My Dignified Queer Heart Cries in Pain Responding to Vatican Document
My personal reaction to “Infinite Dignity”
Have you heard about the Roman Catholic Church’s recent missive called “Infinite Dignity?” I’ve been feeling such intense pain since I read it, and even more pain reading certain positive reactions to it. I've shed tears of empathy, because it seems queer people like me — gay and transgender people — are intentionally painted in the document as undeserving of the true dignity the Church reserves particularly for cisgender, straight men.
Let’s talk about dignity and how mine was shattered when I was only 11
I wasn’t quite 12, squeezed into a pew while my mother ruffled my hair, me trying to understand the pastor’s bizarre words. I liked church. I loved the exciting stories in Sunday School. I loved the families sharing food and playing tetherball by a bonfire during after-service fellowships. I felt safe and cherished. I was a child who knew, without ever having to think about it, that my dignity and personhood were of primary importance not just for our loving pastor, but for our entire church family.
My dad was the youth pastor, so he didn’t deliver the sermon that shattered my sense of safe-belonging, but he’s critical to this story…
