District of Columbia
In ‘watershed moment,’ Catholic Cardinal apologizes for church treatment of LGBTQ people
Remarks came during Archdiocese of Washington LGBTQ prayer service
In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind event, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who has served since 2019 as leader of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., held a Jan. 22 prayer service for members of the local LGBTQ Catholic organization Dignity Washington.
The service, which is like a Catholic mass but doesn’t include the offering of holy communion, took place at 6:30 p.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.
Dignity Washington officials said the event came about after they met with Gregory at his diocesan office in September and he agreed to their invitation for him to hold a religious service for the local LGBTQ community.
Dignity Washington President Vince Rodriguez told the Washington Blade he and fellow Dignity members were honored and moved that Gregory went beyond just holding the service by offering an apology for the way the church has treated LGBTQ people.
“There is no room for religious bigotry that is largely fueled by lack of knowledge and ignorance on the part of peoples who may call themselves religious but whose behavior violates the basic tenets of most of the great faith traditions of the world,” Gregory said in written remarks that he read as part of his homily or sermon at the prayer service.
“I apologize for my own failure to emulate Christ’s compassion,” he stated in his remarks. “The way that we have treated our LGBTQ brothers and sisters has brought them tears and to many of us disgrace,” he told those attending the service.
“I apologize from the heart for the hurt that has resulted in the loss of so many of our family members who belong to God no less than I do,” he said.
“I apologize not only for those whose past actions have scandalized and wounded these men and women. I apologize for my own lack of courage to bring healing and hope, and I ask forgiveness,” Gregory said in concluding his remarks.
“It was very powerful, very moving,” according to Rodriguez, who said about 80 mostly Dignity members attended the prayer service on a cold night.
Peter Daly, a retired Catholic priest and Dignity Washington member, said that due to an oversight by someone in the archdiocesan office, the office did not contact Dignity to inform the group that the service had been scheduled for Jan. 22 until just under two weeks before that date. He said Dignity officials scrambled to get the word out in time for people to make plans to attend.
“And it turned out to be a wonderful service,” Daly told the Blade. “His homily was exceptional. I’ve never heard an archbishop or a cardinal, and I’ve heard a lot of them, say and offer an apology not only on behalf of himself but on behalf of the church and other hierarchs for the way the LGBTQ community has been treated,” Daly said.
“I think Cardinal Gregory’s remarks are a watershed moment in the relationship between the Archdiocese of Washington and the LGBTQ+ community,” said Jeannine Gramick, a Catholic nun and official with the local LGBTQ Catholic group New Ways Ministry.
“I am hopeful this will set an example for other bishops to embrace Dignity communities across the U.S.,” she told the Blade. “Dignity was the first group in the world to organize and speak up for their rights as baptized LGBTQ+ Catholics.”
Pope Francis on Jan. 6 named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who has a record of support for the LGBTQ community, to replace Cardinal Gregory, who is retiring, as the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C, which is the official title of the Catholic Church leader of the D.C. archdiocese.
McElroy is scheduled to be installed in his new position at a March 11 ceremony at D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
District of Columbia
Gay priest credited with boosting church support for LGBTQ Catholics
Fr. Tom Oddo’s biographer speaks at Dignity Washington event
The author of a biography of a U.S. Catholic priest said to have advocated for support by the Catholic Church of gay Catholics in the early 1970s has called Father Thomas ‘Tom’ Oddo a little known but important figure in the LGBTQ rights movement.
Tyler Bieber, author of the recently published book “Against The Current: Father Tom Oddo And the New American Catholic,” told of Oddo’s life and work on behalf of LGBTQ rights at a March 22 talk before the local LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity Washington.
Among Oddo’s important accomplishments, Bieber said, was his role as a co-founder of the national LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity U.S.A. in 1973 at the age of 29.
But as reported in the prologue of his book, Bieber presented details of the sad news that Oddo died in a fatal car crash in 1989 at the age of 45 in Portland, Ore., where he was serving as the highly acclaimed president of the University of Portland, a Catholic institution.
“He was a major figure in the gay rights movement in the 1970s, an unsung hero of that movement,” Bieber told Dignity Washington members, who assembled for his talk in a meeting room at St. Margaret Episcopal Church near Dupont Circle, where they attend their weekly Catholic mass on Sundays.
