Catholic student has valuable experience in D.C.

To the Editors:

I have been waiting about five months to do what I did last week, which was to go to a direct action at the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops in Washington, D.C. In May, I attended a direct action at the United Methodist Conference in Pittsburgh, which was a pretty intense experience, but I knew this latest action would be even more intense because of its very personal connection to me. Our group from Oberlin was comprised of members from Queers and Allies of Faith (QuAF), a student organization here at Oberlin dedicated to bridging the gap between queer and faith communities. We did the action with a national interfaith non-profit called SoulForce (www.soulforce.org), which is dedicated to ending “spiritual violence” — religious rhetoric or policies directed against gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender people through dialogue or when dialogue breaks down, direct action and vigils.

I am a cradle Catholic, i.e. baptized shortly after birth. I went to Catholic school for 11 years before coming to Oberlin. By attending this action, I had the opportunity to join my struggle for acceptance as a queer Catholic with others’ similar struggles to make this a powerful experience.

The part that will be forever burned in my memory is attending the bishops’ Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University. Our group had corresponded with Monsignor Rossi, the resident priest at the shrine, about receiving/being refused communion, which is the body of Christ and which Catholics generally receive each week at Mass. Two years ago, two of our SoulForce members had been refused communion for wearing rainbows and their SoulForce shirts. This year we were told that only those from Rainbow Sash Alliance, who wear rainbow sashes around their torsos, would be refused communion but those with a rainbow cross would not. But we wanted to stand in solidarity with our Rainbow Sash brothers and sisters, so once they were refused communion about 11 of us from SoulForce voluntarily refused the communion. I was second to refuse communion after Kara, the Catholic denomination team leader for SoulForce. I had been rehearsing what I was going to say the entire Mass. The Mass was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the pastoral letter on racism so the homily was dedicated to racism in our society. So I said to Monsignor Rossi when he offered me communion, “You talk about racism, but you remain blind to the evil of homophobia, and Martin Luther King said, ‘A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”

I felt that the multiple month work on the Catholic Denominational Team for SoulForce was really validated in that few seconds when I had the opportunity to say that.

I encourage those who are interested to join QuAF next year at the 2005 U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, also in D.C.

—Rick Hoffman, College senior
 
 

About us
Subscriptions
Advertising

Previous issue
Older issues