LGBT Catholics celebrate 40 years of Dignity/Boston
The nation’s largest LGBT Catholic organization, Dignity, has deep New England roots. The Boston chapter marks its four decades with an anniversary dinner this Saturday, December 1.
Posted by Jim Lopata November 25, 2012 06:51 PM
Dignity Boston marching in the 2012 Boston Pride Parade this past June (photo: Chuck Colbert)
Note: The following story is adapted from a story that ran in the July/August 2012 issue of Boston Spirit magazine.
By Chuck Colbert
Everybody has a story at Dignity/Boston. And storytelling is one important way that the local LGBT Catholic worshipping community is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding and honoring its legacy.
Lourdes Rodríguez-Nogués, for example, moved to Boston from Puerto Rico in 1977 to attend graduate school. “I was looking for a place to worship that was Catholic,” she said. Rodríguez-Nogués found that place on Easter Sunday that year and has been a local chapter and national organization mainstay, having served as chapter president and now president of DignityUSA.
“It was so moving,” she said recently over the telephone, “everybody was friendly.” Rodríguez-Nogués admitted she was “a little anxious” about her first Dignity Mass. “I didn’t talk to anyone, left right away, went straight to my car, and started to cry.” Now “Dignity is my parish church,” she said, “where all my spiritual needs get met, not only going to church on Sundays, but also other needs. ... People know my name and my family,” she continued. “Dignity is a community,” a close-knit group of “people whom I care about, and who care about me.”
Dignity/Boston officially turns 40 this year and the local chapter plans a weekend celebration, including a dinner dance on Saturday, December 1, at the Holiday Inn on Beacon Hill. The next day, during a 5:30 p.m. liturgy, the congregation will celebrate a Catholic Mass, the gathering to be held at the Episcopalian Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston’s Beacon Hill.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/blogs/bostonspirit/2012/11/gay_catholic_group_dignity_cel.html
