Out Spotlight LXXXvI

Today's Out Spotlight is DiginityUSA. DignityUSA is the oldest and largest national lay movement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Catholics, families, and friends. Dignity Canada represent LGBT Catholics in Canada. A similar organization is in the UK and is known as Quest.

"DignityUSA envisions and works for a time when Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Catholics are affirmed and experience dignity through the integration of their spirituality with their sexuality, and as beloved persons of God participate fully in all aspects of life within the Church and Society."

Dignity was first a counseling group and then a support group in Los Angeles, . in 1969, by Father Patrick X. Nidorf, O.S.A., an Augustinian priest and psychologist, started a ministry for gay and lesbian Catholics as an extension of his professional work. He would later describe the beginnings of Dignity in his own words as follows:

"The Catholic gay people whom I had met were frequently bothered by ethical problems and identity with the Church. It seemed obvious that the Church wasn't meeting the needs of the gay community. In counseling gay Catholics, there always seemed to be an excessive and unreal problem of guilt that was sometimes reinforced in the confessional instead of being resolved. With these ideas rattling around in my brain, I wrote a paper on a proposed group for Catholic gays and presented it to our members at a Provincial meeting. Most of the priests seemed to favor the idea of forming such a group and I did."

Word of the new ministry spreads first by word of mouth and later he placed advertisements in the Los Angeles Free Press asking people to contact him in San Diego for discussion and possible meetings. Not wanting religious fanatics or homophobes to disrupt or dominate the meetings, he required the return of a completed application form (and when in doubt a personal interview). He charged $5 a year for participation and required that all be 21 years of age and have a membership card, which he issued. The monthly gatherings are closed to anyone else. After several meetings were held in San Diego and alternately in Los Angeles (because that's where the majority of respondents to the ads live), Father Pat decided to have all gatherings in Los Angeles where the sessions are held in private homes. Father Pat writes and distributes a kind of information letter to members giving the date and location of the next meeting. (The earliest issue of this newsletter on file at the International Gay Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles is dated February, 1970.) He later noted that "the name Dignity just came to me as appropriate since one of our basic goals was to bring dignity into the spiritual and social lives of some very special people." DignityUSA has been a national organization since 1973

Dignity believes in the following tenets:

That gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics in our diversity are members of Christ's mystical body, numbered among the People of God.
That gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons can express their sexuality in a manner that is consonant with Christ's teaching.

And are organized to unite gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, as well as our families, friends and loved ones in order to develop leadership, and be an instrument through which we may be heard by and promote reform in the Church. And believe to be such, accept responsibilities to the Church, to our Catholic heritage, to society, and to individual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics.

Because of their opposition to official Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity", neither DignityUSA nor Dignity Canada are recognized entities within the Catholic Church. They are prohibited from the use of Catholic Church properties and from advertising in Catholic Church publications. Dignity does however attempt dialogue with Bishops of the Church, and as an organization, they are tolerated by many in the Church, although rejected by others.

Last year on the official visit to the U.S., Pope Benedict XVI was greeted by the Diginity Washington Group on his visit to Washington DC. Papers reported that he wave to the group as he passed.

DignityUSA is the largest and most progressive group of gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual Catholics. This year they will be celebrating 40 years of community and spiritual support for LGBT Catholics at their 2009 convention, July 2 through July 5th in San Francisco.

DignityUSA

Dignity Canada

Quest (UK)

DignityUSA 2009 Convention