Equal Rights are a Catholic Concept, Too

For more than three decades, New Ways Ministry has been working to advance equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics within the Church. That work has involved compiling lists of LGBT-friendly parishes, LGBT-friendly universities, lobbying on behalf of LGBT civil rights, and calling the Catholic Church to reach out compassionately for the inclusion of gay and lesbian people.

The organization started in the late 1970s, inspired by Brooklyn Catholic Bishop Francis Mugavero's call that gay and lesbian people should be treated equally in society.

But what a difference thirty years makes. That spirit of inclusion and finding a new way for LGBT people and the Church to come together has been replaced by a Church leadership that routinely works to take away the civil rights of LGBT people. In Maine. In California. In New Jersey. In Hawaii. And now the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is aiming his target at New Ways Ministry, telling the organization that they should no longer consider themselves legitimately Catholic because they support and are pastoral to LGBT people.

"[New Ways Ministry's] claim to be Catholic only confuses the faithful regarding the authentic teaching and ministry of the Church with respect to persons with a homosexual inclination," said Bishop Francis George. "Accordingly, I wish to make it clear that, like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of Church teaching, New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States."

But here's a newsflash. Bishop Francis George is just a man. He might have a title in front of his name, but when I look up the word pastoral, I don't see his brand of condemnation. Instead, I see the mission of folks like New Ways Ministry who have worked to build bridges between the Church and queer people for thirty years.

For their part, New Ways Ministry issued a statement saying that they were surprised by Bishop Francis George's comments. Turns out the Bishop never opened a conversation with the group, instead deciding to pen a statement from abroad. How very passive aggressive.

"We are astonished that Cardinal George released such a statement, since New Ways Ministry has never been contacted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to discuss the nature of our work," said Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director of New Ways Ministry. "We were not even extended the basic courtesy of being informed of the statement as it was being released to the press. Instead, we learned about it only by reading a press account."

What has happened to the U.S. Catholic Church? Thirty years ago, Bishop Mugavero called on society to treat LGBT people as equal. Heck, even as recently as 1997 the Church issued a statement affirming that LGBT people were "always God's children."

Now, if Bishop Francis George is to be believed, you can't even be pastoral to LGBT people and still consider yourself officially Catholic. Where's the love, sir?

Catholics believe in Jesus. If biblical accounts are to be believed, Jesus was a man who loved his enemies, worked with those who were oppressed and suffered violence, and a man who treated people equally. He's also a man that during the course of his lifetime, never said one thing disparaging about homosexuality.

Maybe Bishop George, and the entire institutional Church, could use a refresher course. Meanwhile, I don't care what Bishop George says. The principles behind New Ways Ministry are the very reason I still feel a connection with the church. No man, whether he's got the word Bishop, Deacon, Cardinal or Pope before his name, is going to tell me otherwise.

Photo credit: andycoan