Bondings 2.0 and New Ways Ministry have been in the news three times this past week.
1. Praise from “Across the Pond”
QueeringTheChurch.com, the premier Catholic LGBT blog in the United Kingdom, noted Bondings 2.0′s500th post milestone with a post of their own commending us for our own blog work. Editor Terence Weldon offered this evaluation:
“I began following Frank’s blog [Bondings 2.0] soon after [it launched]. Although its focus is heavily on the American church, I still found much of interest and value.”
Coming from Mr. Weldon, one of the pioneers of Catholic LGBT blogging, this praise makes us blush a bit!
He continues by noting the joint effort between New Ways Ministry and London area Catholic LGBT folks in the summer of 2012, when I conducted a “Next Steps” workshop in the UK. Weldon adds that he continues to discern his next steps with regard to Catholic LGBT ministry:
“I have been contemplating going from a narrow focus on blogging, to a greater emphasis on direct face – to – face work, promoting the Next Steps workshops, and perhaps adopting and adapting some of the other New Ways methods.”
We are very honored that our model of ministry may be replicated somewhat by our friends in the UK.
2. Bob “Shines” on Another Blog
Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry’s Young Adult and Social Media Coordinator, and a regular contributor to Bondings 2.0, had an essay appear on Catholics United’s young adult blog, OurDailyThread.com.
Shine’s post, entitled “Correcting the Bishops’ Course in 2013,” is a summary of U.S. Catholic bishops’ political involvement in 2012, while it also offers a new course for the coming year:
“The bishops can continue to have their identity be defined by the partisanship, ecclesial legalism, and aberrant traditionalism or they can prepare the way of God anew.”
Among the many topics that Shine covers is the bishops’ campaigns to prevent marriage equality from becoming law in several states. He notes that the widening gap between the bishops and the Catholic laity and the American electorate on questions of sexual justice hamper the bishops’ ability to speak out on other issues of the day:
“Taken together, the bishops’ deep political investments that failed are deeper losses for their credibility and relevancy in American society. Without swift, major, and lasting course corrections, the bishops will not even be a part of conversations around political matters of great importance. “
Congratulations and thanks to Bob Shine for offering this insightful post on the future of the bishops’ political profile.
3. New Ways Ministry on HuffPostLive
New Ways Ministry’s Co-founder Sister Jeannine Gramick and Executive Director Francis DeBernardo were guests on a segment of HuffPostLive this past week. The topic of of this online talk show was the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. Both Sister Gramick and DeBernardo spoke in favor of ordaining women.
Bondings 2.0 has reached a milestone today: this post is our 500th post!!!!!
To celebrate this little landmark, we thought we would provide a break from our usual serious material, and provide some humorous (though relevant) content.
Last week, on January 1st, The Washington Post‘s “Style” section printed it’s annual list of what is “Out” and what is “In,” an annual inventory of what is hot and what is not in American culture. Listed among the various fads, TV characters, celebrities, and the latest political lingo was this one little item of Catholic interest:
Out: Bishops
In: Nuns
This note obviously refers to the many stories during 2012, when it was proven time and again that Catholic respect for nuns has been on the increase. This respect is due in no small part to the fact that many nuns view LGBT issues primarily as justice issues. In 2012, nuns’ support of LGBT issues contributed to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’ (LCWR) run-in with the Vatican. Back in April and May of 2012, when the LCWR story was front-page news, the following cartoon ran in many papers and was circulated widely on Facebook and the internet:
We hope these items lightened your day a bit!
–Francis DeBernardo and Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry
While we are still in the season of looking back at 2012 while we jump right into 2013, we’d like to mention proudly that New Ways Ministry’s Co-founder Sister Jeannine Gramick was named as one of the top ten pro-LGBT faith voicesof 2012 by GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)! Additionally, we are delighted that two other Catholics made the list: Barbara Johnson, the lesbian who was denied communion at her mother’s funeral; and Dominic Sheahan Stahl, the gay man who was disinvited as a commencement speaker from his high school alma mater.
