When the coronavirus lockdown left a group of transgender sex workers in a beach town near Rome without work, they turned to a local Catholic priest for help to buy food.
But his parish’s resources were already stretched by the health crisis so the priest turned to the cardinal known as “the Pope’s Robin Hood” who runs the Vatican charities. He wired money to the parish for them.
“I don’t understand why this is getting so much attention,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told Reuters by phone on Thursday. “This is ordinary work for the Church, it’s normal. This is how the Church is a field hospital.“
Krajewski, whose formal title is “papal almoner,” or distributor of alms, said the sex workers most likely were undocumented, making it difficult for them to seek help from Italian state welfare offices.
“Everything is closed. They don’t have any resources. They went to the pastor. They could not have gone to a politician or a parliamentarian. And the pastor came to us.
“They are really in difficulty because sometimes their passports were taken away by the mafia pimps who control them,” he said. “We follow the gospel.”
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski is responsible for carrying out charity in Pope Francis’s name.
Krajewski, at 56, one of the youngest cardinals in the world, said it was what Jesus would have done. And it was not the first time the Polish cardinal has made the news with his sometimes unorthodox ways of distributing the pope’s charities. Last year, he clambered down a manhole, broke a police seal, and re-connected electrical circuit breakers to restore electricity to hundreds of homeless people, many of them immigrants, living in an occupied building in Rome.
Although Krajewski ran afoul of then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and his anti-immigrant policies, an Italian newspaper dubbed him “The Pope’s Robin Hood.“
Although he tries to shun the limelight, Krajewski has become a minor celebrity in Rome. Since Pope Francis named him to the Vatican charity post in 2013, he became known for dressing down into simple layman’s clothes at night and bringing food to the city’s homeless in a white van.
He has also opened shelters near the Vatican where the homeless can wash, get haircuts, and receive medical care.
Had there been no coronavirus pandemic, America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination would be convening this week for a likely vote to break up over differences on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ pastors.
Instead, the United Methodist Church was forced to postpone the potentially momentous conference, leaving its various factions in limbo for perhaps 16 more months. The deep doctrinal differences seem irreconcilable, but for now there’s agreement that response to the pandemic takes priority.
“The people who are really in trauma right now cannot pay the price of our differences,” said Kenneth Carter, the Florida-based president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops. “What is in our minds and hearts is responding to death, illness, grief, loss of work.”
The conference was to have taken place at the Minneapolis Convention Center starting Tuesday, running through May 15. Instead, bishops are proposing to hold it there Aug. 31-Sept. 10 of next year.
The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February 2019 at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal strengthening bans on LGBTQ-inclusive practices. Most U.S.-based delegates opposed that plan and favored LGBTQ-friendly options; they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines.
In the aftermath of that meeting, many moderate and liberal clergy made clear they would not abide by the bans, and various groups worked throughout 2019 on proposals to let the UMC split along theological lines.
There have been at least four different proposals for how to implement a split.
The most widely discussed plan has a long name — the Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation — and some high-level support.
It was negotiated by 16 bishops and advocacy group leaders with differing views on LGBTQ inclusion. They were assisted by renowned mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who administered victim compensation funds stemming from the 9/11 attacks and the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the protocol, conservative congregations and regional bodies would be allowed to separate from the UMC and form a new denomination. They would receive $25 million in UMC funds and be able to keep their properties.
Formed in a merger in 1968, the UMC claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the United States. Leaders of the various factions have avoided making predictions of how many members might leave for a new denomination.
In hopes of minimizing friction, the protocol calls for a moratorium on enforcement of bans related to LGBTQ issues. Most bishops seem comfortable with that proposal, although Virginia-based Bishop Sharma Lewis approved initial disciplinary proceedings against a pastor in her region who officiated at a same-sex marriage.
There have been tangible benefits for one of the protocol negotiators, the Rev. David Meredith, who entered into a same-sex marriage with his long-time partner while serving as a pastor in Cincinnati.
The bishop of Meredith’s West Ohio region, Gregory Palmer, also served on the protocol team and endorsed the moratorium that freezes ongoing judicial proceedings against Meredith.
