Celebrating and Serving the GLBT Community since 1980

2930 13th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407-1420
612-201-4534
cpcsmmail@gmail.com

Regional Deacons' Conference, Hosted by Archdiocese,
to Feature Presentation By Director of Anti-Gay Group

CPCSM Responds to the Promotion of the Anti-Gay Courage
Apostolate at the Region 8 Deacons' Conference with Letter to Deacons

Archbishop Nienstedt has taken another step toward what, in effect -- according to the CPCSM leadership -- is undoing much of what the organization has accomplished in its nearly 30 years of education and ministry work within the local archdiocese. CPCSM leaders believe that by continuing to promote the anti-gay and dehumanizing philosophy of the Courage Apostolate -- this time in the upcoming continuing education that the Archdiocese is providing for the permanent deacons working in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota -- Nienstedt is undermining the role CPCSM has played in helping to realize Archbishop Roach's goal of providing "competent and compassionate pastoral care" to this Archdiocese's LGBT community.

At the Region 8 Deacons' Conference, hosted by the Archdiocese at the University of St. Thomas on July 18-20, 2008, one of the advertised keynote speakers will be Rev. Paul Check, the Chief Executive Officer of the Courage Apostolate. Calling itself a "pro-chastity" group, Courage advocates treating gay persons as if they were suffering from a disease tantamount to alcoholism that must be arrested through their participation in support groups to help maintain sexual abstinence through the practice of life-long celibacy.

In response to Nienstedt's latest misguided decision regarding LGBT persons and their families, CPCSM has sent a letter to the permanent deacons serving in all the dioceses within Minnesota, warning them of the unethical philosophy and practices advocated by Courage. The letter, in its entirety, along with attached resources that offer information and alternatives to Courage (i.e., CPCSM's position paper on Courage and a Catholic bibliography on LGBT issues) , is as follows.

See the following link to view:
A Catholic Bibliography on LGBT Issues

Local Catholic Parishes No Longer Feel Able
to Express Pride in Their LGBT Members

Archbishop Nienstedt Forbids St. Joan of Arc to Hold
Annual LGBT Pride Prayer Service, Calling the Parish 'Sacred Ground'
Where Those Living the LGBT 'Lifestyle' Must Not Be Allowed

For the first time in over 25 years the annual Twin Cities Pride Guide carries no advertising from a Twin Cities area Catholic parish announcing that it welcomes LGBT persons and wishes the LGBT community a "Happy Pride Celebration." Even St. Joan of Arc in Minnesota, long considered the most progressive parish within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, on orders from the chancery office, can no longer hold its annual LGBT Pride prayer service, as it has for many years in the past.

In an email notifying supporters of the directive halting the annual LGBT prayer service, CPCSM's cofounder and current board member, David McCaffrey, described the order as "yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at LGBT persons and their families under Archbishop Neinstedt's reign of homophobic hatred."

Apparently, the local news media also felt that this action by Archbishop Nienstedt is newsworthy, judging from the unprecedented coverage they gave the order to halt the prayer service and CPCSM's subsequent decision to hold its own LGBT Pride prayer service outside the church at St. Joan of Arc. Leading the news coverage was a front-page story in the Pioneer Press on June 24th (see below). The next day a media blitzkrieg hit CPCSM's meeting space in the Merriam Park neighborhood in St. Paul -- a long procession of news teams came calling for interviews and video footage and photos, including WCCO, KARE, KSTP, KMSP and the StarTribune. Even USA Today eventually carried a report on this controversy. (See the complete Google News listing of all the US news stories about CPCSM's response to the cancellation of the annual LGBT prayer service at St. Joan's.)

Archdiocese Halts Church's
Annual Gay Pride Prayers

St. Joan of Arc will hold service with no mention of gay rights

St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 23, 2008

By Tad Vezner
tvezner@pioneerpress.com

Article Last Updated: 06/23/2008 11:12:50 PM CDT

A Roman Catholic Church decision to prohibit a Minneapolis gay pride prayer service has many in the gay community up in arms, leading activists to call the action a troubling and telling sign from the Twin Cities' new archbishop.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recently told staff members at St. Joan of Arc Church they could not hold their annual gay pride prayer service planned for Wednesday — an event held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Pride Celebration, parishioners said.

Instead, the archdiocese suggested a "peace" service with no mention of rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

"That descriptor (LGBT) was not possible on church property. We suggested they shift it, change the nature of it a little bit, and they did," said archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath.

"The reason is quite simply because it was a LGBT pride prayer service, and that is really inimical to the teachings of the Catholic Church."

Officials with the Minneapolis-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, a grass-roots coalition promoting acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church, see the action as an attack by Archbishop John Nienstedt, who took the helm of the archdiocese in May.

In an e-mail to supporters, committee co-founder David McCaffrey called the move "yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at LGBT persons and their families under Archbishop Nienstedt's reign of homophobic hatred."

McGrath said such assertions were untrue. He said the services had not been canceled in previous years because the archdiocese was not aware of them.

"It was not something that happened because there's a new regime," McGrath said. "If (previous Archbishop Harry Flynn) had known of it, the same thing would have happened."

This year, he said "several people" came to the archdiocese to inform church officials of the event at St. Joan of Arc.

Michael Bayly, executive director of the pastoral committee, was skeptical.

"I find it hard to believe that they didn't know about it. St. Joan of Arc had been very upfront in advertising it in their Web site and on their bulletin. That was always their style — they took pride in welcoming and affirming gay people," Bayly said.

St. John's regular pastor, the Rev. Jim DeBruycker, is on leave until July. His replacement, the Rev. Jim Cassidy, who was faced with the decision of altering the service, did not return a call for comment Monday.

Bayly said he saw signs of an ongoing "chilling effect." Usually, gay-friendly parishes advertise in the "pride guide" in advance of the Twin Cities Pride festival; this year, none did. The 2008 festival is this weekend.

"I think most of the parishes are in a terrible bind," Bayly said.

McGrath said Nienstedt is simply following Catholic doctrine, like previous archbishops.

He said "the church welcomes people with same-sex attractions among its worshippers."

"The distinction is people who fully adapt to the GLBT lifestyle are not permitted to receive the sacraments or be the subject of a prayer service that endorses that lifestyle," McGrath said.

Some in the St. Joan of Arc congregation are troubled.

"I'm sort of split down the middle between being really sad and really angry," said Gerry Sell, who has been a parishioner at the South Minneapolis church since 1965. Sell, married and the mother of six, chaired the 1989 Minnesota task force on lesbian and gay Minnesotans.

"I think that the move is going to resonate with some people, who will say, 'If this is the church, then I'm out.' Not another parish — a different church," said Sell. "Not me. Not at 75 years."

Nienstedt has said homosexuality is a disorder, and he is a leader in the campaign to persuade the Legislature to prohibit same-sex unions.

"Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin," he wrote in a November article in the archdiocese's paper, the Catholic Spirit.

Controversy over LGBT issues also had been an issue with Flynn, Nienstedt's predecessor.

Last year, the then-archbishop prohibited Mass at a symposium exploring the conflict between homosexuality and Catholicism, saying to allow it might mislead archdiocese members into believing the speakers' views had the church's sanction.

In October, authors Robert and Carol Curoe, a lesbian and her Catholic father, were scheduled to speak at the Church of St. Francis Cabrini in Minneapolis, but they were told they could not do so.

