St. Joan of Arc "We're Catholic... and staying Catholic"

[_veritas]

**Gay ministry at a crossroads **
**Matt Mckinney **Star Tribune Published December 13, 2004
The two visitors to the meeting were quick with their comments – and their exit moments later. Gays have no place in the church, they said. Stop making trouble.

Then they left the gathering of gay and lesbian parishioners at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in south Minneapolis, a wave of confusion and anger closing in behind as the others watched them leave.

“I try not to listen to that ****,” a lesbian parishioner said as she relayed the conversation to others a few moments later. She started to say something else but then, shaken, stopped.

The encounter at St. Joan’s last month, brief as it was, was like a window into the soul of the Catholic Church today. The tension among straight and gay Catholics has become a persistent and personal one illustrating both the rising power of the American gay rights movement and the nation’s rightward shift on social issues.

“I really think this is part of a much larger struggle,” the Rev. George Wertin, the pastor at St. Joan’s, told the gay and lesbian parishioners at last month’s meeting. He then referred to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that helped overturn discriminatory laws. “What happened for black people has to happen now for a new group of people.”

The conflict in the Twin Cities among Catholics has flowed beyond St. Joan’s of late. Twice this year people have protested at the Cathedral of St. Paul, the archdiocese’s home parish, including a group known as the Ushers of the Eucharist whose members knelt in church aisles to block members of a homosexual advocacy group known as the Rainbow Sash Movement from participating in mass.

And the road ahead for St. Joan’s and other parishes sympathetic to gay and lesbian causes remains as uncertain as ever.

Wertin was ordered in mid-October to remove extensive Gay Pride material from his church’s Web site after an anonymous complaint to church authorities. A directive from the Vatican was delivered in person by two bishops. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis also told the church to stop allowing the unordained to speak during mass, a long-standing practice at St. Joan’s in which guest speakers talk about everything from scripture to American history to overseas missionary work to homosexuality.

The consequence for future violations could mean removal of Wertin, St. Joan’s longtime senior priest, and installation of a replacement chosen by the archdiocese.

A request to interview Archbishop Harry Flynn about St. Joan’s is pending. A church spokesman said that Flynn was not immediately available because of a busy schedule, but that he would talk to the Star Tribune at a later date.

(continued…)

 

[Island_Oak]

We lived in St. Joan’s parish when we were first married over a decade ago. I have strong conflicting feelings about what they try to accomplish there. At that time I thoroughly appreciated their speakers and felt their ministry was well-intentioned and sincerely directed at education, tolerance and bringing the Church to the real world (and vice-versa). However, more recently, they seem to make forays into a social agenda that is so radical and contrary to the Catholic faith that I get the sense that shock value and rebellion have become an end in themselves instead of merely a by-product of ministering to an often maginalized subset of the church.

 

[fix]

I have followed these heretics for a couple of years at Catholic Parents Online. It really is a great scandal. The very weak bishop fails to properly discipline them. I wonder how many have been led astray by the false teachings at that parish? Who is accountable for the souls?

 

[EddieArent]

That parish is as about as Catholic as my dog is Jewish.

 

[mercygate]

“Gays have no place in the Church?”

Holy cow! What a thing to say considering all those blessed people with SSA who are striving to live in continence and chastity.

What has no place in the Church is the blatant affront to the Church’s teaching on chastity.

Any person with SSA, who is is achieving chastity – or even attempting it – is certainly welcome in my little corner of God’s perfect church of perfect saints.

 

[Brad]

fix:

I have followed these heretics for a couple of years at Catholic Parents Online. It really is a great scandal. The very weak bishop fails to properly discipline them. I wonder how many have been led astray by the false teachings at that parish? Who is accountable for the souls?

Souls? You don’t still buy that middle-age teaching of Hell do you? Silly you. God loves us. His mercy is so great. Jesus was a cool, funny dude that wanted to have a good time. So should we.

 

[_veritas]

Sorry – here’s the second half!!

The archdiocese distributed a statement several weeks ago that called on St. Joan’s to return to more traditional practices: "Pope John Paul II has announced the coming liturgical year as ‘The Year of The Eucharist’ and as part of that observance has called for ‘unity of purpose and commonality of practice,’ " the statement read.

Still, one of St. Joan’s more vocal critics says it’s hard to see that much has changed at the parish since the directive was handed down.

