Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities

News Archives

CPCSM - Related News

Archbishop Roach, Supporter of
Human Rights for GLBT Persons Who
Shared in CPCSM's Journey, Passes Away

Archbishop John R. Roach
July 31, 1921 - July 11, 2003

God has called you out of darkness into marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9

(Revised on April 30, 2004)

CPCSM and the greater GLBT community lost a good friend and a champion of their human rights on July 11th when Archbishop Roach passed away. As far back as 1978, during a struggle for GLBT civil rights in St. Paul, the Archbishop first spoke out publicly on behalf of social justice for GLBT persons.

In 1973 St. Paul -- along with Minneapolis -- had been one the first cities in the nation to pass an ordinance protecting gay and lesbian persons from discrimination. Then in 1977, a right wing religious crusade, begun and energized by the Baptist minister, Richard Angwin, and his Temple Baptist congregation, succeeded in calling for a referendum vote in 1978 that rescinded the GLBT human rights ordinance in St. Paul. Prior to the vote, the Archbishop felt moved to issue the following statement.

It is a matter of injustice when due to prejudice, they [gays and lesbians] must suffer violation of their basic rights. Like all persons, they have a right to human respect, stable friendships, economic security, and social equality. . . . Consequently, both religious and civic leaders must seek ways to assure homosexuals every human and civil right which is their due as persons, without, however, neglecting the rights of the larger community. (From Homosexuality and the Magisterium: Documents from the Vatican and U.S. Bishops, ed. J. Gallagher, 1986.)

Aware of such concern for social justice for gay men and lesbians and other marginalized persons in society and the fact that he had recently been elected as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, six leaders in the local GLBT Catholic community sat down with the Archbishop for a listening session on May 9, 1980 -- the event that CPCSM would later mark as its founding.

It was in the midst of this backdrop of hope and enthusiasm, buoyed up by our very successful speaker-luncheon series, that six of us approached a listening session with Archbishop Roach on May 9, 1980 -- a meeting that the archbishop finally agreed to a full year after our first request for the meeting. . . .

The six of us, affectionately known among ourselves as "the CPCSM Six," shared with the archbishop our journeys of growing up in the Church as lesbians and gay men. In addition to myself, who at that time was serving as a [Dignity/Twin Cities'] board member and the chapter's pastoral coordinator (1980-1981), the group included Bill Kummer, Dignity's pastoral coordinator and outreach director from 1977 to 1980 and a past board member; Father Herb Hayek, OP, a [Dignity] chapter cofounder and regular Mass presider; Cindy Scott, then a staff member of the Archdiocesan Urban Affairs Commission and later an editor and writer for various local GLBT and women's publications; Donna Kurimay, then the vice-president of the local chapter of the Association of Pastoral Ministers; and Karen Chicoine, then an administrative assistant in the archdiocesan Catholic Education Center and a former religious for 15 years.

At that meeting at the Chancery, in the archbishop's conference room, we sat around a long, well polished hard wood table and took turns sharing with him our pains as well as our joys of having grown up in the Church, our fears as well as our hopes.

We reported to him what our experience of the Church's ministry to GLBT persons, both to ourselves and to others, had been and described what we hoped it could become. As he listened to our stories, the vicar general of the archdiocese, Father Robert Carlson (now Bishop Carlson, ordinary of the Sioux Falls Diocese) sat at the far end of the table, taking notes.

We would later learn that the archbishop was at first not sure what to expect from our group with the memory of the pie-throwing episode of 1977 with its Dignity connection still fresh in his mind. We also found out later that he had asked Father Carlson to be in the room more as a witness and to provide security should there be any problems.

However, once the archbishop realized that our purpose for meeting with him was primarily pastoral, rather than political, he relaxed and listened carefully to our stories. At the conclusion of the listening session, we informed the archbishop that there were literally thousands of other persons like us living in the archdiocese who would never be able to speak with him face-to-face about their needs and concerns.

Therefore, we promised to come back at a later date with the results of a needs assessment survey that we would conduct with other Twin City area GLBT persons from a Catholic background, as well as with local Catholic families who had a GLBT member, so that he could hear their stories and opinions as well.

Overall, Archbishop Roach was receptive to us and attentive to our personal stories. Before the meeting ended, he granted our request to approach his various department heads to find out if they would be open to exploring with us how we might best educate staff members in their departments about the pastoral needs and concerns of the local GLBT Catholic community.
(Excerpted from CPCSM and Its Roots in Dignity/Twin Cities: Looking Back After 20 Years, by David J. McCaffrey, Reprinted from Dignity/Twin Cities' Newsletter, Vol. 26:2 April/May 2000.)

About 10 years later, after much of CPCSM's outreach work with parishes and other archdiocesan groups was well underway, CPCSM leaders requested a second listening session, this time with Archbishop Roach and the directors of all of the archdiocesan offices.

Convened at the Maryhill Retreat Center on Summit Avenue, the meeting was comprised of the Archbishop and his department heads and a few successful lesbian and gay professionals from a Catholic background and two pairs of Catholic parents of gay or lesbian children -- including a deacon and his wife.

Among the presenters were Gary Remafedi, MD, an internationally renowned University of Minnesota pediatrician doing research on GLBT teen runaways who attempt suicide or expose themselves to HIV infection, and Jeanne Keller, a prominent lesbian accountant who cofounded a local GLBT business group, called Northland Business Association.

