Catholics plan vigil over gay marriage communion stance

Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press | USATODAY

DETROIT -- Tom Nelson and Linda Karle-Nelson, lifelong Catholics, are the parents of gay adult children who are in committed relationships.

At mass Sunday, Nelson and Karle-Nelson received communion.

And they intend to do so again this weekend, even after Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron's statements in April that Catholics who support gay unions or marriage should abstain from receiving communion.

"He's not going to keep me from the Eucharist," said Nelson, 83, a retired engineer from Farmington Hills, Mich. "Somebody's got to stand up and say, 'Enough.' "

So they, along with other Catholics who belong to a lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender support group called Fortunate Families, plan to conduct a prayer vigil at 4 p.m. Thursday in front of the Archdiocese of Detroit headquarters downtown.

"We're not going to change churches," said Karle-Nelson, 72, a speech pathologist. "We can plant seeds. Our theme has been sharing stories, and sharing stories is a way of changing hearts."

Karle-Nelson, who was a widow with three children, married Nelson, who was a widower with six children, seven years ago. They are members of St. Alexander Catholic Parish in Farmington Hills.

In an April 8 Free Press article, Vigneron said those who receive communion while supporting gay marriage "logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury." A Detroit seminary professor and legal adviser to the Vatican, canon lawyer Edward Peters, also said Catholics who promote gay marriage should abstain from communion.

Those comments drew widespread attention and fueled an online debate. The first openly gay Episcopal bishop in the U.S., recently retired New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, rebuked Vigneron's stance in a Washington Post essay last week.

Vigneron has declined to make further comments on the subject.

Retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a longtime peace and social activist who went public 20 years ago with his family's own story about a brother who was gay, said this week that Vigneron's remarks were "legalistic."

Gumbleton said he has had discussions with more than a dozen concerned Catholics who have gay relatives in relationships and fear being ostracized by the church.

"Nobody knows your relationship with God except you," Gumbleton said. "Whoever is distributing communion has no knowledge of what you have in your heart and has no business trying to find out."

The Rev. Norman Thomas, who is a pastor of Detroit parishes Sacred Heart and St. Elizabeth, said Vigneron's statement "was kind of insensitive."

"Are people expected to exempt themselves, or is there going to be a check-off right there at the (communion) line?" Thomas said.

Archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath said Wednesday that Vigneron's comments were not "anything new or different."

"It was not an anti-anyone answer. It was a response regarding a Catholic's proper disposition when presenting themselves for communion," McGrath said.