Sister Jeannine Gramick
In naming Sister Jeannine, GLAAD stated:
“Nuns were a big deal in 2012, and the LGBT community had a great ally in Sister Jeannine Gramick. She was one of the most visible pro-LGBT Catholic voices as Maryland adopted marriage equality and through the ballot process. She spoke about Roman Catholic hierarchy to MSNBC, and created a video series on The Daily Beast to discuss faith and life, including LGBT issues.”
Barbara Johnson
Of Barbara Johnson, they said:
“While Barbara Johnson was grieving the loss of her mother, the presiding priest stated, “I can’t give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin.” This blatant lack of pastoral care to an LGBT person captured the attention of the nation.GLAAD worked with Barbara to tell her story and to shine a light of the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s internal persecution of LGBT people.”
Dominic Sheahan Stahl.
GLAAD praised Dominc Sheahan Stahl:
“When Dominic Sheahan Stahl was uninvited from speaking at the Sacred Heart Academy graduation for being gay, the graduating class, which included his younger brother, rallied around him. They formed #LetDominicSpeak and worked with GLAAD to express their support for the alum. They formed an inclusive graduation event, in which the entire graduating class, as well as 600 people listened to Dominic give his speech, of which, GLAAD produced a video. Dominic has gone on to establish a “Live Through Love” foundation to raise scholarship money for LGBT students.”
To view the entire list, which includes luminary leaders from other denominations and faiths, click here.
Bondings 2.0 followed the work and activity of all three of these leaders in 2012. To search for their stories, type in their names into the “Search” box in the right-hand column, and all the relevant posts about them will come up.
We are proud of our co-founder, Sister Jeannine, and of these two lay leaders! We are grateful for all the work that the three of them have done to make our world and our church a more welcoming place for LGBT people and their families!
A happy and blessed new year to all of New Ways Ministry’s friends and supporters!
January 1st is a time for resolutions and hopes for the future. The following are some of the resolutions and hopes for the Catholic LGBT world from New Ways Ministry’s personnel. What are your resolutions and hopes? Add them in the “Comments” section of this post.
Sister Jeannine Gramick, Co-Founder:
Resolution: A number of folks in our LGBT family have asked about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. My resolution in 2013 is to plan this pilgrimage so that the pilgrims can both walk in the footsteps of Jesus and also see the reality of the present-day Palestinian/Israeli situation.
Hope: That marriage equality will become a reality in more states in the U.S. and other nations throughout the world.
Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director:
Resolution: To remember that God has a plan for everything, especially for equality and justice for LGBT people.
Hope: That more Catholic parishes will open their doors to LGBT people and their families.
Bob Shine, Young Adult and Social Media Coordinator:
Resolution: Find new ways to spread the gospel of equality and justice through social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Bondings 2.0.
Hope: That the hierarchy’s rhetoric around marriage will be less hyperbolic to allow for an open and good faith conversation on the issue of equality.
Matthew Myers, Chair, Board of Directors:
Resolution: To name one thing every day for which I am thankful.
Hope: That 2013, as the “Year of Faith” proclaimed by the Pope, will be an opportunity for sincere dialogue and genuine communion among members of our church.
Yesterday, we posted our list of the worst of 2012 in Catholic LGBT news. Today, as promised, we end the year on a positive note by presenting our list of the BEST of the previous year. Much good has happened in 2012, with Catholics at all levels of the church speaking out for justice and equality for LGBT people.
Thanks to the 286 of you who voted in our poll to determine the selection and ranking of these best news stories. The percentage following each story is the percentage of people who chose this item as one of their top five.
The Top Ten
1. Catholic lay support aids marriage equality victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State. 23.08%
4 & 5. TIE Bishop Richard Malone in Maine announces that the diocese will not take an active political role against the state’s marriage equality referendum. 8.39% Surveys show increase in support for LGBT issues among Hispanics, especially Catholics. 8.39%
7 & 8. TIE The University of Notre Dame gives official recognition to a gay-straight alliance after years of student activism. 5.24% Austrian Cardinal overturns a pastor’s decision to bar a gay man from serving on a parish council. 5.24%
9. Catholics in Media Associates gives its top award to TV’s Modern Family, a show featuring a gay family. 3.85%
10. Maryland priest who denied communion to a lesbian woman at her mother’s funeral is removed from pastoral ministry. 3.5%
Editor’s Note: One item which we neglected to add to the list for voting was that Vice President Joe Biden, a Catholic, endorsed marriage equality, paving the way for President Barack Obama to do the same. Biden also referred to transgender equality as “the civil rights issue of our time.” We feel these should deserve some mention on the list of the best Catholic news of 2012. We regret that we didn’t include them for voting. Mea maxima culpa.
