June 14, 2011
By Chuck Colbert / TRT Reporter
Not since Seán Cardinal O’Malley fought same-sex civil marriage on Beacon Hill — or last year’s column in The Pilot newspaper, suggesting a reason not to allow children with gay parents in Catholic schools is the danger they would bring pornography to class — has a decision by the Boston archdiocese struck such a raw nerve in the local LGBT community, among Catholics and beyond.
As the Boston Globe first reported, Saturday, June 11, Church officials have ordered Rev. John J. Unni, pastor of St. Cecilia’s Parish, located in the city’s Back Bay neighborhood, to cancel a Mass scheduled for 6:00 pm, Sunday, June 19.
The liturgy was an explicit outreach of affirmation to LGBT Catholics.
As recent church bulletin announcements have explained for weeks, “The Rainbow Ministry of St. Cecilia Parish invites all friends and supporters of the LGBT community to a Mass in celebration of Boston’s Pride Month,” adding, “The theme of the liturgy, ‘All Are Welcome,’ honors Christ’s message of hope and salvation to all people. We will also celebrate the diverse community that finds its home at St. Cecilia.’’
The Paulist Center and St. Ignatius Parish, located on the Boston College campus, also ran bulletin notices about the “All are Welcome” Mass.
But, apparently, when an anonymous blogger — pseudonym Joe Sacerdo — objected, the diocese stepped in.
“The wording and placement of a bulletin notice announcing that the St. Cecilia Rainbow Ministry will be joining the parish at a Mass on June 19 may have given the unintended impression that the Mass is in support of Gay Pride Week; it is not,’’ explained Terrence C. Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese.
St. Cecilia’s is in fact a spiritual home to a significant gay population, with many parishioners finding their way to the Church, by way of archdiocesan assistance in 2007, when the primarily gay Jesuit Urban Center abruptly closed its doors.
Sure enough, the archdiocesan intervention has infuriated gay and straight Catholics alike. The story played out all weekend in mainstream print and broadcast media, in the blogosphere, and at church services. On Tuesday, June 14, the Boston Globe featured a front-page interview with Father Unni and editorialized in support of the “All are Welcome” Mass.
“As a heterosexual woman, very supportive of gay rights and my brothers and sisters in the Church, I am deeply hurt and discouraged that the Church would do this and send people who want to be part of the Roman Catholic Church running and screaming away from it,” said Melon Regis-Civetta, a St. Cecilia’s parishioner and part of the Rainbow Ministry leadership team, after the 11:00 am Sunday Mass.
“It’s heartbreaking when the institution comes down on a group of people who want to welcome LGBT people,” said Dignity/Boston spokesperson Peggy Hayes, after Saturday’s Pride Interfaith Service.
“We sympathize with the people of St. Cecilia’s,” she added, “although it is not surprising.”
In 1986, the Boston archdiocese banned the LGBT Catholic group Dignity from celebrating its Mass in local churches.
Even non-Catholics felt compelled to speak out against the “All are Welcome” Mass intervention, with strong criticism coming from the ranks of the clergy.
“Cardinal O’Malley, enough already,” said Rabbi Howard A. Berman, of Boston Jewish Spirit, during the Interfaith Service.
“We cannot keep silent in the face of the relentless and unending onslaught of attack and rejection that our community continues to face from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church — and particularly, the Archdiocese of Boston,” Berman said.
Cancellation of the Mass, he went on to say, “fills us with outrage.”
Conservative Catholics also voiced indignation but for different reasons, saying the local church has not gone far enough.
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, an orthodox doctrinal watchdog group, has called for the “removal of those responsible for a planned ‘Pride Month’ Mass,” and to “unequivocally cancel the event, and to vigorously reaffirm Catholic teaching about the intrinsic immorality of homosexual behavior,” according to a press statement.
But St. Cecilia’s pastor and the parish’s Rainbow Ministry enjoy backing of Church officials.
“Father Unni has the full confidence and support of the cardinal and the archdiocese,’’ spokesman Donilon wrote in an e-mail, according to the Boston Globe, adding, “He is a great pastor.’’
During the 11:00 am Sunday Mass, which also celebrated Pentecost, Father Unni spoke to parishioners about the controversy.
“We here at St. Cecilia’s have an agenda,” he said, walking up and down the main aisle of the church. “I have an agenda. Our agenda is the Jesus agenda.”
As Unni went onto explain it, “Jesus loved people. He accepted people. He ate with people, those who were the marginalized and ostracized sinners of his day. And by that compassion and interacting as Jesus did at this [communion] table by loving in a good way, people are strengthened, people are healed, people are reminded of their dignity, their beauty, goodness and worth — ready, ready — as they are!”
The last part of “Jesus agenda,” Unni said, “and I dare say the cardinal’s agenda” is to be “supportive of all.”
And Unni left no doubt about what that meant. “You are welcome here, gay or straight, rich or poor, young or old, black or white,” he said. “Here, you all can say, ‘I can worship the God who made me as I am.’”
Father Unni clarified that the “All Are Welcome” Mass has been postponed, not canceled as previously reported in local media.
Worshippers at the Back Bay parish gave their pastor a rousing, standing ovation.
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Gay-friendly mass continued
Afterwards, Peter Meade, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and a parishioner, praised Unni. “His response is great,” Meade said.
“There is a danger if we deconstruct the message of Jesus and start to say that it does not apply to this group or that group or to Tom and Harry or Mary and Alice,” he added. “Jesus died on the cross for all of us. This parish represents the Jesus agenda. It’s really that simple. I am sorry some people mistakenly complicate it.”
Even with the “All or Welcome” Mass postponement, the Rainbow Ministry has scheduled a 6:00 pm prayer service for Sunday, June 19, outside St. Cecilia’s on the sidewalks of Belvidere St.
A hand out, distributed after church, explained the service’s purpose: “We seek to reaffirm our Roman Catholic faith community as one which is supportive of and open to gay, lesbian and transgender persons,” adding, “The service is open to all who seek to worship together in dignity and respect.”
Meanwhile, concerns and questions remain.
Exactly what is so objectionable about an “All are Welcome” Mass in celebration of Gay Pride?
Why does the archdiocese believe it has been put in a position, “where” as Donilon told the Boston Globe, “we look like we’re endorsing Gay Pride activities?”
Which activities?
Attempts to reach Donilon for clarification were unsuccessful.
Perhaps even more pressing is a concern about the seeming ability of anonymous bloggers to leverage local church decision-making.
“It conveys the power these bloggers have to threaten, which is the nature of extortion,” said Charles Martel, co-founder of Catholics for Marriage Equality.
As he explained, “Bowing to pressure from anonymous bloggers, from the right or the left, lacks good judgment, made worse when messages of homophobia, discrimination, and hate cause a Christian church to contradict the Gospel and hurt people — and in this case, fellow Catholics.”
Martel added, “These anonymous bloggers have no accountability to the truth, having apparently ‘succeeded’ in preventing the celebration of the ‘All are Welcome’ Mass on June 19, which should be a matter of great concern for the archdiocese as to what may well happen next.”
