Sun

I genuinely appreciate the well-intended nature of your post. Furthermore, I can understand the reference to "crimes against humanity".

However, I am slightly uneasy by your reference to "poor biblical scholarship". I don't think that, in itself, is a bad thing. I think about faith and my Catholicism a lot. For me, the bible isn't the be all and end all. In fact, far from it. Biblical scholarship doesn't appeal to me.

Give me a living church with its many faults, and worshipers who often fail, rather than something that places too significant focus on writings of previous millenia.



I don't despair. There's always been a significant amount of good and evil in the church. There always will be. Good attracts evil, certainly on spiritual matters.

Similarly, there's good and bad in the leadership of the church. I, for one, am confident that the good will triumph over the bad but this will take time and will be a prolonged process. The phrase "Rome wasn't built in a day" is rather apt.

Not all of us here are recovering Catholics or feel the need to look elsewhere for spiritual comfort. I'm openly and unashamedly Roman Catholic and my individual identity, and the insights and the challenges that this provides are fundamental to my Catholicism and how I experience it.

I was raised Roman Catholic, but my parents weren't staunch.
When I do go to church, I don't think about my sexuality or worry about how the church is going to view me. I go to church for God, not for anyone else.

I guess after too many years of catholic school, I became immune to the doctrines and the judgments. Only One is going to ultimately judge me, so I figure in the meantime, I just live in my faith in a way that makes me comfortable.

We are not welcome to take the Eucharist, ever. If you are actively homosexual you are automatically out of communion with the Church and in a state of mortal sin. Heck, if you miss a Sunday to watch your nephew in a school play, you are out of communion with the Church and not welcome to take the Eucharist until you've gone to confession and been forgiven. In the faith the Eucharist is actually Jesus, his literal body. Mass is not just a service it's a recreation of his death. When you stand before the alter it's the *same* as being present at the crucifixion. Would you miss the crucifixion or would you consume his flesh while in a state of mortal sin? Of course not. The only way to heaven in the Catholic religion for us is to promise to sin no more and that means to promise never to have a homosexual relationship again.

Sorry, I get emotional about this...I'm a former Catholic and there are so many things I love and miss about the faith and traditions, but I will not accept that I'm hell bound because of who I choose to love. If God and Jesus exist I was made this way for a reason.

Angeltoes, which is why we say prior to the Eucharist (in the newly translated Mass) "Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." This, like a good condensed Act of Contrition, is an admission of the congregation that we are sinners and we can't help but be as such. My entire Catholic upbringing, among Jesuits, was pretty much the law of, "Well, we're sinners. What does that mean, anyhow? That we were born with the capacity to sin? Instead of saying we suck because we're sinners, we accept that we're made perfectly by God and can only attain grace when we have repented fully when He comes again, so in the meantime try not to hurt anyone and be as good as possible."

This is how I see sin, and my role in the world as a person. I'll repent no more for my queerness than I will for anything else - only God can judge, and I receive the Eucharist as an out queer in my church and nobody has ever stopped me. Their perception of sin may be different from mine, but God is loving - people can be dicks. La fin. :)

I was raised Catholic and hold some very strong beliefs that are still attached to that upbringing. During those years I found differences in the churches acceptance of who I am and how I live and express who I am in this world. In my late 20's I went to my priest and had discussed many of the topics that concerned me over the years regarding the teachings of the church and my life. What I loved about my priest and several others was their view of the scripture and their passion when stating that the bible truly does not mention anything about my life being a sin. They actually were very supportive and re-assured me that "I" was created in the image of God...in a "perfect likeness" and that I was designed and placed on this earth for a purpose.

In one of our many conversations I had mentioned my desire to move forward in the church but could not as the rules stood. It was my priest that advised me to seek out the priest at a local Episcopal church. He stated that there I would find the same teachings as the catholic church, but that there was no confession and all are welcome for communion. He went on to tell me that within that denomination I would find openly gay and lesbian priest and felt I would find what I was seeking there. He was right. I found open arms and began my discernment, studied theology and became a Deacon. I had the privilege of watching the first gay bishop become ordained in NH.

The journey was hard because what is taught in theology classes was not the same as the things preached in Sunday service. My faith was tested many times over. In the theology classes I took, every word of the bible was broken down and challenged. Where each passage came from..who really wrote it...etc.

I had never seen or experienced anything like it...the passion, tears, and joy that revolved around each topic discussed by each person there. At times I felt angry and deceived but found my faith in God remained through it all. As time went on I decided to take sabbatical and became an ordained minister years later while finishing my education as a counselor. I am not currently with a church because of a relocation, but I am never fair from my relationship with God and faith.