And in 2006, Flynn supported a proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The year before, Flynn ruled that gay rights supporters could not receive Communion while wearing rainbow-colored sashes because the practice was seen as a protest of Catholic teaching.

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461.

Uproar over prayer service for gays grows

By HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA
Star Tribune, June 25, 2008

Joey McLeister, Star Tribune

Michael Bayly is planning a lay service and a rally tonight outside St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church because the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis won’t allow a prayer service to be focused on gays and lesbians. “The archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for,” Bayly said.

As he has done for a number of years, Michael Bayly will arrive tonight at St. Joan of Arc Church ready to celebrate his God, his faith and his homosexuality.

But this year, Bayly and other Catholic gays and lesbians will not be allowed to celebrate their lifestyle in the church sanctuary following an edict handed down by Archbishop John Nienstedt, who has barred the annual gay pride prayer service at the south Minneapolis church.

In protest, Bayly and others have decided to hold their own lay service outside the church tonight. They are also calling for a mass rally at the church tonight to condemn the archdiocese.

The annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service, designed to coincide with gay pride week celebrations, instead will be characterized as a "peace" service, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for Nienstedt and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

"Celebrating the GLBT lifestyle is contrary to the teachings of our church -- plain and simple," McGrath said.

The ban has caused an uproar inside and outside the church, which for years has been known as a liberal bastion supporting GLBT people.

Most of the anger has been focused on Nienstedt, who took over as archbishop recently and almost immediately angered local gays.

This is "yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at GLBT persons and their families under Archbishop Nienstedt's reign of homophobic hatred," David McCaffrey, a board member of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), said in an e-mail Monday to members.

"The archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for, and that deeply concerns me," said Bayly, executive director of the CPCSM. "This certainly does not celebrate the presence of God in the lives of gay people. They are dictating to gay people how to have a good life."

The Rev. Jim Cassidy, acting pastor at St. Joan's, said he respects the wishes of the archdiocese and is just happy that the service was not canceled.

"The archdiocese, for all parishes, is the front office and we need to respect that," Cassidy said Tuesday. "There is no welcome mat being pulled here."

Also Tuesday, McGrath defended the archdiocese and Nienstedt, saying that gay and lesbian relationships, especially if they are consummated, are contrary to church doctrine.

McGrath said Nienstedt decided to act after he was notified by callers about the GLBT service at St. Joan, which has a large homosexual contingent.

McGrath said Nienstedt simply did what any archbishop in the country would do in a similar situation. He said the decision does not signal that the archdiocese is taking a conservative turn in the Twin Cities.

He said that former Archbishop Harry Flynn, who recently retired, would have made the same decision if he had known about the service.

"We weren't aware of it," McGrath said Tuesday. "We have 219 parishes. We don't sit and monitor all of them."

Gay activists and parishioners at St. Joan scoffed at the notion that the archdiocese did not know about the service.

They pointed out that not only has it been going on for at least five years -- timed to coincide with the Twin Cities GLBT Pride Parade -- but the service has been widely advertised in church bulletins and on the Internet.

"St. Joan's has always been very up front about this," Bayly said. "There are always watchdogs quick to let the archdiocese know what is going on."

McGrath said the parish decided to change the service's theme to peace. But he also cautioned the church, which serves an estimated 4,000 families, to change the focus so that the service is not about the gay and lesbian lifestyle.

"We don't want it to be a rose by any other name," McGrath said. "Homosexuals are welcome in the church. We don't extend that to a full gay or lesbian lifestyle that includes sexual activity."

Parishioners said that they were notified of the service change Sunday and that many in the congregation were dismayed.

"I said, 'Oh my God, what are they doing?'" said Gerry Sell, who joined the church in 1965 and said she will likely join the protest outside the church. "I felt like I was split down the middle. I was furious, but then my heart was torn in half."

This is not the first time that the archdiocese has come down hard on St. Joan of Arc.

In recent years, the parish was ordered by the archdiocese to remove gay pride material from its website.

The archdiocese also told the church to stop allowing those not ordained to speak at mass. Discussion topics have included scripture, missionary work and homosexuality.

Sell and others believe the archbishop's action, combined with the other past disputes, might finally drive people away from the Catholic Church.

"I have grown up with the strong belief ... that my God is a loving, inclusive God," said Mary Coleman of St. Paul, who joined St. Joan almost 20 years ago. "My God loves my brother, who happens to be gay, as much as he loves me. I am not sure I can stay in a church that doesn't love and accept my brother the same way it loves and accepts me."

Staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report. Heron Marquez Estrada • 612-673-4280

CPCSM Highlighted and Leadership Quoted in Current
Minnesota Monthly Article About Reactions to Changes
in Local Archdiocese Related to Incoming Archbishop

There is a precept in the Catholic Church called ecclesia semper reformanda, meaning “the church is always reforming”—a surprise to anyone who believes it has all-too-successfully resisted change. Yet the church of today looks nothing like the church of 1950, which looked nothing like the early church, an institution many scholars believe included women leaders and married priests. And the latest makeover occurred less than 50 years ago.

When Catholic leaders gathered in the early 1960s for the landmark discussions known as the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, or Vatican II, they mandated modernization—not to conform to contemporary mores, but to assert the church’s relevance in a fast-changing world. After all, Joe Catholic could by then zip around the world in a jet, watch the president on TV, and more than ever—given John F. Kennedy’s status as the first Catholic in the Oval Office—hope to become the president. Meanwhile, Catholic worship seemed literally backward—still led exclusively in Latin by priests who faced the altar, not the congregation.

Vatican II changed all that. The service, or liturgy, could be led in the language of the people. The people, or laity, were empowered to participate. Nuns threw off their habits, the laity joined choirs, led Sunday school, and no longer felt they were going to hell if they missed a mass. The liberating spirit of these changes inspired several generations of Catholics to question other church teachings or traditions seemingly incompatible with modern life.

Some now say they went too far. In dispensing with bad theology, maybe some good was lost, too, say critics—baby Jesus thrown out with the bath water. Today’s young seminarians are struggling to lead a church still awash in the sea change instigated by their elders and, perhaps not surprisingly, they’re looking for anchors. “They just want to get in touch with their cultural roots,” says [Robert] Kennedy [head of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul]. “They’re not carrying some of the baggage that their parents carried in the ’60s and ’70s—they’re freer to look at the tradition of the church and be excited. They’re pushing back a little bit, saying some of that’s kind of interesting and beautiful.”

The type of priest many Catholics have come to know is being displaced. After Vatican II, the most popular priestly model was the so-called servant-leader, whose accommodating, or pastoral, manner toward the faithful reflected a significant break from the shepherd priest who had all the answers and whose sheep were, well, sheep. Now, some traditionalist young priests, often called John Paul or JP II priests, are returning to the more authoritarian mold of pre-Vatican II.

One local seminarian (who favors the pre-Vatican II Latin mass slowly being reintroduced in traditionalist parishes), has posted images on his blog of the kind of priest he hopes to become: black-and-white pictures of pre-Vatican II priests facing the altar, historic paintings evoking the majesty of old. Adapting his philosophy from a group called Concerned Roman Catholics of America, he says, “I will not allow the Holy Catholic Church to be torn apart and assaulted by the forces of modernism, syncretism, heresy, and the gross immorality of some of its clergy in the name of the ‘Spirit of Vatican II.’ I will not allow our Catholic youth to be robbed of their faith or have their innocence destroyed in the name of ‘tolerance,’ ‘ecumenism,’ ‘diversity,’ or any other politically correct ideology of the day.”

