Posted on 02/24/2022 5:00:19 PM PST by ebb tide
Fr. Bryan Massingale is a leading voice in the mission of dismantling homophobic and racist elements of the institutional Catholic Church.
Massingale, who is the James and Nancy Buckman Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University, is a Black Catholic priest who has publicly come out as gay. He was ordained in 1983 at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, which devastated the queer and Black communities. Massingale told the Associated Press that one of his first funerals as a newly ordained priest was of a “gay man whose family wanted no mention of his sexuality or the disease.”
“They should have been able to turn to their church in their time of grief,” he added. “Yet they couldn’t because that stigma existed in great measure because of how many ministers were speaking about homosexuality and AIDS as being a punishment for sin.”
Massingale, who is also a Senior Ethics Fellow in Fordham’s Center for Ethics Education, teaches classes on sexuality, race, and ethics. AP reported:
“Massingale teaches a class on homosexuality and Christian ethics, using biblical texts to challenge church teaching on same-sex relations. He said he came to terms with his own sexuality at 22, upon reflecting on the book of Isaiah.
“‘I realized that no matter what the church said, God loved me and accepted me as a Black gay man,’ he said.”
The fight for the full inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics intersects with the fight for the full inclusion of Black Catholics. Massingale “decries the scourge of racial inequality” in the U.S. church.
He shared another story of when he celebrated his first Mass at a predominantly white Church. “The first parishioner to greet me at the door said to me: ‘Father, you being here is the worst mistake the archbishop could have made. People will never accept you.’”
The homophobia and racism in Massingale’s experiences are justifiable reasons to leave the Catholic Church. However, given the choice, he stayed:
“‘I’m not going to let the church’s racism rob me of my relationship with God. . .I see it as my mission to make the church what it says it is: more universal and the institution that I believe Jesus wants it to be.'”
Massingale’s message is aligned with Pope Francis’ call for “compassionate pastoral care for LGBTQ Catholics.” However, Massingale seeks to push further. He envisions a church where “Catholics enjoy the same privileges regardless of sexual orientation.” He also supports the ordination of women and optional celibacy for Catholic clergy.
“I think that one can express one’s sexuality in a way that is responsible, committed, life giving and an experience of joy,” he said.
Massingale also shared that coming out “has come at a cost.”
“I have lost some priest friends who find it difficult to be too closely associated with me because if they’re friends with me, ‘what will people say about them?’” he said.
Massingale still holds hope for change in the Catholic Church, as gradual as it is. “My dream wedding would be either two men or two women standing before the church; marrying each other as an act of faith and I can be there as the official witness to say: ‘Yes, this is of God,'” he said after a recent class at Fordham. “If they were Black, that would be wonderful.”
I am humbled and empowered by Fr. Massingale and those who share in the vision of a new church. They have opened a path for me and other emerging queer theologians to live our faith as whole persons. I am an average Masters of Divinity student who questions their faith constantly. Yet I still have that naïve enthusiasm to go out there and “change the world.” However, if I am truly going to live what I learned in the classroom, then I must stop and listen. Do I hear the cries of the suffering, marginalized, and the poor? God hears them, then so must I. Black Catholics are not only shouting in lament to God but they are also shouting to the world. LGBTQ Catholics must do better in listening to Black Catholic communities, fully supporting and serving them in the fight for equity, and joining them in saying Black Lives Matter.
That’s not a marriage.
Well, I are a female, and have learned a lot about ‘douches’.
(I also be a stickler for spelling - and grammar...:-)
“Massengale teaches a class on homosexuality and Christian ethics, using biblical texts to challenge church teaching on same sex relations.”
I take it that Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:26,27 are omitted in the sodomiite “bible”.
Who is his bishop?
These are not the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
A DISPOSABLE douche
Dear Lord, lightning bolt, please.
Officially, no.
Unofficially, the vatican has allowed homosexuality to flourish under many popes now, from the vatican now.
Sadly.
"Top Vatican official: Gay sex in Vatican ‘never been worse’ than under Francis"
From 2017
"Not only are gay-orgies happening in the Vatican, but the extent of homosexual activity in the Vatican under Pope Francis’ watch has 'never been worse,' a reliable senior member of the Curia told National Catholic Register’s Ed Pentin.Pentin wrote earlier this week that this Vatican Curia member confirmed to him that 'multiple sources' within the Vatican, including another senior curial figure, say that the report of a drug-fueled gay orgy right next to St. Peter’s is true...
He said the extent of homosexual practice in the Vatican has ‘never been worse,’...
News recently broke of a high-ranking monsignor, Luigi Capozzi, who was allegedly arrested some two months ago in the act of hosting a cocaine-fueled homosexual orgy in an apartment of the Holy Office, the same building in which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith operates...
At the same time of the 2012 Vatileaks scandal — where leaked confidential Vatican correspondence allegedly revealed power struggles and intrigue at the highest levels of the Catholic church — a Polish priest released a paper in which he highlighted his discovery of what he called a 'huge homosexual underground in the Church.'
Fr. Dariusz Oko said he first began to do research about external threats to Christianity, but then gradually discovered that the 'enemy is not only outside the Church, but within it, as well.'
Oko said he uncovered homosexual cliques of clergy, even at the highest levels, that are formed by fear of exposure, lust for power, and money."
Christ’s Church will survive evil individuals within it.
Rev. Massingale, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, is the James and Nancy Buckman Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University and the Senior Fellow in its Center for Ethics Education.
The archbishop of Milwaukee is Jerome E. Listecki.
SPJNK.
Filthy behaviors among depraved individuals within the Church don’t constitute the actual teaching of the Church. These perverts will be gone, but His Church will prevail.
Yep we
If priests like this are allowed to openly advocate these things without censure or reprimand then it is a teaching of the Roman church.
Undoubtedly his dream sex partner is a 10 year old boy.
This sounds true on the surface.
In practice, the behavior and abuse of children has occurred under at least the past 5 popes. It was allowed and covered, very sadly and tragically.
If they write down one thing and the leaders purposefully practic/condone the opposite, which is being taught?
As I said, this is sad and tragic.
Let him preach his apostasy elsewhere.
I think His Church is in the minds and hearts of people who have taken to heart His message, whatever ‘church’ they may belong to.
I don’t believe that the message lies in men or in temporal organizations.
The RC Church has done a lot of nasty stuff over the centuries. But lots of sincere, individual Christians have done a lot of good.
Did the teachings of the Christ instruct his ‘church’ to run inquisitions, torture or burn people alive for ‘heresy’, etc?
None of what is happening now is new. It’s always been the way of the organized church to seek power in whatever way necessary to the times.
The real Church is inside of you. You don’t need priests and popes and beautiful structures and organizations, to MAKE it real. Christ already made it real for you.
::The RC Church has done a lot of nasty stuff over the centuries.::
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Correction: Evil individuals within the Church have done nasty stuff.
And the same could be said for other denominations, but the followers of the RC Church historically have been greatest in number compared to Protestant denominations, so percentages matter.
His Church will endure.
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