Le nonne dell’arcidiocesi di Milwaukee protestano per la chiusura della pastorale LGBT+

Articolo di Camillo Barone pubblicato sul sito cattolico del National Catholic Reporter (Stati Uniti) il 4 dicembre 2024, liberamente tradotto da Marcella P.

Durante una riunione di famiglia nella loro casa al mare, Jean venne a sapere dalla figlia che il nipote , un ragazzo di 17 anni, aveva l’intenzione di dichiarare apertamente la sua transessualità, ma si stava tormentando nella ricerca del modo (giusto) per poterlo dire alla famiglia. Cogliendo l’occasione di un incontro con lui, non mancò di dirgli che lo capiva, incoraggiandolo così a renderne partecipe la famiglia.

Quando gli chiese se ne era certo, se non si trattava di un periodo di incertezza, di dubbi, le rispose: “No, nonna, io non sceglierei di essere come sono”. Il ragazzo si riunì così alla famiglia, che lo abbracciò senza esitazioni.

Jean, being a long-time member of the Catholic Church, as she told the correspondent of the National Catholic Reporter, and although she was happy that the family had accepted her nephew's gender identity without reservations, felt that she needed to find a space for herself within the Church where we can talk about its history. She went there, was welcomed and listened to.

In the later years of 2022, he joined the Gay and Straight in Christ, or GASIC, existing pastoral ministry at St Mary's Catholic Parish in Hales Corners, seeking help on how best to manage their grandson's transsexuality.

Jean remembers her hesitation at the beginning and the unexpected welcome with which she was greeted from the first moment. Nobody rushed her, but the whole group made her feel the warmth of solidarity so that she was sure she could speak. He recalls that, “I just started talking about my struggle,” explaining that members of the Gay and Straight in Christ group had no prejudice in sharing or listening.

But, in January 2024, the National Catholic Reporter reported, Father Aaron Laskiewicz decided to close Gay and Straight in Christ, citing directives from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to abide by traditional Catholic teachings on marriage and sexuality. He said he would replace the group with a group from Courage International, a Catholic organization approved by the Vatican in 1994, which advocates the need for life in chastity and celibacy for Catholic members of the LGBT world.

Courage International, whose work focuses on "chastity", does not accept forms of transsexuality in romantic relationships or active sexuality, and has been criticized several times by members of the LGBT world, both Catholic and secular, and the Open Democracy Platform has informed that Courage is been accused of promoting "conversion therapies" in other countries.

Laskiewicz, who became parish priest of St Mary's parish, just outside Milwaukee, a few months before the closure of Gay and Straight in Christ, did not publish his decision in the parish bulletin and did not inform the members of the group who, shocked, learned it directly from the Deacon Bill Goulding, the group's longtime spiritual assistant.

After 22 years of diaconate in the parish, after this event Goulding decided to leave "out of disappointment" following the decision to close the group and was transferred to another parish.
This October, after months of prayer and reflection, three Catholic grandmothers from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (including Jean) wrote a letter to Pastor Laskievicz, Father Nathan Reesman, Courage/EnCourage chaplain of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki.
They exposed their stories of grandmothers of LGBTQ children and other Catholic people in solidarity with the LGBTQ world, asking for the group to be reopened and welcomed into the Parish. Gay and Straight in Christ.

After about a month, on November 6, 2024, in a letter addressed to the grandmothers, Reesman responded that the Archdiocese remained firm in its decision, highlighting that although the group had "useful points or aspects", it was, ultimately, not in line with “the fullness of Christian anthropology and Catholic teaching”.

As of December 4, 2024, the Gay and Straight in Christ ministry of Saint Mary's Parish has remained closed, and the group that used to meet monthly for mutual spiritual help has decided to leave the parish. Some have decided to go to other parishes, others have distanced themselves from the Church in general

Il National Chatolic Reporter ha contattato Laskiewicz, parroco della st. Mary, Reesman, cappellano del Courage, e Listecki, arcivescovo di Milwaukee. Laskievicz ha risposto via email dall’indirizzo elettronico di Reesman: “in quanto parroco della parrocchia, ho la responsabilità di assicurare che tutti i nostri ministeri pastorali rappresentino fedelmente gli insegnamenti della Chiesa. Il mio operato in questa situazione è riconosciuto e sostenuto dall’Arcidiocesi”.

Il parroco Listecki ha risposto personalmente, mentre Reesman, cappellano del Courage, ha parlato a nome dell’l’arcidiocesi.

Padre Reesman ha scritto che: “Padre Aaron ha tenuto l’Arcidiocesi informata su tutto il suo percorso decisionale “. Ha inoltre aggiunto che l’arcivescovo di Milwaukee “è stato chiaro sul fatto che il ministero pastorale che si attiene fedelmente agli insegnamenti della Chiesa nei confronti di chi è attratto dallo stesso suo sesso è il solo che avrà il pieno sostegno della Chiesa. Il Courage ed EnCourage sicuramente vi si attiene fedelmente”.

Tre nonne cattoliche, inclusa Jean, hanno scritto e spedito, il 10 ottobre 2024, una lettera al Parroco della Parrocchia St. Mary, Padre Aaron Laskiewicz, a Padre Nathan Reesman, Cappellano del Courage/EnCourage per l’Arcidiocesi, e all’Arcivescovo di Milwaukee Jerome Listecki scrivendo:

… We are four Catholic women united by faith in the unconditional love of Christ for every child of God. We are gay or heterosexual supporters of people assessed as sexual and gender minorities, that is, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer** and gender uncertain (LGBTQ+). We express here our anguish at the sudden closure of the Gay Ministry (GASIC) of St. Mary Parish in Hales Corners and its replacement by a Courage minister by the parish priest. We want to remember that the Gay Ministry of St. Mary's parish, Hales Corners, has followed, welcomed, listened and accepted LGBTQ+, Queer** people and their supporters for over 13 years, wherever they were, with their spiritual, gender and sexual identities .

