News
Robert Nugent, co-founder of LGBT Catholic ministry dead at 76
Vatican banned Robert Nugent from pastoral duties
Father Robert Nugent, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, passed away on Jan. 1. (Photo courtesy of New Ways Ministry)
Nugent emerged as one of the first Catholic priests in the United States to speak out publicly for full acceptance of gays and lesbians within the church and to seek to open a dialogue with church leaders about church doctrine on homosexuality, according to Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the Mount Rainier, Md.,-based New Ways Ministry.
“When few priests would do more than whisper about homosexuality, Father Nugent was meeting with lesbian and gay people and encouraging them to claim their rightful place in the Catholic Church,” DeBernardo said in a statement. “During a time of intense homophobia in both church and society, he exhibited uncommon courage and foresight in welcoming and affirming the goodness of God’s lesbian and gay children.”
In 1999, more than 20 years after Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick founded New Ways Ministry and served as its lead organizers, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, issued an order on behalf of the Vatican prohibiting Nugent and Gramick from engaging in “any pastoral work involving homosexual persons.”
Ratzinger issued the order in his role at the time as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a church body that, among other things, investigates alleged breaches of church doctrine and enforces church rules related to clergy. The order came 15 years after then Cardinal James Hickey of the Archdiocese of Washington first started to raise questions about New Ways Ministry’s positions on homosexuality in 1984.
Hickey’s concerns led to a formal investigation into the actions of Nugent and Gramick launched in 1988 by Cardinal Adam Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit, who was named head of a Vatican commission formed to examine Nugent and Gramick’s alleged breaches of church teachings.
“The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the church,” Ratzinger wrote in a May 31, 1999, statement. “For these reasons, Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.”
DeBernardo said that from the time the order was handed down through 2000, Nugent and Gramick traveled throughout the country urging Catholic leaders and lay people to contact the Vatican to have the order overturned.
When that effort failed, and after deep reflection, Nugent agreed to abide by the order while Gramick declined to do so, DeBernardo said.
According to DeBernardo, Nugent returned as a parish priest in New Freedom, Penn., where he had spent most of his time since being forced to leave New Ways Ministry.
“A loyal son of the Church, he attempted to help the institution live up to its most cherished ideals of human dignity, equality and respect,” said DeBernardo.
Nugent was born and raised in Norristown, Penn., where he graduated from local Catholic elementary and high schools and entered St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1961, according to information provided by the Society of the Divine Savior, also known as the Salvatorians, the religious order to which Nugent was a member during most of his priesthood.
Nugent was ordained as a priest in 1965 after completing four years of theological studies at the Philadelphia-based St. Charles Seminary.
Prior to his collaboration with Gramick in founding New Ways Ministry, he served as a priest in parishes in Philadelphia and Levittown, Penn., and worked as a graduate assistant at Villanova University, where he received a master’s of science degree in library science. He received a master’s degree in Sacred Theology in 1983 at the Yale Divinity School.
DeBernardo and Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the LGBT Catholic group Dignity USA, said Nugent’s more than 20 years as a leader of New Ways Ministry continues to have an impact on LGBT Catholics and Catholic clergy despite his absence from direct work on LGBT issues in recent years.
“Dignity USA gave Bob a lifetime achievement award in 2001 to recognize just how important he was as a ground-breaking figure in lesbian and gay ministry throughout the 70s and 80s,” Duddy-Burke said. “I continue to meet people who say Bob’s writings, workshops, and personal ministry were the thing that gave them hope as they were coming out in the 70s and the 80s,” she said.
“It is impossible to overestimate the impact and value of Father Nugent’s lesbian and gay ministry,” DeBernardo said. “He educated a generation of pastoral leaders who began to put into practice the inclusive ideals that he taught. A tireless researcher and writer, he produced a number of important works on pastoral care that helped to shape the movement in Catholicism of gay-friendly parishes.”
