Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich is in favour of changing church teaching on homosexuality.
The catechism, which says that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered”, was “not set in stone” and it was permissible to question what it said, he pointed out in an interview in the German glossy weekly Stern.
“Homosexuality is not a sin. LGBTQ people are part of creation and loved by God, and we are called upon to stand up against discrimination [against them]. Whosoever threatens homosexuals and anyone else with hell has understood nothing,” Marx said.
The issue had already been discussed at the Synod on the Family in Rome in 2018, he recalled, “but there was a reluctance to put anything down in writing”. He had already pointed out at the time that homosexual couples “live in an intimate loving relationship that also has a sexual form of expression” and had posed the rhetorical question: “And we want to say that is not worth anything?”
He admitted that there were Catholics who wanted to limit sexuality to reproduction “but what do they say to couples who cannot have children?” the cardinal asked.
Marx admitted that “a few years ago” he had blessed a homosexual couple in Los Angeles who had come up to him after Mass. But it had not been a marriage, he pointed out. “We cannot offer the sacrament of marriage”, he emphasised.
It would not be easy to find consensus on the homosexuality issue in the universal Church, he said. “Africa and the Orthodox Churches partly have a very different take. Nothing is achieved if this issue leads to a split but at the same time we must not stand still.”
Finding consensus on the issue is meanwhile already running into difficulties in the German archdiocese of Paderborn.
The archdiocesan priests’ council has sent a letter of protest to Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker. Last Christmas Becker sent the more than one thousand priests in his archdiocese a book by emeritus Curia Cardinal Paul Cordes on the 60th anniversary of his priesthood. It now turns out that in one chapter Cordes says that homosexuality is “profoundly against God’s will”.
Enclosed in Cordes’ book was a letter by Archbishop Becker announcing that he had founded a work group to handle “queer-sensitive pastoral work” in the archdiocese.
The archdiocese explained on 31 March that Cordes, who was from the archdiocese of Paderborn, had dedicated his book to the archdiocese’s priests. “Opinions [on homosexuality] differ and these differences must be taken into consideration”, the archdiocesan statement said. A factual exchange was “crucial”.
In a way, my sexuality has always been tied to my faith. My first romantic inclinations occurred during mass. I was in the pew, holding my parents’ hands and sneaking glances at the boy on the altar, holding a candle. Even though I was aware that my mind should have been on the liturgy, and not concerned with if he had smiled at me that Sunday or not, somewhere in my hormone-flushed pubescent brain, I found security in our weekly non-verbal dialogues.
I was a girl, and he was a boy. I was Catholic. He was Catholic. The possibilities that could sprout from any furthering of our tweenage flirtations were all fruitful. Everyone, even God, would be pleased.
The simplicity that comes with heterosexuality in the context of the Catholic church is something that I envied and coveted for so long. For straight people, it seemed just like a matter of falling in love. You fell in love, got engaged to tell the world you were in love, got married to seal that love and then had children who were the product of that love. Love was the vital driving force for how people moved from single individuals to a cleaved pair and how they became “one flesh.”
But if that was the case, then why was it that a year after things with the altar boy had ended, when I had started to find romance in girls as well as boys, love didn’t feel like enough?
My first crush on a girl wrecked me in a myriad of ways. Not only was I wholly unprepared for the displacement from the normative narrative of “girl meet boy” that my society and religion had fed me for so long, but I also experienced it all in a strange new land.
My family had just moved from Lagos, Nigeria to Georgia a year ago. The newness of my same-sex attraction was amplified by the novelty of being in America. Although, there were more methods for dealing with the culture shock than with my budding sexuality. My aunts and cousins who lived near us were a frequent Nigerian assuage to the barrage of Americanness we met everywhere we went. Plates of jollof rice and bowls of pepper soup supplemented the chicken and waffles we got for school lunch. Hearing my mom and aunts speak Igbo took the edge off the American-ish accent that was becoming a prominent part of my code switching toolbox.
Then there was church. The universality of the Catholic Church made it easy for it to be a place where to some degree, I could already fit in. I already knew all the rituals and traditions. I knew when to sit, when to stand, what words to say and what to do when I said them. This universality is one of the things that I love about being Catholic: a steady relief knowing wherever I go, I can enter a Catholic church and be instantly united to those around me through our shared belief in God.
But having my faith as a source of joy and comfort also made it more difficult for me to reconcile my burgeoning attraction to girls. When it came to liking girls, I didn’t have that same feeling of security I had with boys. I had received a silent education on same-sex relationships. I knew that when I heard statements like “marriage is between man and women,” there was another lesson hidden in the negative: Marriage is not between man and man, or woman and women or any other configuration of people. From the start, I had absorbed the notion that there was something wrong about feelings toward girls. Like many others who have questioned themselves, I turned to the internet to externalize those internalized ideas. My search for answers covered a wide scope: from amateur responses on Catholic Answers to pastoral documents written by priests.
What I found were harsh truths surrounding issues like celibacy and adoption policies. The one that has stuck with me till this day is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on homosexuality, which includes the following:
“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
What struck my 15 year old heart was the phrase “intrinsically disordered.” Though I am still not completely versed in the Catholic reading of the phrase, I know it means being out of the natural order and the basic inherent inclinations of human beings, such as the desire to be virtuous. Reading “intrinsically disordered” for the first time, I was less concerned with its theological definition, and more with the idea that something in me was just inherently corrupt.
This newfound self-perception was the beginning of many nights of falling asleep with tears drying on my face. I couldn’t understand how something that felt so much like a wonderful thing, felt so much like love 一 that so renowned attribute of Christianity 一 could be so immoral. It didn’t make sense that something that felt so natural for me was actually unnatural. I couldn’t comprehend it, but at least I could control it. Or so I thought.
What followed my reckoning with my “intrinsic disorderedness” was a series of scrupulous rules. I tried to avoid everything related to queerness. I didn’t allow myself access to the proliferating reservoir of queer representation in media. I chastised myself for taking delight in queer things, so I began to censure my world so I couldn’t take part in them anymore. But this didn’t stop the hurt that I was feeling. In fact, it only grew the wound that had formed from carrying negative perceptions of myself in secret.
