To mark International Women’s Day earlier this week, the group Voices of Faith held an event in Rome about women in the Catholic Church. Titled “Why Women Matter,” the event featured two LGBT advocates, former Irish President Mary McAleese and lesbian Catholic Ssenfuka Joanita Warry. The event also prompted a civil exchange between McAleese and an Irish bishop.
Organizers of Staten Island’s St. Patrick’s Day parade barred an LGBT group from participating in the event last weekend because, the parade’s president said, it was not a “sexual identification parade.”
A bishop’s recognition of lesbian and gay relationships have been removed from a video produced in anticipation of the 2018 World Meeting of Families scheduled for this August.
The blog Daily Theology had an interesting back-and-forth about Fr. James Martin, SJ’s new book, Building a Bridge. The conversation centered on whether academic theologians were sufficiently engaged a book that has made sizeable waves in the Church, and what it means to do public theology.
A lesbian couple in Texas have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bbishops and the U.S. government for allegedly barring the couple from becoming foster parents to a refugee child.
A church worker in Michigan has been forced to resign after her Catholic employer and the local diocese expressed concern about the worker’s upcoming same-gender marriage.
The recent firing of two gay church workers has prompted new reflections on what is truly scandalous about these employment disputes and the damage they are causing.
Bishop John Stowe of Lexington has been named the bishop-president of Pax Christi USA, according to the National Catholic Reporter. Bishop Stowe has an LGBT-positive record. . .
Lesbian/gay stories were included in preparatory materials for the 2018 World Meeting of Families, a potential sign that this year’s gathering in Dublin may be more inclusive than past events.
Today, Bondings 2.0 features an interview with Fr. Martin about what has been added in the new edition, how he responds to critics, and why the book has both challenged and consoled him.