By Lloyd Mackey

A CONTROVERSY involving a gay altar server, a Catholic church and a human rights tribunal may have more to do with a simple power struggle within the parish than with any sort of disagreement over Catholic teaching.

Jim Corcoran filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) earlier this summer, after being told by his priest, Father Allan Hood, that he could no longer be an altar server at St. Michael's Church in Cobourg.

Corcoran, who owns a high-end spa employing 150 in Grafton, near Cobourg and 100 kilometres east of Toronto, maintains he is not trying to push a gay rights agenda. Rather, he told CC.com, he wants to support his pastor in what he implies is a power struggle with about a dozen St. Michael's parishioners.

The basis of his case, he claimed, is that, while he is gay and lives openly with his partner -- who is unnamed in the complaint -- he is living "chaste" in line with Catholic teaching, and has done so for several years.

Named in the complaint are Bishop Nicola De Angelis of the Peterborough Diocese and 12 St. Michael's parishioners. The bishop apparently ordered Father Hood to remove Corcoran from his altar-serving duties shortly after this past Easter, acting on a letter from those 12 parishioners.

Hood came to the parish a year ago, with a record of helping to turn around churches that had experienced financial or administrative difficulties. He succeeded a pastor named Edward Cachia, who had been excommunicated for publicly supporting the ordination of women.

A former Anglican priest who moved into Catholicism a couple of decades ago, Hood had been Corcoran's pastor at Grafton in previous years. It was his move to Cobourg that motivated Corcoran to become a part of that parish and, in due course, take on the role of an altar server.

In brief, Corcoran said he wants an apology from the bishop and the publicizing of what he maintains is the church's position on "inclusion." He is also asking that each of the 12 letter writers pay $20,000 to a charity of his choosing plus his costs in appealing to the tribunal.

Margaret Leighton, OHRT legal counsel, said the Tribunal is now awaiting a response from the bishop and the 12 letter writers.

But she said it may take eight to 10 months to resolve the matter. At least 60 per cent of the cases brought to the tribunal are settled through mediation, she added.

Corcoran emphasized that he was not a gay activist and drew for encouragement on his pastor's emphasis, to him, that joining the parish was not about sexual orientation "but about your commitment to Christ."

One of the letter-writers, Reg Ward, told the Northumberland Today that communication with the bishop "should not have gone to the Human Rights Tribunal," but rather that it was "strictly a church matter and church policy."

In a sense, Corcoran said he agrees with Ward. But he also pointed out that the tribunal has mediation services available that should be helpful in bringing the pastor, the bishop and the letter-writers together in the interests of spiritual renewal in the parish.

"I have been in a business for many years that requires some human relations and mediation to move ahead. Sometimes the first reaction, in a high stress situation, is to push back," he said, adding that it is important, too, not to give in to a power group that is acting against one's own principles.

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The Catholic Register, in reporting on the complaint, allowed that Corcoran does live with another gay man. But it pointed out that both men are devout Catholics who refrain from sexual activity in accordance with church teaching.

It quoted Corcoran as suggesting that "unless I am actively flaunting my sexual preference in the Catholic Church to recruit other homosexuals or to promote homosexuality -- I can see how people might take offense to that and how that might fly in the face of what the Pope is trying to do in terms of the priesthood -- but just serving on the altar as a man?"

Corcoran also told the Register that Bishop De Angelis had urged him to take his dismissal from the altar in the spirit of Paul's advice to the Romans on the issue of meat sacrificed to idols (Romans 14:13-23) -- refraining from scandal.

In a blog post that he wrote explaining his position, Corcoran suggested that, besides the allegations about his own sexual orientation, the letter-writers had complained about Father Hood's handling of funds, "the volume of the organ at weekday mass . . . a stipend . . . for the girls' choir . . . the vestments he used . . . and the changes he made to the adoration chapel."

Corcoran's point with respect to his own sexual orientation was what he described as his acceptance of the idea that "God did not create me on a bad day." The "chaste" part of the equation is the willingness to accept that orientation but not act on it, he added.

The bishop is on the record as believing that asking Corcoran to step aside would have defused the issue, said Corcoran, but that did not happen because sexual orientation, by the word of the letter-writers, was only one of several issues.

Corcoran said the six months of training and altar-serving that he had experienced after being appointed by Hood had been "spiritually enriching."

For the 12 letter-writers, however, the Hood tenure is, they say, proving difficult. "It is just one more way of Father Hood saying he's boss and to hell with everybody else," Ward told the Catholic Register.

And as for the letter-writers' contention that this is strictly a church matter, Corcoran responded that the bishop "needs some help in understanding how to deal with confrontation in his diocese. The Human Rights (Tribunal) helps people do that."

Corcoran said he "could have walked across the street to the Anglican or United church. But that would not have been the right way, if I wanted to encourage Catholic people to understand what 'inclusive' really means."

And the former altar server still holds out some hope that the issues might be settled within the church structures. If they are, he said, he will also believe that settlement would not have happened if he had not taken the matter public and to the tribunal.

Related stories:

Gay altar server contests firing
A gay man has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against a Catholic bishop after he was removed from his volunteer job as an altar server because of his sexual orientation. The case is the latest involving the human rights tribunal to address whether Church doctrine should be subject to review by a secular body.
Charles Lewis, National Post, July 14

The Catholic Church vs. our rights commissions
It did, as it were, have to happen. A human rights body taking on the Roman Catholic Church. In this case the issues are still murky and confused, but it appears that an openly gay man who has been living with his partner for 19 years has been dismissed as an altar server in his Peterborough parish. Several long-standing parishioners complained, and local Bishop Nicola De Angelis, one of the gentlest and kindest priests you are likely to meet, decided that the situation was inappropriate.
Michael Coren, National Post, July 16

July 30/2009