Pat Gothman is committed to creating welcoming spaces for L.G.B.T. Catholics. Pat, who is gay and Catholic, is a writer and editor of Reaching Out, an online publication that highlights the stories of L.G.B.T. people of faith. In December, Pat co-launched Vine & Fig, an online community where the lives and experiences of queer Catholics are “affirmed as true, holy, and beautiful.” Vine & Fig provides community members with books, videos and other resources and gives them a digital space—via Slack—where “queer Catholics can safely get to know one another and grow together.”
We talk to Pat about Vine & Fig, his experience as a gay Catholic man and why he stays in the church.
In Signs of the Times, David Haas, a composer of Catholic hymns, releases a new refrain for Pride Month; 90 Catholic airport chaplains meet in Rome; Joe Biden retracts his support for the Hyde Amendment; and the Toronto Raptors forward who almost became a priest.
Finally, we discuss the Vatican’s most comprehensive statement yet on gender theory.
Feel free to send us your questions, concerns, cocktail recipes or join us for discussion on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Consider supporting Jesuitical by becoming a member of our Patreon community.
This week’s episode was sponsored by the Catholic Travel Centre.
Links from the show:
Catholic Composer Pens Song For Pride Month Because ‘We Are Called To Love’
Vatican issues new document criticizing ‘gender theory’
Joe Biden says he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment
Pascal Siakam: How a Toronto Raptors star got his start in seminary
What’s on tap?
Ginger beer
why does the gay community get such extensive coverage in a magazine like America? Is it because of James Martin? Even tho LGBTQ are a such small % of the population there is an enormous amount of attention paid to them in MSM and this mag. There must be a lot of lobbying going on to keep promoting LGBTQ stories at such a high rate of frequency. I don' t see the same amount of attention being focussed on Black Americans who make up a substantially larger proportion of the population. Maybe African-Americans are out of fashion right now, and LGBTQ are trendy? Wonder which minority group will be the next hot ticket? I know it will certainly not be white straight males like me, who are definitely out of fashion! Don't think the recent vatican document on gender theory is trendy either.
There is a high likelihood that 75-80% of the Roman Curia is gay, sexually active or not.
Perhaps it is time that we recognize this as fact. Likely this has always been the case.
Nothing trendy in this.
"why does the gay community get such extensive coverage in a magazine like America?" - Because Christ Himself always reached out to the marginalized in society and sat down with them at the table.
"Wonder which minority group will be the next hot ticket? I know it will certainly not be white straight males like me, who are definitely out of fashion!"
White straight males have never been 'out of fashion.' They've just been, and continue to be as you aptly demonstrate, the in-power oppressors of anyone who is not exactly like them.
To answer your first question: Besides rampant secularization, money. Many companies have realized since the 90s that the LGBT community as a whole on average have a high college graduation rate, hold professional jobs, and have a ton of disposable income than other minority groups. Also, there is a racial component too, there is a sizeable minority of wealthy white families that have relatives who identify as LGBT, so they have become more accepting and have used their fortune to promote and change laws to that effect. This has led to the proliferation of ads and entertainment showcasing LGBT stories, which has led to a cultural transformation throughout the West in such a short period of time. And since members of the Church are part of the world, they are also influenced by cultural trends and some of these members want the Church to follow the current. So some like Fr. Martin are lobbying the Church to ultimately change the Church's teachings on same-sex marriage.
Arthur - it is amazingly disproportional coverage, compared to their population. A search on their system revealed 20 LGBT articles this year, vs. 4 on blacks and 1 on Hispanics - none in support of Church teaching, all in support of LGBT teaching. Feminism is taking a back seat to trans.
