Henri Nouwen, Catholic Priest

b. January 24, 1932
d. September 21, 1996

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection.

A Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books about spirituality. Nouwen's books, which are still being read today, include The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, Life of the Belovedand The Way of the Heart.. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy.One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression - which was rooted in part, in his early conflicts over sexuality and celibacy.

Nouwen is thought to have struggled with his sexuality. "Although his homosexuality was known by those close to him, he never publicly claimed a homosexual identity." Although he never directly addressed the matter of his sexuality in the writings he published during his lifetime, it is said that he acknowledged the struggle both in his private journals and in discussions with friends, both of which were extensively referenced by Michael Ford in the biography Wounded Prophet, which was published after Nouwen's death. Ford suggests that Nouwen only became fully comfortable with his sexual orientation in the last few years of his life, and that Nouwen's depression was caused in part by the conflict between his priestly vows of celibacy and the sense of loneliness and longing for intimacy that he experienced. Ford conjectured, "This took an enormous emotional, spiritual and physical toll on his life and may have contributed to his early death." There is no evidence that Nouwen ever broke his vow of celibacy

His spirituality was influenced notably by his friendship with Jean Vanier. At the invitation of Vanier, Nouwen visited L'Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live with those who care for them. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L'Arche community called "Daybreak" in Canada, near Toronto. Nouwen wrote about his relationship with Adam, a core member at L'Arche Daybreak with profound developmental disabilities, in a book titled Adam: God's Beloved. Father Nouwen was a good friend of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.




Books:


Ford, Michael: Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri J.M. Nouwen


The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
The Way of the Heart

The Nun Who Became a Soldier, Fought in the Spanish Army

Catalina de Erauso, Spanish-Mexican soldier and Catholic nun; also known as 'La Monja Alfrez' (The Second Lieutenant Nun)

Catalina de Erauso (1592? - 1650), soldier and nun

Catalina de Erauso was daughter and sister of soldiers from the city of San Sebastián in Spain. Her father was Miguel de Erauso and her mother María Pérez de Gallárraga y Arce. She was expected to become a nun but abandoned the nunnery after a beating at the age of fifteen, just before she was to take her vows. She had not ever seen a street, having entered the convent at the age of four .

She dressed as a man, calling herself "Francisco de Loyola", and left on a long journey from San Sebastian to Valladolid. From there she visited Bilbao, where she signed up on a ship with the assistance of other Basques. She reached Spanish America and enlisted as a soldier in Chile under the nameAlonso Díaz Ramírez de Guzmán. She served under several captains in the Arauco War, including her own brother, who never recognized her.

After one fight in which she killed a man and was wounded fatally, she revealed her sex in a deathbed confession. She however survived after four months of convalescence and left for Guamanga.

To escape yet another incident, she confessed her sex to the bishop, Fray Agustín de Carvajal. Induced by him she entered a convent and her story spread across the ocean. In 1620, the archbishop of Lima called her. In 1624, she arrived in Spain, having changed ship after another fight.

She went to Rome and toured Italy, where she eventually achieved such a level of fame that she was granted a special dispensation by Pope Urban VIIIto wear men's clothing.

Her portrait by Francesco Crescenzio is lost. Back in Spain, Francisco Pacheco (Velázquez's father-in-law) painted her in 1630.

She again left Spain in 1645, this time for New Spain in the fleet of Pedro de Ursua, where she became a mule driver on the road from Veracruz. In New Spain she used the name Antonio de Erauso.

- wikipedia

November 29th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2007 - Civil Unions become legal in Uruguay making it the first Latin Americannation to do so

Born this day

Percy Jocelyn (1764 –  1843) Irish .

Anglican bishop of Ferns and Leighlin in the Church of Ireland (1809–1820) and later bishop of Clogher from 1820 to 1822. He was forced from his position after he was caught in a compromising position with a Grenadier Guardsman, John Moverley, in the back room of a London public house. He and Moverley were released on bail, provided by the Earl of Roden and others. Jocelyn broke bail and moved to Scotland where he worked as a butler under an assumed name. He was declared deposed in his absence by the Metropolitan Court of Armagh in October 1822 for "the crimes of immorality, incontinence, Sodomitical practices, habits, and propensities, and neglect of his spiritual, judicial, and ministerial duties".

Jocelyn was the most senior British churchman to be involved in a public homosexual scandal in the 19th century.

Billy Strayhorn (1915 –  1967) US.

Composer, pianist and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington lasting nearly three decades. His compositions include "Chelsea Bridge", "Take the "A" Train" and "Lush Life".

He participated in many civil rights causes. As a committed friend to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he arranged and conducted "King Fought the Battle of 'Bam'" for the Ellington Orchestra in 1963 for the historical revue My People, dedicated to Dr. King.

Strayhorn was openly gay, and lived with his first partner, African-American musician Aaron Bridgers,until Bridgers moved to Paris in 1947.

Philippe Elan (1960 – ) French.

French born singer, living in Holland with his lover Gijs van der Grinten, a violinist of the Dutch Ballet Orchestra. Elan received a Edison (Dutch award) for his first album Chansons Classiques.

Martha Beck (1962 – ) US.

Sociologist, therapist, life coach and best-selling author. Beck is the daughter of deceased LDS (Mormon) scholar and apologist, Hugh Nibley. She received national attention after publication in 2005 of her best-seller, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith in which she accuses her father of sexual abuse.

Both Martha Beck and her now ex-husband subsequently came out publicly as gay and have stated that they no longer consider homosexuality a form of compulsive behavior. In 2003, Beck separated from her husband, divorcing from him in 2004. She began living with her partner Karen Gerdes, a social worker and professor, during her marriage and has continued this relationship.

