ACP letter to Bishops: Need for Conversation on the Pastoral Outreach to Gay Catholics
Earlier this week the ACP Leadership wrote to all the bishops calling for a conversation on the pastoral outreach to gay Catholics. The letter is attached:
Tuesday 18 May 2021
Dear Bishop,
There needs to be a conversation in the Irish Church that involves a sensitive and respectful pastoral outreach to gay Catholics. Pope Francis has demonstrated that respect and sensitivity in his carefully judged words, and has encouraged us to go to the peripheries and to welcome all the baptised, including gay Catholics, into the Church’s care. It is both their right and our responsibility.
This need has been underlined recently by the insensitive and unnecessary intervention by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that has brought such pain and distress to gay women and men, to their families and friends.
The content, language and judgemental tone of the CDF’s statement reflect an increasingly out of touch and uncaring Church and exactly the kind of attitude that provokes more and more Catholics into walking away from our Church. Messages we have received from gay people and family members spoke of the hurt and anger they are made to feel and they write of the struggle they have remaining part of the church. Only one Irish Bishop had the courage to respond to the CDF statement and his words were deeply appreciated.
More worryingly, the CDF intervention runs counter to ‘the synodal path’ that Francis has told us is God’s way of being Church in the future and which the Irish Bishops have recently endorsed through their commitment to move the Irish Church along that pathway in preparation for a national synodal event within the next five years.
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has enthusiastically supported the Bishops’ decision (ACP statement, Holy Thursday, 2021) and we look forward to playing our part in this important initiative.
Times are changing. Both this synodal initiative and the present pandemic remind us that we now have to try and do things in a way we never would have dreamt of doing in the past. An instance is the ACP adopting the now popular Zoom meetings and organising webinars in order to inform and promote our reform agenda. These have been open to all and have been hugely popular. A number of bishops have joined us and in one instance some joined in a very worthwhile discussion.
A recent ACP webinar on the topic ‘Pastoral care of LGBTQ+ and the Church’s position on LGBTQ+’ was presented by James Alison, a priest theologian, highly regarded and valued, and who has received an endorsement from Pope Francis. It was disappointing that no bishop attended but, even more so, to discover that some bishops even failed to forward to the priests of their respective dioceses the notification of the event sent to them – a practice that by now is an established protocol.
Nonetheless, the Alison webinar was memorable. There were many heartfelt contributions from people who continue to feel hurt and shame. Stories that could be replicated in every parish but sadly are often unwelcome or unheard.
Why are we so cold and uncaring in the Church around this topic? Why the lack of knowledge and understanding that still informs inappropriate sermons and comments? Why are we afraid to welcome gay Catholics? Why are we afraid to listen to their stories?
There is a listening and a conversation that need to take place in our Church and we respectfully request the Irish bishops to facilitate it and to participate in it. A refusal to engage runs counter to the synodal pathway.
With every good wish and blessing.
Sincerely
Tim Hazelwood, Roy Donovan, John Collins, Gerry O’Connor CSsR
ACP Leadership Team
Hi
I wish to congratulate Fr.Tim Hazelwood for his measured discussion on Newstalk today. This discussion about including gay people openly in the Catholic Church is overdue!
Kind regards
Mary
ACP letter to bishops.
Very well said, lads. I am sure you are speaking for the majority of Catholics in Ireland.
When James Alison did a Zoom meeting a few months ago for the Scottish Laity Network ( SLN) he discussed scripture and our church’s teaching on homosexuality, especially Leviticus. He was excellent.
Perhaps that could be another evening with James sometime in the future.
I must clarify the actual title/theme of that SLN meeting.
Tim Hazelwood speaking on Newstalk Radio:
https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-lunchtime-live/why-should-people-hide-be-ashamed-in-their-own-church-it-shouldnt-be-the-case
It would not be a great exaggeration to say that I froze with horror listening to that radio broadcast.
All that was said was said forty years ago. Forty years!
And nothing has changed. Bishops and clergy have maintained their pharaonic posture of rigid self-protective silence. And the faithful continue to be “crucified” as the 45 year old fellow who had lived in France alienated from his family since age 23 said.
Back in 1981 bishops would murmur privately about their “sympathy” but say that of course public utterance on gayness would be impossible, because the faithful would think the church had gone mad. But now it is the lack of such utterance that makes people like caller Sarah think that the church has gone mad.
I am freezing because I feel a deep freeze, in the Irish clerical church, a freeze like that which held in Stalinist Russia. The words “cold” and “uncaring” keep coming up.
Forty years ago you could say society as a whole was cold and uncaring so the church has the smell of the sheep. Well now, society has moved on, and humane values have prevailed. It is time for the clerical church to issue its long, long overdue apology to gays, lesbians, trans folk.
But I fear that by the time humanity breaks into the clerical palace to demand that apology, there will be nobody there to offer it. A creepy bunch of half-dead men, crumbling into the dust, will send up their impotent final gasp as they pass into dishonorable oblivion. The humane and living church that we once dreamed of will never have been.
I recognise how sensitive a subject this is and I would like to avoid anything that could lead us to differences.
I’m more interested in where there might be points of consensus.
With that in mind: Am I right in thinking there is general agreement among contributors to this site that even if Church teaching was changed in relation to homosexuality it still would not result in any growth in numbers in the Church?
Or are there members willing to claim it would?
Do most people now accept the lesson from what has happened with the more liberal branches of Protestantism?
I totally understand that there are other reasons why you might want to see a change in teaching but I’m just interested in the point on which I think we may be in agreement.
P.S. It was odd that the Newstalk item featured four contributors, five if you count the text messenger, and yet there wasn’t one voice representing the Church’s view.
P.P.S. It also seemed odd that, given the association has a paid membership, there wasn’t a more accurate estimate of how many are Priests.
”So often the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church is framed as the care provided for them.It is worth remembering always how much the church needs LGBTQ people for the gifts they offer and the ecclesial holiness they help secure.”
https://www.newwaysministry.org/2021/05/27/indonesian-priest-says-catholic-church-recognizing-same-gender-marriages-is-possible/