Other items
Cardinal Francis George apologizes for comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. 2.45%
Ontario requires all schools, including state-supported Catholic schools, to institute gay-straight alliances. 2.1%
Jesuit author James Martin endorses Spirit Day, a national program to end bullying of LGBT youth. 2.1%
Pastor at Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco reverses his earlier decision to ban drag queens from parish events. 1.75%
Students at Stonehill College, a Catholic campus in Massachusetts, win a new and improved non-discrimination policy. 1.4%
As the year 2012 winds to a close, it’s time to review the news of the Catholic LGBT world of the past 12 months. In today’s post, we will look at the stories of the worst happenings of the past year, and in tomorrow’s post, we will look at the best stories. Bondings 2.0 asked you for your feedback on what the worst and best news stories of the past year were, so the ranking of these stories is based on your responses. The percentage following each story is the percentage of people who chose this item as one of their top five. Thank you to all 311 of you who participated.
The Top Ten
1. The Parliament in Uganda, a pre-dominantly Catholic nation, re-introduces a bill to make the death penalty a possible sentence for lesbian and gay people. 16.34%
3. Pope Benedict opens the year by stating that new models of family are a threat to “human dignity and the future of humanity.” 14.05%
4. The Knights of Columbus have contributed $6.5 million to oppose marriage equality over the past seven years, according to an Equally Blessed report. 12.09%
5. A Catholic lesbian woman in Maryland is denied communion at her mother’s funeral Mass. 10.13%
6. The Vatican censures Sister Margaret Farley, a theologian who has supported the moral goodness of gay and lesbian relationships. 6.86%
7. U.S. bishops attempt to make religious liberty an issue as a way to defeat marriage equality initiatives. 6.54%
8. Minnesota teen is denied confirmation for supporting marriage equality. 4.9%
9 & 10. TIE: The Catholic University of America again denies a request for recognition of a gay-straight alliance on campus. 2.29% Several Catholic church employees are fired because of their support of marriage equality. 2.29%
Catholic theologian Tina Beattie is disinvited from a fellowship appointment at the University of San Diego because of her support of marriage equality. 1.63%
The U.S. Catholic bishops investigate the Girl Scouts of America for connections to liberal causes, including LGBT equality. 1.63%
Minnesota’s Archbishop John Nienstedt instructs his priests not to speak publicly in support of marriage equality. 1.63%
A Catholic high school in Indianapolis refuses to call a female-to-male transgender student by his male name. 0.98%
On the last two days of the year, Bondings 2.0 will review the news of the past year in the Catholic LGBT world by posting “The Worst of 2012″ and “The Best of 2012.”
Please help us prepare for these posts by taking a moment to take the two one-question surveys below. You can choose up to FIVE responses to each question. One of those responses can be “Other” where you can write-in your own selection. Please respond by the end of the day, Saturday, December 29th,12 midnight, Eastern Standard Time.
If you would like to refresh your memory of what happened this past year, just use the tools in the right hand column of this blog to find stories that have been reported on here. You can search by clicking on a category, by using a search term, or by reviewing posts by month.
Thanks for your help with this project! We look forward to reading your responses!
A merry and blessed Christmas to all of New Ways Ministry’s friends, supporters, and blog readers!
“Mystical Nativity” by Sandro Boticelli, 1500.
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment,
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there,
the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.
Luke 2: 1-14
–Francis DeBernardo and Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry
At the New Ways Ministry Volunteer Christmas Party, staff and volunteers join “Santa” in sending a pro-marriage equality message. Standing: Vern Smith, Patrick McNelis, David Lamdin, David Vespa; Seated: Mark Clark, Thom Krupa, Bob Shine (dressed as Santa), Matthew Myers; Kneeling: Sister Jeannine Gramick
As Christmas draws near, we’d like to share a little holiday cheer from New Ways Ministry by presenting this photograph of our annual dinner party for our dedicated volunteers. We took a moment during the party to send a message of Catholic support for marriage equality to all.