I can’t sufficiently explain the process of coming out of that point in my life within the space of this essay, but it involved sharing my secret with my family, the people who love me the most, and lessening the pressure of trying to figure out everything on my own. Coming out to them and letting them into my struggle with sexuality wasn’t easy, but now I can see that it was better than enduring that struggle on my own.
Moving my journey with sexuality out of my personal realm and into a communal one was how I developed my current relationship between my queerness and my faith. Before, I was too preoccupied with the things that I felt I might be denied by being queer and Catholic 一 the marriage and children the hopeless romantic and caretaker in me so desperately desired 一 that I couldn’t see the ways in which I had been afforded new options as well, and most importantly, new passions.
My queerness has become an epistemological vantage point to look at my faith in a new light. Although I was always encouraged by my family to ask questions about the Church, there was little to question because I viewed most things as simply the way things were. Discovering my own queerness raised new points of interrogation. I started to ask things like, why haven’t I heard of a patron saint of queer people? What are other vocational options outside of marriage and priesthood? How does the Church care for queer people? Most significantly, what are the factors that make so many queer people feel like God doesn’t love them and what can we do to change that?
The final question has been critical to my queer Catholic story. I was fortunate enough to never feel like God didn’t love me, even when I thought the worst about myself. My foundational Catholic education, inside and outside catechism classes, taught me that God’s love was unconditional. Throughout those long, emotional nights where I stared up at the green flashing light on the smoke detector, in the dark of my room and battled the conflicting desires within me, I never doubted that God still loved me. I was angry, sad and frustrated at God, but I was never unsure of His love for me.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church also says queer people should be “accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives…” Even in the same document that brought me such pessimistic views of myself and my future, there were declarations that my life was still to be valued. In fact, I was still called to “fulfill God’s will” in my life. God still has a role for me to carry out on this earth, one that is special and particular to me.
This is the part of the catechism that I choose to focus on now. I believe that God’s will, in having me seriously contend with the intersection of faith and sexuality, is calling me to be an advocate for those who find themselves at that intersection. I believe the cycles of pain and joy I’ve undergone, and still go through, in the process of formulating and reformulating my identities, has given me an arsenal of experiences that I can put forth to help others like me. Though I’m still figuring out how to do that, I’m trying to take small steps to answer my call to queer Christian advocacy. I believe joining queer groups on campus is a step. Joining Christian groups is one step. Joining queer Christian groups is another step. My essay is a step. By the grace of God, I’m going to keep stepping in this direction. Hopefully further down the line, being queer and Catholic won’t feel like a curse born from contradiction, but a blessing in its own right.
Catherine Aniezue (22C) is originally from Lagos, Nigeria, but now lives in Evans, Georgia.
Parishioners worshipping at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Harlem are greeted by a framed portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. — a Baptist minister named after a rebellious 16th century German priest excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
The Rev. Bryan Massingale, who sometimes preaches at St. Charles, pursues his ministry in ways that echo both Martin Luthers.
Like King, Massingale decries the scourge of racial inequality in the United States. As a professor at Fordham University, he teaches African American religious approaches to ethics.
Like the German Martin Luther, Massingale is often at odds with official Catholic teaching — he supports the ordination of women and making celibacy optional for Catholic clergy. And, as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church’s doctrine on same-sex relations, instead advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics within the church.
The Vatican holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and sinful.
In his homily on a recent Sunday, Massingale – who became public about being gay in 2019 — envisioned a world “where the dignity of every person is respected and protected, where everyone is loved.”
But the message of equality and tolerance is one “that is resisted even within our own faith household,” he added. “Preach!” a worshiper shouted in response.
Massingale was born in 1957 in Milwaukee. His mother was a school secretary and his father a factory worker whose family migrated from Mississippi to escape racial segregation.
But even in Wisconsin, racism was common. Massingale said his father couldn’t work as a carpenter because of a color bar preventing African Americans from joining the carpenters’ union.
The Massingales also experienced racism when they moved to Milwaukee’s outskirts and ventured to a predominately white parish.
“This would not be a very comfortable parish for you to be a part of,” he recalled the parish priest saying. Thereafter, the family commuted to a predominantly Black Catholic church.
Massingale recalled another incident, as a newly ordained priest, after celebrating his first Mass at a predominantly white church.
“The first parishioner to greet me at the door said to me: ‘Father, you being here is the worst mistake the archbishop could have made. People will never accept you.‘”
Massingale says he considered leaving the Catholic Church, but decided he was needed.
“I’m not going to let the church’s racism rob me of my relationship with God,” he said. “I see it as my mission to make the church what it says it is: more universal and the institution that I believe Jesus wants it to be.”
For Massingale, racism within the U.S. Catholic Church is a reason for the exodus of some Black Catholics; he says the church is not doing enough to tackle racism within its ranks and in broader society.
Nearly half of Black U.S. adults who were raised Catholic no longer identify as such, with many becoming Protestants, according to a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center. About 6% of Black U.S. adults identify as Catholic and close to 80% believe opposing racism is essential to their faith, the survey found.
The U.S. Catholic Church has had a checkered history with race. Some of its institutions, such as Georgetown University, were involved in the slave trade, and it has struggled to recruit African American priests.
Conversely, Catholic schools were among the first to desegregate and some government officials who opposed racial integration were excommunicated.
In 2018, U.S. bishops issued a pastoral letter decrying “the persistence of the evil of racism,” but Massingale was disappointed.
“The phrase ‘white nationalism’ is not stated in that document; it doesn’t talk about the Black Lives Matter movement,” he said. “The problem with the church’s teachings on racism is that they are written in a way that is calculated not to disturb white people.”
At Fordham, a Jesuit university, Massingale teaches a class on homosexuality and Christian ethics, using biblical texts to challenge church teaching on same-sex relations. He said he came to terms with his own sexuality at 22, upon reflecting on the book of Isaiah.
“I realized that no matter what the church said, God loved me and accepted me as a Black gay man,” he said.
His ordination in 1983 came in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that disproportionately affected gay men and Black Americans. Among his first funerals as a priest was that of a gay man whose family wanted no mention of his sexuality or the disease.