Kennedy warns against extrapolating from such examples. “It’s true that some enclaves around the country seem to want to reconstruct some imaginary version of the [pre-Vatican II] church,” he says. “I don’t know what they’re smoking.” But today’s youth returning to a pre-Vatican II church—“that’s not going to happen.”

Nevertheless, the generational difference is enough to disturb many servant-leader priests. “They don’t admire the young priests,” says Dean Hoge, a sociology professor and expert on priests and seminarians at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. “They feel the young men are too concerned with their own status.” In turn, the JP II priests call their elders—sometimes called Vatican II priests—“social-worker priests” or “Protestant priests,” he says, as if they’ve “somehow watered down what it means to be a priest.”

Social workers or not, many Vatican II priests fostered a progressive agenda. The nation’s first archdiocesan Commission on Women was begun in the Twin Cities in 1979 by then-Archbishop John Roach to explore the role of women in the church. Also at that time, the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) formed in St. Paul. With Roach’s blessing, says CPCSM co-founder David McCaffrey, the group introduced a sort of sensitivity training in parishes and eight out of the 11 local Catholic high schools—a curriculum enabling counselors to better serve gay Catholics. “During the peak of our work,” says McCaffrey, “we became almost mainstream.”

By 1999, after conservative parents complained, says McCaffrey, CPCSM was no longer welcome. Last year, the archdiocese frequently ran afoul of gay advocates, as when it forbade a CPCSM-sponsored talk in October by a lesbian and her father to be held at a Minneapolis church. Soon after, [Coadjutor Archbishop] Nienstedt clarified the church’s position on homosexuality in the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Spirit. In an earlier column, he had called homosexuality a disorder, explaining that “such inclinations are not sinful in themselves” but acting on them is. This time, he said even those who “actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil,” which many read as a literal condemnation of those who’ve supported the loving relationships of their gay children or friends.

This spring, further archdiocesan orders have limited everything from the role of lay preachers during mass to the kinds of nontraditional, laity-led liturgies some parishes have offered since the 1960s. The Commission on Women was recently folded into another archdiocesan office, which some participants see as a diminishment of its importance. “The post-Vatican II sense of collegiality among the bishops, much less among church leaders and lay people, has faded,” says one local observer, “and the sense of hierarchy has ascended.”

“There are some arguments in favor of the more traditional view of the priesthood,” says Hoge. “They have a stronger morale, they’re happier men. They resign a bit less. And the seminaries that espouse that view are a little stronger, so they say, ‘We’re the way of the future, follow us.’ But the laity, in general, prefer the servant-leader model.”

As a new era dawns, several well-known servant-leader priests here, including the Reverend Michael O’Connell of the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis—the originator of the popular Basilica Block Party—are moving on or retiring. As a result, some local Catholics conjecture, the archdiocese won’t be as welcoming. “I figure we have about 10 good years left,” says a longtime Basilica parishioner. The local Reverend Mike Tegeder simply predicts bigger and broader clashes, as the spirit of Vatican II won’t easily be exorcised. “The genie is out of the bottle,” he says. “There’s no putting it back.”

Tegeder, the priest at the Church of St. Edward in Bloomington, is among the most vocal critics of Nienstedt’s appointment. Ordained in the late 1970s, he is a classic servant-leader priest. He sometimes sports a worn newsboy cap (Nienstedt prefers a crisp black fedora) and occasionally uses the word “damn” in the non-ecclesiastical sense.

Tegeder notes that Nienstedt’s June trip to Rome, where he’ll receive a lambskin stole as affirmation of his appointment, has been heavily advertised among local Catholics—they can even purchase a tour package to traipse along, something more status-conscious East Coast bishops would encourage. (For his part, Nienstedt has said the criticism of his appointment has been “very inhospitable and not at all in keeping with the classic Minnesota attitude of ‘fair play.’”) Yet Tegeder is hardly an inner-city activist or the head of a nonconformist parish: The Church of St. Edward is a large congregation in a leafy suburb. He’s certainly no less traditional than his church’s staff, who on this day—Ash Wednesday—all appropriately sport a cross of ashes on their foreheads.

Tegeder has gathered the staff to discuss their hopes and fears for the future of the archdiocese. This archdiocese is known for its unusually high number of progressive Catholics armed with advanced religious education, and Tegeder’s staff fits the mold. They are all women, and many have degrees in divinity or theology—“all of them basically have the same education as the priests,” says Tegeder. Vatican II renewed the church’s call for Catholics to inform their conscience through study—in addition to consulting their leaders—and these women have taken the call seriously.

Heidi Busse, who organizes the church’s religious instruction classes as its director of faith formation, is an outgoing 35-year-old with a master’s in theology. She’s occasionally preached at St. Edward’s. But starting this month, as directed by the archbishop’s office, lay preaching will largely be banned during mass. Several parishes have regularly featured lay preachers as a way for parishioners to “break open the word,” Busse says—to hear from a perspective closer to their own. Now, lay people must speak at the end of mass, if they are to speak from the pulpit at all.

“I think there’s a breakdown between reality—the real life in the parish—and theory or doctrine or politics,” says Busse. She isn’t called to be a priest, she says, but is a talented speaker. “We all have different gifts, and it’s hard as a woman or lay person to be told your call is not valid.”

LaLonne Murphy, the parish’s director of liturgy and music, has worked in the archdiocese for 30 years and says the increased stress on guidelines, or rubrics, has been pitched to the parishes as necessary to avoid “confusion” among the faithful. “If Heidi preaches, I don’t think there is going to be any confusion that she is Father Mike,” says Murphy. “We are not confused about these things.”

The women would prefer a dialogue between parishioners and leaders. “We don’t want to run wild,” says Busse. “We don’t want to be relativist…it’s just that the conversation would be so helpful for all of us to be more open to serving each other.” Murphy agrees: “People here tend to be more adult and take responsibility for themselves and the world around them. They’re not waiting for someone to tell them what to do. No one needs another mom and dad.”

The sentiment echoes national surveys that show a growing gap between the Catholic laity and their leaders on such issues as contraception, married priests, and church governance. “They’re moving in opposite directions,” says William D’Antonio, a renowned scholar in the sociology of religion at Catholic University and co-author of the 2007 book American Catholics Today. From 1987 to 2005, the authors’ research shows, the “level of Catholics’ commitment to the institutional church” has trended downward. “By 2005,” says D’Antonio, “there isn’t an age group or gender where there is a majority saying that they look to church leaders as the automatic source of authority.” Instead, more Catholics are looking to their own conscience.

The concept has precedence: Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, “It is better to die excommunicated” than to disobey one’s conscience. The beloved educator Cardinal John Henry Newman reputedly said, “I shall drink to the pope, if you please—still, to conscience first and to the pope afterwards.” When it comes down to who feels welcome in the church, says Murphy, many of the faithful consult their consciences. “We are not confused when people are not permitted by the institution to join us at the table,” she says, referring to the church’s position on Catholics in same-sex unions. “We are not confused by that. That [church policy] is an abomination.”

