Religious Folks Opposed to Gay Rights and Zen Meditation

by Michael Jones · 2010-06-22 15:02:00 UTC
Topics:

Zen MeditationArchbishop Timothy Dolan, the head of New York City's Catholic population, allegedly sent out a missive this week in advance of NYC's big gay pride weekend. His words of wisdom for Catholics in New York City? Stay away from gay pride, lest you endorse that wily homosexual agenda.

Not everyone is listening, of course. That includes a parish in New York City, St. Francis Xavier, which not only plans to show up to pride. They plan to march in it.

And that has many a conservative Catholic in the area none too pleased, including the fine folks at pewsitter.com. As "Staff Writer" writes over there, St. Francis Xavier Church is ruining the hard-earned reputation achieved by conservative Catholics to make the Catholic Church an unsafe space for gays and lesbians.

"The parish bulletin, available online, list among its scheduled activities meetings for Gay Catholics, Lesbian Catholics and a Zen meditation," pewsitter.com's "Staff Writer" says, while noting that the Church plans to have a presence at NYC pride.

Huh, bet you didn't know that Zen meditation was in direct violation of the Catechism, right?

Bravo to St. Francis Xavier. In a country where Catholic leaders are increasingly out of touch with people in the pews on issues pertaining to gay rights, it's refreshing to see some action on a parish level advancing equality and solidarity with LGBT folks.

As St. Francis Xavier writes on their Web site, "Each year a group of us gather to march in the Parade. We join in that section of the parade reserved for religious congregations. Through our efforts at handing out flyers about our welcoming parish, a number of people find their way to St. Francis Xavier and back to the Catholic Church."

This work is important. Not because I'm a lapsed Catholic and like to see the rather homophobic positions of the institutional Catholic Church put in check, ala groups like Catholics for Marriage Equality. But rather because in a sea of increasingly religious voices speaking out and marching for gay rights — the United Church of Christ, Lutherans, Jews, Methodists, Metropolitan Community Churches, Unitarians, and more — it's great to see some Catholic representation too.

Yes, Virginia, you can be Catholic and gay. Or Catholic and support gay rights. Or Catholic, supportive of gay rights, and way into Zen meditating. (Jesus considers that one a hat trick, and word has it you get extra points in heaven for adhering to all three.)

Photo credit: HaPe_Gera

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Transgender Woman Granted Equal Pension
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (9)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.