Tag Archives: Global Network of Rainbow Catholics

Global Rainbow Catholics Condemn LGBT Criminalisation

Under the biblical motto “Hear a Just Cause” (Psalm 17,1), almost 100 Rainbow Catholics from 35 countries gathered in Munich-Dachau from November 30th to December 3rd, 2017, in order to develop a common agenda for the future.

A special focus of the assembly was on the African region,  where legal criminalisation in some countries and social persecution in others lead to conditions where LGBTIQ people in many African countries are endangered in their everyday lives. One of several working groups convened during the assembly focused specifically on this issue of criminalisation.





Continue reading Global Rainbow Catholics Condemn LGBT Criminalisation

LGBT Catholics, Working for Change

At the end of this month, I will join LGBT Catholics and their parents in Munich for  conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics. This follows an earlier gathering in Rome, 2015, where we appointed  a steering committee to formally set up the legal and procedural framework for a permanent body.  The forthcoming conference will approve the statutes, and begin the serious work of expanding pastoral care for LGBT Catholics, extending dialogue and advocacy work with Catholic bishops, and countering church support for legal sanctions against LGBT people.

The German theologian Michael Brinkschroder has, for the past two years, been one of the two co-presidents of the steering committee. In this article published on the GNRC website, he discusses his experience of being both gay and Catholic, as well as his hopes for the GNRC.

The Catholic theologian, sociologist (PhD) and religious education teacher Michael Brinkschröder is gay. Instead of turning his back on the church, he is fighting for acceptance and equality for gays and lesbians in the Roman Catholic Church.




Continue reading LGBT Catholics, Working for Change

Help Me Get to the Global Rainbow Catholics Conference!

Two years ago, I was at the inaugural conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics in Rome, coinciding with the start of the Bishops’ Synod Assembly on Marriage and Family.

That conference set up a steering committee, to put the organisation on a sound footing to continue solid work to promote full LGBT inclusion and equality in the Catholic Church. The steering committee has now completed its work. At the end of this month, the GNRC will be formally constituted at a conference in Rome. I will be there. 

In addition to the formal approval of the body’s statutes and the election of a board, this will be very much a working conference, with four study groups preparing plans for continuing work. I have asked to be allocated to either the group working on tools and strategies for advocacy with Catholic bishops, or that tasked with improving pastoral care for LGBT Catholics. In addition, I will be urging the conference to send a strong delegation of LGBT Catholics to the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin, where by our simple presence we can provide valuable testimony to the reality of LGBT Catholic lives, present empirical research to counter the prevalent myths promoted by our enemies, and possible even address the full assembly.

However, to get there I need your help. Please support my “Go Fund Me” page.

It´s been almost two years from the first time the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics gathered, for its genesis in Rome on October 2015 and in parallel to the Extraordinary Synod of the Family. Since then Pope Francis, male and female religious, lay members and our local LGBTI pastoral care groups pronounced diverse speeches or took different actions related to LGBTI issues within the Catholic Church. While some of them are great approaches for justice and inclusion for LGBTI´s and their families, there are still many others that sustain the need to keep an open and direct dialogue with the whole Church and society. “We have made a lot of local efforts, but indeed a single and global voice with our lay Community, the Curia and the Vatican itself is needed”, explains Benjamin Oh, member of the GNRC Steering Committee and part of Acceptance Sydney (LGBTI Pastoral Care Group based in Australia). “We have made these journeys as independent initiatives, when there are a lot of synergies we can develop together as a Global Network”, complements Benjamin O.

So recognizing the benefits of the GNRC existence we are pleased to inform you that our 2nd GNRC Assembly will be held from 30th November to 3th December 2017 in Munich-Dachau (Germany). The conference title is “Hear a just cause” from Psalm 17. “Our time has come for social justice and our plea must be heard because it is indeed a just cause – and above all, urgent!” said Joseanne Peregin, also a member of the GNRC Steering Committee and part of Drachma´s Parents Group (LGBTI Pastoral Care Group based in Malta).

Source: Global Network of Rainbow Catholics

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LGBT Catholics: Global Conference Invitation

Back in October 2015, I was in Rome for the foundation conference of the  Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, timed to coincide with the Synod of Bishops gathering on marriage and family. At that conference, a steering committee was elected to create a permanent foundation for the new  body. That work has now been completed: the next conference will now take place in Germany, later this year. Read the details in this invitation letter, from the co-chairs Ruby Almeida and Michael Brinkschröder:

Continue reading LGBT Catholics: Global Conference Invitation

Rainbow Catholics Call for LGBT “Listening Process”

In it’s response to Amoris Laetitia, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics expresses disappointment with a number of features, but also sees reasons for hope. Although the document has not yet opened the door to full lgbt inclusion in the Catholic Church, this could be the start of a process that could lead us there. In a striking image, they suggest that “maybe the key to the door is under the mat”.

key under the mat

The difficulties that they find with Amor Laetitia have been pointed out also by others. Of possibly greater importance, certainly for the longer term, are the signs of hope that they see.  They welcome the fact that Pope Francis has opened up new ways for the Church to engage pastorally with the reality of its members’ lives, including all its LGBTQI people of God, and the Exhortation’s reinforcing the priority of respect for the human dignity.  Continue reading Rainbow Catholics Call for LGBT “Listening Process”

“Rainbow Catholics” Welcome New Era for LGBT Pastoral Care

An international group of LGBT Catholics, their families and their allies, sees reason for hope in the final report from the Bishops’ Synod Assembly on Marriage and Family. Acknowledging that there are some disappointments in the text, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics nevertheless expects that the proceedings of this assembly will lead to a fresh, more sensitive approach to pastoral care.

