Laurie Goodstein

For Bianco, a layman in charge of managing St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, the break-in was just another terrifying omen. Two weeks earlier, someone tried to set the sanctuary doors on fire before the early Sunday Mass. Before that, a stranger swung a punch at Bianco after Mass one day. For months he had received anonymous phone calls and letters with messages like “Sodomites not welcome in the church.”

Located in the heart of San Diego’s largest gay neighborhood, St. John the Evangelist is one of about 300 Catholic parishes around the country that quietly welcome gay Catholics. Although the Catholic church teaches that same-sex relationships are sinful, growing pockets of the church have accepted openly gay parishioners, staff members and even priests.

But since this summer, when the church faced renewed allegations of clergy sexual abuse, these gay-friendly parishes and church workers have been facing a hostile backlash. Some bishops and conservative Catholic media outlets immediately blamed the crisis on homosexuality, fueling a campaign to purge the church of gay clergy members and church workers.

More than 1,700 people signed a petition started in August demanding that the archbishop of Atlanta “remove priests who promote the LGBT agenda from public ministry” and stop supporting parishes known to welcome gay people. In Chicago, a priest burned a rainbow flag and led parishioners in a “prayer of exorcism.” For the first time, protesters showed up outside an annual spiritual retreat of gay priests in Wisconsin in October. In November, bishops attending a conference in Baltimore were greeted by Catholics holding signs saying “All Homosexual Cardinals, Bishops and Priests MUST RESIGN!”

As the church struggles to respond to the growing crisis over sex abuse — with investigations looming nationwide — gay priests and church workers have become scapegoats, even though most experts who have studied the problem in the church have found no links between sexual orientation and a propensity for abuse. At stake is whether the nascent efforts around the country to welcome gay people into the church will continue, or diminish under pressure from conservative critics.

In San Diego, at St. John the Evangelist, the pressure boiled over, with serious consequences.

Bianco, who is married to a man, spent years working to revive the dwindling church. When he started, about 2 1/2 years ago, there were only about 40 people at a weekend Mass, said the pastor at the time, John P. Dolan, who is now an auxiliary bishop in San Diego. Many of the congregants were elderly. There were no weddings or baptisms scheduled, and no religious education classes.

Working at the church was in some ways the perfect challenge for Bianco, who had studied for the priesthood in Rome for six years, but reconsidered after Pope John Paul II said that gay men should not be priests.

Instead, Bianco took positions open to laypeople: director of religious education, Catholic schoolteacher, parish administrator. He briefly worked for Call to Action, a church reform group, on a project to help people fired from their jobs as Catholic schoolteachers, music directors, and pastoral associates because they are gay. At St. John’s, Bianco became the parish’s pastoral associate, arriving just as the church was being encouraged by Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego to start a ministry for LGBT people.

McElroy said in a recent interview that the effort was guided by Pope Francis’ vision. “What the pope wants us to do,” McElroy said, “is build that person’s relationship to God, with love and mercy and compassion.”

Francis has veered between sounding accepting and critical of LGBT people, supplying the church’s opposing flanks with plenty of ammunition.

McElroy said that the pope was steering the church toward a “middle course” between liberals who want the church “to dismantle” its teachings against homosexuality and conservatives who want to make opposition to homosexuality “a litmus test for what makes one a faithful Catholic.”

For five months, Bianco and Dolan met with community and church members to create an outreach strategy. They left flyers on doors, and invited new members to form choirs and sing at Mass. Young families joined. Many of the new members were straight, and many Hispanic.

“LGBT people started to trickle in, but with reservations,” said Richard Peterson, a gay parishioner who leads the LGBT ministry at the church. “People older than me had been very hurt, but they began to take a chance on the church. And they told their friends.”

The changes did not sit well with some of the older members, especially a handful of traditionalists who prayed the rosary there daily, according to interviews with parishioners and staff members. In a piece on the conservative website Church Militant, two people who claimed to be parishioners — but who did not reveal their names — accused Bianco of locking out the rosary group, which he denies. The website called Bianco, McElroy, Dolan and Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles part of a “homosexualist cabal” that was persecuting Catholic traditionalists. Commenters called Bianco a pederast.

