DIGNITY'S CHALLENGE : Can homosexuals feel at home in Catholicism?

On any given Sunday in Washington, D.C., a group of Catholic exiles gathers. Because they have openly disavowed the church's teachings on homosexuality, they are not allowed to convene for Mass on church property. So the members of Dignity gather apart, at Saint Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington's gay-friendly Dupont Circle neighborhood. Some come in pairs. Some are alone. Most, by far, are men, and most are white. Most, but not all, are gay. Some are friends or relatives of homosexuals.

The parishioners list numerous reasons for their attendance. Some view Dignity as a social gathering place, where like-minded homosexuals can meet. Others view it as purely spiritual. It's a place where gay Catholics can reconcile their faith and their sexuality, they say. And many see Dignity, at least partly, as a political organization. Their goal is to persuade Vatican authorities to change the church's official teachings on homosexuality and to work with local, state, and federal governments on gay-rights issues.

To many Americans, the idea of a religious homosexual is an oxymoron. God and gays don't mix, they say. That perception has led many gay people to abandon religion, according to former Dignity president Robert Miailovich. But, he explains, Dignity members have held onto their Catholic identity. "We're Catholics because we say we're Catholics and we're not going to let anybody define us out. We define ourselves in," says Miailovich, sixty-one, a Dignity member for twenty-two years and a retired federal government employee.

Still, as Dignity enters its fourth decade as an alternative ministry for gay Catholics, the group's commitment to Catholicism is facing renewed strains. On matters of politics and sexuality, the group finds itself more at odds than ever before with mainstream Catholicism. At the same time, Dignity has struggled to bring in a new generation of gay Catholics. Its congregations are graying, and becoming more male-dominated. Lesbians, upset with the church for what they see as sexist as well as heterosexist policies, have abandoned the group in droves and joined more lesbian-friendly denominations or ceased to worship altogether.

Founded in 1969 by gay Catholics in Los Angeles, Dignity was an officially recognized church group until 1986. To that point, Dignity had never openly questioned church teaching. But in 1986, the Vatican issued a "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" and ordered dioceses to withdraw all support from groups like Dignity. The next year, Dignity countered with its own statement challenging the church's position. It argued that gay people can practice their sexuality in accordance with Christ's teachings. Dignity was then barred from church facilities in most dioceses. The church continues to hold that homosexuals do not choose their condition, but argues nonetheless that homosexual sex is sinful and that gays and lesbians should seek to lead chaste lives.

At its seventy-five chapters around the country, Dignity counts thousands of members unwilling to accept the church's view. Many chapters have opened lines of communication with diocesan officials in an effort to find common ground but, in many ways, the rifts have only grown deeper. Dignity has issued statements assailing the church's failure to ordain women and to approve the use of birth control. Some of its members have vocally criticized the church's opposition to abortion and the canonical regulation on priestly celibacy, although the organization takes no official position on either issue. And many Dignity chapters have rewritten sections of the Mass to eliminate what members view as sexist rhetoric. Dignity members were outraged a year ago when the Vatican ordered Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick to cease their ministry to gay Catholics because it allegedly strayed too far from Catholic doctrine. Nugent and Gramick were the founders of the Maryland-based New Ways Ministry. (It continues to minister to gay Catholics.) "For many gay Catholics, unfortunately, that was the last straw," Miailovich says.

For those who've remained, "There's definitely an aspect of trying to find a new self-identity," says Father Christian Mendenhall, a fifty-year-old gay priest who left the active ministry in 1990. Mendenhall is now an assistant professor of drama at American University in Washington, D.C., but he still says Mass for Dignity's Washington chapter. A Washington service earlier this year underscored just how far Dignity has moved from mainstream Catholicism. Parishioners were urged to refer to God in the terms with which they were most comfortable, a reference to the view that calling God "He" and "Father" is sexist. Likewise, at the offering of petitions, parishioners responded with "God hear our prayer" because, says Miailovich, the more traditional "Lord" is a "male imperial term." Mendenhall also skipped recitation of the Nicene Creed because many Dignity parishioners deem its terminology sexist.

