Terry Weldon on the Listening Church and Catholic Conference on Sexual Diversity

A don't-miss posting by Terry Weldon at his Queering the Church blog earlier this week: "Theology from Below: Catholic Conference on Sexual Diversity."  Terry notes that, though the Catholic church has declared itself to be a "listening church," it has failed to set up structures at any official level for the process by which the graced, Spirit-led experience of lay Catholics can be communicated to the hierarchical leaders of the church.  Particularly in the area of human sexuality . . . .

And so he welcomes the attempt of a coalition of academic groups to set up a conference for precisely that purpose--the conference on sexual diversity to which his headline refers.  I particularly like the picture Terry has chosen to illustrate the listening process. 

And I think he's absolutely on track to note the (intentional?) lack of any formal listening process in our "listening church," and the significant contributions groups like the one organizing the conference on sexual diversity are making to the church, when the hierarchy have (intentionally?) dropped the ball on establishing procedures and formal mechanisms by which lay Catholics can communicate our graced, Spirit-led experience to the church's teachers, particularly vis-a-vis matters of sexuality.