Even toward straight people seeking to marry, however, the archdiocese has become less welcoming, claims Tegeder, with some parishes scrutinizing the couple’s commitment to Catholicism when one partner isn’t Catholic. Parishes have also refused to conduct funerals on similar grounds, says Mary Hayden, the church’s director of pastoral care. Murphy is appalled. “Can you imagine Jesus telling somebody they can’t have their funeral someplace? That he won’t stand by them in death? A lot of this law-quoting is about manipulation and fear, telling people they’re going to hell. Fear does not control us. We won’t stand for that kind of bullying.”

What will become of those who feel bullied, the parishioners at the margins? “People are realizing they have different options,” says Tegeder. “Some will want to keep the fight up, others will feel they have to move on.” And still others, says Hayden, will become angry with God.

Since Nienstedt’s welcome mass, many progressives have wondered whether his vision of unity is compatible with theirs. Can he strike a balance between the orthodox ideal of getting everyone on the same page and their hope that diverse perspectives will be embraced? Other Catholics, though, believe he shouldn’t bother accommodating—one man’s hardliner, after all, is another’s true believer. “Bless the Lord! A bishop without a limp spine!” wrote one online commentator upon the news of Nienstedt’s appointment. “Finally, a bishop who knows how to bish!” gushed another.

Several local priests have condemned Tegeder’s views—the Reverend George Welzbacher of the Church of St. John, in St. Paul, calls him a “chronic malcontent” who’s assumed “the role of roadside bomber. Or maybe suicide bomber.” He suggests that those who agree with Tegeder—the insubordinate—have already left the church anyway.

Kennedy says archdiocesan leadership changes so infrequently that new bishops tend to elicit extreme reactions: “Some will say, ‘Thank goodness we got a new sheriff and let me tell you about the guys you need to arrest first,’ and others will say, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to change something. How can we prevent that?’”

Even many moderates, however, advocate the occasional archdiocesan housecleaning. “If you don’t sweep and vacuum once a week, things get out of control,” says the Reverend David Smith, recently retired from the University of St. Thomas. Though he notes, “One can raise questions whether they’ve done too much [cleaning]. Sometimes people who call for a housecleaning are pretty restricted about the rooms they want cleaned.”

Those “rooms” may be ideologies, such as gay activism, or parishes with experimental liturgies. “This archdiocese is known worldwide for several parishes that have strayed pretty far from the Catholic faith,” says Janice LaDuke, who blogs about local Catholicism as “Catherine of Alexandria,” the medieval martyr. She says anyone who thinks Nienstedt’s appointment triggered a Catholic culture war here doesn’t know the local church—“This archdiocese has been a battlefield long before now.” And she, for one, welcomes the challenge: “I’ve got my sword handy, my Catechism and Bible at the ready.”

Four weeks before Easter, St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Minneapolis is standing-room-only with the kind of crowd for whom May Day is a major holiday: bearded men in ponytails, white-haired crones leaning on canes carved with animal totems, a lesbian couple rocking their baby. There are enough Subarus in the parking lot to open a dealership. Some worshippers have never been here before. A few are Lutheran, attending in solidarity. Many are in tears.

St. Stephen’s is one of the churches LaDuke would consider a liturgical outlier, and the battle has been taken to its doorstep. “We are in crisis,” the service’s leader announces. “We don’t know where we’re going to be.” But they can’t stay here. After today—after 40 years—this service is being shut down by the archdiocese. Too many rules broken, Archbishop Flynn wrote to them. Too much “confusion about liturgical practices.”

The 9 a.m. service at St. Stephen’s, a major social-service provider in its blighted neighborhood near the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, was likely the first in the archdiocese to feature the sort of guitar-strumming, dancing-in-the-aisles aesthetic that makes even liberal Minnesotans blush. Of course, there are no aisles here, no pulpit, and, for a long while, no priest. Just two basketball hoops, a stage, and a makeshift altar. The service has always been held in the parish’s gym.

Their communion vessels are made of the wrong material—ceramic instead of precious metal. Women often lead worship. After the homily, a microphone is set up for parishioners to dialogue about the text. Poetry is often read, as in Unitarian churches. Even Tegeder describes it as “kind of a fast and loose community” and suggests the archdiocese was right to question aspects of the service. But he also believes the current hierarchy would consider it a “marginal” community. How did things come to this? And why now?

In his letter to the parish, Flynn said he sought changes by April, when St. Stephen’s received a new priest, by all accounts a traditionalist. Flynn also noted that St. Stephen’s had been upbraided before; enough changes were not made.

In the bigger picture, St. Stephen’s time may simply be up. Among the phenomena of the Catholic church’s new era is the emergence of liturgical vigilantes, people who visit parishes and note—in blogs or letters to the archbishop—how closely rubrics are followed. Flynn has publicly chastised such busybodies, yet more than one visitor to St. Stephen’s has tattled on the 9 a.m. worshippers. And now the St. Stephen’s folks are divided. Many vow to continue a similar service off-site, outside the archbishop’s purview.

Few, if any, have talked publicly of abandoning Catholicism altogether, not unlike other Catholics under duress. Mary Beckfeld, co-founder of the online journal Progressive Catholic Voice, which launched locally last fall to chronicle alternative viewpoints within the church, is the mother of a gay son and feels she can best affect change on his behalf by staying in the church. “We really love this church,” she says of herself and the newsletter staff. “And I don’t believe I’m living in mortal sin.” McCaffrey, who struggled for years to reconcile his sexuality with Catholicism, says he finally found balance in the inclusive spirit of Vatican II—only to feel it’s been pulled out from under him by the Catholic hierarchy. “That’s the outrage we feel,” he says. “They’re really screwing with our lives.”

Michael Bayly, who edits the Progressive Catholic Voice and directs CPCSM, has long advocated for gays like himself in the church. By baptism, he says, it’s his church, the one he knows and loves—why should he leave? Besides, he says, wherever Catholics are gathered, that’s a Catholic space. If the St. Stephen’s crowd moves underground, they won’t be any less righteous.

. . . Progressives like Heidi Busse find hope in [the] tradition of the church [known as the] sensus fidelium, which holds that the Holy Spirit inevitably guides the faithful in the right direction—even if the church, as an institution, takes some errant turns. “We’re a human church on the one hand, but a divine one on the other,” she says. “Sometimes the hierarchy has to catch up to what the faithful has been doing. The faithful really lead.” Just where the church is on that continuum can only be seen—by the earthbound anyway—in hindsight.

Tim Gihring is a senior writer at Minnesota Monthly.

VIDEO: What’s Morally Wrong With Homosexuality?

CPCSM Cofounder Shares His Frustration with Changes in
Local Archdiocese's Pastoral Ministry for LGBT Catholics and Their Families, Recommends Boycott and Other Political Actions

Ways to Advocate on Behalf of LGBT Persons and Their Families
Or on Behalf of Other Issues of Justice

By David J. McCaffrey

LGBT Catholics or their families seeking pastoral ministry services from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, for example, by calling the Office of Marriage and Family Life, will receive only a referral to Courage (for gay men or lesbians) or to Encourage (for the family members and friends of gay men or lesbians). Both groups are collectively called "Faith In Action" in the local archdiocese, which states that its mission is to support men and women with "same-sex attractions" to live chaste and holy lives. The Courage website indicates a positive attitude toward conversion therapy and will support its members who seek out such therapy. Also, the website has multiple links to organizations within the "ex-gay" movement.

