Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Tom BeaudoinOctober 16, 2012

My recent post on the increasing use of "queer" as a term of dignity on Catholic college and university campuses, for some LGBT persons and allies, evoked numerous replies. I want to let readers know that an updated statement about the use of "queer" at clubs at Fordham can be found here.

Not just on campus, but in church-talk, too, the way that LGBT persons are characterized matters to an increasing number of Catholics.

Just a few weeks ago, this column by Tom Moran in the (NJ) Star-Ledger occasioned a small avalanche of responses over the next several days. A lifelong Catholic, he reports that he has now become a "spiritual refugee," due, among other reasons, to the way gay life and marriage is being characterized by some Catholic leaders. Moran wrote a followup summarizing initial responses here. Further responses to Moran's column were published here, here, and here

I try to teach my students, and try to practice myself, that such discussions (as those above) are important material for theological reflection alongside traditional theological sources. Indeed, "ordinary" lived religion/faith/spirituality, such as that expressed in discussions above, should have a special place in theological reflection - as one pathway not only into the meanings of everyday faith, but into the (often obscured) background of all theologically significant texts, concepts and practices. 

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

A community gathers in resistance. Photo by Dany Díaz Mejía. Photo courtesy of Rene Aleman Resistance Camp.
“We are alive only through the grace of God. At one point, I got messages saying someone had offered 1 million lempiras [$38,000] to have me killed.”
Dany Díaz MejíaJuly 02, 2025
Workers unload food commodities from Catholic Relief Services and USAID in the village of Behera, near Tulear, Madagascar, Oct. 22, 2016. (OSV News Photo/Nancy McNally, Catholic Relief Services)
The end of U.S.A.I.D. will result in the loss of a “staggering” 14 million lives by 2030, including the deaths of 4.5 million children under age 5.
Kevin ClarkeJuly 02, 2025
Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinJuly 02, 2025