St. Joan’s Web site still carries an abundant amount of information for gay and lesbian Catholics, and also a link to a Web site for gay dating that promises, among other things, “romance.”

“It seems to me the only thing they pulled off the Web site [was a photograph of the Gay Pride week],” said Al Matt, editor of the Wanderer, a Twin Cities Catholic newspaper that takes a decidedly orthodox posture and is a longtime nemesis to the Twin Cities archdiocese from the polar opposite ideological spectrum of St. Joan’s.

**Earlier clash **

St. Joan’s has been censured before. Kathy Itzin, a religious education coordinator at the parish, was denied an award from the archdiocese last year because she is a lesbian in a committed relationship. Flynn withdrew the award after Catholic Parents Online complained to him in a letter. That decision led to a protest by about 200 church members in favor of Itzin.

As for Catholic teaching on homosexuality, gays and lesbians are welcome to full participation in the Catholic mass as long as they are celibate. The same teaching holds true for heterosexuals who are not married. Same-sex unions are forbidden, and priests must be celibate, regardless of sexual orientation.

That falls short for Catholics such as Michael Reinbold. Born into the church, he left as a young adult when he believed Catholic teachings excluded him. He said that about the time he was in college and studied church history, he realized “this is not what I want to belong to. So I left.”

Years later, his body succumbing to an HIV infection, Reinbold accepted an invitation from his sister to attend Easter service at St. Joan of Arc. “We were in for such a surprise at St. Joan’s,” he said.

The church bulletin listed events for the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. The priest only occasionally delivered the homily himself, allowing guests instead to speak during the part of the mass in which the parishioners are instructed on how to live.

“It was exciting,” said Reinbold. “It was like going to a place of enlightenment. I joined right away in probably one of the most crucial times in my life, when I needed spiritual awakening.”

It’s not hard to find people at St. Joan’s who, like Reinbold, say the things they found at St. Joan’s drew them back to the Catholic Church after years away.

Reinbold sings in the choir and writes for the parish’s Web site. He said he feels that he is a part of the ministry. “We’re asked to grow,” he said. “We’re asked to question.”

Reinbold said he regards Wertin "as my spiritual father. His homilies never preach ‘that you must be saved,’ but rather insist ‘you’ve already been saved, so get on with your life and commit to social justice.’ "

Though the past several weeks have been a struggle for Catholics such as Reinbold, parish administrator Peter Eichten said: “I think there is consensus among the staff that we are not going to leave.”

Parishes that have left have not fared well on their own, Eichten said. There’s no reason for new people to come to that church, and though the original members may have felt they had good reason to strike out on their own, they eventually die off and there’s no one to replace them, he said.

“We are the church,” he said. “We cannot let the institution and the hierarchy become our view of the church. That’s part of the church, but it’s not the totality of the church. We … need to stay in it to make it better.”

“We’re Catholic,” he said at the meeting for gay and lesbian parishioners. “And we’re staying Catholic.”

Find the article online at
startribune.com/dynamic/story.php?template=print_a&story=5133598

or at - wcco.com/localnews/local_story_349125218.html

+veritas+

 

[JimG]

mercygate:

Any person with SSA, who is is achieving chastity – or even attempting it – is certainly welcome in my little corner of God’s perfect church of perfect saints.

Very true. But do such persons customarily refer to themselves as “gay” if they are not practicing or advocating homosexual sex? Or do they just call themselves Catholics?

 

[fix]

Brad:

Souls? You don’t still buy that middle-age teaching of Hell do you? Silly you. God loves us. His mercy is so great. Jesus was a cool, funny dude that wanted to have a good time. So should we.

I am silly to think a parish that claims to be in union with the Church would actually accept every single teaching from Christ with happy obedience.

 

[fix]

JimG:

Very true. But do such persons customarily refer to themselves as “gay” if they are not practicing or advocating homosexual sex? Or do they just call themselves Catholics?

Those that use the term “gay” to describe a person who suffers from SSAD have bought into the homosexualist agenda that is counter to Christ.

 

[mercygate]

JimG:

Very true. But do such persons customarily refer to themselves as “gay” if they are not practicing or advocating homosexual sex? Or do they just call themselves Catholics?

Exactly. The organization, Courage, discourages people from using the word “gay,” reserving that designation for the life style. For that very reason, I used the initials “SSA” to refer to those striving for chastity. God bless 'em (even when they slip).