Corporate displays of Pride can be performative and gross, but there is a more authentic way to change. We Catholics should do what we do best: embrace what is difficult, look to tradition to inform our actions, and tell stories that matter about our own people, especially those on our margins.
While gender nonconforming people faced certainly faced violence and discrimination during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, historians have also shown the idea of fixed gender binaries on the basis of biological sex assigned at birth emerged during eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. For most of the Church’s history, gender represented a fluid, contested, and evolving concept.
We Catholics get a rulebook, of sorts, but everyone acknowledges that life is more complicated than that. That’s why we teach the primacy of the conscience and the discernment of spirits. But if I’m not allowed to trust my experience of Love and goodness and wholeness, if I have to spend my whole life fearing that my own heart is a false prophet trying to lead my astray and the voice I hear isn’t really a shepherd but a thief, then I can’t discern…anything.
If you wanted to believe, to remain a part of the church, but after all you've been through just couldn't, how far would you go to try?
As Gilbert Baker explained in his posthumously published autobiography, “the rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope. In the book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures.”
I think then of today's psalm, that mention of "my allotted portion and my cup". If it teaches us anything, it is quite simply and pointedly, to not be satisfied with the status quo! To not be afraid to realize that what you may have right now, may not be your "portion", may not be the best that was meant for you. And not in reference to the vain, or self-centered. But, when you know in your heart that something you may be engaging in, something you may be dealing with, is not life-giving, does not fill your cup and so on, know that you are free to go ahead and move. Not to restlessly strive; restless striving did not raise Christ from the dead.
It's been a slur and it's been a rallying cry, but where did the word GAY come from?
There's nothing easy about coming out. And no guarantee anyone will love the you you've shared.
Join us in welcoming Zinzy and Jacob to the leadership team and hear the Pat's explain how they botched the rollout!
Our favorite section of the V&F newsletter is growing up and now led by and actual historian!