The Catholic church, which includes 1.2 billion people worldwide and about half a million in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, has largely not accepted LGBTQ+ people.
Some reformers within the church, including Pope Francis, have in recent years tried to strike a friendlier tone. According to national polls, Catholics have slowly become more accepting of LGBTQ+ people, and individual Catholic parishes have welcomed LGBTQ+ members. But the church’s official doctrine, as spelled out in a “universal law” document called the Catechism, still posits that homosexuality is “intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law,” and that queer people are “objectively disordered….”
East Bay Catholic schools are seen by many as having more progressive cultures than Catholic schools in other parts of the country. Schools like Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School, for example, have had openly LGBTQ+ staff for decades. Pride flags have been flown in classrooms at least as far back as the mid-1990s. One LGBTQ+ club has existed for at least 10 years at St. Joe’s, according to teachers at the school. At O’Dowd there has been an LGBTQ+ club for more than 25 years. Gay rights pioneers have been celebrated during spirit weeks at both schools. And in some Bay Area Catholic schools, like St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda and Bishop O’Dowd, LGBTQ+ faculty and students have long been viewed, and even welcomed, as part of the human tapestry, just as non-Catholic students like Jews and atheists are.
We spoke to nearly a dozen St. Joseph’s students for this story. They told us they’re worried that guidance that East Bay Catholic leaders have been considering would amount to a setback for their school communities, abandoning some of the progress that’s been made in the Bay Area around acceptance of LGBTQ+ people….
“We never felt directly excluded,” one current St. Joseph’s student who identifies as a member of the school’s LGBTQ+ community told us. They said that there were never any worries about displaying a pride flag on campus before this year.
“It was not a big deal,” another St. Joe’s student who has friends in the school’s LGBTQ+ community said in an interview over Zoom.
“Using they or them pronouns is really common,” a younger student told us. “Even though teachers don’t ask all the time, they sometimes will use the right pronouns. We have some gender-neutral bathrooms [too].”
Another student, who spoke to us outside the school alongside his mother, told us that the school always appeared to be a learning environment first and foremost, and not a place for cultural battles to be fought. Restrictive gender guidance, he said, “has nothing to do with education.”
According to the students we spoke with, the tone at St. Joseph’s started to around the time Mario Rizzo took over as the head priest at the campus church in 2020. Earlier this year, when rumors began to swirl about new guidance on gender and sex that the Oakland Diocese was considering, the climate became much more tense.
From the Oaklandside
Parents are too woke and afraid to tell their own kids that active homosexual lifestyles lead to eternal damnation. Now that’s a crackdown.
Yes, I think parents, inundated by LGBTQ+ ideology, feel obliged to affirm their child’s gender dysphoria and once committed to that position cannot back down without losing face. So in joining the swelling ranks of the insane, they do risk their souls.
The small minority is trying to push their agenda on the majority. Shame shame shame.
All students are welcome and should be safe. (As all are welcome at every Catholic Mass.) That doesn’t mean all behaviors are good or acceptable. Sex belongs in the context of marriage. Sex outside of that, straight or gay, is sin, which is destructive to human well being, now and possibly eternally. Do their clubs and pride events teach that all persons are called to chastity? If they honestly believe some sex outside of marriage is okay, might they be honest enough to admit that?
This has nothing to do with sex.
Did you read the article?
It is long but worth the read.
The homosexual pride lifestyle is about sex
I accidentally gave you a thumbs down when it should have been a thumbs up. Sorry.
If you think the rainbow flag, LGBT, “pride” and gay visibility have nothing to do with sex, you are naive. It’s all and primarily about gaining approval for disordered sexual acts. Do you think gay marriages are just socially ratified, platonic friendships?
Who do you really think is getting laid more-heterosexual high school students or homosexual or trans high school students?
“This has nothing to do with sex. Did you read the article?” Dear Long but worth it, the article is not long but is quite revealing about the non-binary, trans-craze that has swept over the landscape. The article assumes such students are normal and have no need of therapy/conversion. A student quotes reflect this: “A lot of my friends are nonbinary, and they’re just people. It’s not anything different to me,” they said.
