John McNeill

By Jack Cloninger and Al Levy

On Sunday evening, August 15, 2010, Dignity/Palm Beach gathered in the sanctuary of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church for our bimonthly Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. We were very privileged to have a guest con-celebrant, John J. McNeill, world renowned author and theologian, and one of the founders of Dignity/New York during the first year of Dignity’s existence. John wrote The Church and the Homosexual, a groundbreaking book of prodigious scholarship that debunked the Church’s anti LGBT moral theology and gave hope, direction, and self-respect to a generation of LGBT Catholics. John visited our chapter to give a talk on his latest work: Sex as God Intended. In addition to members and friends of Dignity/Palm Beach, several members of Integrity, the Episcopal Church’s outreach to LGBT folks, joined us for both the Mass and the talk.

by John McNeill

It should be evident to all that the paternalistic hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has lost contact with the Spirit of God and is no longer its instrument. The clergy sexual-abuse crisis, the effort of the hierarchy to cover that up, and the attitude in the hierarchy that their primary objective is not to convey the message of Christ but to do anything to protect their own power, prestige, and wealth has made their very existence idolatrous. The hierarchy as presently constituted is the exact opposite to the movement based on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that Jesus announced at the Last Supper.

by John J. McNeill, (Lethe Press; ISBN: 978-1-59021-042-0; $20.00)

Reviewed by Jeff Stone, Dignity/New York

To many of us in DignityUSA, John McNeill is a familiar and beloved figure. Yet because he is so well-known to us, it is possible to lose sight of the vast scope of the achievements and gifts of this prophet in our own land. In 1970, John published the first theological articles defending homosexuality from a Catholic perspective, which became the basis for Dignity’s original Statement of Position and Purpose. In 1972, he cofounded Dignity/New York. In 1976, he published the groundbreaking book The Church and the Homosexual, which brought his subject into the international spotlight for the first time. Over the next two decades, John followed with Taking a Chance on God; Freedom, Glorious Freedom and his autobiography, Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair.

By John McNeill
February, 2006

The Vatican in its recent instruction barring gays from the seminary has given a vicious collective slap in the face, not only to gay priests and seminarians, but to every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered person on the face of the earth.  The instruction from Pope Benedict calls homosexual orientation an “objective disorder” and any sexual actions that flow from that orientation are contrary to the divine will and profoundly sinful. Note that this judgment applies not only to seminarians and clergy struggling to live in accordance with their vow of chastity, but to all gay men and lesbian women. Any effort by a gay person to reach out for human sexual love, no matter what the circumstances, is judged as evil. Scripture says that if anyone loves, they know God, because God is love. The Vatican says that if gay people enter into a human sexual love relation they know evil and will separate themselves from the love of God.