The LGBT community is a rich and highly privileged group today, leading some of the biggest companies (like Apple & DreamWorks), academia and the Democratic party. Even the smallest opposition of their agenda will result in firing and shaming. Take the bathroom issue in some states. A modest idea of keeping bathrooms separate for the 99% who identify as boys or girls and even permitting all-sex bathrooms for those with "gender dysphoria" was seen as sufficient reason for protests in the streets, and threatening a boycott of the state by big corporations (esp. media and sporting companies) and withholding of federal funding from the Obama administration. The low-income Catholic owners of cake or flower businesses - they get persecuted and pushed out of business by much richer LGBT clients and lawyers. Amnesty International used to be interested in innocents imprisoned by dictator regimes. Now they too are driven by abortion and whatever the LGBT orthodoxy of the day is. Imagine if this journal paid a similarly proportionate time to the opioid crisis or inner city minority-on-minority murders or the soul destroying lives of intergenerational welfare dependency?
We are a married gay couple and we are helping LGBT by role modeling to others what a Catholic gay couple is like: in words and deeds.
My husband and I sit in the front pew of our local parish, tithe regularly, participate in activities at the church to help the poor, the homeless, visit the sick and tend to those in need. This past Sunday there was a discussion on the church mystics featuring St Ignatius of Loyola. My husband brought his book by Fr James Martin "The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything" and shared extensively about the life of St Ignatius. He became Catholic recently and we couldn't be happier at the parish. We have parishioners who approach us, embrace us and tell us they miss us when we are out of town. Some of them we do not even know but apparently they look for us. We feel loved by parishoners.
We don't pay attention to those on the internet who throw rocks against gays. These rock throwers are not in the trenches, they don't wish to be uncomfortable and smell like the sheep and they never participate in the works of the church in loving our neighbors as themselves. When you don't have the latter we shouldn't expect them to love their neighbors.
AMDG
Thank you for sharing your real, inspiring story of faith and community.
THANK YOU for being in Persona Cristi
What we read on the internet is not what we see in our parish.
Be encouraged!
I do like the fresh enthusiasm of the Jesuitical group. However, I wish they showed a deeper awareness of Catholic self-understanding. For example, the interview with Pat Gothman and his Vine and Fig never addressed its obvious contradiction with the Catholic understanding of human sexuality and approval/promotion of active homosexual activity. Pat's difficult seminarian/monk story is actually good evidence of the bigger obstacle homosexuality has for a life of celibacy (It supports Pope Francis's reiteration of the ban of homosexuals from the seminary.).
Toward the end of the interview, when asked for examples of contemporary heroes or models, Pat offered Anthony Bourdain - who had a very troubled life of drugs, fornication and eventual suicide. The interviewer says "St. Bourdain" So, not even the slightest challenge or questioning to Pat's challenge against Catholicism, unlike their response to the Vatican's gender theory document. Superficial "bells and smells" catholic culture is worthless, except to those who don't believe it but like it as cultural adjunct to their counter-Catholic lives. Catholicism is of no use if it doesn't save souls from eternal death. Frank Elliott above says, to paraphrase: it's not true so to hell with it. Indeed, if it's not true, then I agree with Frank. My difference with Frank is I believe it all. And, to hell with all the counterfeit Catholicisms.
Tim OLeary is very clear. He wrote above
My difference with Frank is I believe it all. And, to hell with all the counterfeit Catholicisms.
Christ told us about people like you and we give you to Him. He is Lord....not you....
Jose - On the main point, I agree with you. Jesus Christ is Lord, the Way, the Truth and the Life. I look to His Church for teaching on faith and morals, not the latest blogger or political fad or journals of fashionable opinion. In case you misunderstood (time is short), my desire is for no one to go to hell, but all to be saved. It is counterfeit Catholicism, as a movement, that I abhor, following our Lord's reaction to St. Peter's urging him to take an easier path: "Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." Matt 16:23
Hello! Thanks for all you do on this podcast. I always enjoy listening to it. Another commenter mentioned this already, but I want to bring it up again because I think it is important. I enjoyed the interview with Pat Gothman, but I did find it striking that there was no discussion of the Church's position on the sinfulness of homosexual sexual activity. While I don't think this needs to dominate the whole of a discussion of LGBTQ+ issues, it does seem to be an obvious "elephant in the room", and to ignore it in such a discussion seems to be a kind of sweeping under the rug of something very important. It seems to me that productive dialogue involves not only charity, respect, and nuance, but also a willingness to honestly address issues that are crucial to the discussion. So why was this left out of the discussion? Thank you!