“Everything that has been a threat is now in a drawer collecting dust,” Meredith said.
Some conservatives worry that further flouting of the bans will occur ahead of the rescheduled national conference.
“For any clergy to try to use this interim to willfully violate their own vows … would demonstrate an extreme lack of integrity and self-control,” said John Lomperis, who works with the conservative Institute on Religion & Democracy and will be a delegate at next year’s conference.
Lomperis is among a faction of UMC conservatives, now eager to form a new denomination, who worry that bishops supporting LGBTQ inclusion will use the delay to tilt outcomes in their favor during decision-making by regional bodies.
The Rev. Tom Lambrecht, general manager of the conservative Methodist magazine Good News, said he and his allies have heard of instances where liberal pastors were appointed to lead conservative congregations and where small conservative churches were closed.
“We will be vigilant to call out such behavior after the coronavirus crisis passes,” Lambrecht said via email.
Some conservatives complain that the proposed $25 million payment to a new traditionalist denomination is unfairly small.
But the Rev. Tom Berlin of Herndon, Virginia, a supporter of LGBTQ inclusion who served on the protocol team, says the proposal is generous in allowing departing churches to keep their property.
“The majority of the wealth in the UMC is found in the real estate and bank accounts of the local churches,” he said. “The protocol allows them to retain that.”
Berlin says debate over LGBTQ policies “is on the back burner for now.”
“Once we get out of this, we’ll get back to the future of the UMC,” he said. “But now, churches of all varieties are working to respond to this pandemic in positive ways.”
Support for the protocol is far from unanimous, though its backers predict it will win majority support next year. One dissenting faction, known as the “liberationists,” believes the proposal doesn’t go far enough in curbing racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the UMC.
A leaders of that faction, the Rev. Jay Williams of Union Church in Boston, hopes local churches will use the coming year to “innovate and adapt” without awaiting top-down directives.
“I hope that we might claim this moment as an opportunity to courageously confront the systemic oppressions that have plagued our denomination since its beginning,” he said via email.
When the conference does convene, the African delegates will be a key voting bloc. In St. Louis, they were pivotal in approving the strengthened bans on LGBTQ-inclusive practices.
The Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association and one of the protocol negotiators, has met with many African delegates. He says they have pledged support for the protocol, but want some changes – for example, giving them the option of retaining the words “United Methodist” in the name of whatever new traditionalist body they join.
Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone, the lone African among the protocol negotiators, said the proposal was “by no means perfect” but seemed to be the most acceptable option.
In an email, he depicted the pandemic as “a holy call to action from God…. to make make Christian disciples for the transformation of the world.”
Brigham Young University in Utah has revised its strict code of conduct to strip a rule that banned any behavior that reflected “homosexual feelings,” which LGBTQ students and their allies felt created an unfair double standard not imposed on heterosexual couples.
The university is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches its members that being gay isn’t a sin, but engaging in same-sex intimacy is.
BYU’s revisions to what the college calls its honor code don’t change the faith’s opposition to same-sex relationships or gay marriage. The changes were discovered by media outlets Wednesday.
Students found out Wednesday, too. BYU student Franchesca Lopez, tweeting under the handle @fremlo_, wrote, “It’s confirmed. Gay dating is okay, kissing and hand holding from the mouth of an HCO [Honor Code Office] counselor,” and included a photo of her kissing a friend in front of the campus statue of Brigham Young.
I’m going to the honor code office as soon as I get out of class to make sure, but several people have confirmed that gay students can now date and it is not against the honor code
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said an email that the updated version of the code aligns with a new handbook of rules unveiled by the faith, widely known as the Mormon church. She didn’t elaborate on the thinking behind the change, saying only that the changes removed “prescriptive language” and “kept the focus on the principles of the Honor Code, which have not changed.”
The faith has tried to carve out a more compassionate stance toward LGBTQ people over the last decade, while adhering to its doctrinal belief that same-sex relationships are a sin.
An entire section in the code that was dedicated to “homosexual behavior” has been removed. The clause that upset people was the part that said “all forms of physical intimacy that that give expression to homosexual feelings” is prohibited.
