DignityUSA

DignityUSA is an organization with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts that focuses on LGBT rights and the Roman Catholic Church. Dignity Canada exists as the Canadian sister organization. The organization is made up of local chapters across the country, and functions both as a support and social group for LGBT and LGBT-accepting Catholics to worship together, and as an activist group for LGBT rights and education about LGBT issues. As of August 2015, it is led by Lourdes Rodríguez-Nogués.

Founding

Dignity began in San Diego, California as a "rap group" for gay and lesbian Catholics in 1969. The first chapter of Dignity formed in 1970 in Los Angeles.[1] Dignity was founded by Father Pat Nidorf.[2]

In 1982, lesbian members of Dignity founded the Conference for Catholic Lesbians out of concern that Dignity was too oriented toward males.[2]

On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons

On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic body charged to "spread sound Catholic doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines",[3] issued a letter entitled On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. In it, the Catholic Church affirmed its position that homosexuality was an "objective disorder" and that all support should be withdrawn from any organization that undermined the Church's teaching or were ambiguous about or neglectful of it.

An immediate effect of the document was the decision by several American bishops to order that DignityUSA no longer be allowed to hold Mass in Catholic churches. Dioceses in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Pensacola, Vancouver, Washington, D.C. and New York City all rescinded permission for the organization to hold services on church property. In some cases the group chapters had been holding Masses for a decade or longer.[4]

Honors

Dignity Chicago was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1997.[5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Gay Almanac, p. 344
  2. 1 2 Hogan and Hudson, p. 478
  3. ↑ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Profile)
  4. ↑ Miller, pp. 465—67
  5. ↑ http://www.glhalloffame.org/index.pl?page=inductees&todo=year

References

External links

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