Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director Phone: 917-691-5118 E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
LGBT Catholics Shouldn’t Confess, They Should Come Out, Says TWO
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out today condemned an iPhone App, designed to guide Catholics through confession. Among one of many offensive questions asked on, “Confession: A Roman Catholic App”, is “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity.”
“This is cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen. “Gay Catholics don’t need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives. This iPhone App is facilitating and furthering the harm.”
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about the downloadable software today. Three young men in South Bend, Indiana designed it with the help of two socially conservative priests. According to iTunes, the App is ranked No. 22 in sales worldwide.
“When a person feels his or her most innate feelings of sexuality and love are sinful, it denies them a healthy connection to humanity,” said TWO’s Besen. “This app is helping to create neurotic individuals who are ashamed of who they are. The creators of this device are the true sinners and they need to confess for the damage they are doing in the name of religion.”
The app says it is: “Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step-guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance.”
Recently, there has been concern that the Catholic Church is becoming more anti-gay and intolerant. The organization Catholics for Equality recently voiced unease over new funding from the Dioceses of Oakland and Colorado Springs for the establishment of chapters of the “ex-gay” organization Courage. This organization has traditionally focused on celibacy for gay people, because it has worked so well for priests.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Marco Rubio, the charismatic senator-elect from Florida, is in many ways similar to other Cuban-American politicians from his home state: conservative, Republican and a “practicing and devout Roman Catholic,” in the words of his spokesman, one who “regularly attends Catholic Mass” and “was baptized, confirmed and married in the Roman Catholic Church.”
But while Mr. Rubio, 39, presented himself on his Florida Statehouse Web site and in interviews as a Roman Catholic, bloggers and journalists have noted since his election that he regularly worships at an evangelical megachurch whose theology is plainly at odds with Catholic teaching.
For much of the last decade, Mr. Rubio has attended Christ Fellowship with his wife and children. He “comes very regularly to worship service” at the church’s Palmetto Bay campus, said Eric Geiger, the executive pastor. According to Mr. Rubio’s campaign Web site, he contributed almost $50,000 to Christ Fellowship from 2005 to 2008.
At lease one priest thinks Rubio’s religious flip-flopping is odd.
“I don’t think this is very common,” Father Elizondo said. “I know that some Catholics switch for a while and then return, and some switch and never return, but I really don’t know of any who claim to be Catholic but attend another church.”
Maybe Rubio is different because most people are not opportunistic “Family Values” politicians who play both sides of the religious fence to get money and votes. It does appear that Rubio is waffling on worship to appeal to more than one constituency in Florida.
It is time to admit that the gay community has a gigantic Pope problem. Under the leadership of Benedict XVI, the Vatican has become an implacable foe of liberalism, modernity and basic rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Rome has eagerly jumped with both feet into America’ culture wars and is working on a global scale to punish or purge ideological dissenters within the church. This aggressive activism presents a formidable new front in the fight for parity — one with considerable political clout and financial resources.
Last week, a coalition of totalitarian religious activists and radical clerics joined forces to unveil the “Manhattan Declaration” at Washington’ National Press Club. This rambling manifesto, written by former Watergate felon Chuck Colson, called for “Christians” to disobey laws they didn’t fancy and to ignore civil rights laws that protected GLBT people from discrimination. It was a dishonest document filled with historical revisionism that promoted theocracy, encouraged anarchy and supported the dissolution of the rule of law. It falsely portrayed right wing Christians as victims, even as they pledged to work tirelessly to deny equality to those who would not adhere to their sectarian church rules.
An extreme manifesto of such breathtaking cynicism and insincerity is no surprise coming from what passes for “leaders” in today’ evangelical circles. It was striking, however, that more than 15 key American Catholic leaders signed on to the “Manhattan Declaration”. Signatories included heavyweights such as Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC. This was clearly a call to arms and a powerful signal that the Roman Catholic Church is taking the gloves off to fight political battles in America.
