Our AIM Musings will be hosting a community group to study and discuss “Recognition of LGBTIQ+ Persons in the Church,” a recent publication from Cristianisme I Justícia. There will be three in-person sessions. Becoming affirming can be one part of the theological journey, but what comes next?
We will look at the following:
- Why has it been so difficult for the Catholic church to reach out to LGBTQ people?
- Why does the church lag so far behind secular organizations, and even other churches, that have made this community feel more welcome?
- Why is the church so slow to try to help and protect a group of people who are often at risk of harassment, and violence?
- Do Catholics see LGBTQ people as beloved children of God?
Pastoral outreach to LGBTQ Catholics is not simply a fad, or a passing trend, or even something responding to “pressures” from the culture, but a constitutive work of the Church and a mission that finds its ultimate roots in the Gospels. (From the foreword by James Martin SJ.)
First: Thursday, May 18, 2023, at 6:00 – 8:00 PM (EDT)
Location: Our Lady of Lourdes – 520 Sherbourne St., Toronto.
Please join us
To facilitate discussion, please bring the text in whatever format you wish.
Download the CJ Booklet here
Descarga el CJ booklet aqui
Author
Montserrat Escribano
PhD in Philosophy, European Mention and Extraordinary Doctorate Award 2016-2017, Universitat de València. Master’s Degree in Ethics and Democracy. Degree in Theology, Faculty of Theology and Degree in Humanities, Universitat de València. Lecturer at the Faculty of Theology “San Vicente Ferrer”. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Society of Women Theological Research (ESWTR) and until last year of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Association of Women Theologians (ATE). She is a member of the College Theology Society (CTS) and the Bioethics Research Group of the University of Valencia (GIBUV). She is also a member of the editorial board of the magazine Iglesia Viva and of the training team of Cáritas diocesana de València.
Enric Vilà i Lanao
Graduate in theology, specializing in Bible from the Facultat de Teologia de Catalunya. Graduate in Business Studies (M.B.A) from ESADE and Master’s Degree in Management of Non-Profit Organisations (ESALS) from the University of Barcelona (UB). Deputy Director of the LGTBI Centre of Barcelona. Member of the Associació Cristiana de Lesbianes i Gais de Catalunya (ACGIL) and the European Forum of LGTBI Christian Groups. Author of Bíblia i homosexualitat. L’exegesi dels textos (2012), Solidaricémonos juntos (2013) and L’esclavatge a la Bíblia. El miracle de Jesus al criat del centurió a Mt 8,6-13 i paral.lels(2016). Contributor to Cristianisme i Justicia and the magazine Iglesia Viva.
James Martin
Jesuit priest, writer, and editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America. In 2017, Pope Francis appointed Martin as a consultant to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications. Martin’s outreach to the LGBT community has drawn both support and backlash from within the Catholic Church. This is the subject of his book Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity. In 2021, a documentary film about Martin’s LGBT ministry, also called Building a Bridge, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
