Up 18th Street a few blocks from Castro Street, sits the neighborhood Catholic Church. It used to host charity bingo nights featuring Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, before the hierarchy forced a crackdown a few years ago. Sometimes I have a morning coffee and do some work from a nearby cafe on 18th Street a few more blocks uphill. A group of retirees comes in apparently every morning at about 9am as soon as weekday morning Mass lets out. Its a mix of men and women, and some of them are gay and some not and they all apparently hang out together quite happily.
What with the Pope welcoming break-away homophobic Episcopalian and Anglican churches, as is the homophobic Nigerian Anglican Archbishop, perhaps now is the time that the congregations of Catholic churches in the Bay Area begin their own secession efforts. One would imagine a lot of Catholics here are frustrated and even worried about the hateful and frankly anti-Christian atmosphere that wafts from their Church’s upper-levels these days.
And dollars donated by even liberal congregations are being used for oppression by those in power – witness the hidden collaboration of the Catholic and Mormon Churches in the Prop 8 campaign. How long will it take before the proposed genocide in Uganda is traced back further than the trail already uncovered to the Evangelical radicals like Rick Warren all the way to the supposedly more mainstream Christian churches?
At some point, tolerance becomes cooperation becomes collaboration. Concerned church goers need to speak out and be heard. God is listening even if the Pope is not.
Queeristan - everywhere you are 