The sermon's content and presentation also differed from those of the traditional Catholic parish. Mendenhall told parishioners to love themselves, homosexuality and all. We should "love the fullness of things about who we are, and that God already loves."

Overall, the Mass felt something like a group therapy session. Before the kiss of peace, Mendenhall encouraged the gathered to "hug the work of art that is sitting next to you." And before the celebration of the Eucharist, he walked the room offering the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Several parishioners took him up on it, and he made the sign of the cross on the forehead of each while other parishioners laid their hands on the anointee.

"I think we try to cure or heal people who have had a lot of garbage laid on them in their lives," explains Miailovich. "We don't deny that sin exists, but our people have had that message in spades. What they need is the message that God is 'Yes,' that God is there for them."

With the gay-rights agenda gaining currency in many states, Dignity has also expressed increasing anger with the church's active opposition to gay-rights initiatives. Dignity members in Vermont, for example, weighed in with the state legislature as it considered how to implement a December 1999 state supreme court decision that required Vermont to provide equal benefits and rights to gay couples as to married heterosexuals. Vermont state lawmakers passed legislation last spring establishing a system of "civil unions" for gay couples, and the state's Democratic governor, Howard Dean, signed the bill in late April. Vermont Bishop Kenneth Angell publicly opposed the measure.

Meanwhile, San Francisco's Dignity chapter helped publicize the nearly $300,000 that California bishops donated to promote Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that banned California from recognizing same-sex marriages. In December 1999, Dignity members had marched from San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro neighborhood to Saint Mary of the Assumption Cathedral and handed out leaflets protesting against the church's spending and its alliance with the Mormon church, which also backed the initiative. Despite such efforts, California voters approved the gay marriage ban on March 7 of this year by a vote of 69 to 31 percent.

"We really have felt that it's very important to be a presence and an authentic Catholic voice on issues that affect our community," explains Dignity's current executive director, Marianne Duddy, thirty-nine, of Boston. Duddy, who works part-time as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, thinks it is important for Catholic gays to show that church membership is divided on issues like gay marriage.

In that regard, the group has taken steps to form alliances with other liberal Catholics. In February, Dignity members participated in a panel discussion on homosexuality and Catholicism at a meeting of Call to Action, an Illinois-based progressive Catholic group. Dignity is also a member of the Virginia-based Women's Ordination Conference.

Duddy stresses, however, that not all of Dignity's interactions with the church hierarchy have been combative. She points to several meetings with Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, where she and other Dignity members encouraged him to take a stand against antigay violence and in favor of legislation that would label such violence a hate crime. They also sought financial assistance from the cardinal for the group's charitable work with the homeless and with aids patients, and they urged him to implement fully "Always Our Children," the letter issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1997. It stresses that parents of homosexuals should treat their children with compassion. Though the cardinal made no promises, Duddy says the meetings were cordial and productive. New York City's Dignity chapter, meanwhile, was successful last year in persuading Cardinal John O'Connor to remain neutral on a state hate-crimes bill, which the late cardinal had opposed in previous years. The bill recently passed in both houses of the state legislature, and is set to be signed into law by George Pataki, New York's Republican (and Catholic) governor.

A few bishops have taken stands supportive of Dignity. The Archdioceses of Baltimore and Detroit both continue to permit Dignity to hold Mass at Catholic churches. Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton spoke at Dignity's last national convention on August 6, 1999, in Denver. "Dignity members feel very much marginalized by the bishops," he says. "I think it's important for the church to reach out to them and keep them connected. They are sincere in their commitment to the church."

Frank DeBernardo, the executive director of the New Ways Ministry, also urges reconciliation with Dignity. "I think the dialogue should continue. They are the largest gay and lesbian Catholic organization in the country, and the church needs to listen to what these people are saying."

