Allowance vs. Acceptance | Vincent Testa | TEDxSalveReginaU
[Music] So, I'm I'm going to start with some word association, and I want you to think of the first word that comes to mind when I say the acronym LGBT. And I'm also going to guarantee that it is not Catholicism. Uh so you can imagine how I feel when I tell people uh especially other LGBT identifying people that I am Catholic as an LGBT person. Uh they either think I'm kidding uh or they hope I'm kidding. And despite having this progressive pope and these new ideas coming forward, there is still such a huge separation uh between the church and its parishioners, particularly those who identify as LGBT. uh we have this separation and and luckily it's it's fixable. It's fixable. The younger generation is clearly more progressive and modern and and they have all these ideas uh and and it gives me hope. But and in 2014, there was a pre a Pew Research Center study and 70% of all Catholics stated that homosexuality should be accepted within the church. And that number ballooned to 85% among 18 to 29 year olds. And even the lowest group, the 65 and older group, there were 57% who stated that uh homosexuality should be accepted within the church. Now, you want to talk about same-sex marriage, obviously the numbers go down a little bit, but still 57% of all Catholics believed that same-sex marriage should be accepted. Again, that number rose among amongst 18 to 29 year olds. And unfortunately, the low the lowest percentage was in that 65 or older group. Uh it was the only group that did not have a majority approval. So, we see that there's still that major separation. So that separation boils down to two words in my mind, allowance and acceptance. And as a self-respecting gay male, I'm going to use Broadway as my analogy. Allowance. Allowance insinuates providing permission. So I'm going to use the the the reference of Oliver Twist. So imagine the LGBT community coming up uh and and coming up to the church and they say please sir may I have some more of my human dignity and then you have acceptance which insinuates uh which insinuates believing something to be true or valid. So I ins I I use the analogy of Annie at the very end when Daddy Warbucks says I'm gonna adopt you. you're going to be fully accepted into my family. Now, this pope that we have, he he's amazing in in my eyes and many people's eyes. He's so progressive, people are saying, but he just toes that line of allowance. He we fall short of the acceptance. The quote that he's so famous for, uh, who am I to judge? It gave such a glimmer of hope to the LGBT community. Now, still paraphrasing, the quote was about uh if a person is gay and and seeks the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person? He also on a separate occasion said that the Christian community should apologize to the gay community. But we fall short of that acceptance when we realized that in December of 2016, he approved a reapproved a document that stated that people with deep-seated homosexual tendencies or who support the so-called gay culture are not allowed to be priests in the Catholic Church. So, we have this community who wants so desperately to give themselves to the church. And they're allowed to, but they're not accepted. So that brings me to where that comes from which is very clearly the Bible. And now we have the words of the Bible that people take literally. But then we have the interpretations of the Bible. So the words that so often get used to prove that uh that homosexual homosexuality is illegal are those verses from Leviticus and uh you know a man shall not lay with another man. But if we use Leviticus, the argument on the flip side is to say, well, if you're going to quote Leviticus, you might as well quote the fact that we shouldn't be eating shellfish or we shouldn't be wearing clothes made of more than one fiber. And if you really want to quote it, we should also still have slaves. So, it's all a matter of interpreting. And I'm going to use the creation story as an example. We all know the scientific impossibility of the world being created in seven days. That's very easily comprehendable. It took billions of years and we're still working on it. So what you what we should be taking out of that is the moral of the story. God had nothing. And look at what he did in seven days. Look at the magnificence that he produced out of nothing. So when you have nothing or we feel like we have nothing, what magnificence can we produce? That's the moral of the story. So what I'm trying to say is we should be using the Bible not as a literal life guide but as a moral life guide. The problem is now we're now we're moving into hymns that are being interpreted uh in my opinion the wrong way. So there was a recent article in a uh a major online Catholic publication written by a highranking member of of the Catholic Church and it was entitled All Are Welcome. But the All Are Welcome had an asterisk. Clearly we know that that insinuates there's something to be to be mentioned there. Uh but the original hymn is was written by Marty Hogan and I hope I I said his name right. But each verse starts with the words, "Let us build a house." And it ends with the chorus, "All are welcome in this place." So obviously, we take that to mean the church. And that we're accepting people into our house, into our home, into the house of God. But the fourth verse is really what I want to focus on. It says, "Here, the outcast and the stranger bear the image of God's face. Let us bring an end to fear and danger." And then it finishes, all are welcome in this place. So, I'm going to run with that idea that the LGBT community are the outcasts and the strangers and that we bring all this fear and danger into the church. My interpretation would be that the members of the church community should be working to dispel that fear and danger and bringing those people into our church because they would like to be there. The author, however, says differently. It says it does the author says it does not mean that someone is entitled to work for the church or fill a ministerial position while being publicly involved in an immoral relationship or activity. And given recent firings among Catholic schools and churches around the country, we're going to take a moral and interpret that to mean homosexual. the article if if the way I read it was one entire contradiction because the in the beginning the author said that Catholics should be inviting others even recruiting others to be a part of our church but then he goes on to say while all are welcome not everyone is suited for the Catholic community so now the Catholic community is a football team or an AP hon an AP class you're not suited to join us in this community. And that to me just sounds a little uncristlike. The author also says, "If their conscious or conscience or lifestyle leads them elsewhere, so be it." Now, we could have a completely separate conversation about my opinion on the use of the word lifestyle to talk about the LGBT community, uh, as if it were a choice. But am I to believe that now they're supposed to have a guilty conscience about wanting to be Catholic and LGBT? We need to remember that fa that religion, unlike love, is a choice. Faith is similar to love in that it's innate in our being. But luckily, this is not something new. This is not a new separation, a new divide. There's a community, a national organization that's been around since 1969. And and uh they are called Dignity USA. They provide Catholic services for the LGBT community, their family and friends. And as you can assume, they are not recognized by the Catholic Church. Currently, there are over 35 uh chapters and I am blessed and honored to be the president of Washington DC's local chapter. But I have to tell you, we struggle the same as uh the same as the Catholic Church, the greater Catholic church. We're struggling to find members because people don't, to be frank, they don't want to be Catholic. And it's because of that separation of antiquated ideas and policies and the the separation between those and the younger more progressive minds. One of the requirements to be a uh to give a TED X talk is to be an expert on your subject. And while I am certainly not an expert on Catholicism or Catholic teachings, though I am learning more and more every day, what I am an expert on is my experience and my view of what acceptance is going to look like in the church. Acceptance is going to be providing opportunities to meet with LGBT people and groups to hear their stories to want to know why they want to be LGBT and Catholic. Let me clarify. They don't want to be LGBT. Again, it's not a choice. Uh but why they choose to be Catholic while identifying as LGBT. Acceptance is actually living out the words and actions of Christ, not just talking about it, accepting those who are different and bringing them into the house of God and allowing them to express their faith the way they would like to. And finally, acceptance is a day where LGBT people do not have different experiences than other Catholics. And that is my hope. That is my prayer. But I am certainly not going to count the amount of rosaries I would have to say before that happens. Thank you. [Applause] [Music]