Father James Martin, SJ, author of Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity, was received this morning by Pope Francis in a private audience at the Vatican.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia penned a critique of Jesuit Father James Martin’s pastoral outreach to LGBT people. Unfortunately, Archbishop Chaput is wrong in almost all of his assertions.
Here at New Ways Ministry, we frequently point out that LGBTQ people offer great gifts to our institutional church. I was recently reminded that LGBTQ people also offer gifts to another kind of “church” beyond the institutional: the domestic church, meaning the family home.
Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration, commemorating the event where Jesus brought Peter, James, John, to the mountain top and revealed His beautiful and true identity as God. We invite you to reflect on the importance and symbols of this story as they apply to you as an LGBTQ person or ally.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion when LGBT customers of the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York City resisted arrest during a raid and began four days of very public demonstrations for equality in the streets of Greenwich Village. Take a few moments to be quiet and pray in thanksgiving for all who have gone before us and paved the way for where we are now.
Another LGBTQ teacher at an Indianapolis Catholic high school has been fired because of an ultimatum presented by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis: fire the teacher or lose the right to call the school “Catholic.” Coming just days after another Catholic high school in the same city lost its ability to call itself “Catholic” for refusing to fire another LGBTQ teacher, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, for the good of the Church, to stop and re-consider its punitive policies.
The leaders of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis have taken a courageous step by standing by their teacher who is involved in a civil same-gender marriage.
The Vatican’s new document on gender identity, “Male and Female He Created Them,” is a harmful tool that will be used to oppress and harm not only transgender people, but lesbian, gay, bisexual people, too. The document associates sexual and gender minorities with libertine sexuality, a gross misrepresentation of the lives of LGBT people which perpetuates and encourages hatred, bigotry, and violence against them.
A dance performance video, entitled “Hallelujah,” was set and filmed in Quebec’s historic Church of St. Pierre Apôtre. Its a queer love story produced by Matthew Richardson–and the church leaders were happy to host it.
A Catholic gay couple in Kentucky have established a scholarship fund for Catholic LGBT college students.