"My name is Sam Sinnett and I am a gay Catholic." These words, reminiscent of the way members introduce themselves at AA meetings, opened a luncheon at a gathering of DignityUSA, a national support and advocacy organization for homosexual members of the Roman Catholic Church. Sinnett, a retired businessman from St. Louis, was completing his four year term as Dignity's national president. This conference, drawing some 250 delegates from across the United States to Austin, Texas, had assigned themselves the task of charting the future for homosexual people in the Catholic Church. This was not an easy assignment since DignityUSA is treated by the hierarchy of this Church as an embarrassing pariah and instead of any recognition or support its members are the recipients of enormous Catholic hostility. By Vatican orders, no Roman Catholic Church in America can allow this group to meet on any Catholic property. When Dignity's leaders picked the Hyatt Hotel in Austin as the gathering place for their national conference, Gary Preuss, a local Dignity leader, as a courtesy, notified the Most Rev. Gregory Aymond, the Catholic Bishop of Austin that they would convene in his See City. The bishop responded with a letter, acknowledging the notification and saying that he would pray for them. There was no word of welcome and neither this bishop nor any of his local Catholic priests made an appearance at the conference. How short the Church sometimes falls in the simple act of showing kindness.
Comments.... Warm regards, Roger