Patricia Montemurri

Detroit Free Press

Detroit Archbishop Vigneron has said Catholics who support gay marriage should not receive communion

Linda Karle-Nelson%2C a Catholic whose son is gay%2C said Vatican%27s words %22answer to a million prayers%22

Fortunate Families is a local support group for families with gay members.

For Catholic families with gay members, the revolutionary words pronounced Monday by Catholic bishops meeting at the Vatican provided hope and healing.

Bishops meeting at the Vatican to discuss evolving family dynamics issued an unprecedented, if preliminary, document that signaled a greater acceptance of gay people, divorced Catholics and those living together.

The document said, among many observations, that gay couples can illustrate "a precious support in the life of (their) partners" and that there are "positive aspects" to heterosexual couples wed in civil marriages or living together before seeking Catholic marriage.

The document, read in an audience with Pope Francis, "is an answer to a million prayers," said Linda Karle-Nelson, who with her husband leads the Detroit-area Fortunate Families support group of Catholics with gay family members.

While the church did not reverse its opposition to gay marriage, the statement signaled a huge shift in its public attitude.

"Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home," the Vatican document said.

"Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions, it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of partners," said the document.

The document is a preliminary summary of the bishops' meeting, which continues for the next week. But it signals another progressive and controversial pronouncement in a string of unprecedented statements made during the tenure of Pope Francis.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. It's all the result of this pope," said Karle-Nelson, 74, of Farmington Hills, referring to Francis' 19-month-old papacy after the conservative reigns of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. "If he hadn't come in, I don't think this would have happened."

"He's made it possible for people to start thinking in a new way," said Karle-Nelson. She and her husband, Tom Nelson, 85, were both widowers when they met at meetings in the 1990s of PFLAG — the country's top advocacy group for gay rights. Both are lifelong Catholics, and are both parents of adult gay sons.

"This is an answer to a million prayers. Nothing like we ever thought we would hear," said Karle-Nelson. "It's such a 180 degrees from what we hear from the Catholic bishops in the United States. This is going to bring them up short and they're going to have to start thinking in a new way."

The Catholic church teaches that any sex outside of marriage is sinful. The church teaches that Catholics who are gay are welcome in the church, but that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered."

While some reveled in the shift, there was an outcry from many traditional Catholics.

"It's a shocking statement that is going to be bitterly divisive and leads to chaos and confusion," said Jay McNally, a former editor of the Detroit archdiocese's Michigan Catholic newspaper and conservative Catholic activist who is the director of the Ypsilanti-based Citizens Alliance for Life and Liberty.

McNally said he was stunned "to see so much lingo that is contrary or foreign to what people see in church documents." He said the document's language on same-sex unions and other issues contradict church teachings, so "then why not approve of adultery and everything else that goes with it?"

Last year, Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron sparked controversy when he said Catholics who support gay unions and marriage should not present themselves to receive the sacrament of communion at mass. At the time, Vigneron added it was the church's position that Catholics shouldn't receive communion if they've violated other major church teachings.

Vigneron did not back away from his position Monday.

"Archbishop Vigneron's comments pertained to Catholic teaching on the statement of faith inherent in the reception of Holy Communion," said archdiocesan spokesman Joe Kohn. "The only thing that would impact the archbishop's statement is a major change on the Church's teaching toward Holy Communion."

Kohn added the following in an e-mail: "Presently, Archbishop Vigneron isn't inclined to offer any commentary as the synod continues its important work."

"In general, it's encouraging to the Catholic Church that the synod is garnering a fair amount of attention. The role of the family and pastoral care of the family are topics of great importance in the Catholic Church and to the world," said Kohn.

Last month, Vigneron asked every parish community in the archdiocese to pray for the synod's success.

The bishops' statement Monday also summarized the heated debate among Catholic leaders about whether Catholics, who remarry after divorce without receiving a Catholic Church annulment, should be allowed to receive the sacrament of communion. The document didn't take a stand, but called for "courageous" new outreach to families "damaged" by divorce.

Catholic Church law says that remarriage after a civil divorce is "public and permanent adultery" if Catholics do not receive a church annulment.

Divorced Catholics who want to remarry in the church need to receive an annulment of their previous Catholic marriage.

The document also talked about the "positive aspects" for couples living together outside of marriage. That's a big departure for multitudes of Catholics who may have "lived in sin" before marriage. Catholic marriage is the ideal, said the document, but there were "constructive elements in those situations that do not yet or no longer correspond to that ideal."

Retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit is a longtime liberal who has spoken against church teachings about homosexuality and talked about how his late brother was gay.

Gumbleton expressed surprise — and caution — about what Monday's document will mean long-term for Catholics.

"Somehow, they're trying to have it both ways," Gumbleton said. "I don't know how it's going to work. It's going to take a lot of sorting out to come to a conclusion."

"It's obviously a step in the right direction — to have openness and acceptance of people in various situations without making judgments about them in the place of God," Gumbleton said.

The bishops will continue their discussions for another week, and help set the agenda for a larger meeting of bishops a year from now. That meeting, known as a general assembly, is focused on the family and will offer proposals to the pope for a final document.

Kathy Schiffer of Southfield, whose blog Seasons of Grace appears on the religion website www.Patheos.com, said the blogosphere is "ablaze with criticisms by people who seem to think the bishops are tossing away centuries of Catholic teaching."

"I don't think that's what's happening at all," wrote Schiffer in an e-mail. The bishops' statement serves "to instruct those who thought the Church closed its doors to sinners. If they did, the church would be empty! The Church has always been, as Pope Francis says, a 'field hospital for sinners.'

"People in broken relationships have always been welcome to come, to learn, to pray with us."

Contact Patricia Montemurri: 313-223-4538 or pmontemurri@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @pmontemurri.