“They should have been able to turn to their church in their time of grief,” Massingale said. “Yet they couldn’t because that stigma existed in great measure because of how many ministers were speaking about homosexuality and AIDS as being a punishment for sin.”
Pope Francis has called for compassionate pastoral care for LGBTQ Catholics. However, he has described homosexuality among the clergy as worrisome, and Vatican law remains clear: same-sex unions cannot be blessed within the church. Some dioceses have fired openly LGBTQ employees.
Massingale has a different vision of the church: one where Catholics enjoy the same privileges regardless of sexual orientation.
“I think that one can express one’s sexuality in a way that is responsible, committed, life giving and an experience of joy,” he said.
Massingale has received recognition for his advocacy from like-minded organizations such as FutureChurch, which says priests should be allowed to marry and women should have more leadership roles within the church.
“He is one of the most prophetic, compelling, inspiring, transforming leaders in the Catholic Church,” said Deborah Rose-Milavec, the organization’s co-director. “When he speaks, you know very deep truth is being spoken.”
Along with his many admirers, Massingale has some vehement critics, such as the conservative Catholic news outlet Church Militant, which depicts his LGBTQ advocacy as sinful.
At Fordham, Massingale is well-respected by colleagues, and was honored by the university with a prestigious endowed chair. To the extent he has any critics among the Fordham faculty, they tend to keep their misgivings out of the public sphere.
He says he receives many messages of hope and support, but becoming public about his sexuality has come at a cost.
“I have lost some priest friends who find it difficult to be too closely associated with me because if they’re friends with me, ‘what will people say about them?’” he said.
Massingale remains optimistic about gradual change in the Catholic Church because of Pope Francis and recent signals from bishops in Europe who expressed a desire for changes, including blessing same-sex unions.
“My dream wedding would be either two men or two women standing before the church; marrying each other as an act of faith and I can be there as the official witness to say: “Yes, this is of God,” he said after a recent class at Fordham. “If they were Black, that would be wonderful.”
Around 125 people including former and current priests in Germany came out as gay and queer and demanded an end to institutional discrimination against the queer community.
Over 120 priests and employees with the Catholic church community in Germany came out as queer and launched a campaign demanding an end to institutional discrimination against LGBTQ people.
The Roman Catholic Church in Germany on Sunday faced renewed calls for better protection of LGBTQ rights and an end to institutional discrimination against queer people.
Around 125 people, including former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers, identified themselves as gay and queer, asking the church to take into account their demands and do away with “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
The members of the church community published seven demands on social media under the “OutInChurch” initiative. These demands range from queer people saying they should be able to live without fear and have access to all kinds of activities and occupations in the church without discrimination.
They said their sexual orientation must never be considered a breach of loyalty or reason for dismissal from their occupation. They ask the church to revise its statements on sexuality based on “theological and human-scientific findings.”
Besides asking for equal rights, employees also put down demands that the church takes accountability for their discrimination against people of the community throughout history, calling on the bishop to take responsibility on behalf of the church.
What has been the Vatican’s stance?
The Vatican, home of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church, ruled last year that priests cannot bless same-sex unions and that such blessings weren’t valid.
But the ruling also reignited a debate on the matter, and there was considerable resistance against it in some parts of Germany.
Last year, at least two bishops in Germany, including Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, one of the pope’s top advisers, showed some support for a kind of “pastoral” blessing for same-sex unions.
In Germany and the United States, parishes and ministers also began blessing same-sex unions in lieu of marriage, with growing calls for bishops to institutionalize gay marriage.
However, in response to formal questions from a number of dioceses on whether the practice was allowed, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) made clear it wasn’t, ruling: “negative.”
Pope Francis approved the response, adding that it was “not intended to be a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite” of the sacrament of marriage.
I wanted to keep him out of trouble with the Church, but he shows no evidence of wishing the same in this impassioned plea for love & justice
St. Peter Cathedral of Marquette, the Catholic Diocese of Marquette, Michigan
By James Finn
Fr. Andy Herman is a Roman Catholic priest who corresponds with me about LGBTQ issues. I have sometimes observed that Catholic priests are reluctant to publicly criticise Church teachings and practices.
Andy is a remarkable, refreshing exception. He offered to be interviewed. I asked him to write up a first-person story. This is it, after I edited and polished it. I wanted to keep him out of trouble with the Church, but he shows no evidence of wishing the same, which you’ll see in this impassioned, earthy plea for love and justice.
If this story inspires you, ask him for more, especially accounts of his youth rescue work in Los Angeles, which is hair-raising love in action.
Hi! My name’s Andy!
(“Hi Andy!” )
I’m bisexual!
(“Welcome, Andy!” [Applause.])
And I have been “intrinsically disordered” for… 74 years!
([Applause picks up, whoops & shouts of encouragement and congratulations.])
I know that’s tweaked a bit, because to be honest I’m not personally familiar with 12-step meetings. But the real problem is, it’s ass backwards.
My real name IS Andy. Andy Herman. Father Andy Herman. I’m a Roman Catholic priest.
I retired myself from public ministry with the institutional Catholic Church, because many years ago I vowed to make sure my mom and dad would never have to go into a nursing home as they declined in age. Which vow I was able to keep.
I was also canonically bounced out of my religious community, because I decided not to return to them while I was taking care of my parents. It was all very friendly. Honestly. I have the documentation to prove it.
But I’m not here to talk about me.
I am here to talk about the ass backwards garbage coming out of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette, Michigan.
I’m sure those of you who keep up with Catholic news know what I’m talking about. Members of the LGBTQIA+ community in that diocese have, in essence, been told to go eff themselves.
LGBTQ Catholics are not wanted in Upper Michigan in any way, shape, or form. They will not be permitted to take part in most (or any) of the sacramental and communal life of the Church.
What I do now is try to help homeless people on the street, most especially homeless kids, and really most especially, LGBTQ kids.
The Marquette Diocese is led by a Bishop whose name I will not utter, in the manner of news organizations not repeating the name of a perpetrator of a particularly terrible crime. That’s what’s going on in Upper Michigan — crimes against LGBTQIA+ people, especially Roman Catholics.
Let’s call him Bishop ID, Intrinsically Disordered, because that’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls US. Or better yet, let me refer to him as Bishop AB. Sure you get that one right off.
