Catholic Church In Minneapolis bans gay service

I wonder if this means that the priest can't come to the service too?


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
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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.