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Issue Date:  March 23, 2007

Symposium denied permission to hold Mass

By DENNIS CODAY

The 500 attendees at a three-day symposium to discuss gay and lesbian Catholics and the sacraments couldn’t celebrate one of those sacraments themselves.

Archbishop Harry Flynn of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese denied the group permission to have Mass during the event organized by New Ways Ministry. The gathering was scheduled to be held in a hotel in Minneapolis March 16-18.

Archdiocesan spokesman Dennis McGrath said March 14 that the archdiocese follows the Vatican’s polices with regard to ministering to people with same-sex orientation, which doesn’t mean, he said, “by the letter hit them over the knuckles with a ruler. ... Our practice toward people of same-sex orientation is always welcoming and collegial.”

“The archbishop is very welcoming to people of same-sex orientation to our Masses to our liturgies and everything else,” he said.

“What happened with this event,” McGrath continued, “was that when the archbishop got a look at who was speaking ... there were some speakers who challenge on a rather frequent basis church policy and church teachings. And so he couldn’t endorse that by having them say a Mass there because it was a cause for, among other things, scandal.”

New Ways Ministry executive director Francis DeBernardo told NCR March 14 that Flynn’s decision “is hurtful to not only lesbian and gay people but he is denying the Eucharist to church leaders, people who have come together to talk about homosexuality, people who have committed their lives to the church.”

He said that those attending the symposium -- more than 500 had preregistered -- “are clearly part of the Catholic mainstream.” Half are priests or religious men and women, he said, and the other half are “lay members involved in professional ministry or are parents of lesbian daughters or gay sons.”

“Denying Eucharist to people who have committed their lives to the church causes greater scandal to the church than does a public discussion of homosexuality,” he said.

Flynn wrote to the Maryland-based group Feb. 23 and told them he was “concerned that this symposium may well cause significant confusion to members of the faithful in this archdiocese, as well as others who have knowledge of it.”

According to New Ways Ministry, copies of Flynn’s letter were also sent to Archbishop Francis Hurley, Bishop Leroy Matthiesen and Bishop Joseph Sullivan, who were to speak at the symposium and preside at a Mass scheduled for March 18. Hurley, Matthiesen and Sullivan are, respectively, the retired bishops of Anchorage, Alaska; Amarillo, Texas; and Brooklyn, N.Y.

Matthiesen told the Minneapolis Star Tribune March 13 that he will reluctantly honor a request from “Catholic authorities” to stay away from the conference. He said he couldn’t reveal exactly who made the request.

The newspaper quoted him as saying, “I had very much wanted to be there to support people who are ministering to parishioners of a different orientation.”

Hurley and Sullivan were still expected to attend the symposium, according to DeBernardo.

DeBernardo said, “Since [Flynn’s] letter was copied to three Vatican officials -- Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the [congregation], and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States -- we believe that Archbishop Flynn’s decision may have been motivated by correspondence from one or more of these individuals.”

McGrath said he didn’t know whether Flynn had consulted with the Vatican. “The archbishop keeps his own counsel on those things.”

DeBernardo also rejected Flynn’s concern that the symposium, titled “Outward Signs: Lesbian/Gay Catholics in a Sacramental Church,” would cause confusion among Catholics, saying the symposium would “offer clarity.”

“New Ways Ministry and the speakers at its programs are pledged to responsible discussion on the issue of homosexuality, and we are very clear about what is presented as official church teaching, what is presented as theological reflection, and what is the opinion of Catholics in the pews,” he said.

DeBernardo said symposium participants would be given a list of parishes near the meeting site with their addresses and Mass times.

McGrath said, “No one says they can’t go to a parish. They can go to a parish any time individually -- or even I suppose as a group -- as long as they don’t use the Eucharist in any fashion to parrot their cause or to pronounce their cause. The Eucharist is the Eucharist. It’s not to be used for any kind of protesting or policymaking.”

Dennis Coday is an NCR staff writer. His e-mail address is dcoday@ncronline.org.

National Catholic Reporter, March 23, 2007

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