Students had previously complained about the clause that was eliminated was interpreted to be a ban on gay couples holding hands or kissing. Those behaviors are allowed for heterosexual couples, though premarital sex is banned.
Former BYU student Addison Jenkins had advocated for years for the college to remove the language, which he said codified homophobic ideas. He said he’s glad the section is gone.
“It treats queer students the same as straight students, which is something we have been begging the university for,” said Jenkins, who is gay.
But he said he still has major concerns about how school administrators will implement the change after seeing BYU officials issue a series of tweets late Wednesday afternoon about what the college called some “miscommunication” about what the changes mean.
“The Honor Code Office will handle questions that arise on a case by case basis,” BYU tweeted. “For example, since dating means different things to different people, the Honor Code Office will work with students individually.”
BYU’s Honor Code bans other things that are commonplace at other colleges — including drinking, beards and piercings. Students who attend the university in Provo, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, agree to agreed to adhere to the code. Nearly all students are members of the faith. Punishments for violations range from discipline to suspension and expulsion.
Last year, several hundred students rallied to call on BYU officials to be more compassionate with punishments for honor code violators.
The code was criticized in 2016 by female students who spoke out against the school opening honor-code investigations of students who reported sexual abuses to police. The college changed the policy to ensure that students who report sexual abuse would no longer be investigated for honor code violations.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has doubled down on transgender Mormons with a new handbook that spells out the consequences for those who transition.
While it advises church members to treat transgender people with “sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love”, it also warns transgender people against any form of social transition.
“Gender is an essential characteristic of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness,” the chapter begins. “The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth.”
It continues: “Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex (‘sex reassignment’).
“Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.”
Any Mormon who attempts to transition their gender through “changes in dress, grooming, names, or pronouns intended to reflect a gender identity different from the one assigned at birth” will be subject to a plethora of restrictions “for the duration of this transition.”
These include receiving or exercising the priesthood, receiving or using a temple recommend, and receiving some Church callings.
Building on a statement by a top church leader last year that gender assigned at birth is eternal, the guidance reiterates that the Mormon priesthood, which is reserved for men, will not admit trans men.
Transgender people are assured that they are free to receive Church callings, temple recommends, and temple ordinances, as long as they agree not to pursue any medical, surgical, or social transition to the ‘opposite gender’.
Unsurprisingly, the Church also refuses to budge on its position on same-sex marriage (don’t do it). It states that “God’s law defines marriage as the legal and lawful union between a man and a woman”, and the only people who should be having sexual relations are a married heterosexual couple.
“Any other sexual relations, including those between persons of the same sex, are sinful and undermine the divinely created institution of the family,” the Church claims.
On the plus side, they will no longer consider same-sex marriages “apostasy” (rejection of church teaching) or deny baptism to children whose primary residence is with a same-sex couple.
Mike Heath, a long–time anti-LGBTQ activist in Maine who now runs Helping Hands Ministries, has been a regular participant in Dave Daubenmire’s daily program. On Friday, Daubnemire turned the mic over to Heath so that he could announce his plans.
“I’m going to do a world tour,” Heath announced. “The theme is ‘Faggots are Maggots.’ The tour is inspired by the work of Donald Trump. This isn’t satire. I’m serious. I started supporting Donald Trump early in the 2016 primary for one reason: He insults his enemies. He makes things personal that deserve to be personal.
“The decades of leftists being the only ones allowed to make everything personal are over. It’s long past time for WASP manners to take a back seat to the truth. Long past time. Faggots are indeed maggots. Maggots consume the rancid flesh of rotting dead things. Faggots are no different.”
Heath last appeared on JMG in 2016 when his Maine group launched a campaign to recriminalize homosexuality.
The US’s largest interdenominational Christian seminary is embroiled in a second discrimination lawsuit over its expulsion of a student for being in a same-sex marriage.
Two former students, Nathan Brittsan and Joanna Maxon, are each suing the Fuller Theological Seminary for $1 million, claiming that the college violated anti-discrimination laws.
The suit is believed to be the first of its kind, and its outcome could have wider implications for Christian colleges and universities who receive government funding.
