Congratulations to Comunidad ministry for LGBTQ+ Catholics at Saint Mathews in Long Beach, CA, Saint Mathews Church – for forty years of service!!! I have been involved with them (and even on the board for over two terms) for two of those decades.
Cardinal Mahony presided at the Anniversary Mass. I cried while singing, with everyone, “And I will raise you up.” It is just so moving as a queer Catholic to be *recognized*. ☆○☆ To be seen. “Here I am , Lord.” To be seen.
And I am also an ordained priestess in the Temple of Isis, have practiced Buddhism and other spiritual traditions…but the faith tradition of my birth has a huge cultural pull. ♡ And was crucial to my work on my book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars and Theology Pre-Stonewall. (Note: The book is coming out in 2027 as a completely revised 2nd edition with a new subtitle: Baby, You Are My Religion: The Lesbian Bar as Sacred Space. )
The Comunidad Ministry is part of a Southern California county wide ministry to welcome home LGTQ Catholics, the Catholic Ministry for Lesbian and Gay People. Their stated ministry is to “support all LGBTQ+ people, as well as their parents, families, and allies, in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles who want to nurture their faith in Christ.” Their saying is “God’s doors are open to all.” There are over twenty ministries in the greater Los Angeles area that have specifically welcoming ministries to lesbian, gay and transgender peoples.
The history from the website:
The Catholic Ministry with Lesbian and Gay Persons was called into existence during a sermon given in February 1986 by Archbishop Roger Mahony, then in office only a few months, who called for lesbians and gays to join together, supporting each other on their faith journey. Our ministry takes its inspiration from the Gospel; it’s shaped by Church teachings and pastoral practice; it borrows appropriately from the insights of the social and biological sciences; and listens, ponders, and prays over the lived experience of those to whom it ministers. We’re proud to be supported throughout the Archdiocese at the parish level as an outreach ministry with LGBTQ+ Catholics, their parents, families, friends, and fellow parishioners.
I have had a questioning, confusing, celebratory and ultimately culturally comforting relationship with the church. I have said before, “I’m Catholic—like Madonna (the singer)—they can’t get rid of me!!” Like Luther, I celebrate in my faith tradition — I have the authority of baptism—I am Catholic—and we don’t all look alike, worship alike or belong alike.
What I know for certain is that the Ministry I am part of –as well as being an active witch in a pagan group and being connected spiritually in many different traditions—that being Catholic is not going anywhere for me; it is not going away. I am not a “recovering Catholic.” I am Catholic. And I claim the authority of my baptism, and my culture– I have dual citizenship with Ireland the US—and my lineage and history—to say, “I am Catholic. This is what it looks like for me.”
I go to Mass, most years only Christmas and Easter (there’s a term for us – “C and E Catholics”)—but also other times when I need it. I take Communion. And I am active in my church’s Ministry for LGBT peoples.
And…I feel the presence of the Divine in my daily life. I rely on that.
And going to Mass , when it is draped in the rainbow flag of my LGTQ community means something that I have tried to put into words here—and yet I can simply say –it means something to me. Like Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, when I try to put into words the numinous ..I am lost. For words. But not for feeling. Phenomenology of the sacred—I know it. I feel it—but, no, I cannot explain it—nor can I explain it away.
And I am so very grateful for the forty years of service Comunidad has bestowed on my city.
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