This hands-on involvement from Rome has passed the “trend” stage and appears to be official policy. Consider the significant involvement the Catholic Church had in stripping marriage rights away from GLBT couples in a Maine referendum held earlier this month.
In the same manner, on June 11, the Washington, DC Archdiocese threatened to abandon the homeless and quit charity work in the District if it had to comply with anti-discrimination laws. Catholic Charities had the audacity to believe it was entitled to collect $8.2 million in tax dollars meant to serve all DC residents, and then still get to handpick whom it deems worthy of assistance.
Catholic involvement with arch-conservative politics is growing by the day. In May, Catholic groups tried to stop President Barack Obama from speaking at a Notre Dame commencement ceremony because of his pro-choice position.
Earlier this month, Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin put the clamp on Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), banning the lawmaker from communion because he is pro-choice. This was reminiscent of The St. Louis Archbishop refusing to give communion to John Kerry during his presidential campaign.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has suddenly begun to steer GLBT Catholics to 12-step programs that promise to “cure” homosexuality or support them in a lifelong celibacy. The Catholic Diocese in Sioux Falls, South Dakota urged its 128-thousand members to oppose an attempt to bring legalizing embryonic stem cell research to a public referendum. (I guess the sacrosanct “people’ right to vote” on controversial social issues only applies to same-sex marriage)
In fighting back, we must remember that the Vatican is launching these attacks from a position of weakness. It has yet to recover its moral authority from public exposure of rampant child sexual abuse scandals that cost the Church billions of dollars in legal settlements.
The Vatican appears to be acutely aware it is losing its worldwide market share. It is basically defunct in the Middle East, where the religion began, and on life-support in Western Europe, where it once prospered. In Africa, Rome competes with Islam and Anglicanism for a shrinking slice of the pie. (Who can forget that while in Africa the Pope said condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse.) South America, one of its few remaining strongholds, is losing Roman Catholics to evangelical faiths by the millions.
Instead of competing against the conservative evangelical brand, Pope Benedict has decided to embrace it, shaping a conspicuously political Catholicism that embraces extremism and drives out dissenters. The Vatican has become so doctrinaire that it recently launched an invasive probe into the lives of America’s 60,000 nuns to enforce anachronistic rules. In January, Benedict welcomed back excommunicated Bishop Richard Williamson who denied that millions of Jews died in Nazi death camps.
Fortunately, Benedict is a cold, unsympathetic figure and the majority of American Catholics often ignore his edicts. The strategy for the GLBT community should be to stand up to Rome and help mobilize mainstream Catholics to fight back against an authoritarian Pontiff who is hell-bent on making the Catholic Church as unpopular and unappealing as His Holiness.
In February 2009, Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released “Ex-Gay and the Law,” a publication which educates persons harmed by ex-gay programs about their legal options. The two organizations requested that anyone who has been harmed by an “ex- gay” program or any other form of anti-lgbt discrimination to contact Lambda Legal’s help desk.
Father Marty Kurylowicz responded, and has given permission for his response to be reprinted below.
Box Turtle Bulletin observes Los Angeles-area proponents of Courage, the Catholic ex-gay network, encouraging gay Catholics to suppress their sexual attractions, mislabel their sexual orientation to the public, marry a member of the opposite sex in a sexually doomed marriage, and ultimately have children for the purpose of entrapping both spouses in a loveless marriage.
The Rev. Maurice Harrigan oversees the L.A. chapter of the network. Without providing any evidence of success, Harrigan told the L.A. Daily News that his ex-gay program is successful in changing Catholics’ sexual orientation.
“In some cases, members finish the program and go on and marry members of the opposite sex and have children,” Harrigan said. “As for the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, I do hope members of the Catholic Church step up and vote.”
The L.A. Daily News made no apparent effort to verify Harrigan’s claim, but parroted the claim anyway.
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out today condemned an iPhone App, designed to guide Catholics through confession. Among one of many offensive questions asked on, “Confession: A Roman Catholic App”, is “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity.”
