A Ray Of Hope

We hear many LGBT condemn religion but not all religions are created the same, some are affirming and some are not and within non affirming churches there are “rays of hope.” Sister “Monica” is one of those rays of hope, a Catholic nun down in the southwest that ministers to trans-people.

She first attracted notice in 2001 at a WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) convention in Galveston, Texas,

A nun's secret ministry brings hope to the transgender community
Al Jazeera America
By Nathan Schneider
March 2, 2014

“I heard, without looking or seeing, a woman’s voice,” she [Maureen Osborne] remembers. “She was publicly apologizing to all the transgender people in the world for the damage done to them by the Catholic Church.” Though not trans, Osborne had grown up Catholic and felt damaged by the church herself.

Osborne’s head turned. At the microphone where people were asking questions, there was a small woman with a determined posture, prominent cheekbones and close-cropped dark hair beginning to gray. Her intonation betrayed a drawl. She went on to say that she was a nun, and had begun ministering in the trans community and had come to the conference to learn how to be better at it. There was a standing ovation.
[…]
Monica has welcomed trans people into her home for retreats, and helped them to pray, and taken them out to dinner dressed, for the first time in public, according to the gender they know themselves to be. She often stays in touch with them for years on end. “Her basic message,” Osborne says, “is to let them know that they are loved by God and that they are meant to embody exactly who they are.”

So many times we hear about the evil the religious right is doing but many times we do not realize that there are many people who are trying to bring change from within. Sister Monica has silently bucked the teachings of the church and the Pope to minster to the trans-community.

One time she brought together seven priests, a deacon to hear the stories of four trans Catholics and in the end one of the priests said,

During the second hour, there was an open discussion. The priests didn’t ask questions so much as affirm, and express sympathy. “I commend you for the integrity that you have” — that kind of thing.

As the second hour ended, some of the priests began to slip out for other appointments. One of them began to speak, paused, and then said, “Your ministry is to us today, and your spirituality is very, very apparent. You’ve helped me personally a great deal.”

Change is brought about by changing the heart of one person at a time.

She is not alone; her sisters give her support for her ministry,

Her fellow sisters had her back from the start. This kind of ministry was what their congregation was all about, and they bragged about the first nun to conduct a national transgender ministry. But in recent years the community she joined and spent most of her life with has ceased to exist; like so many other women’s congregations around the country, it had grown too small and too elderly to continue on its own. It merged with other groups of sisters from different places, with different backgrounds, who tend to be more cautious. They don’t talk about what she does in their newsletters, and they’re not always sure how to handle her trans guests.

So when you curse religion, don’t use too broad a brush and remember that there are rays of hope within.