Sunday

For some people it is a holy day day but what happens when your religion says get lost, we don’t want you.

I have been Catholic all my life. A new Milwaukee Archdiocese policy on transgender people has driven me from my church.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Anne Curley
May 11, 2022


As a cradle Catholic whose values were shaped by 12 years of Catholic education and 60-plus years of Mass attendance, I feel great gratitude for the countless caring sisters, priests and Catholic laypeople who have guided and inspired me through much of my life. I’ve been proud to be associated with the good done by Catholic schools, hospitals and charitable organizations throughout the world.

So it’s with real sadness that I’ve joined the throng who have left the church.

The recently released policy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on how to treat transgender individuals has made it impossible for me, in good conscience, to call myself a Catholic.

I didn’t come to this decision lightly. When friends would ask how I could be a Catholic despite (choose one or more) the clergy sex abuse scandal, the ban on women priests, the treatment of homosexuality as a disorder, the rules on birth control … I had three well-honed responses:

“A 2,000-year-old, global institution doesn’t change quickly,” “Show me a major human institution that isn’t a mixed bag of strengths and corruption,” and “It’s the good, grace-filled people that keep me hanging in there — not the policies.” 

In the Guardian they wrote,

Centuries ago, the Catholic church denounced left-handed people as servants of the devil. For generations, left-handed Catholic children were forced against their will to become right-handed.

And it was even doing it in the 1960s, when I went to Catholic parochial school my left hand was rapped so many times because I am left handed and I was forced to write at an unnatural angle so I didn’t smudged the fountain pen ink.

The article goes on to say,

I was disillusioned back in my teenage years when I saw all these people in church where holy pious in church and “sinners” the rest of the week and I developed my religious own beliefs that what is important is not what building you sat in on the holly day but rather how you lived your life that counted and how you treat others.

I am not an expert on it, but I think it’s safe to say the subject of gender identity is complex, nuanced and not a good candidate for rigid rules. What I know for sure is that my Catholic education taught me Jesus identified with those whom the rule-makers rejected. I learned that he reserved his harshest criticism for religious leaders who piled heavy burdens on others. Thanks to my Catholic formation, I know that to be Christian means to uplift the dignity of others, especially those who most need uplifting.

I know many trans people who migrated to other affirming churches, some when to Dignity, some went to Episcopal or congregational or MCC or other progressive churches.

I believe that truth is embedded in each of us — that God implanted a unique identity that is ours alone to experience, express and put to good use during our time on Earth.  The fact that society is becoming more accepting of differences in our identities — race, sexual orientation and gender expression being prime examples — strikes me as part of God’s unfolding plan to enable each of us to achieve our full potential.

We each have to find our own spiritual pathway in our journey in life.

I don’t believe in the “Golden Rule,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” I believe that it is seriously flawed. What happens when that person is sadistic or is a masochist, the Golden Rule kind of breaks down. I believe that our goal should be to leave a foot print on this world that make it a safer place for all to live. That includes minimizing our impact on the environment, ending discrimination and doing our part to end disease and pestilence.

To this day my goal and belief in life is when I leave this world that I have made a better life for those who come after me.