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Cross purposes
The Vatican is about to issue a new directive condemning homosexuality and keeping gay priests out of the Catholic Church. In San Francisco, that would threaten one of the most vibrant Catholic parishes.
By Joe Dignan
sfbg.com/40/08/cover_vatican.html
MOST SUNDAY MORNINGS at about 9:30, three blocks from the corner of 18th and Castro, a small group of men and women kneel just off the sidewalk and pray.
They kneel in front of a roughly life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin Mother near the entrance to Most Holy Redeemer Catholic church and say the rosary. They rest their knees on an uncomfortable-looking metal platform, which is connected to a metal rail with a latticework grill with the word Maria wrought in metal letters.
Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
They repeat the prayer about 50 times.
It’s an ancient ritual, and these days, in most Catholic churches, the people saying the rosary are old women in black veils.
At this church, the rosary ladies are gay men.
Each Sunday an overwhelmingly gay congregation gathers at Most Holy Redeemer, on Diamond Street, for services that seem to embody an almost irreconcilable contradiction: It’s a thriving parish of a church that calls the sex lives of its members a mortal sin.
Each Sunday they come from all over the Bay Area, from as far away as Vallejo. While a few homeless dot the congregation, as they meet on the sidewalk they’re neatly dressed, freshly pressed in tidy jeans, khakis, button-downs, and polos. There’s a little flirting. They hug and joke. Latecomers hustle up the stairs.
Most Holy Redeemer (MHR to its congregants) has been ministering to gay Catholics since the AIDS crisis hit San Francisco, in the early 1980s. In a city where most Catholic churches are big, drafty places with long stretches of oak pews between huddled clumps of parishioners, MHR presents another anomaly: a full house.
It’s one of the most successful parishes in the city – and what it represents is directly at odds with the beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly those of the new pope, Benedict XVI, formerly known as the conservative doctrinal enforcer Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
In fact, on Nov. 29, the Vatican is expected to release a new ruling aimed at cracking down on gay priests in the Catholic Church and making judgments on the morality of homosexuality.
The most recent versions reportedly include requirements that a candidate be celibate for three years before applying to the seminary to be trained as a priest. A secular Italian newspaper, Il Giornale, reported last week that the document says the Church “cannot admit to the priesthood those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’<!q>”
The witch hunt is already well under way: In October a team of five inspectors descended on Saint Patrick’s seminary in Menlo Park, with a mission to examine, among other things, evidence of homosexuality there. Its findings remain a tightly guarded secret.
But it’s no secret to anyone that driving out gay priests would be, well, a bit unworkable. If the Vatican forced out all the gay seminarians and priests, particularly in San Francisco, there wouldn’t be many people left to tend to the Catholic flock.
Father Donald Cozzens, author of The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood and head of Saint Mary Seminary in Cleveland, Ohio, estimated in his book that as many as 50 percent of American priests are gay.
“If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented … it would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world,” said Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest.
“It would decimate the priesthood,” said Most Holy Redeemer parishioner Rob Hopke, who on a recent Sunday morning was saying the rosary outside before mass.
And a darkening attitude toward gays would put the parishioners of Most Holy Redeemer in a very unpleasant spot: The only way they would be able to keep their parish openly gay and accepting of homosexuality would be to actively defy the pope – and hope the new archbishop of San Francisco, who has yet to be appointed, will let them get away with it.
MHR is about a block and a half from the strip of gay bars that have become the semiofficial social centers of San Francisco’s ardently secular gay community. The sidewalk across the street from the church and up toward Collingwood Park (in front of what used to be the church’s convent and is now an AIDS hospice) is a favored gay men’s cruising spot.
On the surface, it’s an odd location for a successful Catholic church…
The Vatican is about to issue a new directive condemning homosexuality and keeping gay priests out of the Catholic Church. In San Francisco, that would threaten one of the most vibrant Catholic parishes.
By Joe Dignan
sfbg.com/40/08/cover_vatican.html
MOST SUNDAY MORNINGS at about 9:30, three blocks from the corner of 18th and Castro, a small group of men and women kneel just off the sidewalk and pray.
They kneel in front of a roughly life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin Mother near the entrance to Most Holy Redeemer Catholic church and say the rosary. They rest their knees on an uncomfortable-looking metal platform, which is connected to a metal rail with a latticework grill with the word Maria wrought in metal letters.
Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
They repeat the prayer about 50 times.
It’s an ancient ritual, and these days, in most Catholic churches, the people saying the rosary are old women in black veils.
At this church, the rosary ladies are gay men.
Each Sunday an overwhelmingly gay congregation gathers at Most Holy Redeemer, on Diamond Street, for services that seem to embody an almost irreconcilable contradiction: It’s a thriving parish of a church that calls the sex lives of its members a mortal sin.
Each Sunday they come from all over the Bay Area, from as far away as Vallejo. While a few homeless dot the congregation, as they meet on the sidewalk they’re neatly dressed, freshly pressed in tidy jeans, khakis, button-downs, and polos. There’s a little flirting. They hug and joke. Latecomers hustle up the stairs.
Most Holy Redeemer (MHR to its congregants) has been ministering to gay Catholics since the AIDS crisis hit San Francisco, in the early 1980s. In a city where most Catholic churches are big, drafty places with long stretches of oak pews between huddled clumps of parishioners, MHR presents another anomaly: a full house.
It’s one of the most successful parishes in the city – and what it represents is directly at odds with the beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly those of the new pope, Benedict XVI, formerly known as the conservative doctrinal enforcer Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
In fact, on Nov. 29, the Vatican is expected to release a new ruling aimed at cracking down on gay priests in the Catholic Church and making judgments on the morality of homosexuality.
The most recent versions reportedly include requirements that a candidate be celibate for three years before applying to the seminary to be trained as a priest. A secular Italian newspaper, Il Giornale, reported last week that the document says the Church “cannot admit to the priesthood those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’<!q>”
The witch hunt is already well under way: In October a team of five inspectors descended on Saint Patrick’s seminary in Menlo Park, with a mission to examine, among other things, evidence of homosexuality there. Its findings remain a tightly guarded secret.
But it’s no secret to anyone that driving out gay priests would be, well, a bit unworkable. If the Vatican forced out all the gay seminarians and priests, particularly in San Francisco, there wouldn’t be many people left to tend to the Catholic flock.
Father Donald Cozzens, author of The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood and head of Saint Mary Seminary in Cleveland, Ohio, estimated in his book that as many as 50 percent of American priests are gay.
“If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented … it would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world,” said Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest.
“It would decimate the priesthood,” said Most Holy Redeemer parishioner Rob Hopke, who on a recent Sunday morning was saying the rosary outside before mass.
And a darkening attitude toward gays would put the parishioners of Most Holy Redeemer in a very unpleasant spot: The only way they would be able to keep their parish openly gay and accepting of homosexuality would be to actively defy the pope – and hope the new archbishop of San Francisco, who has yet to be appointed, will let them get away with it.
MHR is about a block and a half from the strip of gay bars that have become the semiofficial social centers of San Francisco’s ardently secular gay community. The sidewalk across the street from the church and up toward Collingwood Park (in front of what used to be the church’s convent and is now an AIDS hospice) is a favored gay men’s cruising spot.
On the surface, it’s an odd location for a successful Catholic church…
