Catholics Warn of National Conflict over Gay Marriage

NEW YORK (RNS) The nation’s top Catholic bishop issued a stern challenge to the Obama administration’s decision not to support a federal ban on gay marriage, and warned the president that his policies could “precipitate a national conflict between church and state of...

Episcopal Bishop Who Won Heresy Trial Dies at 87

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Rt. Rev. Walter C. Righter, an Episcopal bishop whose victory at a 1996 heresy trial played a key role in the push for gay rights in the church, died on Sunday (Sept. 11) at the age of 87. “I look around the Episcopal Church today where there are...

Calif. Man Becomes a Pioneer for Gay Mormons

(RNS) Mitch Mayne is not the first openly gay person to hold a key leadership post within the all-volunteer clergy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he may be the first to announce it from the pulpit. On Sunday (Aug. 28), Mayne was installed as...

Fallen 9/11 Priest Emerges as An Icon for Gay Catholics

(RNS) When All Saints Church sought to signal its hospitality to gays and lesbians, the Catholic parish in Syracuse, N.Y., turned to a well-known image from the 9/11 attacks: five firefighters carrying a body from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. The body...