“And Dignity U.S.A. saw intense growth in membership and visibility” during its early years under Oddo’s leadership, Bieber said. “The story of Father Tom and his contemporaries is a story largely untold in the history of the gay rights movement, but one worth knowing and considering,” he said.
As stated in his book, Bieber told the Dignity Washington gathering Oddo was born and raised in a Catholic family on Long Island, N.Y., and attended a Catholic high school in Flushing Queens. It was at that time when he developed an interest in becoming a priest, according to Bieber.
After studying at the University of Notre Dame and completing his religious studies he was ordained as a priest in 1970 and began his work as a priest in the Boston area, Bieber said. It was around that time, Bieber told the Dignity Washington audience, that gay Catholics approached Oddo to seek advice on how they should interact with the Catholic Church. It was also around that time that Oddo became involved in a group supportive of then gay Catholics that later became a Dignity chapter in Boston.
In a development considered unusual for a Catholic priest, Bieber said Oddo in 1973 testified in support of gay rights bill before a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature and collaborated with then Massachusetts gay and lesbian rights advocate Elaine Noble.
In 1982, at the age of 39, Oddo was selected as president of the University of Portland following several years as a college teacher in the Boston area, Bieber’s book states. It says he was seen as a “vibrant and capable administrator who delivered real results to his campus,” adding, “His magnetism was obvious. One student described him as ‘John Kennedyesque’ to the university’s student newspaper.”
Bieber said that although Oddo was less active with Dignity U.S.A. during his tenure as UP president, he continued his support for gay Catholics and what is now referred to as LGBTQ rights.
“For those that knew him prior to his term at UP, though, he represented something greater than an accomplished university administrator and educator,” Bieber’s book states. “He was a new kind of priest, a gay man living and ministering in a world set loose from tradition by the Second Vatican Council,” the book says.
It was referring to the Vatican gathering of worldwide Catholic leaders from 1962 to 1965 concluding under Pope Paul VI that church observers say modernized church practices to allow far greater participation by the laity and opened the way for sympathetic consideration of gay Catholics.
District of Columbia
HRC to host National Rainbow Seder
Bet Mishpachah among annual event’s organizers
The 18th National Rainbow Seder will take place at the Human Rights Campaign on Sunday.
The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event include Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder is “Liberation For All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern will lead it.
The Seder will honor the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
District of Columbia
Trans Day of Visibility events planned
Rally on the National Mall scheduled for Saturday
The Christopher Street Project has a number of events planned for the 2026 Trans Day of Visibility, including a rally on the Mall and an “Empowerment Ball” at the Eaton Hotel. Plenaries, panel discussions and meetings with members of Congress are scheduled in the three days of programming.
Announced speakers include N.H. state Rep. Alice Wade; Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Precious Brady-Davis; activist and performer Miss Peppermint (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”); Lexington, Ky. Councilwoman Emma Curtis; Rabbi Abby Stein; D.C. activist and host Rayceen Pendarvis; Air Force Master Sgt. Logan Ireland; among other leaders, advocates and performers.
Conference programming on Thursday and Friday includes an educational forum and a Capitol Hill policy education day. Registration for the two-day conference has closed.
The “Trans Day of Visibility PAC Reception” is scheduled for Thursday, March 26 from 7:30-9 p.m. at As You Are (500 8th St., S.E.). Special guests include Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). Tickets are available at christopherstreetproject.org starting at $25.
The National Council of Jewish Women and the Christopher Street Project host a “Trans Day of Visibility Shabbat” on Friday, March 27 from 7-8 p.m. at Sixth & I (600 I St., N.W.). The service is to be led by Rabbi Jenna Shaw and Rabbi Abby Stein.
The “Now You See Me: Trans Empowerment Social & Ball” is scheduled for Friday, March 27 from 6-11 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.). The trans-themed drag ball is hosted by the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with support from the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, the Capital Ballroom Council, the Christopher Street Project, the Center for Black Equity, Generation for Common Good, and Parenting is Political. RSVP online at christopherstreetproject.org.
The National Transgender Day of Visibility Rally is scheduled for Saturday, March 28 on the National Mall at 11 a.m. The rally will include speakers and performances. Following the rally, attendees are encouraged to participate in the “No Kings” rally being held at Anacostia Park.
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