I was raised a Roman Catholic but I have since parted company with them owing to their policies on me.

I have since heard of an offshoot of the church that is openly welcoming of gay and lesbian parishioners and I was wondering if this extended to transgendered people as well.

I was wondering if anyone has had any personal experience with this church and if so could they please post some details.

Just out of curiosity....why do you 'need' a church?  Why can't you just have your own personal relationship with God/Jesus?  I'm not Christian but was raised Christian and church just never made sense to me.

Liberal Catholicism?  Isn't that an oxymoron, like Military Intelligence?

But if there is such a thing and you wish to be a participant, I am sure you could if it.



Janet

You may be referring to Charismatic Catholicism, but I'm not sure whether or not they welcome gay and lesbian parishioners.  If you're looking for a denomination that is very closely related to Catholicism that does, that would be the Episcopalians.  They even allow gays and lesbians to become priests.   

Washu, 

I have been a liberal Catholic since my college years in
Catholic seminaries in the mid-60s, during the 2nd Vatican
Council. (I did not go on to ordination.) But as for "offshoot"
churches, I do know of the Congregational Catholic Church.
One of their priests, Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker, writes and
speaks passionately on behalf of LGBT Catholics, so I know
this church is a welcoming one.  There is also an organization
of LGBT Catholics called DignityUSA.  Some members of this
group are still in the Catholic Church, some are not.  But
they are a very active group nationwide, with chapters in
many cities.  They also have national publications and online
discussion groups.  It's true that they started as an organi-
zation for Gays and Lesbians, but they have opened up in re-
cent years and do include transgender people as well as
"straight" allies.  Last spring they devoted their entire quarterly
newsletter to "Transgender Lives."  I would say that thru them
you could also find out more about other liberal Catholic groups,
such as Call to Action and Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

On the question of whether someone who has a relationship
with God/Jesus needs a church, different people have different
opinions.  Personally, it has always helped me because I have
had access to the teaching (not all of which I agree with any-
more, of course!) and the community aspect of the church,
where one gets to know people with the same basic beliefs,
as well as to participate in prayer with others.  My situation
is that because of seriously limited strength and energy, I'm
not able to get out much, and I do rely on various kinds of
help available thru my parish church.  Otherwise, I might have
started several years ago to visit other denominations. If I
found that there was not a Congregational Catholic or some
other welcoming Catholic church in my area, I would probably,
as Donna C has said, look into the Episcopal Church.

So at this time, this is about all I know of to tell you. I hope
you find this information helpful.

Cheers, 

Sandra

Are you asking what the church stands for, or its people?

Is the church itself liberal? Not really.

Are the people? Some.

Many worshippers are liberal. Many are not.

Of course, when I say the church itself, I don't say the individual priests. Individual priests are very accepting. I have never met a priest that wouldnt accept anyone for who they are.

I study the church in school. If you see the church say something, take it with a shaker of salt.

The Bible IS a 2000- year-old book. Times have changed, but the book has not. Apply discression where necessary.

As a former very traditionalist Catholic (now Jewish), I have to say there are no "offshoots" of Catholicism that remain Catholic.  Either a group is in communion with the Catholic Church and is Catholic or it's not and it's Orthodox or Protestant.  The second a group offshoots from Catholicism it automatically becomes Protestant, although it may retain Catholic-like worship and culture.  And the Catholic Church will tell you it accepts LGBT people until they're blue in the face because it really depends on what you mean by acceptance.  A Catholic priest will generally accept an LGBT person and treat them like a wonderful person, but they aren't allowed to condone the actions-- so basically their position is, you can be gay all you want as long as you don't have sex.  The second you have sex you're out of communion with the Catholic Church and aren't allowed to recieve any of the Sacraments until you make a sincere confession with the intention of never having extra-marital (and marital as defined by the Catholic Church) sex again.  And any offshoot group that disagrees with that teaching automatically takes themselves out of communion with the Catholic Church and becomes Protestant.  The Catholic Church is EXTREMELY rigid on this point.  Either you believe every single Doctrine the Catholic Church teaches or you're not Catholic.  There's no flexibility there whatsoever.

I agree with what Donna said-- look into the Episcopalians.  They're a Protestant group but they have a very Catholic-like structure.  Although according to Catholicism, they don't have a valid Eucharist, so if you believe that then I guess you're in a bit of a pickle.  What is it that you really want to retain about Catholicism and what would you be willing to compromise on?

You didn't say where you were from (so I looked in your profile ).

Check out the Liberal Catholic Church of Australia.  They claim to be "an accepting Non-Judgemental Community." Just type "liberal catholic church australia" into google without quotes.  There's a listing of their church locations on the website.

There is also a Liberal Catholic Church International in Melbourne. 

There are many liberal Roman Catholic theologians.  If you are interested, you might do some more reading on the works of these:

* Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a French Jesuit, also trained as a paleontologist; works condemned by the Holy Office in 1962. The condemnation was formally reaffirmed in 1981 but many theologians still refer to his writings, including Pope Benedict XVI.
* Yves Congar (1904–1995), French Dominican ecumenical theologian.
* Edward Schillebeeckx, (1914–2009) Belgian Dominican theologian.
* Hans Küng, (b. 1928) Swiss theologian. Had his license to teach Catholic theology revoked in 1979 because of his rejection of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church, but retained his faculties to say the Mass.
* John Dominic Crossan, (b. 1934) ex-priest, New Testament scholar, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar.
* Joan Chittister, (b. 1936) OSB, a lecturer and social psychologist.
* Leonardo Boff, (b. 1938) Brazilian, ex-Franciscan, ex-priest, cofounder of Liberation theology.

If you are interested in talking to some real live liberal Catholics, let me know.

Hope this helps some.

Kristi