and around our world.
This past year has been particularly plentiful with news, mainly because of Pope Francis and the synod, which kept Bob Shine and me very busy for most of the month of October. We tried to provide our readers with the best of what we were reading about the synod, not just to keep you informed, but so that you could share your own ideas about the event. Though the synod kept us busy, it was a “good” busy, and it is much more enjoyable to work late to get out good news than to get out bad news.
Unfortunately, there has been bad news this year, too. At the top of the negative list have to be the firing of so many LGBT people and supporters from Catholic institutions, and also the increase in repressive anti-gay laws around the globe. While we like to let our readers know about positive developments, it’s also our job to keep you informed about these troublesome events, too.
When we report bad news, we try to offer our readers some actions they can take to respond positively to such events. This year, we have encouraged Catholics to promote the idea of employment non-discrimination policies in their schools and parishes to help end the firings of LGBT people. We also instituted the #PopeSpeakOut campaign to encourage Pope Francis to raise his voice against repressive anti-LGBT laws.
This blog truly is social media. It is not just a one-way flow of communication from us to you, but involves you as commenters and as action-takers, too! And we greatly appreciate the many “tips” and “leads” that people send us about news and happenings.
We will have one more post next week about other ways that you can help to support the blog. Hint: the post will appear on what has become known as “Giving Tuesday.” But donations are not the only way you will be asked to help.
So, happy birthday to us all! And watch out for us in the coming year! Just remember how inquisitive and precocious three-year olds can be!
–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry
Happy 3rd birthday and thank you.
Congratulations and Happy Birthday !
Please keep up your good work for the Kingdom of God.
God Bless
Congratulations, Frank. You all have done an excellent job! Bondings 2.0 has become a critical tool in keeping abreast of LGBT issues and a motivator for redress and affirmative change. Thank you.
Frank, Thank you so much for Bondings 2.0. I look forward to yours and Bob’s post every day. It is greatly appreciated !
Thank you, Frank. Bondings 2.0 has been a comfort.
Thank you, Frank and Bob. I appreciate being able to keep up with the news affecting GLBT persons across the country, and beyond. Please continue.
Congratulation and thank you very much for your marvelous ministration. In the past three years I often informed the Hungarian speaking visitors of kaleidoscope.blog.hu based on your very interesting posts. I wanted to drew the attention of Hungarian LGBT Catholic persons in a new post of the blog: http://kaleidoscope.blog.hu/2014/12/01/boldog_szulinapot_bondings_2
God bless you!