Archdiocese of Detroit puts brakes on reception honoring gay-outreach

Feb 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm

According to the Archdiocese of Detroit, a celebration honoring a local nun and her outreach to gays has been forced to be moved off of Archdiocesan property because it conflicted with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Sister Jeannine Gramick was to be honored at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Royal Oak, a Detroit suburb, following a screening of a new documentary film chronicling the work of the 62-year-old nun Sunday. It was moved however, following the Archdiocese’ request.

The screening took place at the Royal Oak Main Art Theater as part of their Reel Pride Film Festival; an event sponsored by the gay-rights Triangle Foundation.

In 1999, after a lengthy review, and finding her views and teaching on homosexuality to be in conflict with the Church, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome announced severe limits on Gramick’s ministerial activities.

At the time, Gramick was a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame, and Father Robert Nugent, S.D.S., who had been ministering to the homosexual community in the United States with her for many years also received the Congregation’s limits.

The Congregation’s notification stated that the pair were, "permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes."

In a statement regarding the affair, the Archdiocese of Detroit stated that, “The Detroit archdiocese realizes that ministry to the homosexual community is both sensitive and necessary. At the same time, we are concerned that such ministry can cause more harm than good if it is conducted in the midst of controversy and ambiguity.”