Thought I'd refresh this thread. I'm refreshing it not to talk of theology or to try to convince others that the Catholic church is slowly but surely changing for the better - although I do think it is. Rather, just to share an update on my own Roman Catholicism.
Most Saturdays, I watch football (aka soccer), drink a few, or more, beers and spend too much money shopping. Today, however, I went to a full day workshop for LGBT Catholics in London. Entitled, "Next Steps", it was just that i.e. each of us working out our next steps on our Catholic journey.
I'm not sure if my Catholic faith is still growing stronger. However, I do know that it's increasingly important to me. I appreciate that for many, maybe most, being LGBT and Catholic is a contradiction in terms. However, to me, it's the opposite. For me, as bizarre as it may sound, I find it easier to reconcile my genderqueerness through my Catholicism than through anything else.
I've been luckier than most. Unlike many others, my home parish (in Northern Ireland) was always been welcoming to me. It still is. It remains an important part of my life, especially when I come home. I return to the church as often as I can - in fact, I was able to convince Tmbyfem, a member here, to accompany me to a beautiful Christmas Eve service a few years ago when she was visiting from San Diego.
That church is where my mother first took me to mass over 37 years ago. More recently, a few weeks ago when my mum visited London, I had the opportunity to take her to my current parish here in London. It's at Farm Street, Mayfair - where our active LGBT "Soho Masses" community now celebrates it mass and where today's workshop was held. Bringing my mum to this church was incredibly affirming for me on many levels. She, a conversative Catholic, has become an active proponent of LGBT rights and visibility within the church. I should never have expected any less given the unconditional love she has always shown to me - but, all the same, I'm still really pleased about it all.
So today's workshop? Well, it was important to me. I don't always like living in London and it will never be my home. However, today reminded me that I'm fortunate to live somewhere that's cosmopolitan enough to have a real and active LGBT Catholic community. The opportunity to interact on a real and meaningful level with other LGBT Catholics is invaluable to those who do have a Catholic faith and want to reconcile it to their non-heteronormative gender identity / sexuality.
In particular, here in London which has been the focus of much of the global media attention on LGBT rights within the Catholic chuch over recent months given the church authority's decision to stop our LGBT-focused masses. Our previous LGBT-focused mass was ended by the church authorities as, so they said, they wanted LGBT Catholics to form part of a wider, active, functioning parish. There were, and remain, many doubters. They might have a point - the number of visible LGBT Catholics at our regular masses is said to have dropped.
Notwithstanding that, we remain a real community and we are now becoming a real part of a wider parish community. The existing "straight" parishioners have accepted us with open arms - unambiguously so. The parish has had one letter of complaint about our involvement and that letter came from a non-parishioner. Just as we are gaining from the parish, the existing parishioners are (hopefully) benefiting from us too. We're taking part in wider parish communities and existing parishioners are coming to some of our social functions. There's learning on both sides - and, yes, we are becoming a real and meaningful part of parish life.
As a part of today's workshop, we were each asked to decide upon a number of personal commitments to make or undertake over the next twelve months. One of mine, rather spontaneous, is to complete a Lough Derg pilgrimage. It's a rather harsh pilgrimage on a remote island off the western Irish coast. I've wanted to do this for some time but have lacked the courage, probably due to an uneasiness as to how my genderqueerness will be accepted.
Sometimes, however, you just need to take that next step .....................