Gay Catholics feel pride at Mass

The regularly scheduled 11:00 am Mass, led by the parish’s Rainbow Ministry, drew a large standing-room-only crowd to the Back Bay Catholic parish, a gathering estimated at 700 people by the Boston Globe.

The Rainbow Ministry is an explicit outreach to gay and lesbian Catholics.John Kelly, chair of the ministry group, who led the opening procession, said afterwards, “I am pleased with the crowd. This is more than Easter.”

During his homily and afterwards, the Rev. John J. Unni, pastor of St. Cecilia’s, left little doubt about the need for continued pastoral care and support of LGBT Catholics who seek a safe sanctuary to worship and pray in community, but who also feel they have been ostracized by society and the Church.

“I want today to be not only a celebration of love and acceptance, but also to go further,” said Unni,  explaining, “Jesus said all are welcome: Come to me all of you who are wrapped in shame:  the outcasts and marginalized.”

“His message is simple,” Unni said of Jesus, who “eats with everybody,” even those “shamed by others.”

“Shame eats people away,” Unni added. “Jesus breaks down the shame with his interactions with people. He did it at the [communion] table.”

A remedy for shame, Unni suggested, is compassion, the ability to “stand in awe of what someone else carries through life without judgment,” he said.

Unni said Jesus’ message expressed in the Gospel was that those who don’t understand the importance of compassion and inclusion —even of “prostitutes and tax collectors in his time” — “just don’t get it.”

When asked after the mass to elaborate on the importance of the Rainbow ministry within the parish, Unni said he was simply trying to follow Jesus’ message of compassion and caring.

“I listen to people,” Unni said. “When you hear from a 21 year old kid who says his parents were throwing him out of the house because he is gay” or “when you hear from 60, 70, even 80 year-old men who tried to kill themselves or turned to drugs and alcohol — when you hear enough, it touches your heart. You judge less. All I did was listen.”

After Mass, reporters also asked Unni about Catholic teaching on other issues of sexuality, for example, contraception, masturbation, co-habitation, same-sex activity, among other practices the church considers to be sexual sins.

“That is not what this gathering is about,” Unni said.

While not minimizing sexual mistakes, he said that the Mass was about creating a place where all were welcome and that the church had made clear that exclusion of gay people was at odds with Christ’s message.

Sure enough, Unni said, “There’s something at stake for those whose hearts are judgmental.”

For more than a month, the liturgy was as much anticipated as it was controversial.

The “All are Welcome” Mass was first scheduled for Sunday, June 19 — a week after Boston’s Gay Pride parade and festival.

But archdiocesan officials forestalled the liturgical celebration because “the wording and placement of a bulletin notice” announcing the Rainbow Ministry liturgy “may have given the unintended impression that the Mass is in support of Gay Pride Week; it is not,’’ according to Terrence C. Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

Apparently, the local church felt a need to distance the Mass entirely from any celebration of Gay Pride. The meaning of “pride,” moreover, seems to have been a central issue of disagreement or misunderstanding between the organizers of the Mass and the archdiocese.

Initial press reports said the Rainbow Mass was canceled — infuriating the LGBT community, gay and lesbian Catholics, and their allies.

The archdiocese, however, said it had only been postponed; and St. Cecilia’s pastor immediately began working with the parish, the Rainbow Ministry, and the archdiocese to reschedule the Mass.

In response, the Rainbow lay ministers held an outdoor prayer service, held at the time of the originally scheduled Mass.

Meanwhile, conservative Catholics have been pointed in their criticism, saying it was disgraceful to celebrate any Mass that affirms a gay identity.

“Today’s liturgy was a scandal and a surrender, where the homosexual identity was affirmed, and where Catholic moral prohibitions against homosexual behavior were ignored,” said CJ Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, in a press statement.

Doyle also slammed the Mass as “a cowardly betrayal of trust resulting in the spiritual abandonment of Saint Cecilia’s Parish to moral error and mortal sin.”

The pseudonymous blogger Joe Sacredo even asked readers of his website (http://bryanhehirexposed.wordpress.com) to call on the Vatican to intervene so that the “Truths of Catholic Church teaching on sexual morality are taught at this parish and promulgated publicly throughout the Archdiocese of Boston.”The controversy played out in local mainstream print and broadcast media. The Boston Globe provided prominent coverage, along with Channel 5,  New England Cable News, and WBZ radio.

Throughout the commotion, Cardinal Seán O’Malley has held fast in his support of the Mass and the parish’s dynamic pastor.

The cardinal’s communications department said in a statement, “The Archdiocese of Boston is committed to evangelization and to being a welcoming Church for all of God’s people. St. Cecilia’s is a wonderful example of the exceptional parishes in the Archdiocese which seek to serve the Catholic faithful with grace, dignity, respect, compassion and love and being devoted to the Gospel and Christ’s saving ministry.”

Still, even days after the Mass, some conservative Catholics have not let go. On July 13, Sacredo posted an eight-minute video, “Going NUTS in BEANtown,” in which Michael Voris at the Ferndale, Mich.-based RealCatholicTV.com faults Unni for not scolding “supposed Catholics who think that having sex with a member of their own gender is ‘a gift of God,’ not ‘the morally depraved evil action the church and thereby God teaches it is.’”

In his video Voris continues to characterize the worship service, mocking “hundreds of open homosexuals who paraded in with their rainbows and other pretty signs and festive banners, strolling up to commit sacrilege by receiving the body and blood of our blessed Lord while openly professing a complete denial of the Catechism of the Church with regard to this teaching.”

In fact many straight parishioners attended the Mass. The LGBT minority is fully incorporated within the predominately non-gay majority at St. Cecilia and parish life.

All in all, Unni’s message was well received by the worshipping faithful.

St. Cecilia parishioner Brian Rak of Jamaica Plain, said, “There are very few places where gay people in Boston feel welcome in church, and I think this is one of them. Father Unni does a beautiful job, doing what he does.”

“I like how he put his homily in the context of the Gospel that the outcasts and the marginalized are of particular focus of Christ,” said Donna Gaspar of Belmont. “However, I don’t see myself as an outcast. The emphasis on outcast was a bit overdone,” she explained. “I happen to think I am one with God in my best day, and all people are.”

“We are gay. We are Catholic. That’s what it is,” said Rainbow Ministry chair Kelly.

Massachusetts Appeals Court associate justice David Mills of Danvers said of Unni, “He must be surrounded by love to be able to speak out” here in this place “where the inherent worth and dignity of every person is recognized.”

Mayor Thomas M. Menino also attended the worship service. “Father Unni is trying to bring everybody together. That is what our Catholic Church is all about,” he said.

The mayor added, “I have to represent all the people, not just some. I can’t  pick or choose. I respect all people. That’s why I am here. I want to bring everybody together and make this one city, working together to make progress.”

What’s next for the Rainbow Ministry? “We are in the process of reaching out to Waltham House,” a center for homeless gay and lesbian youth, said Charles Petit, a parishioner, adding, “We got a letter from them, asking us to come out and talk about why this church is different from other Catholic churches. We’re thinking about having a barbeque.”

Meanwhile, what may account for conservative Catholic vitriol over St. Cecilia’s ministry with gay and lesbian Catholics?

A local psychotherapist offered an observation.

“What this entire experience has taught is about the venom that  comes from these ‘Catholic’ bloggers towards gay people,” said Charles Martel, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice.

“From a psychological perspective, their level of anger and rage reflects that the issue of homosexuality seems to be something that they have unresolved personal conflicts about, and clearly are struggling with,” he added.