I ranted about this situation in a letter to the Prism & Pen editors, when it was first reported here. I was told maybe I could pen something, but just shave off some of the rougher ranting edges. So, I think I’ve un-ranted pretty much, and also don’t want to go into some analysis that’s already been done.
I just want to present a couple of points to the people of Upper Michigan, especially those of you who may be LGBTQ+ Catholics, and, I guess, particularly to those of you who may want to remain in the Church.
Or not.
I’ll also presume that latter description is one that many of you have already answered. Like so many of us, you’ve already left a place where you’re not wanted.
Let me just briefly tell you what these points are, and, if you think they’re worth something, please share them if it’s at all appropriate, especially with young people who are on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.
I grew up in Chicago and have been out here in Los Angeles for many years. What I do now is try to help homeless people on the street, most especially homeless kids, and really most especially, LGBTQ kids.
So I am sick and tired — to put it mildly — to have to, for the 3 millionth time in my life, explain THIS to kids who are of our community:
There is not a damn thing wrong with you.
God does love you, and Jesus never said an effing thing against you.
Period. But let me not rant further.
Let me, as a trained Roman Catholic priest, make the following points:
1.) Apparently, the Bishop of Marquette, and so many others like him, have spent not one moment praying, meditating, contemplating, experiencing, talking about, or studying anything of any consequence regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What the Bishop is perpetrating is utterly opposite to that Gospel. I’m wrong about a lot of things in life, but I damn well know what I just said is accurate. The only persons who are “intrinsically disordered” here are Bishop AB and his cohorts.
To my fellow LGBTQ people, I say continue to be safe, protect yourselves, and THRIVE in all the practical ways you can, especially you who are our children. Never be the victims of this garbage, inside or outside yourselves.
2.) Pope Francis has called for a two-year process of synodality, and especially asked that people whose voices are opposite to, or never heard in the context of the Catholic Church, be given a seat at the table to discuss where the hell the Church should be going in years to come.
So, if you have the inkling to, speak up and tell Bishop AB that the Pope has personally invited you to sit at the table and give, even if that giving is seen as opposing the traditional, death-encrusted way talking about our faith that our Catholic leaders have indulged in for far too long.
3.) What Bishop AB has done is absolutely and utterly in contradiction to the morality of the Gospel, and certainly to the best pastoral practice of Catholic Church teaching. More than anything, he stands in utter defiance of Pope Francis’ attitude, which puts caring about people in front of stagnant, dormant, full-of-crap definitions of dogma and Catholic practice.
Bishop AB has declared dangerous nonsense against our community in the Diocese of Marquette, and if you want to get involved, please, you should immediately contact the Office of the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Ask that a canonical investigation of Bishop AB be initiated, and ask that — if the findings are as accurate as they are publicly presented now, and he is in egregious violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ — that he be removed from office immediately.
With a sigh, I would also suggest that you might recommend an investigation to determine if Bishop AB is something like a “Bishop Roy Cohn,” a name I would give him if he, sadly, is a self-hating member of our community, just like the notorious lawyer on the national scene years ago.
4.) No matter what you want to do, please always realize you don’t have to celebrate sacraments to get into heaven, if that’s the way you think about things, especially if the people who are supposed to guard the integrity of your “immortal soul” refuse you access to those very sacraments.
You can really get in contact with Jesus with the same surety as they supposedly offer, by simply sitting and praying — or gathering together with priests who have the cojones to offer Mass and celebrate the other sacraments, with and for you.
And if none of those “guys” up there in Michigan’s UP will do this, do it yourselves. Baptize one another. Confirm your kids reaching adulthood into belief that Jesus loves them. Forgive one another.
And most of all, consecrate bread and wine under the aegis that if two or three are gathered together in Jesus name, he is absolutely and uncontestedly present with and to you.
This is not BS passing for shallow theology. It is based in the Gospels.
5.) My last point is an old one from a most moldy and oldie traditional pastoral theology of the Sacrament of Penance, but it bears looking at. If a penitent is not able in some ways to recognize that he or she has sinned, or there are other confusions and concerns about whether or not the sins can be forgiven, a confessor can take upon himself the sins of the penitent, in order that the penitent be freed and given absolution.
So all of you LGBTQ people out there who make love, get married, and have great and loving sex, all of which are considered grievous sins by the Catholic Church, send the damn things over to me, because I sure as hell WILL accept them without any fear of ending up in hell myself. (If you even talk in language like that, because I don’t.)
Even if you don’t go to confession anymore, that’s my offer as a priest. Just sit down, get yourself into a state where you can think about these things, and send them over to me.
I will absorb them, and you are free to go about your normal, regular daily life. But please only do this if it really bothers you and you think that way. Otherwise, who cares?
Do you really think Jesus is sitting at the prosecutors’ table or even behind the bench as the judge, and wants to forgive you for stuff that, even to a nitpicker, isn’t worth being denied 10 nanoseconds of eternity without being completely wrapped up with God?
Remember who’s intrinsically disordered.
You may be an ass, you may be a jerk, you may be evil as hell, you may be lots of things, but you are not an evil person just because you are LGBTQ. You/We are exactly the opposite: we are the sons and daughters of a loving God, brothers and sisters of Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One.
If that’s how you want to phrase it.
The only kind of sex that is ever evil or sinful is coercive sex, otherwise known as assault and/or rape. That includes trafficking, but cannot include sex workers themselves, per se.
If someone is forced to do that to stay alive, or doing it for some negative psychological or emotional reason, the situation is evil, not the people forced into it. Gay, straight, or anywhere on the spectrum.
Let’s not get confused about this. Jesus never said anything about this.
Back when the early church sought to make itself more credible, it adopted certain forms of Greek philosophy, including this idea known as the “Natural Law.” Saint Thomas Aquinas adopted and pushed these ideas. He was apparently not a bad guy, but he cannot possibly stand in as a substitute for Jesus.
All that extra-Biblical natural law business, mixed up with the rather primitive prescriptions against any kind of same-sex anything, especially in the Jewish scriptures — well, that leads to the wondrously inhumane, tragically harmful attitudes and behaviors we see too often in the Church today.
Stay away from this thinking, these attitudes and actions.
