NEWS ARCHIVE

This website has a NEWS page; but in reality, its NEWS page is not so much a page for news as such as it is a page for announcing things, for it is (at least for now) beyond the scope of this website to serve as a newspaper. Some of the announcements found on the NEWS page will likely, however, be of some interest even well after the date of the event or announcement. So this NEWS ARCHIVE page will serve the function of containing copies of some of the articles retired from the NEWS page itself. In general, the order in which things will be shown on this NEWS ARCHIVE page is to be as follows: the more recent a retirement from the NEWS page, the closer to the top of this NEWS ARCHIVE page will that "retired" article appear. Eventually this NEWS ARCHIVE page may acquire an index to its contents; but it will probably appear at the end of this page (with a Link here to go there quickly (with still another Link there to return here quickly)), to avoid interfering with a simple chronological review of the contents of this page by simply scrolling down it.

Call To Action

The annual appeal of Call To Action (CTA) includes new and very favorable statements of support for GLBTs and related issues.
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Election

Click here for the make-up of the chapter's Council in the wake of the election held in late 2007.
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Telling Our Stories (Farewell Address by Kevin)

As his time as the President of the Los Angeles chapter was drawing to a close, Kevin in most memorable fashion addressed that chapter at its Mass on February 18, 2007, as follows:

The readings for February this year help us to know our story. We all have a story to tell; and our community has a story to tell. Our story is a story that the hierarchy does not want to hear. That means that we have to tell our story to each other. As we gather this month, we hear the story of our faith tradition; but we also must become story-tellers ourselves.

I am reminded of the pueblo Indians in New Mexico where, I have heard, missionaries arriving from Spain wanted to destroy the stories of the native peoples; so for a long time, the native peoples abandoned their tradition of making figurines to illustrate their stories. However, in the 20th Century, the figurine tradition was revived when a potter made a figure of an elder seated with children seated about him. They were listening to the story that tells them where they are from and from whom, and where they came from and where they are expected to go.

During this month at liturgy, we too gather. We gather around the Word and the Eucharist. We remember and celebrate, in order to become who we are, the People of God, the mystical Body of the Christ whom God has sent us, a light to the world:

1. First we heard the story of God calling His people, from Abraham to the exodus, along with countless gifts upon this Earth. It is a call to become God's people.
2. Today we hear from Samuel, whose story is filled with heroes for us to emulate: Like David, who has reason to do away with King Saul; but David chooses the way of mercy, leaving all retribution to God. Then centuries later, Jesus follows; and He challenges us with the Great Sermon, representing the high road. His call to us is part of our story: to love our enemies, to bless and pray for those who curse us, to turn the other cheek, and to give even the shirt off our back to those in need.
3. Finally, Paul reminds us of our eventual destiny, a timeless destiny. He tell us that because Jesus rose from the dead, we will follow Him to resurrected glory.

This is our story of faith. Along with the story our own lives, we share these stories until the resurrected Christ comes again.

Particularly here at Dignity, we claim the language that empowers us to revise and reinvigorate our Catholic identity, so that we can both "keep the faith" and be true to ourselves.

Dignity is our space of "deconversion," by which I mean that we can lower our faith in the institutional Church in order to find God. That is our experience because the institutional Church with its rigid rules and uni-dimensional view of sexuality that do not make good sense in the lives of gay Catholics. How shockingly presumptuous it is of mere clergy to claim the protective mantle of God! These men demand that we separate being gay from doing gay; but we know that it is impossible to bifurcate our lives. We are whole persons, not some theory or theology of the impossible.

The task of our community, and other communities like ours, is to open the eyes of the Church to its sinfulness and to thereby induce (and participate in) an institutional examination of conscience. Reconciliation cannot happen in a community if it believes that it has no need of God's mercy. Reconciliation cannot happen in a community in which the majority believes that they do not need conversion and that the minority does not deserve it. Just as the Church tried centuries ago to force the faith community to believe in the heliocentric planetary system, so now it tells the faith community that it must not accept the gay minority as God created them, that their stories must not be told.

As one authority put it, "We have attempted to explain the moral lessons that we gays have learned in the real world of family and sex and work and conflict. But so many church leaders - from the pope on down - do not seem to hear or even to care." However, through our stories, we reach out to those who abuse us and we praise God for creating us as queer people of God.
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Oscars (2006); GLBT Wins

There was much to celebrate at the Oscars for 2006. Although Crash edged out Brokeback Mountain for the Oscar for the best movie, two movies with GLBT element(s) won four Oscars: Brokeback Mountain for best director (Ang Lee), the best adapted screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), and best original score (Argentinian Gustavo Santaolalla (he of Motorcycle Diaries fame)); and Capote for best actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose performance in Capote has been aptly described by the New York Times as "inhabiting" the role of Truman Capote, author of the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood). Felicity Huffman was a notable nominee for the best actress for her role as the male-to-female transgender in the leading role in TransAmerica. In clearly the highlight of the evening, Ang Lee in accepting his Oscar for best director for Brokeback Mountain thanked its lead characters, Ennis (best actor nominee Heath Ledger) and Jack (best supporting actor nominee Jake Gyllenhaal): "They taught all of us who made Brokeback Mountain so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself."
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Petition to the U.S. Bishops

Through January 16, 2006, the Washington, D.C., chapter of Dignity solicited signatures for its "Petition From A People In Exile" for presentation to the Roman Catholic Bishops of the United States on Ash Wednesday, February 28, 2006. The Petition is a poignant and well-written document that seeks from the Bishops a far greater degree of credibility on all the GLBT issues (and other sexuality and church governance issues too). Please click here to read the text of the Petition.
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Vatican Speaks Out On Evolution

In connection with an impending conference on the subject of science and religion, a top Vatican official has spoken out on the subject of the age-old "conflict" between science and religion. He emphasized it is important for persons of faith to stay current with scientific developments, to avoid having their faith degenerate into fundamentalism. In doing so, he cited a statement made by the late Pope John Paul II that "evolution is more than a hypothesis ... (because it is supported by) proof" from many independent sources.
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