I don't agree with everything the church teaches...I have asked many questions and continue to ask...because it was Jesus who said "if you do not ask the questions you shall not find the answer" and this another "if you look under a rock you will find me, if you look under a wood/tree branch you will find me too" it is questioned if God is to have said it or Jesus..but these are parts of the missing bible scriptures..the ones the church deemed not needed for redemption at the time the bible was put together.

I think for each of us it is a journey and each journey is different ...none being right and none being wrong, because it is our own journey. So, I never fight about my beliefs..I may discuss them but I shall never fight over them and ask that others respect and treat me the same.

I am not Catholic but I went to a Jesuit college and I really appreciated that approach to learning. I learned about Dorothy Day there and I love the commitment to social justice in the Catholic faith. I have read about the great work so many orders of nuns have done and in particular that they have taken on the Church in many instances.

ETA I was particularly impressed with Joe Biden's answer in the debates this year about how his faith informs his public service.

Sun - there was no offence taken.


I was simply indicating that my religion isn't a part of a textbook but a part of my DNA. I don't know what my ancestors think on the subject of LGBT rights but would be surprised if they've heard of Levicitus. Similarly, I don't give a damn what "biblical scholars" think. My (Roman) Catholicism isn't a belief that can be explained by religious scripts or textbooks or understood in the halls of academia. I am glad of that.


For me, my Roman Catholicm is a part of my identity and a part of my value-judgement system. It's integral to, and an evolvement of, something that my forefathers and foremothers not only believed in but fought for and represented. My Catholicism isn't about some verse in the bible that I have never read nor understood.


Rather, it's about my mother, then aged 15, who with her mother and priest heard a banshee on the night her father died at the age of 50. He was a non-smoker and took his first ever alcohol, a shot of brandy, that night. The banshee is said to only appear when those most devout of the Irish are dying.

My Catholicism is also about my father's people - years spent at graveyard Sundays praying respects for family members I didn't know and now doing exactly the same but, as I and we all age, for family members that I do know.

Roman Catholicism isn't easy. I have significant issues with the Roman Catholic church - admittedly these are very different from most here. My issues with the church aren't to do with LGBT aspects but rather nationality / politics .

The church in Ireland has generally been viewed as Irish nationalist and parts of the church have been very sympathetic towards Irish republicanism. Conversely, I'm the polar opposite politically - and have been all my life. I have an absolute hatred of all forms of Irish nationalism and republicanism, violent or otherwise.

This caused me to turn my back on the church for many years - I was already coming back to it but time spent in the Philippines in 2008 speeded that process up.

I go to mass an average of once a week - sometimes more, sometimes less. Often, here in London, I go to the Soho Masses, a mass aimed towards LGBT Catholic folk in London. However, I am as happy to go to more mainstream services and when I'm back to Belfast over Christmas, I'll be at mass four or five times alongside a very conservative congregation and will be accepted with nothing but lovingness and warmth.

I've never been made not to feel welcome or a part of the Catholic community - which is just as well as it's a community I won't be leaving until I'm in the ground.


Give me holy water, a crucifix and sacred heart on my desert island.

This has been a difficult week to be Catholic, especially here in London. This evening was our last ever Soho Mass, something that's generated significant press attention both in the UK and continental Europe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21490633


Some of the press coverage has been inaccurate and, in any event, our LGBT Catholic community has found another Roman Catholic church in which to worship but there's been hurt and heartache in how this has come about.


With that said, this evening's final service was tremendously powerful and reaffirming for me and, I think, for many others too. We had seven priests (yes, SEVEN) to celebrate the mass tonight as a sign of support and to demonstrate that we are very much a part of the Catholic community.


The Church was packed. It was standing room only with LGBT Catholics, friends, families and allies. Ironically, despite these obstacles, my Roman Catholic faith is stronger today than it has ever been before.


This evening's service concluded with the following song. I'd never heard it before but it is truly beautiful:

Not a practicing Roman Catholic, but I suddenly had a memory this morning.

When I was in college the first go-around (so 1981-85), I didn't follow any particular faith, having left my parents' church several years before. I still felt some kind of need for a spiritual practice, so even though I wasn't a Roman Catholic, I went to Mass at the Church a block from my dorm. As I recall, I asked a Catholic friend "How do you go to Mass"?, so I didn't make a fool out of myself.

It may seem a shallow reason for attending, but St. George's was the most beautiful church I had ever seen. It was a historic building in the University neighborhood, right up next to gas stations, a disco, and fast food restaurants.

Someone upthread quoted the prayer right before Eucharist-the part about being unworthy, but say the word and my spirit will be healed. I remember being so moved by that, and I certainly needed healing and lots of it. For many reasons, I was pretty much like a broken down car and completely out of spiritual gas.

