Readers Write and I Respond: The Book Project

In what I just posted about Steve's and my religious transition right at present, I told you that I would also pick up the thread of previous discussions of a book I might write about the story of how our careers as Catholic theologians who happen to be gay were destroyed by Catholic pastoral leaders. I appreciate very much the encouragement of a number of you to me to write such a book, and your offers to help me as I do so.

The Rest of the Story at Belmont Abbey College: Aftermath to the Destruction of Two Careers (Claims That the College's Catholicity Had Waned, Reassertion of Direct Monastic Control)

And then down the road, this happened at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina after that college and the monastery that owns it shattered my vocation as a Catholic theologian:

Why I Told Our Story, and What I Expect As a Result: Stuff Happens in Club Catholic

So what to do with our stories? To be specific, what to do with the story I've shared with you in the past few days — the 1993 and 1994 documents chronicling in great detail how Catholic pastoral officials decisively shattered my theological vocation and that of my partner (now my husband)?

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story — A Sequel

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

In the past three days, I've posted (in three installments — here, here, and here) a letter I sent to friends and colleagues in September 1993, explaining why I had resigned my position at Belmont Abbey College after I was given a one-year terminal contract for which the college officials refused to provide a reason. This is a sequel to that letter I sent to the same friends and colleagues in February 1994 — an update to the September letter:

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story (3)

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

This is the third and final installment of a document I've now shared in my two previous postings. For parts one and two of the document, please click here and here. As those two postings explain, this is a letter that I sent on 29 September 1993 to friends and colleagues in many places, telling them that I had resigned my position at Belmont Abbey college after I had received a one-year terminal contract that the college's officials refused to explain.  

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story (2)

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

As I explained yesterday, this is (part 2 of) a letter that I sent on 29 September 1993 to friends and colleagues in many places, telling them that I had resigned my position at Belmont Abbey college after I had received a one-year terminal contract that the college's officials refused to explain. Part one of the letter is at the link I've just provided. As I also said yesterday, I'm sharing this letter now because 1) I've never shared it on this blog, 2) some of you have asked about Steve's and my story, 3) I think stories like this need to be documented, since many LGBT employees of Catholic institutions have been and continue to be treated this way, and 4) nothing the synod says about mercy means a hill of beans until such stories are engaged and the harm done by Catholic institutions to LGBT people mended. Here's the next installment:

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story (1)

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

Since I've compiled a set of links here that point readers back to postings I've made about the shattering of my career as a lay Catholic theologian, and that of my husband Steve, by Belmont Abbey College and the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early 1990s, and since some of you have expressed an interest in learning more of that story, I've decided to share with you a document that tells in detail precisely what happened to me at Belmont Abbey College. This is a letter I sent on 29 September 1993 to friends and colleagues in many places, telling them that I had resigned my position at the college after I had received a one-year terminal contract that the college's officials refused to explain.

As the Synod Meets, Story of the Shattering of Careers of Two Gay Theologians by Catholic Officials: A Complete Set of Links to Previous Postings Here

Dear Folks,

I told you yesterday I should gather together the links I've posted now in two sets, providing information about my story — about how my career as a lay Catholic theologian and that of my husband have been shattered by Catholic pastoral leaders, with never any explanation of why they have done this to us. I've now gathered those links together in one list arranged chronologically (in the order in which I wrote them). I think one of these may not have appeared in either of the two previous postings.

More Links to Past Postings in Which I've Told My Story Here — The Shattering of Careers of Two Gay Theologians by Catholic Officials

I don't mean to bombard you kind folks with lots of links telling my personal story — the painful details of how Catholic officials shattered my vocation and that of my husband Steve as Catholic theologians in the early 1990s. But since Electra indicated to me several days ago that she had not heard these details, and since that suggests to me there may be other readers of this blog who also have not heard them, I've been trying to gather together a list of previous postings here in which I tell the story.

In Case You Have Not Yet Heard My Story (I Alluded to It in My Previous Posting Today), Some Links for You

A week ago, Electra asked in a comment here if I had shared details of my story on this blog. The story I mean is the one to which I just alluded when I noted that the leaders of the Catholic church have given my husband and me (and many LGBT Catholics) a loud, clear, decisive message that we count for nothing at all in their scheme of things, in their merciful church, at their table stacked with bread for the world.

Charlotte Catholic High School Controversy: "I Began to Realize That the Abuse Crisis Was Rooted in a Profound, Widespread, Deep, and Systemic Betrayal of Pastoral Office in the Catholic Church"

Thanks to all of you who have been willing to listen (in some cases, again) to my cri de coeur to Bishop William J. Curlin of Charlotte in the 1990s, as I sought a pastoral response from him — any pastoral response — to actions by a Catholic institution in his diocese that effectively (and deliberately) ended my career as a Catholic theologian. As anyone reading the chronicle I've been posting in the past few days in light of the controversy sparked by Sister Jane Dominic Laurel at Charlotte Catholic High School knows, nothing happened in response to my letters to Curlin.