Almost every Tuesday evening, a group of volunteers from the local Washington, DC metropolitan area stop by New Ways Ministry’s offices in Mount Rainier, Maryland, to help us prepare the bulk mailings that we send out to our constituents and supporters. Without these volunteers, our communications folks around the country and the globe would be much slower and more expensive. These stalwart worker help spread the word about our programs of education, spiritual development, and advocacy on Catholic LGBT issues.
We are extremely grateful for their service. If you live in the DC metro area and are interested in volunteering some time, please contact New Ways Ministry either by phone, 301-277-5674, or email, info@NewWaysMinistry.org, so that we can let you know what the upcoming schedule is.
The work is not difficult, and it’s a great way of spending an evening together with like-minded souls. We always end each evening with pizza and soda as refreshments.
We’d love to see you some volunteer night in 2013!
For the third time in just about a week, the Vatican has offered negative comments about LGBT issues. Yesterday’s remarks came from Pope Benedict himself, in his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican staff.
“The pope took his opposition to gay marriage to new heights Friday, denouncing what he described as people manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices — and destroying the very ‘essence of the human creature’ in the process. . . .
” ‘People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,’ he said. ‘They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.’ “
” ‘The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned,’ he said. . .
” ‘When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God,’ Benedict said.”
Though stated in the context of an argument against marriage equality, these remarks also comment on the issue of transgender identity.
Major excerpts from the address can be read in this synopsis by Vatican Radio.
“Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican bureaucracy have released a number of troubling statements in recent days disparaging lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and speaking against their right to be treated fairly in civil society.
“In L’Osservatore Romano, historian Lucetta Scaraffia compared proponents of marriage equality to 20th-century communists who wooed millions with their promise of perfect social and economical equality.
“In an address released earlier this week, the pope labeled same-sex marriage as a threat to world peace. Yesterday, in a speech to Vatican bureaucrats he denounced what he described as people who manipulate their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices — and destroying the very ‘essence of the human creature’ in the process.
“These harsh statements are particularly dispiriting at this sacred time of year when families that include LGBT children, parents and grandparents gather to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. We could find fault with Ms. Scaraffia’s historical comparison, or the pope’s rigid and outmoded understanding of what it means to be a man or a woman. Instead we remember that Jesus, when asked by messengers from John the Baptist whether He was the Messiah, told them to go back and tell John about what they saw happening all around them: the sick were being healed, the lame made to walk and good news was being proclaimed to the poor.
“What we see when we look around us are heterosexual parents loving their LGBT children and advocating for their dignity and equality; same-gender couples creating safe and happy homes for their children; and transgender people like those whom the pope criticizes living healthy, mature, and generous lives.
“Increasingly Catholics in the United States and around the world see what we see. Catholics, following their own well-formed consciences, are voting to support equal rights for LGBT people because in their churches and communities they see a far healthier, godly and realistic vision of the human family than the one offered by the pope. We commend it to him for his consideration.”
Bondings 2.0 and New Ways Ministry have been in the news three times this past week.
Posted by newwaysministryblog 
A happy and blessed new year to all of New Ways Ministry’s friends and supporters!
Yesterday, we posted our list of the worst of 2012 in Catholic LGBT news. Today, as promised, we end the year on a positive note by presenting our list of the BEST of the previous year. Much good has happened in 2012, with Catholics at all levels of the church speaking out for justice and equality for LGBT people.
As the year 2012 winds to a close, it’s time to review the news of the Catholic LGBT world of the past 12 months. In today’s post, we will look at the stories of the worst happenings of the past year, and in tomorrow’s post, we will look at the best stories. Bondings 2.0 asked you for your feedback on what the worst and best news stories of the past year were, so the ranking of these stories is based on your responses. The percentage following each story is the percentage of people who chose this item as one of their top five. Thank you to all 311 of you who participated.
On the last two days of the year, Bondings 2.0 will review the news of the past year in the Catholic LGBT world by posting “The Worst of 2012″ and “The Best of 2012.”
Equally Blessed