Searching the Archdiocese's website for "homosexuality" (after finding that the more respectful term, "LGBT pastoral ministry," yields no results) also leads only to Courage and Encourage. Such a search also results in a link to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that recommends conversion therapy for gay men and lesbians and promulgates documents based on pseudo-science -- both of which have no credibility among any of the reputable professional mental health or medical associations, such as the Amercian Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Council on Child and Adolescent Health, and many others. (Please see the article in this issue of the Progressive Catholic Voice reporting on CPCSM’s recent educational program, “The Myth of Conversion Therapy and the Pseudo-Science of NARTH.”)

The underlying attitudes toward LGBT persons and their families, reflected by the Archdiocese through its staff in the Office of Marriage and Family Life and by its website, are not only sorely lacking, they are reprehensible. In fact, it should be said that Courage and Encourage provide neither competent nor compassionate pastoral ministry. To tell LGBT persons that they are "objectively disordered" and must maintain a lives of sexual abstinence simply because they find themselves attracted to members of their own gender is outrageous – especially when the vast majority of today’s behavioral and biological scientists believe that homosexuality is innate, not freely chosen, and not a psychological disorder that can or should be treated.

Furthermore, it is an outrage to LGBT persons and their families for Courage to compare the situation of gay men and lesbians with that of alcoholics who follow the 12 steps of AA. It is not appropriate to recommend that LGBT persons follow an adaptation of those same 12 steps in order to abstain from pursuing meaningful committed relationships. Forming such relationships is the only way that God has created them to find the love in another person that mirrors God’s unconditional love for them.

Therefore, the approach that the local archdiocese advocates, through its Faith In Action Program, is contrary to the life-experience of millions of LGBT persons and has no foundation in the current sciences and in present-day medical and mental health practice. But to recommend that LGBT persons abstain from all committed same-sex relationships, while giving tacit approval to conversion therapy when all reputable professional groups have condemned it as being ineffective and potentially dangerous, is also incompetent, insensitive, and lacking in compassion -- and is even unethical.

Furthermore, John Gonsiorek, a national expert on competent psychological practice and ethics said at CPCSM’s recent program about conversion therapy and NARTH that for a church group to advocate for conversion therapy is tantamount to practicing psychology – and bad psychology at that -- without a license, which is a criminal offense in Minnesota.

Over its past 25+ years working in the local church, CPCSM has provided workshops and inservices to virtually all of the heads of archdiocesan offices during Archbishop Roach's administration, presented its parish-based gay-lesbian ministry training to more that 25 parishes, resulting in active LGBT ministries in at least 6 parishes and competent and compassionate pastoral staff at many other parishes.

Furthermore, for 10 years, from 1983 to 1993, Catholic Charities and CPCSM cosponsored a program in which Deacon couple Roger and Donna Urbanski, who have a gay son, faithfully provided one-to-one counseling and a monthly support group for Catholic family members and friends of LGBT persons.

From about 1993 to 1997, CPCSM was an active member of a Study Group on Sexuality and Spirituality, requested by a group of local Catholic high school presidents, which was comprised of representatives of most of the local Catholic high schools and the archdiocesan education staff and met monthly under the auspices of the Archdiocese's Catholic Education and Formation Ministries (CEFM) Program.

At about the same time CPCSM, by presenting its 4-session Safe Staff Training Program to the whole CEFM staff and to 8 of the 11 Catholic secondary schools in existence at that time, helped create for LGBT students in most of the participating schools, safe spaces and safe school staff patterned after the groundbreaking Safe Staff Programs (Out For Equity and Out For Good) in both the St. Paul and Minneapolis public high school districts. (CPCSM's safe staff training program is fully described in its recently published book (edited by Michael Bayly), Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perspective (Harrington Park Press).

For the incoming archbishop, with edicts more characteristic of a dictator than a pastoral leader, to put a end to nearly 30 years of these excellent pastoral efforts, carried out by good, holy, well-intentioned Catholic professionals --with the blessing of the local ordinary--who were trained to carefully listen to and respond to the special, unique pastoral needs of each person seeking their care, cries to heaven for justice!

It is for these reasons that I strongly believe that in good conscience I must personally begin taking more drastic political actions against this archdiocese – and I urge all readers of the Progressive Catholic Voice to consider doing the same, whether it be because of the archdiocese’s treatment of LGBT persons and their families, or for another issue of justice about which they feel as outraged as I do.

Much of the change regarding the treatment of LGBT person in this local church came about through the pressure put on the Chancery by members of right-wing fundamentalist groups that threatened both to withhold their contributions to the archdiocese and to contact the archbishop's superiors in the Vatican if he would not take a more conservative orthodox approach – and hence, one that is also less tolerant and compassionate – toward LGBT persons and their families.

Therefore, because these kinds of strategies appear to speak louder to the Catholic hierarchy than do personal appeals or rational arguments -- whether they be from a theological, philosophical, or scientific point of view -- or even public protests, I am recommending the following actions as a show of solidarity for our LGBT brothers and sisters and their families:

The following addresses are to those members of the Catholic hierarchy that are directly responsible for Archbishop John Nienstedt being appointed as the Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is best if your letters come from your heart and reflect your own personal opinions as to why--based on his record in New Ulm as bishop and here, so far, as Coadjutor Archbishop--John Nienstedt is not a good fit as archbishop for this archdiocese. You might consider writing to the Apostolic Nuncio and then sending a copy to both Cardinal Re and Pope Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Pietro Sambi
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W,
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 333-7121
Fax: (202) 337-4036

Giovanni Battista Cardinal Re
Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
Palazzo delle Congregazioni,
Piazza Pio XII, 10
00193 Rome
Italy
Tel (from USA): 011-39-06-69-88-42-17
Fax (from USA): 011-39-06-69-88-53-03

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
The Apostolic Palace,
00120 Vatican City State
Italy
Email: benedictxvi@vatican.va

Editor's Note: The boycott of the Archbishop's Annual Catholic Appeal that I am recommending here is based upon my own personal outrage about the archdiocese's 180-degree change in its attitudes and the (outrageously incompetent and insensitive) "pastoral care" that it is now recommending for its LGBT members and their families. I am inviting all readers to join me in this boycott. However, there may be other issues that the archdiocese has been addressing about which readers feel more outraged (e.g., liturgical reform, treatment of women, treatment of lay ministers, treatment of non-Catholics at Catholic liturgies, etc.). I strongly encourage readers to feel free to adapt their own boycott efforts, including the wording of the sample statement below, to fit another particular issue of injustice that may seem closer to their hearts.

Also please note that the sample form below allows for a number of options (i.e., withholding only a portion of the Appeal funds and giving them all to one or more LGBT-friendly organizations, withholding all of the Appeal funds and giving all of them to LGBT-friendly organizations or one part of them to LGBT-supportive groups and the rest to other social justice organizations (which you will have to locate through you own searches: for example, by calling the local First Call For Help at "2-1-1", or by online web searching).

The House of the Beloved Disciple
2930 13th Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Phone: 612-201-4534
Email: cpcsmmail@gmail.com

David J. McCaffrey is a founding member of The Progressive Catholic Voice and a cofounder of CPCSM.

