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Catholic_Church, Pastoral Ministry

LGBT Catholic Group Gains Archbishop’s Support

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Once again, the outrage at so-called “Lifesite” News reveals some good news for LGBT Catholics, this time from Malta.

First,  read the outrage at Lifesite, that first alerted me to the real story:

A homosexual group that campaigns for the Catholic Church to accept homosexual “marriage,” sodomy, and adoption of children by same-sex couples has been given a free pass to operate unofficially in the Catholic Archdiocese of Malta run by Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

The “homosexual” group referred to is Drachma, which has long interested me for its strong profile and achievements in a moderately small country.  Ignore the offensive reference to “sodomy”, and the support for same-sex marriage and adoption are in fact supported by many mainstream Catholics, across Europe and the Americas.  The real interest here, is that they have been given what Lifesite calls a “free pass to operate unofficially in the Catholic Archdiocese of Malta”.

This does not amount to direct, explicit support by formal endorsement: that lies some way in the future.  What it does represent, is a clear policy of non-interference amounting to an indirect, implicit endorsement, including some gestures by the Archbishop Scicluna personally. The clearest such demonstration of support came in 2014, when he presided at a Mass in support of IDAHOT – the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Last year (2016), when Drachma presented Archbishop Scicluna with a copy of their book about parents of LGBT children titled “Our Children”, the Archbishop called the book a “tool to help parents of LGBTI children” – and so it is. Drachma has an impressive record in its work providing pastoral support for LGBT Catholics, and their strong parents’ group is a crucially important part of that work.

Lifesite quotes with horror an extract from a February 2016 interview  with Drachma co-ordinator Chris Vella with One News Malta.  Lifesite, with its reflex homophobia, may well be horrified, but others more rooted in reality will see nothing to object to in this simple statement of the truth of what it is to be a gay man, even in the Catholic Church:

“I believe that my sexuality as a homosexual person, bisexual, and all the other sexualities that you can mention, are all normal and natural. That is, if my nature is homosexual, if my nature is bisexual, if my nature is transsexual, that is my nature and in that way I can love,” he said.

“I have my nature as a homosexual man, I must love in that way, and I can only, to put it like that, live love in a complete way when I live my love, my bisexual, homosexual love, in that way,” he added.

 

Pastoral Ministry

Dutch Bishop to Host Cathedral Gay Pride Service.

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How times of changed, in terms of pastoral care, under the papacy of Francis. Back in 2010, I reported on how a Dutch parish priest refused to give communion to a gay parishioner who had been elected “carnival prince” for Pink Saturday – the Dutch equivalent of British or American “Pride”. (That decision was later overturned after  intervention of the bishop).

This year, that same parish priest has gone way, way further than simply agreeing to give communion to gay activists: he has successfully negotiated with the bishop to have Pink Saturday celebrated with an ecumenical service in the town’s cathedral, with the bishop himself attending.

Here’s the core of the announcement, from the Pink Saturday website in Dutch, with my own English translation below:

Alle geloven nemen deel aan de Roze Viering op Roze Zaterdag 2017 in Den Bosch, maar plebaan Van Rossem is de gastheer. Hij opent op 24 juni de deuren van de Sint-Janskathedraal voor de LHBT-gemeenschap. Dat gebeurt met volledige instemming van de bisschop, die ook bij de gebedsdienst aanwezig zal zijn om zijn zegen te geven. Daarmee wordt geschiedenis geschreven: het is de eerste keer dat een Nederlandse bisschop dat doet.

(Male and female pastors of different denominations will share in the Pink Celebration service on Pink Saturday 2017 in Den Bosch, but Fr Van Rossem will be the lead celebrant. He will open the doors of St. John’s Cathedral on the 24th of June 2017 to the LGBT community. This takes place with the full consent bishop, who will also be present at the prayer service to give his blessing. This will be an historic occasion: the first time a Dutch bishop does so).

I’m particularly interested in the contrasting statements ‘made by Fr van Rossum, then and now, as reported by Lifestyle News :

At the time (of the 2010 refusal of communion), the cathedral’s parish priest, Geertjan van Rossum, made a public statement reminding the faithful that only people who observe the Ten Commandments are admitted to Holy Communion: “Proper living out of sexuality is part of that,” he said, triggering the angry departure of the gay activists.

And now, on announcing the Pink Saturday cathedral service:

“Ours is a hospitable town where all citizens should be able to live with dignity and we should not make each other’s lives sour, and that is why personally, but also in the name of our Catholic parish, we want to support this initiative,” Father van Rossum said. “We want to have a nice town for all its inhabitants and all its guests. As a Christian and as a believer, I also know there are Christians and believers who belong to the LGBT community and who also want to be involved with the community of the faithful. So as a priest, together with the cathedral parish, we also want to be involved with Pink Saturday, and also with the ecumenical celebration.”