Read the Gospel. Talk to people who don’t like being cruel and hateful to others, especially to kids. Band together with them. I think you’ll find that the brief analysis I’ve given here on these points is accurate.
Stay away from those who are the opposite, like Bishop AB and his followers. If you feel like telling them to go to hell, I don’t think it’s going to really matter because they may be on their way anyway.<
But everyone, even the most horrible sinners, can be forgiven. So I say, “Look in the mirror, Bishop AB.”
In the words of Pope Francis, “Who am I to judge?” I don’t know who any of you are in person, but I send you my love and my support and my prayer and I ask you, please — for me and most especially for the homeless LGBTQ youth I work with — to throw it all back at me.
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Son of Man, or whoever you really think he is: Love one another, unconditionally, as he loves us.
Thanks for reading.
Fr. Andy Herman ***********************
In a few days, Christians around the world will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. They will recount how Mary and Joseph made the long, hard journey to Bethlehem and how she gave birth to Jesus in a manger.
It’s a story with beautiful themes of God’s humble love, tenderness and vulnerability. But this holiday season, there’s a part of this story that it’s time to move past: Mary’s purported virginity.
I’m a theologian and am very familiar with the biblical stories of the birth of Jesus, as well as the many views of Mary’s virginity. For centuries, religious scholars have debated whether Mary was in fact a virgin, or whether this interpretation is based on a mistranslation of the Bible.
Regardless of the truth, one thing is for certain: The focus on Mary’s virginity created the rationale behind centuries of harmful views about virginity and perfect womanhood — how we should dress, act and approach our sexuality. These views are, in turn, tied to the gross inequalities women face still 2,000 years later — from the wage gap to attacks on reproductive rights.
For centuries, Christians have held that Mary was herself conceived immaculately — that is, perfectly free of sin and therefore fit to be a pure vessel to carry Jesus. Then, when Mary was a teenager — and importantly, still a virgin — the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus, another perfect, sinless child. Many Christian scholars say that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life.
Theologians have long questioned these beliefs, even as religious leaders have used Mary’s purported virginity as a model for how women should behave. Sex is sin. Abstaining from sex is saintly.
St. Augustine was one of several church fathers who characterized sex for pleasure as a sin because it diverted one’s attention away from God. His work created a strong connection between purity and virginity, and laid the groundwork for countless social movements to control and shame women’s sexuality.
Today, this view remains very much alive. In many U.S. conservative Christian communities, women are still instructed that it is their duty — and notably, not the duty of men — to eschew sex for pleasure and to have sex only after marriage and only for reproduction
They are duly told to refrain from dressing in a way that draws male attention. They must reject sexual advances from others and repress their own sexual urges. They wear purity rings and, in a few places, still attend purity balls — at which daughters promise their fathers that they will remain virgins until marriage. Unsurprisingly, many women who are raped or assaulted don’t report it because they don’t want to be considered “tainted.”
Similar mindsets can be found elsewhere, and in other faiths. Honor killings remain a fact of life in some countries, while others criminalize premarital sex and put women who have committed adultery to death.
In sum, a woman’s worth is greatly dependent on how “pure” she is perceived to be, and a woman’s sexual agency is at best ignored and at worst punished.
This shaming of women goes against God’s most basic teachings. In one of Jesus’ pivotal parables, recounted in the Gospel of John, he teaches the opposite lesson: A woman accused of adultery is brought before Jesus by a mob that wants to stone her to death. Instead of condemning her, however, Jesus famously responds that only those without sin should cast the first stone. Not surprisingly, no stones are thrown.
The truth is, Mary’s virginity is superfluous and turns a story that is supposed to be about the love of God into a tale that oppresses women. Instead of focusing on Mary’s sexuality, let’s celebrate the true glory of the season.
If you think that, once they finish off Roe v. Wade, they’re not going to come for Obergefell, Lawrence, Gideon, and Griswold, I just don’t know what to tell you. Conservatives do not believe that a right to privacy exists anywhere in the Constitution. They say it all the time, and Dick Wolf even got the late Fred Thompson to say it on Law and Order. They believe any decision based on such a right is illegitimate and vulnerable to being overturned. (Both Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia got snotty in opinions concerning what Scalia called “the so-called right to privacy.” The context for Scalia’s scorn was Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark decision that decriminalized gay sex. Nice guy, Tony.) And, in case you were wondering where all of this might start, take a look at the mischief in the upper peninsula of Michigan. From NBC News:
A Catholic diocese in Michigan has been thrust into the national spotlight after a prominent priest and author shared its guidance on transgender members and those in same-sex relationships on social media this week. The viral guidance, which the Diocese of Marquette issued in July, says such congregants are prohibited from being baptized or receiving Communion unless they have “repented.”…The Roman Catholic Church has long held that being gay isn’t a sin but that being in a gay relationship or having gay sex is. The Vatican also ruled in March that priests can’t bless same-sex unions.
Obviously, this is another example of a wingnut American bishop who isn’t too fond of Papa Francesco. And the official text of the “guidance” reads like it was written in 1957 by a nun who grew up in a cardboard box far from other human beings.
The Sacrament of Matrimony, the marital covenant, is a permanent partnership of one man and one woman ordered to the procreation and education of children and the good of the spouses (c. 1055). Christian spouses are strengthened by the grace of this sacrament to love each other with the love of Jesus Christ. Only in the context of marriage between one man and one woman can sexual intercourse express a love that is permanent, because they have given their whole lives to each other by the promises that they made to each other on their wedding day. Outside of marriage, sexual activity cannot express permanent love.
Tell that to those bishops who kept shuffling child molesters from parish to parish.
I mean, holy orders, Batman. Who thinks like this? Humanae Vitae was chock-full of this kind of anti-human nonsense, and it doesn’t smell any better with age. But these kind of moments are when the fire starts. Pretty soon, it jumps from internal Church politics into the secular politics of the day. There is no lack of wingnut-welfare legal chop-shops willing to fashion lawsuits to gussy up any threadbare argument with the latest style. And, before you know it, your ability to buy birth control through the mail is hanging by a thread. Pour enough holy oil on it and any slope becomes slippery.
They must refrain from sacraments until they have “repented,” the diocese in Michigan says. Critics say it’s another example of defiance of the pope by “culture warrior bishops” in the U.S.
