Gay Catholics

* Upon reading and pondering the Minneapolis diocese's response to Carol Curoe and her father (NCR, Nov. 2), I think the diocese had the right to prohibit use of St. Frances Cabrini Church for their talk. It's part of the diocese's property.

The events of last spring at the New Ways Ministry conference when the diocese refused permission to gay Catholics to celebrate the Eucharist in a local hotel brought those in attendance back to the Middle Ages. What nerve! As Franciscans we are called to "rebuild the church" within and outside of ourselves. This is a horrible message of tearing down the structure. May we all be instruments of peace.

(Fr.) JOE SPINA, OSF

Oakland Park, Fla.

At Mass this morning as I heard God's Word proclaimed in the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, I experienced a "split screen" of sorts: On one screen, the official church response to Carol Curoe and her father, Robert Curoe, as you reported in "Parish cancels talk by father and lesbian daughter" and on the other, these words from scripture proclaimed from the altar:

"For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you? But you spare all things because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things."

(Sr.) IMELDA MAURER, CDP

San Francisco

John L. Allen Jr.'s article on the suspension of Msgr. Tommaso Stanico (NCR, Oct. 26) said that "his aim in pretending to be gay was to understand this world, not to participate in it." In order to understand "this world" he went onto the Internet in order to meet potential "dates" that would lead to sexual encounters. The Vatican spokesperson is correct to say he couldn't deny the facts in this case.

As a gay member of the Catholic community, I invite our church leaders to understand my world as a gay man. I am in a loving, committed relationship of 10 years. My partner and I are seriously researching adoption in order to give a child a supportive home, with two parents who love them. I met my partner online 12 years ago. This is the world our church continues to refuse to see. I can't deny the facts.

SCOTT SELLA

Akron, Ohio

Thank you for your editorial lamenting the situation for homosexual Catholics under the present Vatican directives. The U.S. bishops' document "Always Our Children" did hold some promise for some, for some time. However, recent Vatican decisions on this matter and local uncritical acceptance of the Vatican's one-dimensional understanding of the issue have made the church as a community an unwelcoming place for many who are not heterosexual. To their credit, many have simply moved on to other venues, the secular being one, where they are welcomed as full human beings and called to holiness via the path of civil life. Not a bad path for sure.

However, the loss of the life, love and gifts of such individuals is a sad reality for Catholicism, which, at its best, is a meeting tent with no walls and under which all are able to mingle freely and without fear.

MICHAEL ALLAIRE

Vancouver

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