Charlotte Catholic High School Controversy: More Excerpts from My Letters to Charlotte Bishop William J. Curlin in Latter Half of 1990s

Okay, if it's not a total bore for those who have been reading this blog for some time now, I think I will offer some more excerpts from my letters to Bishop William J. Curlin of Charlotte in the period 1995-1999. I would say, "my correspondence with Bishop Curlin," but I can't really say that, can I, when he never even acknowledged any of my letters, let alone replied to any of them?

Agni Asks If I Go to Church: Another Excerpt from My Letters to the Bishop of Charlotte — Eucharistic Bread and Daily Bread Connected

In a comment here yesterday responding to my posting about the recent uproar in the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, Agni asks if I attend a Catholic church in Arkansas. I replied to Agni, trying to condense a lot of information into the brief space of a combox.

Charlotte Catholic High School Controversy: "May God Send You Many Outspoken Truth-Tellers and Holy Trouble-Makers"

With what has just happened in the diocese of Charlotte (I blogged about the controversy Sister Jane Dominic Laurel stirred with prejudice-laden statements about gay folks at Charlotte Catholic High School last week, and about the pushback of students and parents), how can I not think of the letter I wrote to the previous bishop of Charlotte, William J. Curlin, on 22 March 1997 as Steve and my mother and I left the Charlotte diocese?

A Note of Profound Thanks for Your Emails

As the work week ends, a note of profound thanks to those of you who sent many very welcome emails to me in response to my posting Tuesday. I'm in Houston visiting my uncle and have fallen a bit behind with email. And I don't want those who sent me messages to think I'm ungrateful or ignoring you. I will be catching up with email very soon.

Shepherds, Sheep, Listening, Caring: More on the Santa Clara Conference on Catholic Abuse

And as a companion piece to what I just posted about Richard Sipe's presentation to the Santa Clara conference on sexual abuse in the Catholic church: at National Catholic Reporter last week, Joshua McElwee provides an overview of the event and what its primary speakers said.  As McElwee notes, Father Tom Reese defined the core theme of the conference through the following trenchant observation:

Donald Cozzens to Bishops Accusing Elizabeth Johnson: Step Up and Let Yourselves Be Seen

I'm struck today by a number of articles that seem to me to offer interesting perspectives on topics I've discussed here in the past.  And so I think I'll do one of those "in the news" series of postings, catching up on issues from previous postings.

Bearing Witness: Healing the Tear in the Soul of American Catholicism--A Call for National Dialogue (2)

This post continues the one preceding it:

So here’s what happened.  When I wrote the first edition of the ethics textbook in 1989 and the Catholic lay ministry program that commissioned the work published it, the program director told me he had sent the textbook in draft to various American bishops around the country.  All of whom (or their chancellors), without exception, wrote back to tell him the textbook was a fine, sound foundation for teaching fundamental ethics to Catholic lay ministry students.  The only negative letter, I was told, came from a chancellor in a diocese on the East Coast who had a long history of attacking this particular lay ministry program.

Bearing Witness: Healing the Tear in the Soul of American Catholicism--A Call for National Dialogue (1)

This is a post I find difficult to write.  Part of the reason for the difficulty is that this is a story that can be told from several different angles.  And because I have a tendency to go all over the map with a narrative line, and to try to connect every possible dot, I hesitate to launch into the narrative.

I also intend—as with everything I write on this blog—to tell the gospel truth.  And that means watching every word I write, like a hawk, to be sure it rings with the truth I know I’m called to tell here.  And which is exceedingly slippery, because that’s the nature of truth: it’s elusive.  And we’re self-serving and see only the shining edges we want to see.

The Refusal of Bishops to Be Good Shepherds: Deep Roots of Abuse Crisis, the Rest of the Story

And so the rest of the story: yesterday, I shared excerpts from a series of letters I wrote to the bishop of Charlotte, North Carolina, William J. Curlin, in the 1990s, in which I asked him to meet with me as a member of his diocese whose vocation as a theologian had been smashed by Belmont Abbey College, and whose livelihood and health care coverage had been taken away in the process.  Without any explanation for these actions.

I told Bishop Curlin that my faith—in the church as an institution—was radically undermined by what this Catholic institution had done to me.  I told him I found myself unable to partake of the Eucharist any longer, when priests can stand at the altar offering holy bread to the people of God, after having removed daily bread from our mouths.  With no explanation for their actions.