Several parishioners known to be opposed to the LGBT ministry and to Bianco did not respond to requests for interviews.

In the summer of 2017, the friction became worse when Dolan was made an auxiliary bishop, leaving Bianco in charge of the parish.

That’s when Bianco says he began receiving threatening phone calls at the church about every other day, from blocked numbers. There were angry notes left on his car, and one day he came out and found every tire had been punctured. A security camera captured a man with dark hair, but few other details.

“They keep on saying that I have an agenda, but the only agenda I had was to bring people to Christ,” said Bianco in an interview. “I know that sounds kind of hokey, but that’s why I started this work. I do believe that everyone is welcome.”

Bianco’s work began to show. In October 2017, the pews were packed with people attending a special Mass for gay Catholics and their friends and families. It was held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of “Always Our Children,” a pastoral message by a committee of American bishops that many regard as their most accepting statement ever about gay people.

“There were tears all over the place,” said Tom Kirkman, a participant in the LGBT ministry, who wrote an account of the Mass for a local gay newspaper. “I was very pleased because I had graduated from a Catholic school, I taught the faith for 18 years, and I felt unwanted. So it was a very welcoming feeling.”

Protesters also attended the Mass, but soon after, the threats gradually died down. Bianco said, “I believed they were leaving me alone.”

But everything changed after this past summer, when a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a report documenting sexual abuse by hundreds of priests. That followed allegations that the former cardinal of Washington had sexually abused boys and adult men studying to be priests.

In the fall, McElroy held “listening sessions” in parishes about the abuse scandal. Some in attendance shouted at him to fire Bianco and to pledge not to ordain gay priests. The bishop said he had responded that all priests have to remain celibate, adding, “I’m not going to discriminate against men who are homosexual in orientation.”

At St. John’s, the pace of the threats increased, church staff members said. After the attempted arson and the break-in, the church installed security doors. The San Diego Police Department confirmed that there have been at least five police reports made about incidents at St. John’s, and they are investigating two, including the attempt to punch Bianco, as hate crimes.

Bianco said FBI agents have met with him and appear to be investigating the incidents. The local FBI field office in San Diego declined to comment.

Articles showing pictures of Bianco, with his husband and his late mother, appeared in articles in Church Militant and another website read by conservatives called Lifesite News.

When they published his home address, that was the last straw for Bianco. Fearing for his safety, he submitted his resignation to McElroy. Bianco said that while the people who run the websites likely did not perpetrate the attacks, “their unfounded rhetoric and lies about me” may have incited others.

McElroy said he accepted the resignation with “great regret” because Bianco had been effective in ministry. In a statement printed on the front of the weekly bulletin at St. John’s, the bishop said, “There is nothing Christian or Catholic about the hateful and vile people whose persecution of Aaron Bianco drove him from his ministry.”

At Sunday Mass the next week, a young, straight Hispanic father whom Bianco had counseled was baptized a Catholic. Bianco was gone, but more than two dozen members of the LGBT ministry he had started were there in the pews.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/29/us/catholic-church-gay-members.html" id="32b889af-b5d3-398d-a0c8-20e4e050e43a">The New York Times</a>.

SAN DIEGO — When Antonio Aaron Bianco arrived for work at his Roman Catholic Church office on a recent Monday morning, he was rattled to discover that someone had broken into the conference room and spray-painted a message in large yellow letters on the wall. It said “No Fags.”

Hostility Greets Gay Catholic Church Workers

For Bianco, a gay layman in charge of managing St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, the break-in was just another terrifying omen. Two weeks earlier, someone tried to set the sanctuary doors on fire before the early Sunday Mass. Before that, a stranger swung a punch at Bianco after Mass one day. For months he had received anonymous phone calls and letters with messages like “Sodomites not welcome in the church.”

But after this summer, when the church faced renewed allegations of clergy sexual abuse, some bishops and conservative Catholic media outlets immediately blamed the crisis on homosexuality. That set off a backlash, fueling a campaign to purge the church of gay clergy members and church workers.

Hostility Torments Gay Catholic Church Workers

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Laurie Goodstein

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Hostility Greets Gay Catholic Church Workers

Hostility Torments Gay Catholic Church Workers