Rev. John McNeil, RC Priest, LGBT Rights Pioneer, Dies at Age 90.
Lest we forget.
From yesterday's NY Times:
>>>>The Rev. John McNeill, an openly gay Roman Catholic priest who, from the 1970s onward, publicly pressed the church to welcome gay men and lesbians — and who was expelled from his order as a result — died on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 90.
His death was announced by DignityUSA, an organization that supports gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics. Father McNeill had helped found its New York chapter in 1972.
A Jesuit who was ordained in 1959, Father McNeill was known in the decades that followed as an author, activist and psychotherapist specializing in the needs of gay clients. He first came to wide, explosive attention in 1976 with the publication of his book “The Church and the Homosexual.”
That book was the first extended nonjudgmental work about gay Catholics, a subject that had long been taboo in official church discourse. It has been credited with helping to set in motion the re-evaluation of the religious stance toward gay people — not only among Catholics but also among those of other faiths — that continues today.
“John McNeill is one of the most important voices in the history of the L.G.B.T. civil rights movement,” Brendan Fay, the director of “Taking a Chance on God,” a 2011 documentary film about Father McNeill, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “ ‘The Church and the Homosexual’ became the primary text that is still considered the key in transforming the conversation on religion and homosexuality.”
For Father McNeill, the book, and his disclosure soon after its publication that he was gay, would lead to years of public opprobrium, censure by the church, exclusion from his order and, in the end, a newfound level of activism that sustained him to the end of his life.
“He was a gay man who was a Jesuit priest — and being a gay man>>>>>
the rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/nyregion/john-mcneill-priest-who-pushed-catholic-church-to-welcome-gays-dies-at-90.html?_r=0
