UNITED STATES
The Empty Closet
One day after openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson criticized the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on gay clergy as “vile,” the Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), the world’s largest predominantly gay Christian denomination, echoed the bishop’s words and issued a challenge to Pope Benedict XVI.
The comments by the Reverend Nancy L. Wilson came as the Vatican prepares to issue “Instrumentum Laboris,” a document that recommends a purge of seminaries of all gay men preparing for the priesthood. According to Vatican officials, the purge is designed to address the causes of priestly sexual abuse of minors.
“Metropolitan Community Churches strongly condemns the sexual abuse of minors, and also condemns this scapegoating of an already marginalized and demeaned population within the Church and larger society,” said Wilson.
In 1987, Wlson became one of the first openly gay rights leaders to meet Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI, when she represented Metropolitan Community Churches as an ecumenical observer at the Bilateral Dialogue of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches in Columbia, South Carolina.