(Editor's Note: In the November 8 issue of The Catholic Spirit, Fr. Jim Livingston of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis claimed that the Church’s teaching on the immorality of “homosexual activity” can be scientifically supported by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). When serving as bishop in Detroit, Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt invited NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi to speak as an “expert” on the issue of homosexuality at a conference for priests of the Detroit Archdiocese. Today, if an interested LGBT person, family member, or other ally calls the archdiocesan offices or views the archdiocese's website, he or she finds only the recommendation for a program called "Faith In Action," which is the local name for the ex-gay group Courage and its sister group for families and friends, known as Encourage

The CPCSM leadership has been concerned about the suppression by the current conservative archdiocesan administration of the competent and compassionate pastoral ministry programs CPCSM had helped create in the archdiocese over the past 28 years and their replacement by the Faith in Action program as the only ministry model for LGBT persons and their families. Therefore, CPCSM asked two nationally known psychologists who are considered experts within their professions on psychotherapy with LGBT persons, especially those who have previously undergone "reparative" therapy, to present a program on January 29, 2008 -- described in the following article by Michael Bayly -- that would explore and evaluate the the official positions of NARTH and Courage on the nature of homosexuality and their recommendations for treating or ministering to LGBT persons.) (Also, see Archbishop Roach's statement that appeared in the September 26, 1991, issue of the Catholic Bulletin--forerunner to The Catholic Spirit--and sums up his commitment to the quality of the LGBT pastoral ministry that occurred during his administration.)

The Myth of 'Conversion Therapy' and the Pseudo-Science of NARTH

PART I – DEBUNKING NARTH

In this first of two articles, CPCSM executive coordinator Michael Bayly highlights the insights and information presented by John C. Gonsiorek, PhD1 (1) during his January 29 presentation at the House of the Beloved Disciple.

Held in Minneapolis at the House of the Beloved Disciple, this program featured two local licensed psychologists, Jeffry G. Ford (2) and John C. Gonsiorek, who shared their perspective on the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality (NARTH) and the theory and practice of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, advocated by NARTH and other so-called ex-gay ministries and organizations.

These ex-gay groups are adamant that homosexuality is preventable in childhood and treatable in adulthood, and that most gays and lesbians can successfully convert to heterosexuality through what they label “reparative therapy” or “conversion therapy.”

The program was prompted by recent efforts on the part of the Archdiocese to promote NARTH as a credible scientific organization. For instance, in the November 8 issue of The Catholic Spirit (the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis), Fr. Jim Livingston (3) endorsed NARTH by citing the organization as a useful resource and by encouraging people to visit its website so as “to learn . . .about the emotional root causes of homosexuality.”

Fr. Livingston also recommended an audio CD of a talk given by NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi, an individual whom Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt, when he was a bishop in Detroit, invited to speak to the priests of the archdiocese as an “expert” on homosexuality.

Many Catholics are concerned by the local Archdiocese’s increasing reliance on the perspective and “findings” of NARTH to support and validate Church teaching on homosexuality.

Dr. Gonsiorek began his presentation with words of advice for Catholics troubled by the Archdiocese’s efforts to present NARTH as a legitimate scientific organization and to use its “findings” to validate Church teaching on the “disordered” nature of homosexuality.

“If you’re going to challenge the Archdiocese in its attempts to introduce what I consider to be a ‘fraudulent healthcare service,’” said Gonsiorek, “then you need to become educated about what the behavioral sciences say about sexual orientation. That has to be the base from which you operate as opposed to reacting to the ‘flakiness’ of organizations like NARTH.”

Dr. Gonsiorek then proceeded to provide some insightful background information on the origins of NARTH – origins inseparable from the wider cultural debate on homosexuality and, specifically, the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its official manual that lists mental and emotional disorders (followed two years later by the passage of a similar resolution of the American Psychological Association).

This change in the diagnosis of homosexuality was the result of the wealth of research data gathered since the early 1950s that showed no difference between homosexual and heterosexual populations in terms of “adjustment.”

Gonsiorek also noted that a significant “sea change” took place in the early 1970s when biological psychiatry began taking over the field of behavioral science from the psychoanalytical establishment. Indeed, the change in the diagnosis of homosexuality, says Gonsiorek, was “essentially a run-up of a long-standing fight” between these two groups, and was an important moment for the biological psychiatrists, “not only because they had a strong data base to support such a change, but because the psychoanalysts had always considered human sexuality to be their domain.”

In time, the psychoanalytical establishment also changed in its understanding of homosexuality; it now has the same sets of policies and principles about sexual orientation as the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. Yet there were “old guard” psychoanalysts who were disgruntled about being displaced and seeing their organization change its views on homosexuality. This disaffected group of psychoanalysts formed an alliance with conservatively- and religiously-oriented psychotherapists. It was from this alliance that NARTH was established.

Gonsiorek then outlined the problem with “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, the theory and practice that treats homosexuality as a pathology, as a disorder that can be “repaired” and changed.

“It’s nonsensical to have a treatment for a diagnosis that doesn’t exist,” says Gonsiorek. “With homosexuality being de-pathologized in 1973, what exactly is being treated? There is no data to support that sexual orientation can be changed and there’s no reason to change it; there’s no impairment.”

So why do people subject themselves to such a “nonsensical” treatment? Gonsiorek notes that there can be a “a great deal of coercion, a great deal of social pressure in some families and communities for those struggling with homosexual feelings to submit to conversion therapy. If they don’t, they’ll be socially ostracized.

Some ex-gay therapists insist that in recommending and/or offering conversion or reparative therapy they are merely giving people a choice as consumers to meet their personal health goals. This argument, says Gonsiorek is “specious and borders on malpractice.” Healthcare providers, he insists, “should not just do what consumers want but offer services that are based on established standards of care. And if the consumer wants something that is flakey, the answer is ‘No.’ To give them what’s flakey is malpractice.”

Gonsiorek also noted an “obvious sexism associated with the ex-gay movement.” “Most of the change efforts are focused on men,” he says. “Women are not so important to the ex-gay ministers and therapists.”

And there is yet another aspect of sexism reflected by this movement: If women marry supposedly ex-gay men and the marriage fails, it’s these women and any children produced by the marriage that suffer. “There’s a lot of this type of ‘collateral damage,’” says Gonsiorek, “but it’s rarely talked about by NARTH and the wider ex-gay establishment.”

Big business

Gonsiorek also observed that: “This whole discussion on reparative therapy is occurring in a socio-political context in which it’s becoming standard practice for both corporations and right-wing religious organizations to heavily fund institutes and think-tanks, and to purchase the science they want.”

“We saw this very dramatically with the tobacco company lawsuits, where the tobacco companies, for decades, bought their own science to support their positions,” he said. Yet despite the pseudo-science being exposed in such cases, “the funding by right-wing organizations within the scientific community and within church organizations [remains] big business,” notes Gonsiorek.

“It’s understandable,” says Gonsiorek, “that the lay public can become confused when every behavioral health organization does not support reparative therapy, and yet there are these official-sounding organizations, endorsed by people like archbishops, that make the argument that they are just one more credible voice among many.”

The real issue

At one point during his presentation, Gonsiorek was asked: “How do the people involved with groups like NARTH respond to the reality that every major professional organization in the behavioral sciences disagrees with them?”

Gonsiorek noted that they often attempt to “re-pathologize” homosexuality by making the following argument: Because certain subsets of the lesbian and gay population have higher rates of certain problems, it must mean there’s inherent pathology.