Maxon launched legal action in November, saying that disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her when the school’s financial aid office flagged information from her tax returns which showed she had a same-sex spouse.
On January 7 she was joined by Brittsan, who is also a baptist pastor. He alleges that he was dismissed from the Christian school in 2017 when administrators learned of his same-sex marriage from a request to change his surname.
Brittsan later disclosed his marriage to another dean and a professor, but the suit says that he “was not informed that this discussion was actually part of an initial inquiry or investigation by Fuller into Nathan’s perceived community standards violation”.
The seminary’s community standards state that “sexual union must be reserved for marriage, which is the covenant union between one man and one woman, and that sexual abstinence is required for the unmarried”. It adds that premarital, extramarital, and homosexual sex are “inconsistent with the teaching of scripture”.
But even if the school is able to prove that Brittsan and Maxon engaged in the prohibited form of sexual conduct, the lawsuit argues that it had no right to discriminate against them under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act.
While certain religious colleges are eligible to apply for exemptions from Title IV, Fuller has not received such an exemption.
@MAKERSwomen Hello, I wanted to share with you this post from Joanna Maxon who posted this on what would have been her graduation day from @fullerseminary had they not kicked her out.
In addition to this, the information on Maxon’s tax returns was protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which prohibits the data being shared without the student’s consent or used for something the student didn’t authorise.
When Brittsan twice appealed his expulsion, the seminary actually disputed his enrolment. When he requested to see his disciplinary records, which were needed for him to appeal to the school’s Board of Trustees, the seminary disputed that they were required to release the records.
Leaders of the United Methodist Church, the second-largest Protestant domination in the nation, announced on Friday a plan that would formally split the church after years of division over same-sex marriage.
Under the plan, which would sunder a denomination with 13 million members worldwide, a new “traditionalist Methodist” denomination would be created, and would continue to ban same-sex marriage as well as the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy.
A separation in the Methodist church had been anticipated since a contentious general conference in St Louis last February, when 53 percent of church leaders and lay members voted to tighten the ban on same-sex marriage, declaring that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The plan, referred to as “Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation,” would need to be approved by the 2020 General Conference later this year before taking effect.
The church hopes that by splitting into two denominations, it can end or greatly reduce its decades-long struggle over how accepting to be of homosexuality.
“It became clear that the line in the sand had turned into a canyon,” said New York Conference Bishop Thomas Bickerton, who was among the diverse group of 16 church leaders who worked on the proposal. “The impasse is such that we have come to the realization that we just can’t stay that way any longer.”
A proposed conversion therapy ban in Utah is in danger of being derailed after The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints came out in opposition, just months after it said it wouldn’t stand in the way of a similar measure under consideration. The church said in a statement that the regulatory rule prohibiting Utah psychologists from engaging in LGBTQ conversion therapy with minors would fail to safeguard religious beliefs and doesn’t account for “important realities of gender identity in the development of children.”
State regulators crafted the rule at the request of Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, a member of the church, who in June asked for a set of rules after a similar bill died in the Legislature despite the church not taking a position. The church’s statement strikes a blow to the hopes of LGBTQ advocates hoping Utah could join 18 states that have enacted laws banning or restricting conversion therapy that’s opposed by the American Psychological Association.
Pope Francis met privately Monday with an American Jesuit who has been attacked by conservative U.S. Catholics for reaching out to gays, the latest evidence of Francis’ willingness to shrug off right-wing criticism for the sake of his pastoral priorities.
The Vatican listed the audience with the Rev. James Martin among the pope’s daily activities, in a sign that Francis wanted it publicized. Since only some of Francis’ private meetings are announced, the implicit message was a public vote of confidence in Martin’s ministry.
Martin, author of “Building a Bridge,” a book about how the Catholic Church should reach out more to the LGBTQ community, has had several talks canceled in the United States because of pressure from conservative groups who oppose his advocacy. The Vatican under Francis has welcomed him, however, appointing him as a communications consultant, giving him a speaking slot at a 2018 Vatican-sponsored family rally and now a private papal audience.