“These are just normal people trying to live their lives. And there’s nothing wrong with them,” another student who does not identify as LGBTQ+ said. Traditional Christian anthropology is viewed as a virus invading the healthy student body at progressive campuses. Sympathy is not with the Church but with the LGBTQ+ status quo, allowed to develop unchecked for years by progressive administrators. So the genie is out of the bottle and the Church can at best look very bad with any attempt to pursue a Christian view. Now back to the claim, “This has nothing to do with sex.” Unless you suppose that these students are all virgins, you must admit that the article has everything to do with sex; it’s just that the subject lies beneath the exterior crust of student sexual identity and school policy.
either you seek truth or you seek lies.
Non binary people are people. They are usually young and it can mean different things.
Please remember that young people (under 25 years of age) are still figuring themselves out.
We can tell them “God made them male and female” but I do not think that for somebody that is having gender issues that will be helpful.
So the next process could be :”If God only makes male and female, who made me?”
So we know that God makes everybody but not everybody knows that.
And then “did God make me wrong?”
God does not make mistakes.
“Then why am I like this?”
We don’t know.
Some will say “You are not like that.”
“Was it something my parents did?”
“Is there a way to change? do I need to change?”
You cannot just tell people to look between their legs, identify with that. If it was that simple they would not have the problem.
see, this is what they have to endure.
Do people walk up to you and tell you not to molest children? or masturbate? or cheat on your wife?
If I created a flag for burglars signifying burglar identity and wore it, if I shouted “burglar pride” at public gatherings and tried to recruit people to become burglar allies, I’m sure people would look at me with suspicion and maybe even tell me a thing or two about how stealing is wrong.
Yes, stealing is a choice. A burglar is someone who is making a choice.
LGBTQ people could be making sinful choices, but not necessarily.
LGBTQ is identity not behavior.
Everyone can be making sinful choices.
Do you walk up to married couples and tell them not to use birth control or have kinky escapades?
So you walk up to priests and tell them not to miss praying their office?
“LGBTQ is identity not behavior.” One’s behavior is inseparable from one’s identity. For example, a male wanting to be a female will want to look and act like a female, and in the case of athletics, may delight in assuming the persona of a female in order to gain personal glory over true females. All of this is a vote of no confidence in God the Creator, as is also the case of binary people not wanting to embrace their God-given gender. Homosexual persons may indeed live chastely and honorably before God, but this means identity leads to behavior; or they may not live chastely and honorably before God, and when not may spread grievous errors when they are in positions of influence. For such activists the great motivating factor is the legitimizing of homosexuality everywhere, so for them identity leads to behavior. What these LGBTQ students want is for their identity and behavior to be accepted and legitimized — the whole school as a safe zone if you will– as if the Christian faith has nothing to say about this except to validate this one desire.
All ideology aside, it is never smart to tell teenagers that they are permanently and fatally flawed. The outcomes are bad.
Sorry Dan, you usually things through but not this time. I assume you identify as heterosexual. Does that mean that everyone walks around assuming you are having heterosexual sex, because in your mind sexual, “behavior is inseparable from one’s identity”. Or should we not assume you identify as heterosexual?
“Sorry Dan, you usually think things through but not this time. I assume you identify as heterosexual. Does that mean that everyone walks around assuming you are having heterosexual sex, because in your mind sexual, “behavior is inseparable from one’s identity”. Or should we not assume you identify as heterosexual?” YFC, I am a heterosexual single Christian (my identity) from which you may correctly infer that I refrain from sex (my behavior as a function of my identity). That said, I don’t think anyone cares enough about my personal life to hazard a guess on my behavior even if they knew my identity. But they are inextricably linked. May I thank you for your opening compliment about my usually thinking things through? And I agree with you — there are times when I fail in this endeavor, as others are quick to point out.
The bishop should fire any principal who allows pride flags or other gay propaganda and gay-affirming ideology to be taught or endorsed.
Catholicism and LGBT ideology are incompatible and mutually exclusive. If you have pride flags at a school, it’s not Catholic despite what the name might claim.