A Catholic diocese in Michigan has been thrust into the national spotlight after a prominent priest and author shared its guidance on transgender members and those in same-sex relationships on social media this week. The viral guidance, which the Diocese of Marquette issued in July, says such congregants are prohibited from being baptized or receiving Communion unless they have “repented.”
An advocate said it was the “most egregious” guidance ever issued by a diocese.
It instructs the church’s priests on how to develop pastoral relationships with “persons with same-sex attraction” and “persons with gender dysphoria” and “lead them step‐by‐step closer to Jesus Christ in a manner that is consistent with the Church’s teaching.”
The Roman Catholic Church has long held that being gay isn’t a sin but that being in a gay relationship or having gay sex is. The Vatican also ruled in March that priests can’t bless same-sex unions.
The Diocese of Marquette said in its guidance that trans people deserve “love and friendship” and compared them to people “suffering from anorexia nervosa.”
“In this disorder there is an incongruence between how the persons perceive themselves and their bodily reality,” the guidance says. “Just as we would refer a person with anorexia to an expert to help him or her, let us also refer persons with gender dysphoria to a qualified counselor to help them while we show them the depth of our love and friendship.”
The document says people in same-sex relationships and trans people can’t be baptized or confirmed or receive Holy Communion. They also can’t serve as witnesses at Catholic baptisms or confirmations.
But, the guidance says, gay and transgender people can participate in such sacraments if they repent. For gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer people, that would mean ending same-sex relationships, and for trans people, it would mean living as the sexes they were assigned at birth, although the guidance says trans people who have undergone “physical changes to the body” aren’t required to reverse them.
Also, in accordance with Catholic doctrine, the guidance says children of same-sex married couples can be baptized if they are raised in the Catholic faith and taught that same-sex marriage goes against the church’s teachings.
“Unlike a man and woman who are cohabitating or in an invalid marriage, the status of same‐sex couples can never be regularized, which presents a particular pastoral concern,” it says. “To avoid scandal, the baptism should be celebrated privately, and care should be taken to avoid the impression of accepting the redefinition of marriage and parenthood.”
The document surfaced after the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, LGBTQ advocate and best-selling author, criticized it on Twitter, writing Tuesday, “It is not a sin to be transgender.”
Martin added: “Transgender people are beloved children of God struggling to understand their identity. They need to be accepted with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity.’ As Cardinal Gregory told a trans person, ‘You belong to the heart of this church.'”
Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., is the former president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
He tweeted later that assertions that being transgender is a sin and that trans people don’t exist “do immense harm to LGBTQ people and their families.”
He continued, “The Catholic Church needs to listen to LGBTQ people, not give them more reasons to distance themselves from the church.”
In a statement emailed Thursday, the Diocese of Marquette said the guidance was shared with pastors and school principals, among others, to provide “a framework” for them to develop pastoral relationships with LGBTQ congregants.
“The Church teaches that persons experiencing feelings of same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria is not sinful, but freely acting upon them is,” read the statement, shared by John Fee, the diocese’s communications director.
The statement also noted that the diocese’s bishop, John Doerfler, “served as a Courage chaplain” in his previous ministry and “found working with the Catholic apostolate to persons with same-sex attraction for several years as a priest to be a ‘privilege’ and he remains inspired by the members’ ‘faith and desire to live chastely.’”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of DignityUSA, which advocates for LGBTQ rights in the Catholic Church, said the guidance is part of a largertrendof dioceses’ “making statements that look like they’re trying to be helpful to gay, queer and transgender people but that are really doing harm to the spiritual, emotional and physical health of our community and to families.”
She described the Marquette diocese’s guidance in particular as the “most egregious” ever issued by a diocese, saying it “goes much further than any diocese has gone before.”
She said that since the Vatican released “Male and Female He Created Them” — which she said was supposed to have been narrowly focused on education — more than a dozen U.S. dioceses have implemented their own policies or released additional statements.
“This educational mandate was sort of just put on the shelf by almost every other country in the world, but it just shows how many culture warrior bishops we have here in the United States, that they have really amplified this kind of teaching to the detriment of LGBTQ Catholics, who feel evermore excluded by the hierarchy of our church,” Duddy-Burke said.
The guidance from the Diocese of Marquette, as well as similar guidance from other dioceses, is also in conflict with many of Pope Francis’ teachings and the overtures he has made to the LGBTQ community, she said. In 2013, for example, Francis responded “Who am I to judge?” to a question from a reporter about gay priests. Last year, he told a group of parents that God loves their LGBTQ children.
But Francis’ statements conflict with church doctrine about LGBTQ people — a doctrine that Duddy-Burke said has been driving people out for decades.
A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that half of people who were raised Catholic had left the church at some point. While it’s unclear how many left over the church’s LGBTQ policies, a survey in 2019 by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly three-quarters of white and nonwhite Catholics, or 74 percent, support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. The majority also support same-sex marriage, with 68 percent of Hispanic Catholics and 63 percent of white Catholics in support.
Duddy-Burke said young adults are even more accepting of LGBTQ people than previous generations were — and nearly 1 in 5 have said they aren’t straight, according to one global survey — which means they have grown up in a world “where many of them expect equity and inclusion for LGBTQ people.”
“If the church continues to have discriminatory attitudes, policies and teachings, the trend of people opting out of Catholicism is only going to continue,” she said.
On Nov. 12, The Spectator had the privilege of conducting a phone interview with Michael O’Loughlin, a national correspondent at America Magazine. As a gay Catholic journalist, he has spent the past several years exploring the intersection between these identities. His new book, “Hidden Mercy,” uncovers the response of the Catholic church to the AIDS crisis, including the inspiring acts of priests, nuns and laypeople who ministered to and assisted young gay men that were marginalized in the church and larger society during the turbulent 1980s and ’90s.
Just three days after that interview in which O’Loughlin shared his thoughts about LGBTQ+ issues in the church, he published a guest column in the New York Times sharing that the Holy Father himself had congratulated him on his new book. Pope Francis reflected upon the importance of accompanying the marginalized, and thanked O’Loughlin for his work.
