Open Letter to the Transgender Community

Open Letter to the Transgender Community

The Rainbow Sash Movement believes we are community, and that includes Transgendered individuals. I recognize that our community at times is messy; however, its soul is good. Many in our community live in privilege without recognizing it. Certainly, this has been so throughout our relatively short public socio/political/religious history.

We in the GLBTQA movement and Community have at times stumbled in our journey for human dignity by forgetting the other. This speaks to our human frailty regardless of who we are.

In short we have been messy in how we deal with each other, and at times forgetting that Jesus Christ has many faces, and it is up to us not to forget who our neighbor is, a child of God. We have to learn holy patience and respect as we educate each other.

Love your neighbor is the basic blue print of our relationship with God. Biblically God never said “I will fix all your brokenness; rather, that God would be with us in our brokenness”. What is important is that we actively listen to each other when we tell our stories, and be able to learn as we listen. Our differences should be cause for hope.

The message I wish to convey to the Transgendered Community is that we are all family. Family does not ignore family member’s needs and wants. The Key is to be found in listening, dialogue, education, and focusing on the common ground/good.

Recently Mark Nagel passed. He was a person who always focused on the margins of our community, and the recognition that on this journey through life we must learn to depend on each other, and love each other.  Mark was also the co owner of Grab Magazine; he was and is a good person. We have many saints that walk among us in the GLBTQA Community let us always be present to that simple concept. Rest in peace my friend.

Transgender people are not only part of this community. They are a part of who we are as human beings and community. Without the presence of the Transgender Community, we are not a community, nor are we complete.

Joe Murray
Executive Director
Rainbow Sash Movement (GLBTQA Roman Catholics)

Gay Porno Healthy or not?

GLBTQ people have plenty of options when it comes to socializing. We are no longer limited to the Boys town, or Andersonville a ghettoized vision of community. Like the Roman Catholic Church, we wink and nod as if our words create a reality of normality when it comes to addictions.

The granting of Gay Marriage by the Supreme Court to our community has been cause of much celebration. However, along with that celebration comes an awareness of responsible behaviour that is like a diseased tooth that needs to be extracted by some in the community.

Where are the responsible voices in the community? Our political leaders want to recognize the wonderful achievements we have made and usually take credit for them. However, when it comes to losing our gay youth we are met with silence. The issue of Gay Porno is one of the last taboos that we can begin to question in a responsible fashion.

We are plagued by drug abuse and alcoholism. We cling to our addictions as if we are powerless. Compounded with this is the widespread mental health problems that affect many of our youth that is both attracted to and introduced to the porno scene via our male stripper scene.

It is time to have a responsible conversation about Pornography and the negative effects on our community members. Not the PR pabulum we get in some of our press coverage that some how this is related to cultural expression, or even the GLBTQA Movement.

Jack Anderson
Rainbow Sash Movement

Editorial: Responding to Chicago Cubs Ownership-idolization of wealth

The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM – GLBTQA Roman Catholics) finds the Chicago Crain Magazine article by Laura Rickets attacking Alderman Tom Tunney of Chicago’s 44th Ward to be lacking in any charity. That said, both are outstanding members of this community, and for the RSM it is difficult to watch these two very public figures engage in attacks on each other when both individuals have a wonderful history with the GLBTQA Community.

In addition to both being good democrats, and people rooted in the Roman Catholic faith with its rich history of social justice. Both share common values when it comes to the common good.

One serves the needs of his people in the ward with distinction, the other in the corporate world.

It is not the intention of the RSM to tell individuals how to vote unlike Laura Rickets, rather to wake up people of conscience in listening to agressive distored politicking.

However, one promotes the Church’s preferrantional option for the poor, the other has not. Both Alderman Tunney and Laura Rickets promote their Catholic Values when it comes to the Primacy of Conscience.

In our opinion, one is known for his service to the poor in the Community, and the other for her corporate mentality of wealth. One opens his business doors to the poor, the other has yet to do that at Cubs Park.