Added DeBernardo, “A sensitive counselor, he supported scores of gay priests and brothers as they worked at reconciling their spirituality with their sexuality.”
A spokesperson for the Salvatorians said arrangements were being made for a funeral for Nugent in New Freedom, Penn. DeBernardo said a memorial service for Nugent would be held in the D.C. area within the next several weeks.
Virginia
Youngkin calls on gay Va. GOP LG candidate to exit race over alleged ‘porn’ scandal
John Reid denounces ‘fabricated internet lie’ as anti-gay smear campaign
Less than a week after John Reid, the conservative gay radio talk show host from Richmond secured the Republican nomination for the office of lieutenant governor in Virginia, sensational allegations have surfaced, which he strongly denies, that he allegedly posted pornographic photos on social media.
According to the Virginia Mercury newspaper, the allegations surfaced when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office released a statement saying Youngkin contacted Reid on Friday, April 25, and asked him to withdraw his candidacy over reports that a social media account with Reid’s username included “pornographic content” that was “shared” with others.
“The governor was made aware late Thursday of the disturbing online content,” the Virginia Mercury quotes a Youngkin spokesperson as saying. “Friday morning, in a call with Mr. Reid, the governor asked him to step down as the lt. governor nominee,” the spokesperson is quoted as saying.
Reid responded to the allegations in an early Friday evening video he posted on his campaign’s Facebook page, calling the allegations “a totally fabricated internet lie” motivated by anti-gay bias.
“I can tell you that’s not my account and anyone on the internet can open accounts with the same or similar names as other people,” he stated in his video. “It’s predictable,” he added.
“But what I didn’t expect was the governor I have always supported to call and demand my resignation without even showing me the supposed evidence or offering me a chance to respond,” Reid states in his video.
He said he will not drop out of the lieutenant governor’s race and called the allegations against him just the latest in what he said was an ongoing effort by some in the Republican Party, especially conservative Christians, to force him out of politics.
“Let’s be honest,” he said. “it’s because I’m openly gay. And I have never backed down to the establishment, and will not,” he continued in his video message. “What happened today is another coordinated assassination attempt against me to force the first openly gay candidate off of a Virginia statewide ticket.”
Reid added, “It’s shameful, and I won’t back down, even though I know the plan is for the attacks to continue in this overt effort to make me toxic.”
Reid secured the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor last week after his only rival in the Republican primary, Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, dropped out of the race for health reasons.
By securing the nomination Reid became the first known openly gay candidate, Republican or Democrat, to be nominated for a statewide office in Virginia.
In an interview with the Washington Blade earlier this week Reid pointed out that he came out as gay in 1996 or 1997 on National Coming Out Day in his role as TV news anchor in Richmond, where he worked for 10 years.
Following that, Reid worked as a radio talk show host for the next eight years, promoting his ideas as a gay conservative Republican, up until shortly before he announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor, he told the Blade.
Reid’s video responding to the accusations against him can be accessed here.
Reid’s campaign website and statements he has released to the media acknowledge his status as a gay candidate but point out he has a long record of support for conservative Republican positions on a wide range of issues that are against the positions of most mainline LGBTQ rights organizations.
“I’m not a diversity hire,” he stated in a press release issued at the time he announced his candidacy in January. “I’m the most conservative and proven candidate running, and I’ve boldly stood up for our beliefs in a way that should make my personal life a total nonissue,” he stated.
A statement on his campaign website states “John is uniquely positioned to take the fight to the radical progressives head on as he continues his fight against boys in girls’ sports and the extreme trans agenda being forced upon our children.”
His campaign website statement on transgender issues concludes by saying, “And we must be blatant in saying that it is factually impossible for biological men or women to personally decide to change their gender. John believes in the right for grown adults to live their lives as they see fit, but not if they impose restrictions and obligations on others and not if any of their behavior sexualizes or grooms children.
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’
Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
Maryland
A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center
Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump
BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.
So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.
“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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