“Thank you for shining a light on the lives and bearing witness to the many priests, religious sisters and lay people, who opted to accompany, support and help their brothers and sisters who were sick from HIV and AIDS at great risk to their profession and reputation,” Pope Francis wrote.
Given that the book merited the praise of the Vicar of Christ, “Hidden Mercy,” is a must-read for anyone interested in LGBTQ+ issues, the Catholic church or both. Here is a lightly edited transcript of The Spectator’s interview with O’Loughlin.
AZ: Could you explain your initial inspiration for writing this book?
MO: I’ve been reporting on the Catholic Church for about a decade now, and a lot of my reporting was focused on LGBTQ+ issues. Partly because the debate about same-sex marriage was heating up when I started reporting, but a big part was because I’m a gay Catholic myself, and I was just really curious what church leaders were doing in this area, and how other gay Catholics felt about whether they were welcomed in the church or were finding a place in the Church.
It felt new, and like I was the only person who had done this because I didn’t have any understanding of the history of the fight for gay rights in the Church, and I wanted to fix that.
I was trying to just look at this time in the 1980s and ’90s, because there was this big clash between the LGBTQ+ community and the Catholic Church, at a time when HIV and AIDS was really taking a toll on the gay community. I hadn’t known that history. So I started reaching out to people who lived or worked through that time to just ask them, ‘what was it like back then, what was it like to be a gay Catholic faced with the brutality of HIV and AIDS, but also dedicated to your Church, which is fighting against gay rights,’ or ‘what was it like to be a priest ministering to people with AIDS?’ I was learning a lot of this history and realized that there was this whole generations-worth of wisdom that had been cut off for me, so my goal was to capture some of the stories and then present them in a way that might benefit other people as well.
AZ: You managed to compile all of this reporting several decades after the crisis itself. Can you explain what kind of challenges reporting on a decades-old event posed for you as a writer?
MO: That’s a great question. One of the decisions I made early on in the project was, I wanted to include interviews and meet with people who are still alive. So, unfortunately with HIV and AIDS, that cut out almost an entire generation of gay men, because they just simply didn’t survive. We’ve lost all of that wisdom unless their story has been told in other ways. It’s a limited set of experiences, but important nonetheless. I did go into some history, I used a lot of newspaper archives, and there was some great documentary material, audio, news reports—things like that, but ultimately, I decided, the most fruitful endeavor would be to talk to people who are still living.
AZ: In the “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” or the ‘Halloween Letter,’ which was indirectly aimed at groups like Dignity, Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) stated that homosexuality is “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.” Do you think that this is still the way the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith thanks about homosexuality today?
MO: I can’t speak for what any Vatican official or the Congregation thinks, but I think there is a sort of implicit homophobia that permeates a lot of discussion in the church around this issue. Some people would prefer that we just don’t talk about it because it is still taboo, both here in the U.S., and especially around the world where the Church is growing.
I think there’s a fear that if we talk about this too much, who knows where it will lead, and I think that’s what’s been so refreshing about Pope Francis—he’s actually encouraged us to talk about this issue, dating back to the earliest days of his pontificate, but also, especially during the Synod of Bishops on the family in 2014-2015. The Pope is simply saying, ‘don’t be afraid of this,’ he hasn’t changed church teaching, but he says ‘let’s listen to people’s lived experiences and see what their stories have to teach us about our faith.’
AZ: There’s a point in the book in which Fr. Bill McNichols says “the church will come around when it discovers that there are gay people who have lived full Christian lives and faced death with courage.” What work do we as Catholics need to be doing now to realize this reality in the future?
MO: I think being intentional about collecting stories while people are still with us because we’re more than three decades out from the crisis now, and if you were in your ’30s or ’40s, you’re getting up in age now. I think part of my project has been preserving these stories. Let’s make sure that they are part of history, because I think there’s still a fairly un-nuanced understanding of this time, especially when it comes to the Catholic Church.
Collect these stories by forming intergenerational friendships: younger people being intentional about reaching out to older people and asking about their experiences. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard from either listeners of the Plague Podcast or people who have read early copies of the book, who have said that they haven’t been asked about their experiences in decades. These were harrowing, difficult times for people and to just see society move on so quickly, I imagine, could be difficult. I think Catholics should be intentional about not being afraid of what they might uncover when looking at this time in history, because there was a lot of shame and stigma, but [we should] be unafraid to deal with that, because there are inspiring stories like the ones I’ve collected in the book.
MO: There was a sense that the Reagan Administration didn’t want to deal with this issue because their base found the topics of homosexuality, IV drug use and the sexual revolution to be morally taboo, and they didn’t want to talk about it.
Now, the public health angle was, ‘we have to talk about how slow the spread of HIV,’ whether that’s the use of condoms or drug treatment programs, and Reagan was trying to appease his base by appointing a religious figure to the AIDS Commission to say that ‘the moral dimension of this public health crisis will be taken seriously in the White House.’
O’Connor himself was skeptical of the idea, but he accepted the invitation after a couple meetings. But ultimately it didn’t satisfy critics who said that the White House failed to treat this as a public health crisis, and you can’t attach morality to those kinds of things, so it was a complicated thing. It does show the political power that someone like Cardinal O’Connor has. I think it’s difficult for younger Catholics today to understand the political influence of Catholic bishops in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and O’Connor’s inclusion on that commission shows that he had a direct line to the president, and that’s important to understand when we look at the church’s role in shaping the public health debate in the ’80s and ’90s.
AZ: Do you think that the Church has grown better at listening since the AIDS crisis?
MO: I asked Father Bill McNichols if he thought it was easier to be a gay Catholic or a gay Catholic priest today because of how much society has advanced, and he told me he didn’t. He thought it was actually easier in the ’80s because there was almost more of a willingness to look at people’s experiences, whereas today there seems to be more fear around the issue, so I think I agree with him on that.
I think figures like Pope Francis certainly show that there are church leaders who want to engage in dialogue and listening, and that’s been a major theme of his papacy, but I think there might be a tendency to be afraid as society changes its views on homosexuality. I think we see a lot of that in the Church in this country.
