Dublin Pride Week

Text From RTE’s Living Word, Dublin Gay Pride Week, 2011 By Brian Glennon Part 1 Some of you listening may be aware that this is Gay Pride Week in Dublin. Dublin Pride is an annual happening aimed at increasing the visibility of the Dublin lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, known as LGBTQ. It wishes to communicate the message of mutual respect, to appreciate others for what they are, for how they are different and to respect them for such. Pride is a strange word. It may relate to something of which I am justifiably proud. If I say I am proud to be gay - perhaps that means I am very much at home with who I am and certainly not ashamed of it. It may also mean that my parents are proud of me as their gay daughter or son. So Pride Week is celebrating who we are as gay people. Among the core values of Dublin Pride is to seek out those who are on the fringes and to take practical steps to ensure their inclusion in society. Isn’t this a fundamental objective of any caring and just society? As I see it also it is a very central element of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. His indiscriminate table fellowship included many from the fringes of his society. When the American Catholic Bishops in their letter ‘Always Our Children’ said to the gay community ‘In you God’s love is revealed’ perhaps they had in mind Jesus seeking, welcoming and including those on the fringes…just as Dublin Pride does. Do you include those on the fringes, especially gay people given the week that’s in it? 1 Part 2 Yesterday I spoke about it being Dublin Pride week…where we celebrate diversity and inclusivness as gay people and I mentioned that the American Catholic Bishops said of us ‘In you God’s love is revealed.’ There is an Amercian gay Catholic group which has chapters all over the States and it’s called Dignity USA. It’s easily googled at Dignity USA. It envisions and works for a time when Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Catholics are affirmed and experience dignity through the integration of their spirituality with their sexuality, and as beloved persons of God participate fully in all aspects of life within the Church and Society. Among the ministries offered by Dignity is: Ongoing support for same-sex couples, through social and spiritually focused activities at the local level, Guidelines for Holy Union services, and Maintenance of a national Registry of couples whose relationships have been blessed by Dignity. Such a ministry is very encouraging as we move into greater acceptance and celebration of gay couples here in Ireland. We hope that Civil Partnership will soon be overtaken by full marriage equality for all our citizens, gay as well as straight. Like Dublin Pride, Dignity is very inclusive.. they even have a Leather Ministry whose purpose is To provide fellowship within the leather and levi community that fosters an individual and collective integration of our spirituality and our sexuality. To encourage a constructive interaction and understanding between the leather community and the Christian community by example. Perhaps a chapter of Dignity could be started here in Ireland…let me know! Happy times and Happy Pride! 2 Part 3 Once again I wish you a Happy Dublin Pride Week! I am addressing issues of integrating our sexuality and our spirituality. This pertains to many of us, gay and straight, Catholic, Protestant and all faiths. Recently I read an essay entitled ‘The Gift of Gay’. It was written in memory of a gay man, Father Matthew Kelty, who was a Cistercian monk, a Catholic priest. Some of you may have heard of the most famous Cistercian monk of the last century, Thomas Merton. Matthew and Thomas both lived in the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Thomas was Merton’s Spiritual Director in his latter years. In 1994 Matthew published a book called My Song of Mercy and in the epilogue entitled ‘Celibacy and the Gift of Gay’ he decided in anticipation of his ninetieth year to uncloset his monastic self and thus to attempt to describe what gifts gay and lesbian Christians have to contribute to the complex tapestry of Christian communion. I repeat - the gifts gay and lesbian Christians have to contribute to the complex tapestry of Christian communion. Referring to the celibate priesthood he says ‘There are none more called to it, more capable of it, more created for it than the people we call gay. They begin from day one a process of integration that straight men do not even have a hint of until they are 40!’ He goes on to say that celibacy without a deep love affair is a disaster. The love affair he speaks of is one with God! What love affairs guide your life, during Pride week? 3 Part 4 Hello again and greetings for Pride Week, when Dublin’s LGBTQ community celebrate their diversity. I have mentioned some Catholic celebration around homosexuality and spirituality with examples from the United States. I am not aware of any Catholic gay group like the ones I have mentioned here in Ireland. So it’s back to the States again today. A group called New Ways Ministry brings together the best of Catholic intellectual thought and research to bear on gay issues. It began in 1977 and a documentary about one of its founders Sister Jeannine Gramick called ‘In Good Conscience’ has won several awards. New Ways Ministry is a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for LGBT Catholics. Through research, publication and education about homosexuality, they foster dialogue among groups and individuals, identify and combat personal and structural homophobia, work for changes in attitudes and promote the acceptance of LGBT people as full and equal members of church and society. Some of these ideals are at the heart of what Dublin Pride is all about. Reading New Ways website I came across a section dealing with lesbian nuns. Sister Sandy Yost, a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the University of Detroit Mercy talks about her process of coming out and how important it is to overcome the internalised homophobia and self-loathing that is the product of our society and culture. She needed to know that others would still accept and love her after coming out. Good for her. She even maintains a personal blog called nunsuch, the adventures of a techie nun! Happy Pride to all LGBT nuns, brothers and priests! 4 Part 5 In my final reflection around Dublin Pride and linking sexuality and spirituality I would like to use a phrase from the letter to the Ephesians. ‘We are God’s work of art created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning God meant us to live it.’ As God’s work of art we are most beautiful when we are most human. The life of Jesus shows us what being most human means…reaching out to those different from us in solidarity and loving-kindness, doing what is truly good…that is the good life. This reaching out, as Dublin Pride recommends, may also be a reaching out within the gay community itself. We are all challenged, gay and straight, to bring about God’s masterpiece! Part of that masterpiece is the love that can blossom between persons of the same sex. I believe that this too is God’s work of art. In February of this year 143 theologians from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland signed a statement calling for a “Year of Departure” – for structural reforms in the Catholic Church in the wake of the sex abuse scandals. Under the heading ‘Freedom of Conscience’ they wrote ‘Respect for individual conscience means placing trust in people’s ability to make decisions and carry responsibility. Serious work needs to be done especially in the realm of personal life decisions and individual manners of life. The Church’s esteem for marriage and unmarried forms of life goes without saying. But this does not require that we exclude people who responsibly live out love, faithfulness, and mutual care in same-sex partnerships or in a remarriage after divorce.’ We live in hope! Happy Pride and happy loving. Amen! 5 .

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