Two days after the 1999 Soho pub bomb, monthly Masses were launched at a Catholic convent in London, welcoming lesbian and gay Catholics, their parents and families.Unable to find a central London Catholic church, after the convent's closure, LGBT Catholics found hospitality at Soho's Anglican parish church. Increasing numbers resulted in the Masses being held twice a month.
While the Diocese of Westminster might have believed that the group would fade away, it recognised that real pastoral needs were being met, converts to Catholicism were being made, and a vibrant community could offer something to the local church.
In March 2007, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor invited the Soho Masses LGBT community, in contact with around 300 people overall, to transfer its services to one of Soho's Catholic parishes.
A positive grass-roots story, but the church worldwide still fails to dialogue formally with its LGBT members.
Official statements reflect harsh judgements, uninformed either by increasing knowledge about human sexual diversity, or Catholic theological pluralism. The pastoral practice on the ground varies enormously. LGBT pastoral ministries operate with differing degrees of hierarchical support.
The Catholic church reflects the kind of divisions seen in the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality, with some Bishops formally recognising only those groups which advocate celibacy.
Those viewing Catholicism from afar can be forgiven for assuming that the church has held its views on homosexuality for centuries. In fact, it only began to detail this teaching in a 1976 Declaration on Sexual Ethics, through the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by the present Pope.
This coined an untraditional Catholic term, "intrinsic disorder" to describe homosexuality, applying an intricate philosophical term to a complex human and theological reality.
Successive Roman documents have embroidered this offensive and confusing vocabulary to the present day.
The Vatican becomes more and more isolated from other parts of the church in theological reflection and pastoral practise. It has ratcheted up its rhetoric, forcing Bishops to defend the indefensible, whether with regard to admission of candidates to seminaries or religious communities, same-sex marriage and civil unions, or same-sex couples ability to foster or adopt children.
Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality highlights some of Catholicism's best kept secrets: the primacy of a fully informed personal conscience, the hierarchy of truths, and the development of doctrine.
The Catholic Bishops of England & Wales rose to these challenges when they authorised the publication of "An Introduction to the Pastoral Care of Homosexual People" in 1979.
These guidelines stayed faithful to Catholic teaching that sexual activity is only admissible within marriage, but stated that both homosexual orientation and heterosexual orientations are morally neutral. This underscores the Vatican position that the orientation in itself is not sinful, but moral decisions relate to how that orientation is expressed sexually.
Whereas the Vatican would go no further in the discussion, the local Pastoral Care guidelines encouraged clergy to adopt a more nuanced approach when faced with two people in a permanent, faithful relationship who choose to exercise their rights of conscience. The Vatican was not pleased with this liberal interpretation.
Recognising that LGBT Catholics have the same rights to the sacraments as straight Catholics and should not be automatically excluded, the guidelines also strongly denounced prejudice and discrimination: "As a group that has suffered more than its share of oppression and contempt, the homosexual community has a particular claim upon the concern of the church."
The late Cardinal Hume went further, trying to interpret in acceptable language the Vatican's discordant tones: "Homophobia should have no place among Catholics. Catholic teaching on homosexuality is not founded on, and can never be used to justify homophobic attitudes."
The Vatican has made it clear that its tenets on homosexuality are not 1st level in the order of Catholic teachings. As such, Catholics hear what the church's teaching authority has to say, but neither the Vatican nor the pope is an oracle, in the presence of which Catholics cast aside human capacity, and fall to their knees in irrational submission. 3rd level Catholic teachings, such as those dealing with human sexuality, have to be discerned in the light of faith-filled experience and human knowledge, reflected upon in that deep place of conscience, where the believer can know God, and then received as good and true.
With official teaching on homosexuality only being spelled out since 1976, it is easy to see the development of doctrine in practise. Even though doctrine is not determined by opinion polls, numerous surveys show younger generations, and not just the young, challenging these areas of church teaching.
The inclusive community of straight and 90% LGBT Catholics who gather twice a month in Soho, don't argue about finer points of theology relating either to homosexuality, contraception, or divorce.
The acceptance, not just toleration, of their LGBT sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, is increasingly clear to see in parishes and families around the country.
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(Source: YRCN)