OCTOBER 2, 1998 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

ON THE AIR OFF THE PRESS

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Gay-supportive priest ousted with Vatican pressure

by John Graves

There was an extensive report in the August 28 edition of the National Catholic Reporter on the recent ouster of Father James Callan as pastor of Corpus Christi Church, a gay-affirming parish in Rochester, New York.

According to the paper, Callan said Bishop Matthew H. Clark ordered his transfer after receiving a letter this past July from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

Ratzinger is well known to gay and lesbian Catholics as the author of a 1986 Vatican statement declaring gays "disordered" and homosexuality to be an "intrinsic moral evil.”

Conservatives in Rochester and in Rome have disliked the fact that Callan and the Corpus Christi parish community invited non-Catholic parishioners to take communion; allowed women to preach, made lesbians and gays full members of the parish community and blessed same-sex unions.

The paper said that after Callan announced his departure August 15; “Sunday Masses were standing room only” and that over 1,300 parishioners attended an emotion-filled, 31⁄2-hour meeting later that evening.

Callan said of the meeting, "There was no sense of retribution. No nastiness... No bitterness. And it's not as if they're passive. There's fight in them. The gay people got up and said, 'Father Jim was our voice when we had no voice. Now we have our own voice.' They gave testimony. It was the first time they'd ever gone before 1,300 people to do that."

Parishioners three days later reaffirmed the parish as a community that supports full participation of women and gays in the liturgy and administration of the church.

Bishop Clark, who did not attend the parish' meeting, said he was surprised Callan's reassignment is construed as a 'firing' by Cardinal Ratzinger. The decision to invite Jim to new ministry is mine.”

However, Clark's August 17 statement announcing the transfer that admitted "various Vatican congregations" have long inquired "about some of the liturgical and pastoral practices at Corpus Christi."

When told of Clark's statement, Callan said, “Holy cow! Did he really say that? Well, he told me Ratzinger wrote him a

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letter, and that's my understanding. And that's why I'm being ordered out."

A September 12 report in the Boston Globe said Bishop Clark also plans to issue a letter banning diocesan priests from celebrating the a 23-year-old special weekly Mass for members of the Catholic lesbigay support group Dignity of Rochester.

Dignity Rochester lost official church approval after they refused to agree with church doctrine as stated in Ratzinger's 1986 message. Since the late 1980s, dioceses in the U.S., one by one, have required Dignity chapters to endorse the "intrinsic moral evil" doctrine. If they do not, they are banned from meeting in Catholic churches, and clergy are prohibited from officiating at their Masses.

A National Catholic Reporter editorial said that, although it was uneasy with Clark's decision, it understood the pressures behind the bishop's action. The editorial concluded, "One gets the sense that with the amount of feeding, sheltering and comforting of the poor, homeless, outcast and marginalized that goes on here, Jesus would not feel at all out of place in their poor Rochester neighborhood. And that is something no band of reactionaries or Vatican congregation can disassemble."

National Coming Out Day

October 11 is National Coming Out Day, and faith communities are families too. Try coming out where you worship and give courage to those of us who still pray in fear while teaching others the truth about us. Lesbians and gays in Rochester's Corpus Christi parish did, and so did I. So far, none of us has been turned into a pillar of salt or been burned at the stake.

Drag king in Pecker

Maureen Fischer, a lesbian who performs in real life as a drag king under the name "Mo B. Dick," plays a lesbian stripper who imitates Sharon Stone's famous Basic Instinct crotch shot in John Waters' new film, Pecker.

Fantasies of the famous

Beverly Hills, 90210 star Tori Spelling recently told Playboy magazine that she fantasizes about a threesome with Tom Cruise and his wife, Nicole Kidman.

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Spelling told Playboy, "I used to have the fantasy of me and two guys, but as I get older, I've started to think it would be good with a guy and a girl."

In a similar vein, actress Yasmine Bleeth told Us magazine that her perfect ménage à trois would be, "Me, Cindy Crawford and Elvis Presley."

Ken Ryker comes out

In the upcoming issue of Genre magazine, gay porn superstar Ken Ryker comes out and talks about family, kayaking and his return to male porn. Don't miss Hal Rubenstein's exclusive interview of Ryker's provocative revelations.

Lesbigay comics on Showtime

Finally, Showtime will help you celebrate National Coming Out Day with In Thru the Out Door, a comedy sketch show featuring lesbigay comics premiering October 11; check your program guides for air times.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.

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