Gay Catholic group speaks out against pope
Steve Freiss, Gay.com /
PlanetOut.com Network
Friday, August 8, 2003 / 04:50 PM
SUMMARY: Dignity/USA,
a group of gay Catholics, plans a mass blessing of same-sex unions in
Las Vegas Sunday. The action comes a week after the Vatican condemned
the practice.
A week after the Vatican condemned same-sex marriages and
homosexuality in general, dozens of gay Catholic couples plan to
affirm their commitments in Las Vegas Sunday. The group ceremony will
cap the 16th convention of Dignity/USA.
The event has become one part of the national gay Catholic
organization's answer to those and other papal attacks as the group
convenes for the first time since the church's sex-abuse scandal last
year. The Vatican blamed the scandal largely on the existence of gay
priests.
Both controversies loomed large over the conference as it opened
Thursday night with a fiery admonition from Dignity President Patrick
McArron, who called the Vatican's actions forms of "spiritual
terrorism."
"We have come under vicious attack from within our own
church," he told the 300 attendees. "I would be lying to you
if I did not say that I have been very angry with the elite old-boys
club, and it is time to say, 'No more.' Enough is enough. "
On July 31, the Vatican issued "Considerations Regarding
Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual
Persons," a 12-page
edict that branded gay relationships as "against the natural
moral law" and warned Catholic politicians around the world that
supporting legislation recognizing same-sex couples would be
"gravely immoral."
Sunday's ceremony, the first of its kind for a national Dignity
conference, will not be a full-fledged Catholic wedding but rather a
group affirmation of the couples and their commitments, as some have
already had more formal ceremonies. Nonetheless, the long-planned
event is taking on a new significance amid the current furor.
"Because the Vatican threw down the gauntlet on this issue of
same-sex marriage, the fact that a week later we're doing this
blessing will be seen by some as an act of defiance," Dignity
Executive Director Marianne Duddy said. "In some ways, it is. We
should be allowed -- like all other couples -- to define our own
relationships, and to have them honored and celebrated. Making a
commitment to another person is a sacred act. It is no less sacred if
it's two women or two men than if it's a man and a woman."
Dignity will also issue a new statement on gay
marriage, expected to be approved by members on Saturday, that
insists there's nothing inconsistent about being gay and Catholic,
despite the Vatican's claims. "The love that brings and binds two
people of the same, or opposite, sex together has a divine
source," the position paper concludes. "It is therefore
sacramental in nature, and should be celebrated as such by our
church."
That view was backed up Friday by a keynote address from Richard
Sipe, a psychotherapist and former Benedictine monk who for decades
has studied the problems created by the requirement that Catholic
clergy remain celibate. In his speech, Sipe insisted that the pope
misleads the flock by not taking science into account when
interpreting the scriptures, and that the Vatican's inappropriate
approach to sex fostered an atmosphere that resulted in widespread
sexual abuse by priests.
"I do not hesitate to say that the church's teaching on human
sexuality is not correct," Sipe said. "Its basis of biblical
revelation and interpretation is insufficient to account for the
realities we already know."
Gay
Catholic group speaks out against pope
Steve Freiss, Gay.com /
PlanetOut.com Network
Friday, August 8, 2003 / 04:50 PM
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