At New Ways Ministry / Bondings, Frank DeBenardo shares an important insight. He refers to an interview published at National Catholic Reporter, in which Mercy Sister Camille D’Arienzo talks to Michael Moran. This is part of a a bi-weekly series, exploring how relationships, experiences, faith, and spirituality take shape in an individual’s life. Frank makes the insightful observation that although Moran is an openly gay man, partnered to Hiroshi Okamoto, this is incidental to the main thrust of the interview. The men’s sexuality and the same - sex nature of their relationship is of no consequence at all - any more than it would have been to Jesus Christ.
Progress arrives in a small, quiet way
In this week’s installment, Sister Camille interviews Michael Moran, a gay man whose life has been spent in service to others, most frequently to the poor and dispossessed. One thing that struck me as I read it was that this is an interview with a gay man in a Catholic publication, and yet his sexual orientation was not the focus of the story. It was simply another facet of who he was. The interview mentions his partner in the same way that heterosexually married spouses are mentioned in such interviews.
The casual treatment of a gay person’s sexuality in a national Catholic periodical was an inspiring milestone. It signaled an acceptance and matter-of-factness that was refreshing to read. Progress had been made in a small, quiet way.
- from New Ways Ministry / Bondings
This is an important post, with an astute observation. It is easy to get excited (and discouraged) by the occasional, headline- grabbing big news stories of discrimination - musicians or teachers who have been fired, LGBT people denied communion, kids with two moms excluded from Catholic schools.
But the really important news bypasses the headlines, because it is incremental, and all around us: queer Catholics serving as readers, musicians, liturgists, eucharistic ministers, catechists and on parish councils without comment, the thousands of children from queer families attending Catholic schools without hindrance - and the countless same- sex couples worshipping, and participating, in parishes on the same terms as other couples.
The bad news stories hit the headlines precisely because they are exceptional. Let us remember, and give thanks, that half a century ago, the headlines would not have been about a lesbian denied communion - but about a same - sex couple daring to attend Mass openly, and expecting the same treatment as any other.