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Continue reading “Rainbow Catholics” Welcome New Era for LGBT Pastoral Care

Ministry Expanding at Queering the Church

Here at the Queer Church, restructuring continues – and we’re also expanding our ministry.

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Expansion

I began my activities in LGBT ministry by volunteering at the Soho Masses, and went on to begin writing about LGBT faith matters here at Queering the Church. I also became involved with Quest as conference speaker, webmaster and now Quest Bulletin editor,  took on additional webmaster responsibilities for the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality, and for the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics. I have also facilitated successful workshops for Quest, and on “Next Steps” in expanding LGBT ministry. During the build up to the introduction of UK equal marriage, I was a regular participant in radio and television programmes as an openly gay, Catholic advocate for equality.

I’m now expanding still further. Continue reading Ministry Expanding at Queering the Church

Rainbow Catholics’ Letter to Synod Fathers

At the conclusion of their founding conference, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics sent a “letter of greeting” to the synod fathers gathering in Rome.

From Thursday evening to Sunday evening 1st October to 4th October,  a group of LGBT Catholics from 31 countries, together with some friends and family members, gathered in Rome for the foundation conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics.

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We shared our experiences as rainbow Catholics in a wide diversity of settings, we described our particular challenges, shared our greatest successes, and spoke of our special needs for support from the global network. We mapped out a direction and structure for our continuing work, then on Saturday afternoon we interrupted our own work to host a public meeting, “The Ways of Love”, to head about some notable achievements in pastoral practice from around the world. Resuming on Sunday, we elected a steering committee, with good gender balance and with representation from every continent, to take the work forward.

At the conclusion of the conference,  we sent to every member of the Synod, just starting a short distance away, this  letter:

Dear Sisters and Brothers at the Synod on the Family,

Greetings from the new-born Global Network of Rainbow Catholics!

We are a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Catholics, and along with our loving families and friends, we have spent the last few days not far from you, in Rome, consolidating two years of work, which have advanced alongside your double Synod preparations.

We come from over thirty countries, both as individuals and as representatives of groups, who have been involved with the flourishing of people like ourselves in the lives of our local churches, (as well as with many other tasks). The last years have not been an easy ride! Many in our Church thought that they were serving God by hating us, and some still do, especially among the hierarchy; but we can tell you with joy, that we have kept alive our Confession of the Catholic faith! We have kept the faith under persecution, and are ready to join with you in the joyful announcement of the Gospel to which Pope Francis has called us.

Because God is wonderful, we have found that through this life as dregs among the people of God, the Holy Spirit has given us a surprising (at least to us) capacity to stand up and be counted, not to be frightened of those who fear us,not to be resentful of the incapacity for approval, and the bureaucratic meanness of spirit and dishonesty to which we have regularly been subjected. We have learned that it is not what the Church can do for us, but what we can do for the Church that matters.

We need to be better prepared to join you in your task of spreading the Gospel and building up the families in which(as we have so often experienced ourselves) God delights. We need to support each other, and others more vulnerable than ourselves, at a worldwide level,especially in countries which criminalize us, and even think they are honouring God by killing us. We need to be able to share information, counter falsehood, encourage each other in our needs, and strengthen our families, especially where civil law does not yet respect them. So we have decided to set up a Global network, to bring together groups of LGBTI Catholics, our families and friends, as well as other Christians and people of good will. This will enable us to be much better prepared to share experiences, life stories, examples of best-practice:little miracles of love.

We want to set up our network in such a way that we can even be useful to you, though we know from long experience\how frightened many of you are of communicating with us discreetly, even less talking to us on the record! Having learned, by living with Jesus, not to be dismayed by the falsehoods and calumnies concerning us to which some of you still seem wedded, and even pass off as “teaching of the Church”, you will find us resilient, because we know that we are loved. In the near-absence of visible shepherds, we have come to trust and love a Shepherd who was not ashamed to give himself to death for us, One whose voice we hear, with whom we are not in rivalry, and in whose light all others who call themselves shepherds can be tested for their fruits. Because of this, you may even be surprised to find us meek!

So we write to you to wish you encouragement for these days of your Synodal gathering, as well as for the months and years to come as we all begin to live the hints of the new that are coming to birth, discovering new ways of celebrating the family, rather than condemning wine that threatens to burst old wineskins. We are thrilled that you heard with us Pope Francis’ wonderful homily in Philadelphia last week, where he drew out the consequences of both Jesus’ and Moses’ rebuke to those who would hold back the Spirit.

We have prayed for you at every Mass at our meeting, and we ask you to pray for us, confident that we will soon be able to meet transparently, with joy. For we are amazed to have discovered that over the last few years, despite everything, and because nothing is impossible to God, we have become insiders with you in the life of the Gospel, and co-sharers in all your joyful tasks.

With warmest greetings from your rainbow sisters and brothers in Christ.

Rome,
Feast of St Francis of Assisi, 2015

Inspiring First Day for LGBT Catholic Global Conference

It’s been a superb, inspirational day in Rome, at the foundation conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics.

We began early with morning prayer (before breakfast), structured around some biblical texts on the importance of listening, followed by two reflections, and prayers of petition.

GNRC opening day

Following up on last night’s brief introductions, today our delegates introduced themselves, their countries and the groups they represent, speaking particularly to three topics:

  • What are the challenges you are facing?
  • What has been your greatest success?
  • What support / help do you need?

After these group presentations, we were invited to reflect on, and digest what we had heard. Continue reading Inspiring First Day for LGBT Catholic Global Conference

Global Rainbow Catholics to Meet in Rome for Family Synod

Next week, for the first few days of October,  LGBT Catholics and allies representing groups from more than 30 countries will take gather in Rome for the foundation conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, the first worldwide network of organisations and persons involved in the pastoral care of, and search for justice for, LGBT people and their families within the Catholic Church and wider society.

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