Is dialogue even possible or will pride replace humility? Even the economy of exclusion serves neither the 44th Ward and/or the Common Good.

Joe Murray
Executive Director
Rainbow Sash Movement (GLBTQA Roman Catholics)

Catholic Homophobia is now irrelevant in the Marriage Equality Debate

USCCB Subcommittee Chairman Calls Decisions in Oregon and Pennsylvania Travesties of Justice

• Archbishop Cordileone says marriage, democracy, children deserve better
• Says state attorneys general were derelict in their duties
• Reiterates that authentic marriage is the union of one man and one woman

WASHINGTON–Responding to the ruling by the federal court in Oregon striking down the state’s voter-approved marriage amendment and the ruling by the federal court in Pennsylvania striking down portions of that state’s domestic relations code, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, said, “We stand in solidarity with the Oregon and Pennsylvania Catholic Conferences and all the people of both states. These court decisions are travesties of justice.”

Once again the Church leadership get entangled in the world of Power and reactionary politics. The US Council of Catholic Bishops over the years have proved to be unreasonable and bigoted in their response to LGBT Civil Rights. Pope Francis is right to try to return such leadership’s focus from intolerance to the Gospel of Poverty.

Homophobia, ignorance and error were rampant in the guise of pastoral concern for the homosexual person. Attempts at such ministry were tied to promoting the Church’s hostile position against the Civil Rights of LGBT people with Gay Marriage being the epicenter.

Men such as Cordileone and Francis George of Chicago have used their respective concern to promote hate against LGBT People instead of following the mind and heart of Jesus Christ in promoting love of neighbor.

In state after state where the Bishops have been forced into  the public square and held accountable for what they say and how they say it they have lost the reasonable high ground. The Rainbow Sash Movement believes such men are not worthy to doll out the sacraments and should be held accountable for their public clericalism in the guise of homophobia when it comes to Gay Rights

Currently we believe there is a moral reassessment of the Church’s value system underway not in terms of truth but rather behavior.

The Church’s  issue of Divorce and Remarriage and priestly celibacy will begin the Reform Synod on the Family that will take place in October. Clearly the Synod is shaping up to be about reform, and not cosmetic PR moves.

The Papal System has never had Christ at the its center when it entangled itself in the world of power, fiancé, and divisive sectarian  politics. Pope Francis is trying to refocus our attention on all are welcome, and promoting the preaching of a demanding Gospel to a resistant Church, that coupled with the moral ambiguity of the Church when it comes to living in this world. Secularism is not the enemy, but rather a patient ally of both Church and State.

We must speak the truth to power and authority within the Church when those in leadership try to turn our gaze towards the world of Power and Wealth and away from Christ.

This why the Rainbow Sash Movement believes the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have lost the moral high ground in the debate on Gay Marriage and therefore the debate. We claim victory in the darkness of Church sponsored homophobia. The USCCB is no longer a significant part of the debate. Their views will be put in the dustbin of history, and recognized as bigotry pure and simple.

Bill O’Connor
Rainbow Sash Movement

The Church Finds Itself in Peril

The great institution we refer to as the Church finds itself in peril in this age. Why because of its lack of faith in the Gospels. It has nothing to do with with competence rather the leadership is more concerned with orthodoxy and embrace of traditionalism regardless of the individuals competence.  Most were possessed by a severe theology that saw the church under siege in a hostile world.

Such a focus had its price. It denied the advancement of more centrist individuals to positions of authority.  It inhibited the advancement of sounder, more dynamic leaders who were willing to move in new directions.

Steps Pope Francis could take at reform bring down the retirement age bishops to 70, allowing for exceptional Bishops to stay on beyond that retirement age. With the priest shortage common sense would indicate that a married clergy would be another significant reform.

So many people are leaving the Church because the massive clergy sexual abuse scandal that seems only to get larger and larger with each passing year.

