Subject: Sex Status In the Catholic Church Is Divisive Issue in U. S. Date: Published: 2/19/87 248 lines Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Sex and Salvation: Homosexuals' Status In the Catholic Church Is Divisive Issue in U. S. --- As the Vatican Gets Tougher On Activist Parishioners, Stand Vexes Many Clerics --- Will Protests Greet the Pope? --- By Dianna Solis Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal HOUSTON -- In an austere setting at 3217 Fannin St., a visitor can glimpse one result of the Vatican's campaign against homosexual activity and against church support of homosexual-rights groups. There, Mass is being celebrated in a nondescript office building in a run-down neighborhood -- in a place of worship adorned only with a wooden cross and a banner emblazoned "Dignity." Dignity is the name of a national organization of homosexual Catholics who believe that their expressions of sexuality can be morally good -- a posture opposing Vatican doctrine. For such activists, not only in Houston but also in many other U. S. dioceses, the welcome mat has been withdrawn from steepled church property. At the Mass on Fannin Street, the traditional prayer for the pope and his bishops is followed by a provocative plea: "deliverance for those with closed minds and closed hearts." Later the priest confides that he fears for his collar because the conservative local diocese insists on acceptance of church doctrine. "I wish I were braver," he says, explaining his request for anonymity. "I am afraid of the backlash." Although many other priests, nuns and lay Catholics around the country condemn the Vatican's stand, that stand is justified and moral in the minds of other Catholics. The Bible can be used to defend either side, but its most frequently cited passages on the subject seem to rebuke homosexuality. "The church isn't a democracy," says the Rev. John G. Woolsey, who runs family-development programs for the New York Archdiocese. "We don't shift teachings according to the latest Gallup Poll." But now the once taboo subject of homosexuality is erupting throughout the Catholic Church in the U. S., threatening to overtake abortion as the prime issue in sexual-morality debate. And as the church gets tougher, homosexual Catholics have begun marshaling support for confrontation. "There is just a terrible pain out there," says the Rev. Robert Nugent of Maywood, N. J., who leads the 3,500-member Catholic Coalition for Gay Civil Rights. "I just don't see things settling down." The controversy could reach a peak in September, when the pope is scheduled to return to the U. S. eight years after his triumphal first visit. Some organizers vow they will hold demonstrations as chilly as those conducted two years ago by liberal Dutch Catholics protesting the Vatican's tough views on contraception and other issues of sexual morality. "His first visit was a honeymoon trip," says Dignity's 37-year-old national leader, James Bussen of Chicago, a former seminarian. "He will get greeted in a much different manner this time." Already, some demonstrations have escalated into ugly confrontations. In New York City during the 1983 "gay pride" parade along Fifth Avenue, a fist fight erupted between members of Dignity and members of an anti-homosexual Catholic group. In Dayton, Ohio, when the local Dignity chapter held an anniversary Mass last summer, a group of picketers staged a protest. "Dignity is destroying the church," a placard proclaimed. The division is especially evident in the ranks of the clergy. Catholic clerics commonly voice public opposition to the practice of homosexuality. Nevertheless, on the issue of whether the church should minister to groups of unrepentant homosexuals or bar them, the split is wide and growing. "This is a rather sad thing," says the Rev. Laurence Connelly, a parish priest in Sugarland, Texas, who calls the Vatican's stand "anti-Christ and anti-Gospel." He declares, "I am just sick and tired of what is going on." On one side of the issue, John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia and Bishop Leo T. Maher of San Diego forbid Masses to groups of Dignity members. In New York, John Cardinal O'Connor has successfully fought a court fight to preserve the church's right to avoid hiring homosexuals for staff positions. More recently, when the Catholic Coalition for Gay Civil Rights held a series of seminars in the Midwest, one of the region's bishops denied it the use of church property. And just last week, Bishop Francis J. Mugavero of New York's Brooklyn Diocese, a man long considered sympathetic to groups like Dignity, barred such organizations from using church buildings for meetings or religious services. On the other hand, in Seattle, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen sanctioned a Dignity-sponsored Mass and even delivered the welcoming address at the group's national convention; six months ago, however, the Vatican stripped him of much of his authority, in part because of his tolerance of Dignity. Two weeks ago, the Rev. John McNeill of New York, a self-proclaimed abstinent homosexual, was expelled from the Jesuit order for public dissent from the Vatican's teaching on homosexuality. Father McNeill, who for a decade had been under orders from the church to refrain from publicly espousing his views on homosexuality, said in a speech that sexual-morality issues should be judged by "freedom of conscience" as well as by church teachings. But the most notable move was taken by the Vatican itself in October. With more clerics openly questioning the contemporary relevance -- even the morality -- of certain biblical passages about homosexuality, and with homosexual lay groups gaining credibility as a result, the Vatican felt compelled to issue a strong pastoral letter. It called homosexuality "disordered," condemned homosexual groups for their "deceitful propaganda" and warned bishops against supporting any Catholic group that implicitly treats homosexuality as benign. The letter added that despite the epidemic proportions of acquired immune-deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, homosexuals "remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved." Nowhere has the pastoral letter stirred such controversy