According to the LGBT Catholic Handbook, this week sees the feast day of St. Apollinaria /Dorotheos of Egypt (5th, 6th January). She is said to have been one of a group of transvestite saints - women who took on men’s…
Monthly Archives: January 2011
The Evolution of Catholic Teaching on Sex and Marriage.
In “The Sexual Person“, the Catholic lay theologians Todd Salzmann and Michael Lawler give a useful historical review of the substantial shifts in the orthodox doctrine on sex and marriage - while also illustrating how much of that teaching is…
A Scarlet Ibis Couple’s Spacious, Designer Nest.
As a psychology student at Tulane University, I took a couple of independent study courses observing animal behaviour at Audubon Zoo, near campus. One semester, I studied the mating behaviour of the scarlet ibis, a wading bird common in marshes…
Cathedral Wedding for Senior Lesbian Priests
When Massachusetts introduced same sex marriage in 2003, it as alone among American states. Since then, a steady trickle of others have followed, either with meaningful civil unions or with full marriage equality. More will follow this year, and is increasingly obvious,…
Queer Gods, Demigods and Their Priests: The Middle East
(For a proper understanding of the place of homeroticism in Jewish and Christian history, it is instructive to contrast it with its place in other religions. I have described previously how many religions not only accept a recognized and important…
Joseph and His Fabulous Queer Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Sometimes, stories and images are so familiar to us, that we completely fail to see their significance. The story of Joseph and his coat is familiar to us all from childhood Bible stories - and even more familiar as Lloyd-Webber’s…
Charles Curran’s Reality - Based Theology.
While I was searching through the NCR database for a review of “The Sexual Person” (which I did not find), I came across instead a review of Charles Curran’s ”Catholic Moral Theology in the United States“. What particularly grabbed my attention…
Gay priests: coming out, discovering love - 2
Having laid down the groundwork by talking more generally about love (not simply love as eros), I will now enter the minefield. That a priest – of all persons – should wish to directly talk about sex is problematic enough.…
Christ into Christianity: Essential Self-Giving.
There are many aspects to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. However you view the Christian story though, one feature has got to be pre-eminent: the self-sacrifice on the cross and the associated resurrection. It follows then that this…
The Story of the “Queer Saints and Martyrs”: Taking Shape
Ever since I began writing for the Queer Church, one of the key themes I have been exploring has been that of the place of LGBT men and women in Christian history - recognized and unrecognised saints, martyrs for the…