In response to this ploy, Gonsiorek notes that: “In reality, every group that is treated as second class has higher rates of both mental and physical health problems. If you treat people badly, they get messed up. You don’t need a PhD to figure that out. Yet we don’t say that women are inherently pathological because they have a higher rate of depression and eating disorders. Neither do we say that Native Americans are inherently pathological because they have higher rates of alcoholism.”

The “real issue,” says Gonsiorek, “is that if you can find anyone at all in the given population who is not pathological, then that disproves that the group is pathological. If you have a 20 percent higher base rate of a particular problem within a population, and if there are people within that population for whom that particular problem is not an issue, than it’s clear that something else is going on other than inherent pathology.”

Exploring the issue further, Gonsiorek noted that: “What often happens with people who are maneuvered into reparative therapy is that they’ve been trashed for years by churches and communities – even by their own families. As a result, they’re often depressed and anxious. That’s what the problem is, and that’s what requires treatment. So the reparative therapy is often done instead of what needs to be done – which is to undo the damage caused by harassment, ostracism, and disparagement.”

Science and religion

Gonsiorek concluded his talk by noting that “both the behavioral sciences and religion attempt to understand the human condition and to respond to problems within the human condition.” Yet he was adamant that science and religion are “not the same, and that one cannot speak for the other.”

“For a church leader to tell you what is good behavioral science,” he said, “carries about as much weight as your Uncle Joe telling you.”

Reflecting on the current situation in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Gonsiorek said: “As a psychologist, I find it almost fraudulent for someone who claims to be a moral authority to be grandly operating in an area in which they have no competence.”

In the March issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice, Michael Bayly will share highlights from Jeffrey Ford’s (3) contribution to CPCSM’s program, “The Myth of ‘Conversion Therapy’ and the Pseudo-Science of NARTH.”

NOTES

1. John C. Gonsiorek, PhD, is a fellow of American Psychological Association (APA) Division 9 (also called the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues), and Division 12 (the Society of Clinical Psychology).

John is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, and a Past-President of APA Division 44 – also known as the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues. For 25 years, he had an independent practice of clinical and forensic psychology in Minneapolis.

John has published widely in the areas of professional misconduct, sexual orientation and identity, and professional ethics. For many years, he provided expert witness evaluation and testimony regarding impaired clergy and professionals, standards of care, and psychological damages. He has also provided training and consultation to a variety of religious denominations and organizations.

2. Jeffry G. Ford, MA, is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist. Interestingly, Jeff was formerly the executive director of OUTPOST, an “ex-gay” ministry located in Minneapolis. For ten years, Jeff claimed to be a “former homosexual,” and was a national speaker for Exodus International, the governing board and communication hub for most ex-gay ministries. Today, however, Jeff identifies as a gay man and is a nationally known consultant and speaker on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. He specializes in addressing the complexities involved with the anti-gay theory known both as “reparative therapy” and “sexual conversion therapy,” which purports to prevent and cure homosexuality. Jeff dedicates his time and energy to challenging the unethical and dangerous use of pseudo-scientific theories associated with the ex-gay movement, a movement that includes NARTH.

3. Fr. Jim Livingston serves as lead chaplain to the local chapter of Courage (which goes by the name of Faith in Action in the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese). Courage purports to help people move beyond “same-sex attraction” by encouraging a life of “interior chastity in union with Christ.” The movement labels itself a “pro-chastity ministry,” and equates chastity with celibacy. Although Courage -- which, along with NARTH, Livingston enthusiastically promotes in his November 8 commentary -- acknowledges that the “inclination of homosexual attractions” is “psychologically understandable,” the group, nevertheless, considers such attractions “objectively disordered” – a view promulgated by the hierarchical church. Courage often substitutes the words “homosexuality” and “gay” with the NARTH-coined phrase, “same-sex attraction disorder” – a term unrecognized by any professional mental health association. Following NARTH’s lead, Courage likens homosexuality to alcoholism, and conducts its “support groups” using the 12-Step format developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. Some members of Courage even consider their “disorder” to be curable, and explain its origin using debunked theories of dominant mothers, distant fathers, and abusive family relations. Livingston’s commentary in The Catholic Spirit is clear evidence that the quackery of NARTH is actively endorsed and encouraged by some within the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the February 2008 issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice, Michael Bayly shared the contributions made by John C. Gonsiorek to the CPCSM-sponsored event, “The Myth of ‘Conversion Therapy’ and the Pseudo-Science of NARTH.”

Dr. Gonsiorek was one of two speakers at this program, which took place at the House of the Beloved Disciple in Minneapolis on Tuesday, January 29, and was prompted, in part, by recent efforts on the part of the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis to promote the ideology and “scientific findings” of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality (NARTH). The other speaker invited to share his perspective on this issue was Jeffry G. Ford, MA, a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist.

Highlights of John Gonsiorek’s presentation comprised Part I of the two-part Progressive Catholic Voice series, “The Myth of ‘Conversion Therapy’ and the Pseudo Science of NARTH.”

Following is Part II, comprised of highlights of Jeff Ford’s presentation at the House of the Beloved Disciple on January 29.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Jeffry Ford’s story is that he was formerly the executive director of OUTPOST, an “ex-gay” ministry located in Minneapolis. For ten years, Jeff claimed to be a “former homosexual,” and was a national speaker for Exodus International, the governing board and communication hub for most ex-gay ministries.

Today, however, Jeff identifies as a gay man and is a nationally known consultant and speaker on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) issues. Jeff dedicates his time and energy to challenging the unethical and dangerous use of pseudo-scientific theories associated with the ex-gay movement, a movement that includes NARTH. In particular, he addresses the complexities involved with the anti-gay theory and practice known both as “reparative therapy” and “sexual conversion therapy,” which purports to prevent and cure homosexuality.

The story of Jeff’s journey away from the world of “ex-gay” ministry is featured with those of other “ex-gays” in a publication entitled, "Finally Free," complied by the Washington, DC-based Human Rights Campaign.

Growing up in a religious home, Jeff responded to his growing awareness that he was attracted to other males by rationalizing that “something had gone wrong” inside of him. He felt shame and a sense of “badness,” and struggled to keep secret his homosexual feelings. Yet his mother could tell that something was going on inside of him. Accordingly, she would have “little talks” with him that invariably started with: “Jeffry, do you know what it is to be a queer?” She also attempted to “butch” him up and would give him examples of what was wrong about being effeminate and queer. She even sent him to a wrangling camp on a ranch in Arizona. Looking back on this experience, Jeff says with a wry smile: “It just didn’t work.”

Nevertheless, by high school, Jeff had “learned how to pass” – learned how to date girls and keep his true desires “under wraps.” In his junior year of high school he became involved with evangelical Christianity, and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. In this rigid, fundamentalist form of Christianity, Jeff found a way to hope and believe that “something” was going to take his homosexuality away; that somehow God, through Jeff’s personal acceptance of Jesus, was going to heal him and set him free.

He began to sublimate, repress, and deny the homosexual feelings he was experiencing. Despite some “dalliances” involving other men – encounters that he never talked about and felt “incredibly shameful about,” Jeff married at the age of twenty. Yet when neither his evangelical Christian faith nor his heterosexual marriage made his homosexual desires disappear, Jeff sought counseling. The Christian counselor he saw at Bethel College was in his own way, says Jeff, compassionate and caring. In retrospect, however, Jeff can also say that this counselor was misguided in his understanding about homosexuality.

