Decrying the Catholic Church's Anti-Gay Hate

Growing up Catholic, I suffered at the hands of nuns and priests who strove to indoctrinate me and others that although supposedly God was a god of love, nearly everything was a path to Hell and eternal damnation. Things sexual were, of course, the most sure fired way to go to Hell of all. And homosexuality? The worse of the worse. It's taken me years to come to recognize the falsity of so much of what the Church tried to inculcate. Interestingly, the Buffalo News has a great opinion piece written by a life long Catholic who takes the Church to task for the anti-gay jihad pressed by Benedict XVI and the other bitter old men in dresses. It is sad that an institution that could do so much good spends so much energy demonizing other people. Here are some highlights:

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Now as a grandmother, I am very grieved that the Church that was so formative for me cannot be so for my adult children and their families. I am so proud of both of my grown sons. They are men of substance, men of honor and great fathers. One of them happens to be gay. He lives in Seattle with his husband. They are raising two adopted children.

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As any grandparent will affirm, grandchildren are one of life’s greatest joys. For my husband and me, our joy is clouded. The Church that was so central to our lives now preaches against our son and his family. This is not new, it is true, but the hurt was renewed when I learned of the active participation of the Catholic bishops in favor of the California proposition banning gay marriage. This is especially disturbing, since our son was married recently in California.

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My knowledge of the social gospel tells me that there are grave evils in the world that need the moral voice of the Church. For example, poverty, the distribution of wealth, war and torture cry out for serious attention. Instead of focusing on these weighty issues in important elections, the bishops try to denigrate families like my son’s.

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I wish for him and his beautiful children the support my family experienced back in the Riverside of the ’50s. Maybe tightly knit Buffalo neighborhoods are in a rose-colored past, but the message of the gospels should be eternal. It seems to me that the Church I was raised in taught the importance of love — love for all of God’s people.