In a tweet, Martin said during the 30-minute meeting, he shared with Francis “the joys and hopes, and the griefs and anxieties, of LGBT Catholics and LGBT people worldwide.”
In a telephone interview, Martin said Francis listened intently to his presentation, delivered in Spanish, about the struggles of LGBTQ Catholics “and how many of them still feel marginalized” by the church.
“I felt encouraged, consoled and inspired by our meeting,” he said. “It was like talking to the most compassionate parish priest you can imagine.”
Official church teaching calls for gay men and lesbians to be respected and loved, but considers homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered.” Francis, though, has sought to make the church more welcoming to gays, most famously with his 2013 comment “Who am I to judge?”
The Argentine Jesuit also has spoken of his own ministry to gay and transgender people, insisting they are children of God, loved by God and deserving of accompaniment by the church.
Some conservative Catholics, especially in the U.S., have accused Martin of blasphemy and of spreading a “homosexualist” agenda. Many of them belong to the small but loud Francis opposition — a wing that the pope recently acknowledged when he told reporters that he was “honored” to be attacked by Americans and wasn’t afraid of schism by conservatives in the U.S. church.
In a tweet, Rorate Caeli, a traditionalist blog that has been critical of Francis, noted that Martin’s audience was listed alongside that of an entire bishops’ conference. “If that’s not an endorsement, nothing is,” read the tweet.
Damian Thompson, associate editor at Britain’s The Spectator, a conservative newsmagazine, said Francis’ aim in meeting with Martin was “intended to taunt the U.S. conservatives that he demonizes.”
Many of Francis’ critics argue he has confused the faithful with his mercy-over-morals priorities and flexibility on doctrinal issues such as sacraments for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
New Ways Ministry, a Catholic ministry for the LGBTQ community, praised the audience and said it showed that Martin’s ministry was being recognized and valued at the highest levels of the church.
“It is a clear signal that Pope Francis is calling the church to conversion away from the negative messages it has sent in the past about LGBTQ people,” said the head of New Ways Ministry, Francis DeBernardo. “It is a day of celebration for LGBTQ Catholics who have longed for an outstretched hand of welcome from the church that they love.”
Martin was in Rome for the plenary meeting of the Vatican’s communications department, as well as for the consistory Saturday to name 13 new cardinals.
Since coming out in Spring this year, Sean Cormie had been asked repeatedly by his family to attend a service at their church, in Oklahoma, and to bring along his boyfriend, Gary Gardner.
Cormie told News 4: “I wanted to go to church to make my mom proud and make her happy.”
But towards the end of the service at the pentecostal church, First Assembly of God Blackwell, the pastor began making statements against homosexuality and the couple were surrounded by between 12 and 15 people praying over them, getting louder and louder.
According to Cormie, the pastor said: “It’s a sin, it’s an abomination, you need to realise, wake up, and see it for a sin.”
Gardner managed to leave, but when Cormie tried to follow he said he was thrown to the ground, punched in the face and held down while the congregation prayed for him.
He said: “They hold me down, pin me down, and I’m crying, and the Holy Spirit just comes through me, and they keep speaking in tongues, praying over me. I was just crying, ‘mercy, mercy’.”
Gardner told another outlet, News 9, his boyfriend “ended up with marks on his arms, a black eye and sort of blacked out”.
The couple have reported the incident to the police. The Blackwell police chief confirmed to News 4 that the incident is being investigated but would make no further comment.
First Assembly of God Blackwell in Oklahoma, where the couple say the attack took place. (News 4)
The church released a statement saying: “First Assembly is a congregation that loves and is comprised of people from all different backgrounds.
“In response to allegations that have been made, this incident began as a family matter that escalated. Our church would never condone restraint of any person unless they were engaged in violent activity.
“There is much more to this story, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement to bring all of the facts to light as a rush to judgment is not in anyone’s best interest.”The church is one of a large group of churches called Assemblies of God, which said in a statement on homosexuality: “There is also abundant evidence that homosexual behaviour, along with illicit heterosexual behaviour, is immoral and comes under the judgment of God…
“The Assemblies of God affirms the sexual complementarity of man and woman and teaches that any and all same-sex sexual attractions are to be resisted.