A big problem in Catholic schools is that many administrators and teachers are not Catholic in faith.
Parents speak up or schools will be taken over by a very small minority that’s beyond radical! Pray for our children.
All are welcome in the Catholic Church…on CHRIST’S TERMS! We come to church to be led by Christ, not to demand that Christ be led by us.
They do not need to be welcomed. They have been Catholic since their baptism. They are not asking for approval for sex.
Gay or lesbian Catholics who regularly engage in sexual activity or are partners in a committed personal relationship or civil union which includes regular sexual relations are considered members of the Church living outside the boundaries of a chaste single life. They are free to participate in some but not all aspects of the Catholic faith community.
For example, if you are a gay or lesbian Catholic who regularly and intentionally engages in sexual activity, you may…
attend Mass, but not receive Holy Communion or have a civil union recognized as a sacramental marriage.
participate in communal celebrations of Reconciliation and, if you wish, visit privately with a priest in Confession about your spiritual life or your status in the Church.
celebrate the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick when in danger of death.
have a Catholic funeral and be buried in a Catholic cemetery unless the bishop or pastor determines that doing so would cause public scandal.
participate in the public spiritual and social life of the parish, but not serve in public ministries or leadership positions.
have your children baptized and enrolled in a Catholic school or religious education program.
serve as an official witness at a Catholic marriage, but not as a catechist, teacher, Godparent or Confirmation sponsor.
The Church is an inclusive community. We do not generally expect individuals to reveal personal information which is secondary to our common identity as sisters and brothers in Christ. As a gay or lesbian Catholic, you are always free to discern to whom and under what circumstances you wish to acknowledge your sexual orientation.
From Waterloocatholic
Catholics of the Oakland diocese deserve an explanation about how this irregular situation is being handled, at least confirmation that discussions of this serious moral nightmare are underway
First we overlook evil.
Then we permit evil.
Then we legalize evil.
Then we promote evil.
Then we celebrate evil.
Then we persecute those who still call it evil.”
It’s no wonder young people and those poorly catechised think this is ok. What kind of double message are we giving people in the church?
Gay Catholics have a difficult work to do in the Church and need support. Chaste people of any identity find themselves alone and excluded a lot.
Just telling them to hide will drive them to Churches where everything you mention is happening.
At Archbishop Mitty High School the students were taught by religion teachers that gay rights is the civil rights struggle of the students’ generation. They were openly encouraged to view gay rights and equality as equivalent to the struggle of blacks for racial equality. When they are indoctrinated like that, the students believe that supporting anything LGBT is like supporting blacks in the 1960s, and they view opposition to LGBT rights the same way they view racism. That’s what Catholic schools are teaching kids about LGBT. That’s what religion teachers are teaching kids.
Where is that quote from?
Tragically, it seems true.
It is no longer the 1970s or even the 1990s.
Those kids who are standing in front of a rainbow flag may feel differently about their identity by their mid-twenties.
Love them.
Be kind.
Pray for them.
Pray for all that encounter them and interact with them.
Give them to Mary.
They can be helped without allowing the display of the universal symbol of sodomy.
You must be dirty minded to see a rainbow flag and think of sodomy.
You are probably male, yes?
“You must be dirty minded to see a rainbow flag and think of sodomy. You are probably male, yes?” I haven’t read such a reprehensible post in all my years at Cal Catholic. The accusations are vicious and demeaning. What did you hope to accomplish?
There is nothing demeaning about being male.
I assumed the poster meant the rainbow flag which does not mean sodomy. Maybe he and you know something I do not know. I ain’t googling it.
Beautifully said — Thank you!
civil rights: The real civil rights battle is the right to religious freedom!
Crackdowns are good. It’s restoring truth, order, discipline, good example, and standards where they have been lacking. What’s wrong with that, dear students?
This garbage has no place at a Catholic School. Get rid of the liberal cancer….sodomy is a sin and any teacher or student promoting it needs to be removed pronto.
Enough of this garbage…where is the Bishop?