as in the U. S. To some theologians, the church's pronouncement had the effect of dissolving the centuries-old Christian distinction between the "sinner" and the "sin." The Catholic Church itself, for instance, operates special ministries for divorced Catholics in an estimated 80% of U. S. dioceses. But homosexuals, insist many clerics and lay leaders, are a different brand of sinner. "It's one thing to be a sinner and be contrite," says Al Matt, the editor of the conservative Catholic newspaper the Wanderer, "and another to be a sinner and think it's an asset." The church has always accepted worshipers whose sexual urges, if not activities, are directed toward members of their own sex -- but only those who express repentance over their past sexual practices. In fact, a church-sanctioned organization called Courage works to counsel such people toward heterosexuality or chaste lives. Yet the October pastoral letter stated that "the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." But according to some Catholic homosexual activists, the proportion of homosexually inclined people within the Catholic clergy itself greatly exceeds the 10% generally estimated for the population at large. Kevin Gordon of New York, a former brother of the Christian order, published a book last month estimating that 40% to 60% of the Catholic clergy is homosexual. (He doesn't estimate the number of these that practice homosexuality.) But Mr. Gordon, who runs a Catholic think tank on homosexuality, says that ambition keeps many of these clergymen from challenging the church. "If you want to get that red cap of the cardinal, you have to do the party line, especially on sexual issues," says the author. "These are company men." The church wasn't always so vocal about its opposition, or so tough. More than 15 years ago the late John Cardinal Cody of the Chicago Archdiocese -- then the nation's largest -- sanctioned Dignity-sponsored Masses. In 1976, the U. S. bishops maintained a conciliatory view toward homosexuals. "They have a right to respect, friendship and justice," the bishops said in a pastoral letter. "They should have an active role in the Christian community." Even in 1983, the Washington State Catholic Conference, while opposing homosexuality, resolved that "the prejudice against homosexuals is greater infringement of the norm of Christian morality." Of particular concern to the Vatican, liberal forces began scholarly questioning of such explicit biblical passages as the pronouncement in the Old Testament book of Leviticus that "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination." Besides criticizing these passages as outdated, among other points, some clerics began trying to overturn them with other biblical passages. "But by God's grace I am what I am," they read from Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, "and the grace that he gave me was not without effect." To make matters worse, the church was coming under attack for being slow to minister to AIDS patients. In issuing its pastoral letter in October, the Vatican cited the "enormous pressure" it felt to make its position on homosexuality plain. The conflicts erupting since then have thrown a spotlight on Dignity, a 20-year-old organization of 5,000 members whose chief goal is to keep homosexuals in the Catholic Church. Its central activity is celebrating Mass. Last autumn, the Houston chapter emblazoned "Mass Appeal" banners in bars and restaurants in the city's largely homosexual Montrose neighborhood. In Philadelphia, Dignity pays train fare or gasoline money so that priests from New York, New Jersey and the Washington, D. C., area can conduct services there for homosexuals -- at St. Luke and the Epiphany Episcopalian Church. "No priest in our diocese will touch us," explains Michael Flynn, a Dignity member in Philadelphia. Why not quit Catholicism for Episcopalianism or one of several other religions with more liberal views toward homosexuals? Many Catholic homosexuals explain that abandoning so paternal a church wouldn't be any easier than escaping their sexuality. "The Catholic Church is my heritage," says Mr. Flynn, the grandson of Irish immigrants. "There are so many things I like about the church: the sacraments, the Eucharist, the smells and bells. They are not going to take that away from me." Some Dignity leaders recognize that homosexuality is a moral minefield, and they try to tread lightly through it. Joseph Nuber, a former seminarian who heads the Houston group, tries to soften any breach of church policy by insisting that his chapter doesn't specifically condone homosexual activity. The group's image-consciousness has won it occasional political recognition, such as the Dignity Day in Houston proclaimed by Mayor Kathy Whitmire. Compared with other "gay rights" groups, Dignity's activities are studiously inconspicuous: a pilgrimage to Lourdes for AIDS victims, for instance, and soup kitchens and toy drives for the poor. But some of Dignity's activities take it well out of the religious mainstream. The national group's newsletter carries a column entitled "Saints of the Closet?" which profiles the lives of saints thought to have been homosexual. Dignity's float in the last gay-pride parade in New York depicted Jesus as the good shepherd tending a flock of sheep -- every tenth one painted lavender, to symbolize the 10% of the population generally thought to be homosexual. And for some members, raising a clenched fist at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the main church in Cardinal O'Connor's archdiocese, has become a ritual of the parade. "There are a number of Dignity members who want to make a meaningful, creative, nonviolent type of protest," says Lou Bordisso, a San Francisco therapist who counsels "disenfranchised" Catholics, such as homosexuals and the divorced. But he says there are "some more extreme elements, who would like to burn baptismal certificates." Delicately, Dignity and other groups -- including the National Coalition of American Nuns and Catholics Speak Out -- prefer to couch their assertiveness as a "challenge for dialogue." Whether such restrained temperament lasts until the pope's visit is another matter. (This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.)