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Call to Dissent

Sister Gramick's LA Gig

By Alcibiades Sanchez

On January 30, the San Diego and Los Angeles chapters of Call to Action sponsored a talk by Sister Jeannine Gramick at Mother of Good Counsel church in Los Angeles. Gramick, along with Father Robert Nugent, co-founded New Ways Ministry, a homosexual rights organization in the Catholic Church. Last year, the Vatican banned Gramick and Nugent from their ministry to homosexuals due to the pair's lack of clarity in presenting the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality. In response to this ban, Gramick has scheduled a lecture tour throughout the United States to speak out against the ban and to provide continued encouragement to lesbian and gay Catholics.

Grammick addressed the audience from the lectern in front of the church's sanctuary. The moderator for the talk mentioned that Call to Action had originally wanted to conduct the talk in a parish conference room, but because these were filled that afternoon, the pastor had decided that Gramick would be free to use the church itself. Approximately 75 people attended the talk, mostly males apparently in their 40's and 50's.

During the first portion of the talk, Gramick discussed the ban placed on her and Nugent by the Vatican. She stated that the ban was unjust because, throughout the investigation, she and Nugent continually cooperated with the Vatican. She stated that she answered all questions posed to her about the meaning and purpose of her ministry. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith told her, said Gramick, that the books on lesbian and homosexual lifestyle that she and Nugent had written were found not to be in accordance with the Church's teachings; she was not told, however, in which ways they were lacking. Though there were important witnesses who had made critical statements against her ministry and teachings, Gramick said that she was not told who these witnesses were. Gramick said the congregation told her that there was documentary evidence that spoke of improprieties of her ministry, but she was not allowed to see these documents. Gramick stated that she was told to state her personal beliefs regarding the morality of homosexual activity, but refused to do so as it was a matter of conscience. Gramick stated that at the conclusion of the Vatican's investigation she and Nugent were banned from their ministry because the Vatican determined that their teachings were not in line with the Church's teachings on homosexual activity.

Gramick centered her talk on the primacy of conscience. "No one has the right to force us to act in a way against what our conscience tells us to do," she said at the beginning of her talk. The primacy of conscience, Gramick said, is a teaching supported by the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes. "Here we know that conscience is sacred and that it is conscience that we must follow," said Gramick. Conscience is "our sanctuary, the place where we are alone with God," said Gramick. "One's conscience is private and no one has the right to make you reveal your conscience," she said in an apparent reference to the Vatican's insistence that she and Father Nugent affirm the Church's teaching on homosexuality. She used canon law, specifically canon 220, to support her thesis that "no one is permitted to violate the right of another to protect his or her privacy."

Gramick called the conscience "a deep conviction that has been borne out of prayer, dialogue with the community, reading of scripture and personal experience about what is true." Gramick stated that when our conscience judges homosexual activity, "hopefully it will be congruent with the wisdom of the community." Gramick continually replaced the word "magisterium" with "the community". Gramick reminded the audience that the Vatican states that homosexual activity is intrinsically evil; such language is "harsh," she said.

What should prevail, Gramick asked, if we listen to our conscience but do not come to the same conclusion on a topic such as homosexual activity that is reached by the community? "Do I follow the guidelines of the community, or do I follow the deep conviction of my conscience?" Gramick answered that we follow conscience, and credits Thomas Aquinas for this teaching. (At no point during the lecture did Gramick state that Catholics are obligated to develop within themselves a properly formed conscience).

Why is it, asked Gramick, that "the community" teaches that homosexual activity is immoral and that homosexuals should remain celibate throughout their lives? She stated that this is because of "procreation." She stated that theologians do not state that married persons past their child bearing years or infertile married couples should be celibate -- so why should homosexuals be asked to remain celibate? She stated that this is an issue of "justice." Gramick stated that it is scenarios such as these in which our conscience operates.

Gramick then recounted various Church practices, such as slavery, usury, married priests, and capital punishment, as examples of how the Church's teachings have changed and as indications that the Church's teachings on homosexual activity could also change. "We learn from society and experience, which is the Spirit speaking to the people, and by using this we see if the Spirit is moving us to develop our doctrine," she said. She then pointed out that homosexual practice is one area in which the people are currently saying that "my loving relationship with my partner is not a violation of God's law and that it helps me in my relationship with God."

From the fact the majority of Catholic moral theologians in the United States dissent from Church teaching on homosexuality, Gramick said, it is seen that God's people are speaking out. She said that the wisdom of the people speaking is indicated from the gallop polls which indicate that, today, the majority of Catholics state that they disagree with the official teachings of the Church on the issue of homosexual activity.

Gramick has asked Catholics to send letters of protest to the Vatican, to the bishops and the papal nuncio, protesting the Vatican's actions against her. "If the people are coming forth to state that their conscience differs from the teachings of the Church, it is then that we can dialogue as a community and ask, is the Spirit speaking here, is the Spirit trying to tell us something and move us to the development of doctrine?" Gramick stated that she hopes that this sentiment in people will cause them to write "their sacred and non-sacred pastors" asking them to lift the prohibition on her and Nugent's ministry and to continue to work toward an acceptance of homosexual activity by the institutional Church.

When a writer for the Mission called Father Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese, asking for comment on Gramick's talk and the use of parish facilities by Call to Action, he responded that it was his policy not to speak with the Mission.

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