<h3><img width=113 height=138 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=right alt= src=/sites/default/files/images/faces/helminiak.gif>By Daniel Helminiak</h3><p>DignityUSA is probably stronger than ever. The superb work of a paid staff and talented Board has given Dignity the stability efficiency and competence to be a powerful voice for change. Yet one uncertainty continues to becloud the organization: there is no consensus on what its work should be. Thus Dignitys impact is scattered fragmented and diluted.</p><p><!--break--></p><p>Dignitys Statement of Position and Purpose speaks of reform in the Church and specifically for the development of sexual theologyand for the acceptance of gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered peoples as full and equal members of the one Christ. How much this reform has drifted from focus on sexual ethics is unclear. What is clear is Dignitys increasing concern for all-out transformation of the Roman Catholic Church.</p><p>Emphasis on such pervasive ecclesial reform dominated our convention in July 2009. Dr. Mary Hunts overview of Dignitys&nbsp;history status and prospects provided a quotable line to make the point: Let the needs of the world be our agenda not the failings of the institutional church. Our national president Mark Matson repeated that line and added others like it: we are to be the church for all who seek full inclusion and we must be the change we want to see in the church.</p><p>Couched in terms as sweeping as the needs of the world the identity of DignityUSA remains uncertain. Despite the upbeat mood of the San Francisco convention indicators of alienation and fragmentation were also palpable. The multiple constituencies of Dignity have never been easy to manage: chapters appealing only to local affiliation individuals struggling with coming out or seeking spiritual guidance people wanting an LGBT-focused Mass activists committed to challenging Vatican teaching families of LGBT people needing support fully out youth claiming a bona fide Catholic identity or else disassociating from the Catholic Church other national organizations partnering with Dignity the church and society at large needing an alternative Catholic voice on LGBT issues. One would think that these shifting challenges would be enough to burden any one organization but now Dignity seems committed to reformation&nbsp;of the Catholic Church itselfand I use the historically loaded word reformation deliberately.</p><p>I fear this current emphasis compromises Dignitys original important and already overwhelming mission which becomes increasingly demanding under Benedict XVIs DignityUSAistration. Two questions express my concern: Is reform of the whole church the task of Dignity? And is Dignity still Roman Catholic? My personal answer to both is a firm No. This state of affairs is gravely problematic.</p><p>Both those questions hang together and the same issues tend to provoke them. Paramount among them is feminist theology. As a gender issue it is surely pertinent to Dignity; misogyny and homophobia do walk hand in hand. Dignitys Statement of Position and Purpose does include concern to eradicate sexism and particularly in all areas of Church and secular life so that women are wholly included accepted and welcome and to promote inclusivity in all areas of liturgical&nbsp;and community life. So Dignity has always struggled to do right by women without betraying the focal concerns of the organization. Perhaps it is indeed impossible to change the Roman Catholic Church without confronting head on the kyriarchy that controls it. Yet when does dismantling the kyriarchy and restructuring the whole church distract from Dignitys LGBT mission? There is no obvious answer; it is always a judgment call. I believe Dignity has already crossed the line.</p><p>No one for example could have credited the conventions main Eucharistic Liturgy as a Roman Catholic Mass. Was there even a validly and licitly ordained priest presiding at that liturgy? If so the fact was nowhere determinable. Worse still the lack of concern over this question was explicit. As Mary Hunt reported without apparent concern or opposition Many of us have moved beyond dependence on the presence of an ordained cleric&nbsp;male or female to authenticate our massesalthough the tradition of apostolic succession and ordination is the backbone of Roman Catholicism. (I say tradition not fact: we know the inconsistencies in this matter in the earliest Christian century.)</p><p>Please get my real point. My theology is as liberal as they come. I do not fault efforts at all-out reform in themselves but they are out of place in Dignity. Surely Jesus was really present in that convention Eucharist. Surely he is really present in non-Catholic gatherings. So the genuineness of that Eucharistic experience is not what is in question. Its Roman Catholic nature is.</p><p>Vatican II is explicit: one need not be Catholic nor Christian nor even theist to be saved but only a person of sincere good will. Moreover the Council insisted that Christ is present in the Word in the priest and in the congregation as well as in the sacrament on the altar. Christ is hardly more really present in one form than another. What could that possibly mean? Indeed through the Holy Spirit Christ is present and active in myriad ways also in everyday life. However Christs presence can be symbolized differently and the various Christian churches have their own ways of celebrating Christs presence. What occurred at our 40th-anniversary convention&nbsp;was not a Roman Catholic form of celebrating Eucharist. This failure is what concerns mein an organization dedicated to influencing Roman Catholic teaching.