I always snapped to attention at the benediction-"The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face towards you and grant you peace" Well, I needed all those things, massively. Upon the benediction, I felt I could keep going for another week. It filled me.

So I did the whole thing-went to classes, had a kind of confirmation ceremony, and Eucharist, I believe. I eventually left Cincinnati but remained a practicing Roman Catholic back in *hometown also beginning with a C*.

There's no good reason why I stopped, except that a few years after I went home, I moved out again and across the country and began a pretty wild (read: irresponsible) lifestyle for a few years. I wonder if I'd stuck to it, and received that benediction every week, if I would have gotten so far off track.

I never formally left the Church, if there is such a thing. It's a very long story, but I bounced around through several Protestant denominations and Episcopal (very Roman Catholic-like in service while still Protestant), then even some time as an Evangelical before leaving Christianity altogether and currently struggling between Judaism and Quakerism.

But even if I'm not a Christian and have serious questions about theology, I still remember how centered I felt during those services. My life fell apart, but spiritually, I had a community and I loved the beauty.

Out of curiosity, I looked up St. George's. Sadly, attendance declined in the years after I was there, with the growth of the University and changing neighborhood. It closed in 1993, and combined with a church a few miles away. I was glad to hear that the beautiful building was saved from being wrecked, and I hope it continues thus.

I thought I'd update this thread again with some reflections from here in London.


Firstly, a wider issue impacting the Roman Catholic church here in the UK and that is the resignation last week of Cardinal Keith O'Brien. O'Brien was the most senior Catholic here in UK and was to be the only UK representative who was going to be able to vote in upcoming papal conclave.


His resignation was forced through by the Vatican following allegations from four priests that he had engaged with them in sexual activity - and some suggestions that he had used undue influence in this regard. After initially refuting the allegations, he has now admitted that his sexual conduct has at times "fallen beneath the standards expected of me".


As an outspoken opponent of LGBT marriage and having made numerous homophobic pronouncements through his tenure, the hypocracy was glaring. Yet there is also something incredibly sad about it all - a man potentially so untrue to himself that any legacy of his life was all about a lie.


On more local matters, our LGBT Catholic community here in London had its first service in our Farm Street church on Sunday. Until now, we've had our own standalone service, for LGBT folk and friends and families but that was recently brought to an end by the Archbishop of London.


Instead, he suggested that we should integrate with the wider Roman Catholic community here in London - of course, most of us already do at other times of worship anyway. There was a fear from many of us that this was a deliberate attempt to marginalise us and to make us invisible within the London Catholic community. Many of us have been cynical.


We are now worshiping at Farm Street in London's Mayfair. It's a truly beautiful church:

http://www.panoramicstudio.co.uk/church/


The church was packed on Sunday evening - standing room only in fact. At first, I felt a sense of isolation and loneliness - it all seemed somewhat foreign to me, many strange faces and the lack of common welcome I had been used to at our "Soho Masses".


It all seemed a bit too stilted also .... and initially, as I looked around, I saw only strangers. Then, one-by-one, I saw that there were many of us LGBT Catholics who'd made the journey from our old church to this one. We exist.


So far, the non-LGBT parishioners have been incredibly welcoming to us, as have the priests of the parish. Furthermore, after Sunday's service, the Archbishop of London held a reception for us and, whilst I didn't stay for this, he apparently engaged in an open, honest and constructive debate. It's the first time that openly LGBT Catholics here in the UK have had such direct engagement with such a senior representative of the Church. That's got to be encouraging.


So where to from here? I don't know but, for me, the words of Yves Congar, a Dominican theological, resonate ..... in particular, to paraphrase, that our lives and our faiths are characterised by journeys and that we should never think we've arrived as our lives are nomadic and we never really know our ultimate destination. I'm on that journey.

I love this! Thank you for your thoughtful posts, insights, and faith.

Just catching a few minutes of the election of the Pope on TV. I thought it was unusual that the press would be invited in there; I don't think this is a part of the Vatican that regular people ever get to see. Still, I've always wanted to see what is open, such as the Sistine Chapel. Truly a beautiful place.

Even if whoever is Pope doesn't affect me in any way, it will be interesting to see if it's someone "traditional", or if they go with someone outside the box. There's no rule that the Pope can't be black, or American (controversies aside).

Thought I'd refresh this thread. I'm refreshing it not to talk of theology or to try to convince others that the Catholic church is slowly but surely changing for the better - although I do think it is. Rather, just to share an update on my own Roman Catholicism.


Most Saturdays, I watch football (aka soccer), drink a few, or more, beers and spend too much money shopping. Today, however, I went to a full day workshop for LGBT Catholics in London. Entitled, "Next Steps", it was just that i.e. each of us working out our next steps on our Catholic journey.