But many in the church, like Father Jim Lloyd of New York City, stress that Dignity "leads people down the wrong path because it encourages the rationalization that if it feels good, it must be okay." Lloyd works for the controversial Courage program, an officially recognized church organization that helps homosexuals lead chaste and, if they want, heterosexual lives. The New York City-based group has chapters across the country, but is banned from some dioceses, which feel it treads too closely to the reparative therapy endorsed by some evangelical Protestants. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for one, bans Courage, according to Father Peter Liuzzi, who heads the diocese's lesbian and gay outreach program. Liuzzi says Courage's policy of working to help gay men "grow into heterosexuality" is risky since those men may marry, only to then find that they still harbor homosexual desires. "In my view," he says, "the cost of marriage is too dear."

Other dioceses have sought to win over Dignity members by setting up gay and lesbian outreach programs. The National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries counts fifty-five dioceses that now have outreach programs. That's up from just thirteen six years ago, when the association was founded, according to its president, John Good. He says the programs seek to help gay Catholics come to terms with church teaching and to make them feel welcome in the church. Good admires Dignity's efforts to work for change in the church but says, "I don't think the way they've gone about their advocacy is the best way to influence change. I think the fact that we work within the formal church structure, we are able to accomplish more because we sit at the table." Good said outreach groups have won greater funding for aids ministries, and have persuaded priests to speak out against antigay violence. California members have also weighed in on the church's support for Proposition 22, particularly its alignment with the Mormons. The Mormon church goes beyond the Catholic church in condemning homosexuality itself as sinful.

Still, the arrival of these church-outreach groups has outraged Dignity members in many dioceses. In Chicago, for example, the introduction of an outreach program a decade ago decimated the local Dignity chapter. Half of its membership bolted for the outreach program, recalls Martin Grochala, a member of Dignity/Chicago. Although much of the anger has blown over now, Grochala says that there was a lot of animosity. "There were friendships destroyed and a lot of hard feelings."

Dignity has also struggled to find its place in the larger gay-rights movement. Many gay activists are openly skeptical of religious homosexuals. "There's a segment in the movement that's fairly antireligious," acknowledges Thomas Fleury of Dignity/Vermont. "They hear that I'm a practicing Catholic and they roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and can't imagine that anyone would want to worship as a Roman Catholic." Last year, a controversy arose among planners of the gay pride 2000 Millennium March on Washington this April 30, over whether to stress faith as one of several march themes. Some even condemned the use of the term "Millennium," calling it a purely Christian marker of time. Fleury says the antireligious attitude is typical among gay activists since so many organized religions consider homosexuality sinful.

Several Dignity members told me they often volunteer time with their local gay-rights organizations. Many members of Washington, D.C.-based PFLAG--Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays--attend Dignity services throughout the country. Dignity's national chapter has joined the National Religious Leadership Roundtable, an arm of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), a major Washington-based gay-rights group. The roundtable seeks to help gay religious organizations share strategy for working within their own denominations, and also seeks to mobilize religious gays on political causes. "We want to amplify the voice of the pro-gay religious movement," explains Urvashi Vaid, the executive director of the NGLTF Policy Institute. "We want to have different voices speaking out for gay rights."

Dignity's aggressive advocacy and alignment with other gay-rights organizations further lessens the chance of reconciliation with the church, according to skeptics. Still, Dignity leaders insist that they cannot compromise on principle. "When we talk about wanting to dialogue and trying to reach some understanding with the church, it's not on bended knee asking for favors," insists Miailovich. "It has to be equal to equal."

But that's impossible, according to Father John Harvey, the founder of Courage. Dignity's position can never overrule or compromise church teaching "based solidly on Scripture and natural law," he says. If there is to be dialogue, he adds, it must begin with the premise that the "church's position is correct and is not going to change." Whether or not dialogue will end with that is the unanswered question.

Shawn Zeller is an assistant editor at the National Journal.