If you’re like me and do not get the newspaper, here is a reprint from the St. Paul Pioneer Press on this weekend’s New Ways Ministry Symposium and Archbishop Flynn’s response;
Twin Cities / No Mass at event about gay Catholics Archbishop objects to speakers at weekend symposium in metro.
BY TAD VEZNER Pioneer PressPosted on Wed, Mar. 14, 2007
A national symposium to explore the conflict between homosexuality and Catholicism is set to take place in the Twin Cities area this weekend.
But one thing participants won’t be able to do — as they have in every other city where the symposium has taken place since 1977 — is celebrate Mass.The symposium, “Outward Signs: Lesbian/Gay Catholics in a Sacramental Church,” is the sixth such meeting sponsored by New Ways Ministry — an organization dedicated to creating “a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian and gay Catholics,” according to the organization’s literature.Archbishop Harry Flynn, of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, sent a candid letter last month to New Ways, stating concern about the symposium’s topics and featured speakers “who are known to have publicly contested Church teaching.”Flynn prohibited symposium participants from celebrating Holy Eucharist, saying to do so might mislead Archdiocese members into believing the speakers’ views had the church’s sanction.“Hopefully, that will at least minimize potential confusion and scandal,” Flynn’s letter concluded.Archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said the reason for prohibiting the Eucharist at the symposium was simple: “There’s certain rules of the church that are inviolate. The Eucharist is the heart of our faith. There just isn’t much elbow room there.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, said the group tried for several weeks to negotiate with the archbishop through several bishops who were to attend the symposium.
“This does seem a little harsh for a couple of reasons,” DeBernardo said of Flynn’s decision. “We have known Flynn as a good and pastoral man when it comes to lesbian/gay issues. So we were surprised that he made this decision. He has been willing to dialogue and compromise. He hasn’t been a stone wall, as some other bishops have been.”
The negotiations failed late last week.
And Tuesday, one of the bishops expected to attend the symposium left a voice message with DeBernardo saying he had “been told not to come.”
“I think there was a Vatican intervention,” DeBernardo said late Tuesday, saying he had yet to reach Bishop Leroy Matthiesen, of Amarillo, Texas, to get an explanation for his dropping out.
Matthiesen did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday evening.
Two other bishops scheduled to participate in the symposium — Archbishop Francis Hurley, of Anchorage, Alaska, and Bishop Joseph Sullivan, of Brooklyn, N.Y. — were still expected to come, DeBernardo said. And participants were urged to attend Mass in nearby churches rather than at the hotel where the symposium will take place.Michael Bayly, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, a grass-roots coalition promoting acceptance of gay people in the Catholic Church, said Flynn’s decision was reflective of a trend.“I think it reflects a wider change in climate in the Catholic Church. There’s a more narrow and rigid interpretation of what it means to be Catholic,” Bayly said.Flynn’s decision “is a betrayal of the core of our Catholic faith,” Bayly said. “The church should be big and wide to support diverse opinions. For God’s sake, it’s Catholic — it’s universal.”The symposium has been organized every several years on different topics relating to homosexuality and Catholicism, with an emphasis on finding common ground. The Eucharist has been celebrated in Washington, St. Louis, San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Louisville — though the New Ways Ministry did run into problems at its most recent event in Kentucky.There, DeBernardo said, Archbishop Thomas Kelly told New Ways Ministry that he had been told by the Vatican not to allow the Eucharist — a decision that lies with the head of the diocese under church law.Kelly invited conference participants to instead attend Mass at his cathedral — but New Ways Ministry declined and conducted the Eucharist anyway, saying Kelly’s letter fell short of forbidding the sacrament.“We saw it as a loophole,” DeBernardo said.DeBernardo said he sees the same Vatican influence being exerted in the Twin Cities, given that Flynn’s letter was copied to three top Vatican officials.McGrath said he didn’t know whether Flynn had consulted with the Vatican and was not able to reach the archbishop Tuesday.But regardless, “the Archdiocese has policies that are fully in accord with the teachings of the Vatican,” McGrath said.
This is not the first time issues related to homosexuality have created controversy with the Archdiocese. Last year, Flynn supported a proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The year before, Flynn ruled that gay-rights supporters could not receive Holy Communion while wearing rainbow-colored sashes because the practice was seen as a protest of Catholic teaching.
The symposium will begin at 7 p.m. Friday and end at 2 p.m. Sunday at Sheraton Bloomington, 7800 Normandale Blvd. New Ways Ministry said more than 500 people have registered, about half of them church leaders.
Tad Vezner can be reached at tvezner@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5461.
The Symposium
This weekend’s symposium on homosexuality and the Catholic Church includes the following speakers: Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking”; the Rev. Richard McBrien, a University of Notre Dame professor; Sister Margaret Farley, author of “Just Love”; author and gay-rights advocate Brian McNaught; British theologian James Alison; and Emory University professor Luke Timothy Johnson. Neither DeBernardo nor Flynn specified which speakers the church found objectionable. - Pioneer Press
(I’m on my lunch hour at work and I am not able to comment - this is just an FYI post anyway.)
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