Currently there are 75 million Catholics in the Church. According to Pew Research, their level of religious practice and attachment has been waning. Pew found there are an additional 22 million Catholics who left the American church. If these former Catholics were a single denomination, it would be the second largest religion in America.

Like Ahaz, a misguided king in the Book of Isaiah, most bishops cried out, “Lord, send me a sign!” This after abundant signs had already been sent, but ignored. Many bishops have blamed anything else but their own failed leadership: pop culture, secularism, feminism, the media, too much education, too little education, Satan, weak belief, television, general moral decline.

It is far past a time for a new Spring Time in the Church. Or this great Church will return to the dust from which it came.

Ann Schwartz
Rainbow Sash Movement

Uganda’s Catholic Bishops Promote Homophobia in their Easter Message

Once again we have entered a valley of tears with the Church Leadership of Uganda. In their Easter message they praised the Uganda government for passing the anti-gay law, thereby helping rid Uganda of homosexuals.

Gay children are being used by them as pawns in a hate filled act that can only be described as anti-family.

The stage is being set for open genocide in a country know for such actions while Pope Francis sits on his hands and refuses to publically address these sins of homophobia. Perhaps rather than focusing on elevating Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II to sainthood, both popes reigned over the clergy sexual abuse scandal, he should address the Uganda and Kenya Catholics Bishops lover affair with hate.

We stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Uganda and are calling on the Senator Dick Durban to move towards a boycott of Uganda. What is happening in Uganda is as bad as what is happening in the Ukraine.

Sue Smith
Rainbow Sash Movement

Personal Bias is not the Basis for Law

Once you recognize that moral disapproval in and of itself is not a legitimate basis for depriving liberties or equality, there’s no other justification left for these type of laws that single out gay and lesbian Americans for ill treatment this is why Cardinal Francis George and US Conference of Catholic Bishops have become irrelevant in the discussion of LGBT rights, and why Pope Francis is now willing to entertain the approval of civil unions for both straight and LGBT couples.

States around the country have been given all these opportunities to come up with any kind of legitimate, credible argument for why same-sex couples should not have the same marriage rights as others. And over and over again now, in a steady drumbeat of decisions, judges are rejecting those arguments . These state governments can come up with nothing.

We’re seeing a really steady and accelerating progress in the courts for LGBT people not just the Supreme Court being like the lone court, you know, reaching down and issuing somedictat. [Rather,] the Supreme Court, when it comes to the gay rights cases it’s had in the last, you know, almost two decades now, has been not leading the way but acknowledging where the country is . When sodomy laws were struck down, at that point in time only like 13 states still had those kinds of prohibitions on the books. The court was not in any way, I think, getting out ahead of evolving notions of personal liberty and equality.

We call on NCR and other Roman Catholic media to recognize when we speak of homophobia we are in essence speaking about the Church’s full Teaching on the homosexual person. Promoting discrimination in any form can only be understood by most reasonable people as a personal bias from many in the Church to scapegoat LGBT people because of their difference nothing else is at play.

The Rainbow Sash Movement takes a very different view than the National Catholic Reporter. We see this situation in terms of homophobia, like racism and sexism it should be condemned wherever it rears its ugly head, but for some reason the editors of NCR promote the ideal to debate homophobia as a concept. We do not.

Bob Murphy
Rainbow Sash Movement

Roman Catholic Holy Communion Wars

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, known for his fundamentalism, and an example of what Pope Francis was talking about when he remarked some in the Church obsess over judgementalism, has decided to deny Holy Communion to Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois for supporting a woman’s right to choose, and gay marriage.

The Bishop said in an email he sent out that “Senator Durbin was informed several years ago by his pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish here in Springfield that he was not permitted to receive Holy Communion per canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law,” Paprocki wrote. “My predecessor upheld that decision and it remains in effect. It is my understanding that the senator is complying with that decision here in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.”

Canon 915 states that those who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” So supporting civil rights is now a grave sin. What screwed up logic is this? I might add this is the same character that went on a homophobic tirade over the fact that members of the Rainbow Sash Movement wanted to pray for Gay Marriage in his Cathedral. This Cannon has been the epee center of a disputed between the majority of Bishops and minority of fundamentalist among their number.