We are shocked by Father Laskiewicz's replacement of LGBT+ Pastoral Care with Courage, a 12-point program based on the principles of Anonymous Alcoholics ***. Point #1 is the false claim that LGBTQ people were created with dissociative identity disorder. To correct them, the program calls LGBTQ people to admit their helplessness over how God created them and to pray for their healing.

Being LGBTQ, in fact, does not presuppose recovery: it is not a pathology, an addiction or a mental illness. Second: Courage demands that LGBTQ people live in a state of celibacy and this is an inhumane request of those who do not have the gift of celibacy or called to live a single life. Other ministers have a more positive approach to sexuality, understood as God's gift to everyone, gay or heterosexual, recognizing same-sex relationships as healthy.

We are distressed and worried for these three reasons:

• The harm caused following the closure of the GASIC Ministry in St. Mary's Parish, Hales Corners
• Our desire for all children to develop their potential regardless of their sexual identity
• The struggle of all of us to try to make room in our Catholic faith for the harmful and anachronistic declarations of the Church.

In November 2024, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Archbishop Listecki, upon his 75th birthday, and was (immediately) replaced in the leadership of the diocese of Milwaukee by Jeffrey Grob, former Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago.

One of the signatories of the letter to Listecki and the priests of the Archdiocese was Anita Kowalski, an eighty-six year old who worked for 35 years as a pastoral assistant in four parishes in Milwaukee. He recalled that his commitment to inclusivity was boosted when he discovered that three of his grandchildren identified as LGBT+, telling the New Catholics Reporter that: “They are my grandchildren, whoever they are, whoever they are ”.

“My journey of faith began in the 80s and originated from my uncle: the only one I respected. When my mother refused her partner to come to her funeral, I was horrified. I felt nothing other than the certainty that this refusal was not right. I don't want the same thing to happen to my grandchildren."

“The homophobia was clear in the way they treated my uncle, who was gay, but could never come out, not even to his family. It just wasn't talked about."

In the letter he recalled that: “This was a man who had dedicated his life to helping others. “Having a university degree, he helped young students with their homework and with basketball and baseball training. It is from him that I learned what it means to be Christian. He was a wonderful imitator of Christ and yet was denied what he really was.”

Ms. Kowalski said she felt heartbroken when Father Laskievicz and the archdiocese closed the Gay and Straight in Christ group and directed its members to the Courage program. Recalling the dismay that gripped her when she read the basic points of the Courage group's program, she asked herself: "I ask myself, how can you regret being who you are?"

For 61-year-old Julie Behrman, St. Mary of Milwaukee was more than just a church. It was a home, where she and her wife, Tracy, were welcomed with heart. She told the New Catholic Reporter: “I was raised and educated in a Catholic family and St. Mary's was for me the place where I could bring my whole self.”
A speech therapist and musician active in the Church, she has always been clear about her identity.

His wife, a Lutheran, had been struck by the welcoming atmosphere of the parish and had finally converted to Catholicism. The couple had felt fully accepted by the community and had allowed themselves to be involved in all the activities of parish life, in particular the ministry of music.

The discovery of Gay and Straight in Christ was a blessing for Behrman. “This is what I was looking for,” he said. “ Thanks to that group, I felt that I could bring all of myself to the Church. There were no walls, no barriers, and aren't we ourselves what we should be to each other?”.

The closure of the Gay and Straight in Christ group was a personal loss for her. She described the group as “a lifeline” that allowed her to live her faith fully and unhindered.
In the end, she and her wife signed up for the LGBTQ+ of another parish, but the change was not easy, due to the transition from in-person to remote meetings.

Larry White, a former member of the pastoral care team at St. Mary's, did not join the letter's signatories, but was disappointed by the group's closure. His experience at Gay nd Straight in Christ was not typical. Growing up on a farm in Michigan, his family occasionally attended an Episcopal church. He had achieved personal success as a designer in Florida, working for wealthy and high-class clients. He had a “good life,” as he called it.

As he grew older, Florida's humid climate and his dwindling social circle convinced him to move to Milwaukee, where he met new friends, "the only gay friends I have here," who introduced him to Gay and Straight in Christ. of the parish St. Mary. There he found a support network that transcended religious labels, “a place where both gays and straights could speak openly and be valued.”

“The sudden closure of the Gay and Straight in Christ was experienced by me as a “betrayal,” he said during an interview with the New Catholics Reporter, recalling everyone's deep shock when Goulding announced that the group could no longer meet in St. Mary's parish “It was our last meeting”.

“You are out”: that is all the church had told us. No explanation. Nothing.
White had written a personal letter to the Archbishop of Milwaukee to express his disappointment, but never received a response.

Rebekah Dubrosky, one of the signatories of the grandmothers' letter and a member of the LGBTQ+ ministry in another Milwaukee parish that welcomed members of the group from St. Mary, told the New Catholic Reporter that she felt "angry and sad" when she came to knowledge of the parish priest's decision.

“When I converted to Catholicism, the nun who accompanied me in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults told me “By virtue of Baptism, you belong to the people of God, you are part of the Church and the Church is made up of many different people and different formation, but everyone receives the gift of being part of it. No one can say you're not worth enough to be here."

** queer: people who do not recognize themselves in a single defined gender, or do not generally recognize the very concept of binary gender identity.
*** Anonymous Alcoholics: Alcoholics Anonymous

Original text: Grandmothers protest closure of parish's LGBTQ+ ministry in Milwaukee Archdiocese