“The lady in the green blazer said she’s going to throw up when you walk into the room.”
This same lady, without previously knowing that I was a homosexual, would have been thrilled had I invited her daughter to the senior prom. I was class president, smart, funny, polite, a great dancer, and a good Catholic. All of that changed when I said I was gay. Overnight, I became physically disgusting to most, and certainly not a good Catholic.
That was 50 years ago. For most straight people in the U.S. today, learning that someone they admire is gay wouldn’t impact their feelings of esteem. That’s not true everywhere. Yesterday, I heard from an Irish priest whose bishop called him to his office. The bishop didn’t throw up when the priest unapologetically confirmed that he was gay, but he was concerned about how conservative Catholics might respond to the news, and he was quite skeptical when told that there were other gay priests in his Irish diocese.
The recent funeral of Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York is a good example of how far we’ve come, and of how much further we need to go. One thousand people, many of them transgender, gathered to celebrate the life of this transsexual public advocate for all transgender people, for sex workers, and for those with HIV. She sounded like a most remarkable and beloved prophet in her community of outcasts, and I would love to have been at her Celebration of Life. I’m quite certain that angels danced.
In response to a New York Times article about her funeral, the Church hierarchy in the city went berserk. Moved to action by conservative Catholics, the archdiocese condemned the funeral, saying they “were tricked.” They held a “Reparation Mass” because of the clothing of some mourners and the language of some eulogists. Prayers were offered in atonement for the sins of the bereaved.
The Archdiocesan leadership is the lady in the green blazer. They announce being publicly sickened by the transgender spectacle. The good news is that the lady in the green blazer was the last guest to leave the night I met with the Bible study group after being fired by the Church. Once she got past her revulsion of whom she thought I was, she asked lots of questions, and finally came to see me as a person she’d be glad her daughter had as a best friend.
In the past five decades, members of the hierarchy have witnessed the courage, faith, wisdom, endurance, and sanctity of LGBTQ people. Many members, including the Pope, are in awe. Their admiration has been far more persuasive to them than their fear of a backlash from conservative Catholics. The same has happened for non-religious people as well. We mustn’t be afraid of the lady in the green blazer. If she gets sick in our presence, that’s her issue, not ours.