Guillaume Dustan (1965 –  2005) French.
Born William Baranès, Dustan was an openly gay French writer and journalist.

Simon Amstell (1979 –  ). UK

A BAFTA nominated,award-winning English comedian, television presenter, screenwriter and actor, best known for his roles as former co-host of Popworld, former host of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and co-writer and star of the sitcom Grandma's House.

Died this day

Cary Grant  (1904 - 1986 ) UK/US

Archibald Alexander Leach, better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

Grant was married five times, but some, including Hedda Hopper and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, have said that Grant was bisexual, the latter writing that Grant "told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless". Grant allegedly was involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, and lived with Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love", and alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published.

Sodomy laws in history, November 29

1876 — Utah outlaws sodomy.

1967 — A California appellate court rejects a privacy argument and upholds the constitutionality of the state’s "oral copulation" law.

Sources:

Wikipedia
Today in Gay History, Blue Pride
On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki
Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

November 15th in Queer History

Events this Day in Queer History

1980 - Michael Harcourt, an alderman consistently supportive of the gay community, is elected mayor of Vancouver.

1989 - Massachusetts passed a statewide gay rights law

1992 - Thirty-five members of The Cathedral Project, a gay Roman Catholic group, demonstrated at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City  to protest a Vatican directive urging bishops to oppose laws banning anti-gay bias.

Born this day

Sara Josephine Baker (1873 –  1945),  US.
Author

Georgia O'Keefe (1887 - 1986),  US.
Bisexual artist

Paul Moore (1919 –  2003) US.
Marine, Bishop

Bishop of the Episcopal Church and served as the 13th Bishop of New York. During his lifetime, he was perhaps the best known Episcopal clergyman in the United States, and among the best known Christian clergy in any denomination.

Although twice married and the father of nine children, he was bisexual. This was firmly revealed after his death. Honor Moore, the oldest of his revealed that her father was bisexual with a history of gay affairs in a story she wrote about him in The New Yorker and in the book The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir.

Fred Richmond  ( 1923 – ),  US.
Navy,  Politician, Pianist

Patricia Marion Fogarty(1940 - )
Illustrator and photographer, lover of filmmaker Jayne Parker.

Dawn Airey  (1960 –  ) UK
Television Executive [Five]

Judy Gold (1962 –  ), US
Comedian / Actress ,  Author,  Producer

Jeroen Willems (1962 –  ),  Dutch.
Actor, Singer,  Director

Evan Adams (1966 –  ), Canadian.
Actor, Playwright,  Doctor

Francois Ozon (1967 –  ),  French.
Director,  Screenwriter

Todd Klinck (1974 –  ), Canadian.  Author / Director / Producer

Stephanie Thomas (1982 –  ), US .  2002  Hate Crime Victim

Died this day

Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908 -  1942) Swiss.
Author, Journalist –

Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978 ),  US.
Anthropologist

Robert McCall (1958 - 1991),  Canadian.
Figure Skater

Jacques Morali (1947  -1991),  French.
Music Producer

Mary Meigs (1917 - 2002 ),  US.
Painter , Author

Hanne Haller (1950 - 2005),  German.
Singer,  Composer,  Author, Producer, Sound Engineer

Donathyn J Rodgers (? - 2005),  US.
Murder Victim

Fred Goldhaber (1947– ) US

Teacher 

Griffith Vaughan Williams ( 1940– 2010 ) UK 

Activist

Sodomy laws in history, November 15

1636 Plymouth colony outlaws consensual sodomy with a penalty of death.

1912 Portland newspapers report what becomes known as the "Vice Clique Scandal." Some 68 men are involved in prosecutions for private, consensual sexual relations.

1935 Oregon adopts a new sterilization law and requires names of all known "sexual perverts" in the state to be turned over to the Board of Eugenics.

1941- Heinrich Himmler announced a decree that any member of the Nazi SS or the police who had sex with another man would be put to death.

1950 The Puerto Rico Supreme Court rules that emission is not necessary for a conviction of sodomy.

Sources:

Wikipedia
Today in Gay History, Blue Pride
On This Gay Day

glbtq emcyclopedia

Gay History Wiki
Calendar of Sodomy, November

Gay History Wiki

François-Timoléon de Choisy, Cross-Dressing Abbé and Priest

b. 2 October 1644
d. 2 October 1724


Born in Paris, among the notable Frenchmen of the seventeenth century, the Abbé de Choisy, also known as François Timoléon, has left for posterity a vivid firsthand description of a strong cross-gender wish. During his infancy and early youth, his mother had attired him completely as a girl. At eighteen this practice continued and his waist was then "encircled with tight-fitting corsets which made his loins, hips, and bust more prominent." As an adult, for five months he played comedy as a girl and reported: "Everybody was deceived; I had [male] lovers to whom I granted small favors."

In 1676, attended Papal inaugural bal in a female attire. In 1687, he was received in the Académie de France. In 1696 he became the Ambassador of Louis XIV to Siam. Regarding his gender identity he wrote, I thought myself really and truly a woman. I have tried to find out how such a strange pleasure came to me, and I take it to be in this way. It is an attribute of God to be loved and adored, and man - so far as his weak nature will permit - has the same ambition, and it is beauty which creates love, and beauty is generally woman's portion ... . I have heard someone near me whisper, "There is a pretty woman," I have felt a pleasure so great that it is beyond all comparison. Ambition, riches, even love cannot equal it ...

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