I'm not sure if my Catholic faith is still growing stronger. However, I do know that it's increasingly important to me. I appreciate that for many, maybe most, being LGBT and Catholic is a contradiction in terms. However, to me, it's the opposite. For me, as bizarre as it may sound, I find it easier to reconcile my genderqueerness through my Catholicism than through anything else.


I've been luckier than most. Unlike many others, my home parish (in Northern Ireland) was always been welcoming to me. It still is. It remains an important part of my life, especially when I come home. I return to the church as often as I can - in fact, I was able to convince Tmbyfem, a member here, to accompany me to a beautiful Christmas Eve service a few years ago when she was visiting from San Diego.


That church is where my mother first took me to mass over 37 years ago. More recently, a few weeks ago when my mum visited London, I had the opportunity to take her to my current parish here in London. It's at Farm Street, Mayfair - where our active LGBT "Soho Masses" community now celebrates it mass and where today's workshop was held. Bringing my mum to this church was incredibly affirming for me on many levels. She, a conversative Catholic, has become an active proponent of LGBT rights and visibility within the church. I should never have expected any less given the unconditional love she has always shown to me - but, all the same, I'm still really pleased about it all.


So today's workshop? Well, it was important to me. I don't always like living in London and it will never be my home. However, today reminded me that I'm fortunate to live somewhere that's cosmopolitan enough to have a real and active LGBT Catholic community. The opportunity to interact on a real and meaningful level with other LGBT Catholics is invaluable to those who do have a Catholic faith and want to reconcile it to their non-heteronormative gender identity / sexuality.


In particular, here in London which has been the focus of much of the global media attention on LGBT rights within the Catholic chuch over recent months given the church authority's decision to stop our LGBT-focused masses. Our previous LGBT-focused mass was ended by the church authorities as, so they said, they wanted LGBT Catholics to form part of a wider, active, functioning parish. There were, and remain, many doubters. They might have a point - the number of visible LGBT Catholics at our regular masses is said to have dropped.


Notwithstanding that, we remain a real community and we are now becoming a real part of a wider parish community. The existing "straight" parishioners have accepted us with open arms - unambiguously so. The parish has had one letter of complaint about our involvement and that letter came from a non-parishioner. Just as we are gaining from the parish, the existing parishioners are (hopefully) benefiting from us too. We're taking part in wider parish communities and existing parishioners are coming to some of our social functions. There's learning on both sides - and, yes, we are becoming a real and meaningful part of parish life.


As a part of today's workshop, we were each asked to decide upon a number of personal commitments to make or undertake over the next twelve months. One of mine, rather spontaneous, is to complete a Lough Derg pilgrimage. It's a rather harsh pilgrimage on a remote island off the western Irish coast. I've wanted to do this for some time but have lacked the courage, probably due to an uneasiness as to how my genderqueerness will be accepted.


Sometimes, however, you just need to take that next step .....................

As a practicing Catholic, welcome in My local church with open arms, along with the rest of our LGBTQ family. I found this to be very disheartening

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com...13/05/05/66442

Ciaran,

I commend you on your faith journey and will remember you in my daily prayers. I've heard of Lough Derg and that it is considered possibly the harshest of pilgrimages. What I would tell you is not to be afraid. If you are called to it then there is purpose for it. Let your faith strengthen you and the full armor of God cover you.

As a Catholic I struggle with some of the tenants......I do not believe that communion becomes the actual body of Christ or wine His blood, I do not believe that unborn babies that have not been baptized go to Limbo.....I do not believe in baptism that is not full immersion and completed before the person baptized asks for it (that is probably the Baptist in me.....I claim dual citizenship)......I do not believe in sex for procreation only or that using birth protection is a sin.......I do not believe in confession or the need for a priest or saint to be an intermediary between myself and God.......I do not believe in praying to the Saints.....I do not believe in the section of the Apostle's Creed that states, "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church." I know you are probably thinking well what the hell is Catholic about this guy then? I don't know the answer to that. All I can tell you is that when I first really saw my faith, that first time I really felt it, everything I knew started to unravel. Maybe I don't have the right to be there anymore.

This article made me feel so angry/frustrated - we are outsiders in a Church that supposedly welcomes us all...

Hope is eternal

I miss my parish community during Lent, this year more than others. I've been looking for a lgbt rosary group. I like the offices online, but I almost always pray the rosary. Even at my most atheistic moments I just can't give it up. The first decade I pray for my family and us, LGBTQ, our safety, comfort, respect, equality, spirituality, a loving accepting church.
If you hear of a group doing this please post it here. Or, join in at 9pm.