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Mass Shows Support for
Dozens of Gays, Lesbians

'Let Go of Anger and Hate,' Pastor Says
STEVE SCOTT, Pioneer Press
January 7, 2005

Responding to requests by families and friends of gays and lesbians, the pastor celebrated a Mass of healing and support Thursday night at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in St. Paul.

Nearly 150 people at the church at West Seventh Street and Western Avenue heard the pastor call for people to love "those who aren't like us."

He implored them to "listen to what it feels like to grow up in a society in which the majority is hostile" to the sexual-orientation minority.

About a half-dozen members of a group identifying themselves as orthodox Catholics scattered themselves about the church and said they prayed for those attending to remain faithful to church teaching.

"This cuts across the whole spectrum," said the pastor at St. Stanislaus. "It's got nothing to do with being liberal or conservative at all. ... I don't think liberals and conservatives will ever get together. I think we're called to a deeper way, which is love. ... We need to let go of anger and hate."

Before Holy Communion, the first names of dozens of gay and lesbian people brought forward by families and friends were read aloud as part of a sung prayer.

Many attendees couldn't remember a similar Mass being held in St. Paul.

"As long as this is done in a loving, pastoral way in keeping with the teachings of the church, which this seems to be, there's no problem with it," archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said earlier Thursday. "It's intended to be a welcoming, healing Mass."

McGrath reiterated previous archdiocese statements that Catholics "in a state of grace" are welcome to Communion, although church teaching would prohibit those who are in sexual relationships but unmarried.

A polite but spirited conversation followed the Mass between a woman who identified herself as a lesbian in a longtime relationship and two men who had protested the appearance of gay-rights supporters at the Cathedral of St. Paul last spring.

"You pick what you want to believe," said Bob Tatreau of Woodbury. "So do you," said the woman, a parishioner at St. Stanislaus.

As a lengthy dialogue about sexuality and church teaching drew to a close, Jack Peterfeso of St. Paul said, "I love you as a sister; I don't love your sin."

"I love you," she responded, "and I don't agree with you."

Steve Scott can be reached at sscott@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-552.

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The Night They Read The Names
St. Stanislaus Catholic Church:
January 6th, 2005

An SJA Event Report
www.stjoan.com/erfr.htm

On Thursday, January 6th, the St. Stanislaus Church in St. Paul hosted a special service for the family and friends of GLBT people, to celebrate the inclusive teachings of Jesus and to celebrate the lives of GLBT loved ones. The service was followed by hospitality. Inclusive Catholics (a network of Catholic parishes committed to inclusively in the Church) encouraged members to attend and support these efforts at St. Stanislaus. Well over a hundred people came to sing, pray, and reflect on the meaning of being inclusive.

Our religious history is so full of lessons. When St. Paul’s civic leaders needed laborers they recruited from Europe’s poor. The lower level or levee area along West Seventh Street of old St. Paul became the site of more than one Catholic Church because the nearly arrived immigrants did not understand one another, the early Catholic churches frequently were national language churches.

St. Stanislaus Church was built to serve the spiritual needs of the Polish and Bohemian families. The area also had a church for the Irish and one for the German speaking Catholics. These churches were almost within walking distance from one another. We live in another time when the divisions among us are not a national language, but a difference in spiritual values and the meaning of the gospel message.

Our worlds and lives are being introduced to many changes. Throughout the Twin Cities and for that matter this country, Catholic families announce that they are traditional or authentic Catholics and then for an increasing number of families, a son, a daughter, a nephew, or cousin announces that they are gay or lesbian. For many of these families this is crisis because they love their children or relatives or friends and they do not experience them as disordered.

Their spiritual crisis or questioning comes when they think about the inclusive teachings of Jesus and what they see happening in our labeling and judging society and by some church members. There are thousands of men and women who do not want to see the children that they raised and love be discriminated against or treated as a lesser person because of their sexual identity.

Quietly on a January evening in the old levee area of St. Paul at the church of St. Stanislaus a number of winter-wrapped people gathered to celebrate all of God’s creation and to hear the words read from the 1997 American Bishop’s Pastoral Letter and to listen to a homily on love and acceptance from the pastor of St. Stan’s.

He opened the evening service by welcoming everyone and announcing that this was not a service in defense of homosexuality but an evening to reflect on the meaning of Gospel love. "We are not here to challenge the teachings of the church but to broaden our ability to love, let our hearts grow quiet.”

Catholic liturgies have the same basic format but each community, congregation or parish has it’s own way of making the service their own. St. Stan’s is an historical church with its formal structure of pews and a good collection of statues older Catholics are most familiar with. Since the service was open to people from other churches, before Mass started, there was the mixture of traditions that met one’s eye. Some entered quietly, genuflected and knelt in silent prayer, others quietly said their rosaries, and still others greeted and talked softly to their friends.

The liturgy followed a formal course until after the homily. At that point in time a man walked to the pulpit and as the small choir sang, he began to read aloud the first names of gay men and women whose names had been written on cards by those entering the church. At that point in time the sound of hearing names became a transformational moment. John, Terry, Mary, Cathy, Bob, Al, Jonathan, Matt, Peggy, Linda and on it went. He would stop and the choir would sing and then he would start again just reading aloud the first names of men and women who God had created as a person we in society label a ‘sexual minority.”

The lesson was powerful because their names were no different than ours, and neither were their hopes and dreams or life journey. They were and are our bothers and sisters. The pastor repeated one of the key themes of the night, “We are all on the same journey. As the evening service came to an end, there was still the echo of those names, Vicky, Bill, George, Deb, Mark, Susan, ...

Sitting in the pew of a church founded many years ago to help a poor and oppressed group of Polish or Bohemian immigrants who spoke little English, now this same church was carefully trying to giving shelter and encouragement to another group of people who some would make strangers. And so on a January night in a St. Paul Church one could hear the first names read aloud: Donna, Jeanne, Tom, Peter, Andrew, Peggy, and on he read - our sons, daughters, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, our sisters, and brothers in Christ.

The main entrance of the Church of St. Stanislaus in St. Paul, MN.