AZ: A major study of American Catholic priests was released just last week, and some information I found dismaying was that American priests ordained after 2010 are far more likely to believe that homosexual behavior is “always sinful,” compared to priests ordained prior to 1981. It seems the clergy is growing less tolerant while society becomes more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people. Do you think this will impact the relationship of the church with LGBTQ+ Catholics in the coming years and, if so, how?
MO: I think data like that shows how important it is that LGBTQ+ Catholics who want to stay part of the church make that decision and then stay, and make sure that their voices are heard, because something I’ve learned is that any welcoming Catholic space—any place which embraces and welcomes LGBTQ+ people—it was never inevitable. We look at places like Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco, or St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York, or affirming parishes anywhere in the U.S., it was never inevitable that would be the case. It took hard work from LGBTQ+ Catholics and their allies to form those places into spaces that were safe and welcoming. Regardless of the views of young priests, I think that will be necessary work over the coming decades. But I am encouraged that there are visible and articulate young LGBTQ+ Catholics who are saying that they aren’t leaving, that they are staying in the Church, and these are the kind of spaces they are demanding. I think it’ll be an ongoing conversation for decades, regardless of the views of younger clergy.
AZ: What does making your voice heard as a gay Catholic look like today?
MO: That’s a great question, and one I haven’t thought about much. I guess for me, it’s been this notion of forging ahead with these projects, even if sometimes there’s some pushback that we shouldn’t explore too much of this history, because there is some shame and stigma still attached. I think it means going to mass and being part of the community, not being afraid of the resistance you might encounter. I understand that for some LGBTQ+ people, being part of a Catholic community might not be a healthy decision, especially if there’s one that’s particularly intolerant, but if you are called to take your faith seriously and you’re able to find a community that works for you, I think showing up is the first important step. Being visible, joining parish activities, engaging Catholic media—all the things that other Catholics are doing, who are making their view known, I think younger LGBTQ+ people have the same calling.
AZ: Did writing this book change the way you approach your own faith at all?
MO: It did. When I started writing probably five years ago or so, I had an initial conversation with Sister Carol, and I was afraid to tell her that I was gay because I didn’t know how she would react, which in introspect, is completely absurd because she had been caring for gay men dying from AIDS for more than a decade, and she’d become an ally for the LGBTQ+ community. But there was still something internal within me that made me clam up and be unsure about how much of myself I should reveal to her. After meeting people like Sister Carol and other advocates now for the past five years, doing dozens and dozens of interviews, I really internalized this idea that I can be honest about myself and be totally committed to my faith at the same time and that’s been a journey. I don’t think it ever goes away. Father Bill told me that it doesn’t get easier to come out, it just means you have to keep doing it and doing it, and eventually you come out, but you still have that fear, so I do think it will be an ongoing process. But there is this sense that knowing the history that I write about in the book does give me—and I think it gives other people—the ability to see that they do have a place in the church and to make them understand their faith in a different way.
AZ: The theme of frustration or hurt with the institutional Church seems to have emerged over the course of the book. Did you notice any patterns of how priests and nuns and laypeople were dealing with that frustration, or is it an individual journey for everyone?
MO: What I took away was that it was an individual journey for everyone. What I tried to do in the book was profile people who approach that journey in a different way or in various ways, so there’s someone like David Pais, who I chronicle throughout the book, who was very active in the church, very active in Dignity, ultimately steps away from the Church, is away for several years, then he gets a degree in theology and he returns to the Church. It sort of has this stepping in and out, which I think is a fairly common thing for not just LGBTQ+ people but young people in general, and then as they advance in the years, they have a different relationship with the church, so that’s one example. I interviewed Sean Strub, who grew up in a very Catholic household and was very devoted to his faith, but when HIV hit, he saw the hypocrisy, was turned off by that and ultimately left the Church. Today, while he still understands why Catholicism is important to people, he is not a practicing Catholic himself. So, between David and Sean, there’s all kinds of people. People deal with this hurt they feel because they are LGBTQ+ from Catholic leaders in different ways.
Some people say they just ignore the statements that are hurtful and they find a parish that works for them. I hope I offered different models of how to deal with that because I don’t think it’s an issue that’s going to go away anytime soon.
AZ: Thank you so much for your time.
O’Loughlin is a sterling example of how LGBTQ+ journalists are documenting the interactions between the Church and queer Catholics. Pope Francis’ support of his work ought to serve as a source of hope and inspiration for gay Catholics, even as Church teachings regarding homosexuality remain static. As the global Church and LGBTQ+ Catholics learn how to interact more productively, journalists like O’Loughlin will continue to serve as an important source for information and analysis.
There are many First Nations, Inuit and Métis-led grassroots social justice activities and campaigns that teachers can take up during and after Sept. 30th. It will be important to reconsider how respecting relationships and honestly examining and sharing our histories might guide the educational work ahead of us this school year.
Dismantling myths
A misconception that remains about the Indian Residential School system is the myth of its beneficial, benevolent intentions.
This myth that continues to be put forth by some settler Canadians avoids acknowledging the intergenerational trauma stemming from residential schooling. It also denies that residential schooling was part of a larger settler colonial system.
As political commentator and journalist John McGrath writes: “Residential schools were as much a part of the Canadian national project as railroads, medicare or fighting in two world wars.”
‘Restorying’ settler colonial legacies
Greater and specific understandings of who designed, administered and taught at these institutions is needed to help people understand the specific ways we can become more accountable to redress their harms.
Grounds of the current University of Ottawa seen about 1920.
This past September, on the front lawns of University of Ottawa’s main building, Tabaret Hall, representatives of the Algonquin First Nations and Elder Peter Decontie lit a ceremonial fire. This occasion was named Pinzibìwin | Amitié | Friendship and sought to acknowledge and renew our relations for moving forward together in a good way.
At the University of Ottawa’s faculty of education, one way we can respond to the responsibilities we inherit to uphold the spirit of Pinzibìwin is by seeking to understand interconnections between the role that the Oblate religious order had in founding the University of Ottawa and in operating residential schools. More information is needed to move towards deeper understanding and accountability, particularly as we seek to educate teachers about standing in classrooms and discussing truth and reconciliation.
The past is present
Teachers and leaders in educational institutions must continue to question and address how teacher education programs, as well as provincial curricula, continue to be largely framed by settler colonial worldviews, histories and perspectives.