As the facilitator of that meeting, after the presenters had shared their stories, I recall that Archbishop Roach gave a response on behalf of all of his department heads. Among his comments, he admitted that he and fellow priests from his era had been "very poorly prepared" in the seminary for dealing with gay people and had "made many mistakes along the way," especially as confessors.

However, except for his 1978 statement regarding the St. Paul referendum, in the earlier years of his administration, Archbishop Roach's human rights record regarding GLBT persons was not always as stellar as we had hoped for. Almost every year from the early 70's until the passage of the 1993 Human Rights Amendment, a gay-lesbian human rights bill had been brought before the Minnesota legislature, and each time it had been defeated -- largely because of the lobbying efforts of the bishops of Minnesota via the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the fundamentalist Berean League (today known as the Minnesota Family Council).

In fact, in 1977, while receiving an award honoring him for his ecumencial work with the Jewish community, Archbishop Roach was hit in the face by a pie thrown by an angry young gay man with Catholic roots. This episode soon came to symbolize the outrage of the local gay community toward the Catholic Church for their failure to respond to the pain and special needs of GLBT persons. A friend of the Archbishop later told CPCSM leaders that Roach confided to one of his auxiliary bishops after the incident that "there must be a lot of pain in that community for someone to want to do this to me. This should cause all of us to look deeper."

It is apparent, however, that Archbishop Roach heeded his own advice in response to the pie episode. Following his listening session with CPCSM's cofounders in 1980 and following the dissemination of the findings of CPCSM's 1984 Needs Assessment Survey Report, in 1986 the Archbishop convened a large archdiocesan study group on GLBT ministry, comprised of priests, liberal and conservative theologians, medical and mental health professionals, leaders of the local GLBT Catholic community -- including some members of CPCSM, and parents of GLBT children. After meeting for six months, the study group's report concluded that more support for human rights of GLBT persons and more pastoral sensitivity to their special needs and gifts were clearly needed.

It was the Archbishop's experience from that study group and his work with CPCSM and other pastoral groups that culminated in the two high points of his ministerial career in relation to GLBT human rights. In the September 26, 1991 issue of the Catholic Bulletin, he issued a very comprehensive and pastorally sensitive document, that emerged as the gold standard among Church leaders throughout the world. The article was entitled A Statement on Homosexual Persons and the Protection of Human Rights. (Please click on the title to read this .pdf document.*)

Furthermore, it was under Archbishop Roach's leadership -- in sharp contrast to its earlier lobbying efforts against human rights legislation for GLBT persons -- that the Minnesota Catholic Conference successfully advocated for a bill that added sexual orientation as a protected class under the Minnesota Human Rights Act in 1993.

Archbishop Roach's final public appearance with CPCSM came in 1998, when he was invited to kick off the group's first speakers' series, Discovering Our Hidden Treasures: Reshaping Pastoral Ministries with GLBT Persons and Their Families, as the program's first keynote speaker.

On April 14, 1998, in the Hall of the Angels in the St. Paul Cathedral, Archbishop Roach shared his personal history with GLBT ministry in his presentation, entitled A Bishop's Journey with Gay Ministry: Transforming Gospel Values into Human Rights and a More Inclusive Church.

In preparation for his talk, the CPCSM organizer of the speakers' series gave the Archbishop a six-page document containing a chronology of the highlights of the group's work over the previous 20 years. The Archbishop was so moved by the chronology that during his presentation he spoke glowingly -- a behavior for which the Archbishop was not well known -- of CPCSM's work in the archdiocese and the greater community and congratulated the group for so many dedicated and significant accomplishments.

A summary of the Archbishop's keynote presentation can be found in the article Archbishop John R. Roach Addresses GLBT Issues in CPCSM's Rainbow Spirit, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (Spring 1998) . (Please click on the above link to view this .pdf file.*)

Archbishop Roach's starting point on any issue in the Church or in society flowed from his Gospel-based theology of social justice. Consequently, he began his teaching on any question with a careful analysis of the human rights aspects of the issue. His approach to GLBT ministry was no exception.

In fact, Archbishop Roach's commitment to social justice was the starting point of his entire episcopal career. On July 16, 1975, at his installation as the sixth archbishop of this archdiocese, John Roach said the following:

In the midst of too much hate,
too much suffering,
too much injustice,
and armed with confidence
that the Spirit of the Lord is present to us,
we must speak to this world
of God's love, justice, mercy and healing.

We must voice the healing words of Jesus Christ
to a people so desperately in need of healing.

We must be God's prophets, unworthy as we are,
speaking the Gospel to a world which is not eager to hear us.

We must illumine the problems of this age
with the apostolic faith which is our treasure.

We must join people of good will,
whatever our differences,
in restoring peace, love, and reconciliation to our society.
(From Funeral Rites for John R. Roach, 2003)

We in CPCSM are eternally grateful to Archbishop Roach for the courage of his leadership in listening to the needs of our people and speaking out on behalf of their human rights.

We wish you Godspeed, John Roach. May you rest in peace -- in the same peace that you brought to so many thousands of GLBT lives -- for all eternity.

David J. McCaffrey
CPCSM Web Coordinator

* Document in .PDF format - Acrobat Reader is needed to view; free Acrobat 5.0 software can be downloaded from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Top of Page