Some prelates argue that denying politicians Communion turns the Eucharist into a political “weapon.” However the legalist among them believe all who do not support the Church’s Teaching should be denied communion. This puts the onus not only the celebrant of the Mass to do so but also lay Eucharistic Ministers.

The Bishops of England and Wales refused to allow the Eucharist as did the German, Scandinavian, and Dutch Bishops to be used as such a political tool.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke has been the most prominent promoter of this action.

However the leader of the Illinois Conference of Catholic Bishops is clearly at odds with both Cardinal Burk and Paprocki . But Cardinal George is not known for his consistency in this matter since he denies communion to members of the Rainbow Sash Movement.

The Church continues to look like a 3 ring circus to most reasonable people no wonder so many in the Church are voting with their feet and wallets.

Jack Anderson
Rainbow Sash Movement

The Rainbow Sash Movement responds to Cardinal Francis George’s Letter on Clergy Sexual abuse

The Rainbow Sash Movement (LGBT Roman Catholics) finds Cardinal George’s letter that will be released to entire Archdiocese this weekend on clergy sexual abuse astonishing. In the letter there is no indication of an apology to the victims of clergy sexual abuse. Further the Cardinals explanation that the various offices of the Archdiocese did not tell him what he needed to know about those involved in the sexual abuse of minors under his care as Cardinal/Archbishop of Chicago to be unreasonable.

Had this been a doctrinal matter Cardinal George would have been all over it. Why not the same attention to the clergy sexual abuse scandal: or was Cardinal George blinded in the words of Pope Francis with his obsessing over Gay Marriage, abortion, and contraception?

George will soon be leaving his office as Cardinal/Archbishop of Chicago. He must become more accountable for his actions. We call on the Cardinal to listen to the people of the Archdiocese on this matter and stop trying to absolve the part in played in this matter with smoke and mirrors. We also realize the only reason the Cardinal is issuing this letter to the entire Archdiocese is because of the pressure that was brought to bear by the victims of clergy sexual abuse in a legal settlement.

If Cardinal George is unable to be fully accountable to the people of the Archdiocese we than call on his replacement to immediately institute a thorough investigation of the Archdiocese. Such investigation should not be focused on passing the buck; rather it should acknowledge the full truth wherever that may lead.

In our opinion, the sincerity of Cardinal George is suspect given his history as “George the Corrector” in his time as the leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago. How could he of been unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Why is he not than taking immediate action against those within the Chancery who refused to share critical information? We believe his letter only opens up more questions than it responds to.  

Cardinal George the buck stops with you it is about time that you fully except that responsibility, we do not believe this to be a unreasonable position.

Board of Directors
Rainbow Sash Movement

Rainbow Sash Movement (LGBT Roman Catholics): Cardinal George should be held accountable for his Public Bigotry directed at LGBT People

A Time for Prayer and Integrity

Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, plans to celebrate Mass July 26 at the conference of Courage, a Catholic group that encourages lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to remain celibate in keeping with the teaching of the Catholic hierarchy.

However, this year it is hosting two therapists, Bill Consiglio and Timothy Lock, affiliated with the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a group that promotes the view that homosexuality is a disorder that can be cured. Consiglio and Lock offer seminars for clergy and mental health providers.

Exodus International, a group much like Courage, that once touted the ability to cure homosexuality, closed its doors in mid-June. The former head of Exodus, Alan Chambers, apologized to LGBT people for “the pain and hurt many of you have experienced.”

The Rainbow Sash Movement believes so-called “conversion therapy” is malpractice, and for very good reason: It hurts people much like the closet mentality that is promoted in the clerical Church. Even those priests who supposedly minister to LGBT Catholics try to hide the fact of their own sexual orientation.
The Cardinal should apologize to the LGBT Community for the harm he brings it.

Rainbow Sash Movement News Team