He asked Jeff to undergo “aversion therapy” – a form of electric shock “reparative therapy.” Jeff ended up doing forty sessions of this humiliating type of therapy that left painful scorch marks on his forearms. Even after realizing that this type of therapy had failed to take away his homosexual desires, Jeff continued to pursue anything he could so as not to be gay.

The various testimonies contained in this DVD – from former ex-gays and psychologists – attest to the fact that the ex-gay movement pushes what former ex-gay Daniel Gonzales describes as the two biggest lies that drive people into any form of therapy to either change or repress their sexual orientation and/or its expression. These lies are that: 1) a person cannot live their life as a gay person and be a good Christian, and 2) being gay is not a viable or fulfilling way to live one’s life.

One Catholic ex-gay featured in the documentary notes that often after “conversion therapy” fails, many “faith-based” therapists will say that the only choice you have left is celibacy. They realize that the success rate of changing homosexuals to heterosexuals is “very, very poor.” So they try to take a new approach by saying, “Well, if you can’t change, then be celibate.”

To be sure, the lives of ex-gays all seem to be dominated by hopelessness, guilt, internalized shame, and feelings of defectiveness. More than one commentator in the film noted that the sense of worthlessness that ex-gay ministries foster compels many gay people to take unsafe sexual risks. As one former ex-gay noted: “If you serve a mean God, you become sort of mean also.”

One psychologist in the film offered the following insight: “The repression of sexual desire actually makes the idea of acting them out more titillating, makes a person more likely to think sexual thoughts. For those struggling to suppress their homosexual feelings, this repression actually leads to an increase in the acting out of unsafe sexual behaviors – behaviors that might not occur if they were more accepting of their homosexuality.”

One young man interviewed confirmed this, saying that: “I never really dated anyone – male or female – until I made the choice to accept my sexuality.” That acceptance allowed him to start dating, an experience that he describes as “fantastic.” “I was no longer meeting men in dark places having anonymous sex,” he said, “but actually having a relationship for the first time.”

Of course, for some gay people, getting to the point of having a relationship requires breaking free from an ex-gay ministry of one form or another. Breaking free, however, can be a very protracted and painful experience as it is often within these ministries that many gay people have their family, friends, and their sense of faith and community. Yet despite the pain of being ostracized by family and friends, the vast majority do indeed break free. As one former ex-gay declares: “I’d rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I’m not.”

Yet what of those who claim that conversion therapy has worked for them? According to Jeff Ford, ninety-six percent of such people fall into the first two of three categories, the first of which is comprised of people who, despite claimed success, still struggle with homosexual feelings and/or behaviors. The second category is comprised of those who are single and celibate. Only four percent of those who claim that “reparative” or “conversion” therapy has been successful now consider themselves to be heterosexual. Interestingly, almost all of these people work in the ex-gay counseling field. It would seem that for reparative therapy to be successful, one must quit one’s job and become an ex-gay minister and/or therapist and dedicate one’s life to it.

Jeff noted that in the ex-gay world, the expression of same-sex attraction is never talked about as an act of love. It’s only ever understood and talked about as an incarnation of evil. Furthermore, if you accept the “lie” about the normalcy of homosexuality, then you forfeit your place in heaven.

Jeff’s questioning of this dogma against his inner sense and experience of being loved and accepted by God as a gay man was an experience of “deep grace and forgiveness.” It was a liberating experience for him.

Says Jeff: “The ex-gay movement tends to blame the parents and/or supposed experiences of childhood abuse for changing the direction of one’s natural (i.e., heterosexual) sexual orientation. If your unmet needs can be met in ‘healthy’ ways, i.e., in non-erotic same-sex friendships and relationships, then not only will your unmet needs be met, but your heterosexuality will bloom and blossom. That’s the hope and that’s what they promise. And some people will do almost anything to believe this – from years and years of counseling to prayers and exorcisms.

“The problem,” continues Jeff, “comes when people do all these things and yet continue to experience same-sex attractions. They feel like a failure, yet you’re not supposed to talk about such feelings of failure publicly – only in private with your counselor. There’s a lot of restraint on your personal freedom. The extent of this restraint depends on which ex-gay ministry you’re involved with. Some of them demand that you don’t listen to certain types of music, read certain types of books. You can’t be left alone with another person of the same gender. It’s very cult-like, very controlling.”

Jeff certainly has a powerful story to share, and he did so eloquently at the House of the Beloved Disciple on January 29. Without doubt, much of this power comes from the fact that Jeff speaks from experience. After all, he studied and practiced reparative therapies for years. Such personal and professional experience, says Jeff, allows him to offer “accurate answers and powerful insight” into the workings

Regional Deacons' Conference, Hosted by Archdiocese,
to Feature Presentation By Director of Anti-Gay Group

CPCSM Responds to the Promotion of the Anti-Gay Courage
Apostolate at the Region 8 Deacons' Conference with Letter to Deacons

See the following link to view:
From Courage to Authenticity: A Position Paper on the Courage Apostolate

See the following link to view:
A Catholic Bibliography on LGBT Issues

Archdiocese Halts Church's
Annual Gay Pride Prayers

Uproar over prayer service for gays grows

VIDEO: What’s Morally Wrong With Homosexuality?

CPCSM Cofounder Shares His Frustration with Changes in
Local Archdiocese's Pastoral Ministry for LGBT Catholics and Their Families, Recommends Boycott and Other Political Actions

CPCSM Sponsors Educational Program Showing Unscientific and Unethical Practices Behind the Ministry Work with LGBT Persons
Now Advocated by Conservative Archdiocesan Leadership

Big business

The real issue

Science and religion

NOTES

Regional Deacons' Conference, Hosted by Archdiocese, to Feature Presentation By Director of Anti-Gay Group

CPCSM Responds to the Promotion of the Anti-Gay Courage Apostolate at the Region 8 Deacons' Conference with Letter to Deacons

See the following link to view: From Courage to Authenticity: A Position Paper on the Courage Apostolate

See the following link to view: A Catholic Bibliography on LGBT Issues

Archdiocese Halts Church's Annual Gay Pride Prayers

Uproar over prayer service for gays grows

VIDEO: What’s Morally Wrong With Homosexuality?

CPCSM Cofounder Shares His Frustration with Changes in Local Archdiocese's Pastoral Ministry for LGBT Catholics and Their Families, Recommends Boycott and Other Political Actions

CPCSM Sponsors Educational Program Showing Unscientific and Unethical Practices Behind the Ministry Work with LGBT Persons Now Advocated by Conservative Archdiocesan Leadership

Big business

The real issue

Science and religion

NOTES

Regional Deacons' Conference, Hosted by Archdiocese,
to Feature Presentation By Director of Anti-Gay Group

CPCSM Responds to the Promotion of the Anti-Gay Courage
Apostolate at the Region 8 Deacons' Conference with Letter to Deacons

See the following link to view:
From Courage to Authenticity: A Position Paper on the Courage Apostolate

See the following link to view:
A Catholic Bibliography on LGBT Issues

Archdiocese Halts Church's
Annual Gay Pride Prayers

CPCSM Cofounder Shares His Frustration with Changes in
Local Archdiocese's Pastoral Ministry for LGBT Catholics and Their Families, Recommends Boycott and Other Political Actions

CPCSM Sponsors Educational Program Showing Unscientific and Unethical Practices Behind the Ministry Work with LGBT Persons
Now Advocated by Conservative Archdiocesan Leadership