</p><p>Again Mary Hunt squarely addressed the matter at stake: There are a range of ways of being Catholic of which Roman is but one.the Roman part of the Catholic tradition is not necessarily the normative one and need not be treated as such. Absolutely! But not in the case of Roman Catholics! This only this is my point. Acceptance of the Roman Catholic style the technical term is church orderis precisely what distinguishes Roman Catholicism from other Christian traditions.</p><p>DignityUSA is on a path of exit from the Roman Catholic Church. Exit itself is not my concern. Many have left legitimately and deservedly and they are the better for it. But rightly they no longer call themselves Roman Catholic. To part ways with the official church and form one more to ones likingand even I fully agree more in accord with the best of theologyis quintessentially Protestant and this is what DignityUSA is currently about. People can argue ecclesiology as they wish but theological correctness does not determine ecclesial affiliation. Its more a matter of politics than theology and calling it ecclesiology does not change its essentially sociological business-DignityUSAistrative or political character. From this perspective changing churches is like changing parties. All may be American but Democrats are not Republicans and the two are American in their own ways.</p><p>To put the matter bluntly: if people dont like the way the Roman Catholic Church is currently running they can leave and join another religion that better meets their spiritual needs. Indeed already gone so far why even be concerned whether or&nbsp;not its Catholic in any form or Christian? Why not Buddhist Muslim or Hindu? Even enshrined Catholic teaching allows that all can be saved.</p><p>Mark Matson asserts If we ARE the Church then we dont have to sit back and wait for the kyriarchs to make the decisions. True we are the Church but so are other believers including the bishops and none of us are free to decide for ourselves what the whole of the Church is to be. Are members of Dignity serving perhaps only selfish interests by morphing the organization into another church because of dissatisfaction with the current one? Is Dignity re-enacting the Reformation?</p><p>Please again let my point be clear. In decrying reformation I am not even faulting Martin Luther. He was right in much of his objection to the Roman Church of his day yet even he lamented the political consequences. Likewise we are right in much of our objection to the Vatican church of our day.</p><p>Indeed on sexual ethics the Vatican flouts long-standing solemnly proclaimedif not perhaps actually infallibly definedCatholic teaching from the First Vatican Council: Although it is true that faith is above reason no true conflict between faith and reason could ever occur. This teaching is what keeps me Roman Catholic: the only theological tradition I know that could coherently and respectfully address the needs of a multi-religious global societyif only it would be true to its heritage. But no! The defensive Vatican of little faith (Mt.<br>14:31 16:8) flagrantly dismisses overwhelming evidence on every frontbiblical historical psychological medical anthropological personalin its crusade against same-sex relationships. Likewise the Vatican ignores its own teaching on collegiality subsidiarity and the rights of the baptized.</p><p>Nonetheless to object to Vatican practice on the basis of solid Roman Catholic teaching and thus to offer LGBT people their families and society at large an alternative Roman Catholic vision is not to set up ones own church. Yet Dignity appears to be doing soand in the process neglecting its founding mission.</p><p>The issues that pushed Dignity over the line are real they are serious they are legitimate. In no way do I minimize them. But is it Dignitys role to take on the lot and at the expense of the one task that is its alone?</p><p>In fact there do exist many ways to meet the spiritual needs of LGBT people within the confines of the present Catholic system. There also exist many ways to celebrate powerfully meaningful gender-inclusive liturgies within the present Catholic system. There exist as well many Catholic organizations which Dignity members could and do join and many partnerships which Dignity already prizes that provide venues for Dignity members to advance the many-faceted reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.</p><p>No one organization can address all the needs of the Church however urgent deserving and inspiring they might be. Yet Dignity is attempting this impossibility. In fact other lay&nbsp;organizations already specifically address one by one the array of institutionalized flaws in the church. The need for reformation of the Roman Catholic Church is not being ignored in the least. There is no reason under the sun for Dignity to make this overarching task its own. On the other hand not one of those organizations spotlights the skewed sexual ethics of the Vatican. Not one has proclaimed direct challenges to Vatican teaching on this matter. In this matter Dignity is singular. &nbsp;Indeed it is the organization to which the others look to cover this matter. Yet Dignity is choosing to invest its efforts in structuring for its members a comfortable but non-Roman-Catholic church experience and necessarily then shortchanging the one mission that is uniquely its own.</p><h4><em>Daniel Helminiak DignityUSA member since 1976 is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of West Georgia near Atlanta. He holds PhDs in both theology and psychology is author of the Dignity pamphlet Catholicism Homosexuality and Dignity and is best known for What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality. His latest book is Spirituality for Our Global Comm- unity: From Traditional Religion to a World at Peace. His website is www.visionsofdaniel.net.</em></h4><p>&nbsp;</p>