Much of the publicity about the upcoming World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia has centered on the participation by Pope Francis, but for several days before the papal visit, the conference will feature dozens of speakers exploring the Catholic faith — including a number who have advocated for conversion therapy for LGBT youth.
Conversion therapy is the effort to change an individual’s sexual orientation, a practice that has been decried by all major medical and psychological associations. Several states, including New Jersey, have banned the practice for youth.
At least eight individuals who have personally backed conversion therapy or who are connected to organizations promoting conversion therapy will be speaking at panel discussions and workshops during the World Meeting’s Congress, an international conference running Sept. 22-25 in Philadelphia that focuses on strengthening Catholic families.
Through board positions, published works, speaking engagements and other ties, the individuals are associated with such organizations as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, Courage, the Restored Hope Network and Legatus.
For instance, keynote speaker Helen Alvare published a 2012 book on Catholicism and women in which one contributor advocated for “changes to same-sex attraction,” which the author argued in part stems from childhood sexual abuse. Alvare has spoken at conferences for both Legatus and Courage, the latter of which is deemed the nation’s leading Catholic organization supporting conversion therapy.
Although the agency has said it advocates for chastity instead of conversion therapy, its website says “members are under no obligation to try to develop heterosexual attractions, because there is no guarantee that a person will always succeed in such an endeavour,” but that “some members have found varying levels of heterosexual development to be a by-product of living a chaste life for a period of time.”
The website adds that it doesn’t consider itself an “ex-gay” organization because “many Courage members have never labelled themselves ‘gay’ prior to coming to Courage.”
Another speaker, Christopher West, sits on the board of references for the Restored Hope Network, an organization that arose from the now-defunct Exodus, an advocate of conversion therapy that eventually closed and denounced the practice. RHN’s website includes resources aimed at helping people “come out of homosexuality,” listing one resource book titled “Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy,” and another as “Homosexual No More.”
While none of the World Meeting workshops or discussions specifically addresses the topic of conversion therapy, the involvement of leading backers of the practice runs counter to the idea of promoting family, said Michael Sherrard, executive director of Faithful America, an online community of Christians advocating for social justice.
“This practice is deeply damaging and dangerous to young people,” said Sherrard, whose organization has undertaken a number of pro-LGBT grassroots campaigns, such as defending a Methodist pastor from Pennsylvania who was defrocked for officiating his son’s gay wedding. “And from our perspective, it should not be something promoted within religious communities and within the Catholic Church. This is supposed to be an event about strengthening families and, for it to be crawling with people who promote this type of therapy is really profoundly worrisome.”
Dr. Mary Beth Yount, director of Content and Programming with the World Meeting of Families-Philadelphia 2015, contended that none of the speakers actively promote conversion therapy, any longer.
“We will leave the discussion of specific models of therapy to those who are professionally qualified to make those judgments. We can say that none of the presenters at the WMOF, to our knowledge, currently support this practice,” she said.
However, Alvare was a speaker at last year’s Courage conference at Villanova, and breakout-session leader Dr. Janet Smith spoke at a Courage conference in Michigan earlier this month. West was the keynote speaker at the RHN conference earlier this summer, and WMOF speaker Damon Clark Owens promoted, via social media, an article advocating for conversion therapy in April.
Yount added that “Ron Belgau, a presenter at the WMOF, specifically challenges reparative therapy in his blog, calling the approach ‘misguided.’”
According to the program agenda, Belgau is a “celibate gay Catholic who embraces Church teaching,” who, with his mother, will present on “how Catholics should respond with both grace and truth to gay or lesbian friends or family members who struggle with or reject Catholic teaching on chastity.”
In addition to Belgau’s session, the topic of homosexuality will also be specifically addressed in “Redefining Marriage: Is It Really Whatever We Say It Is?” which questions “what really is the logic of same-sex marriage?” The event description says participants will explore “how those who regard marriage as belonging to the divine design for human flourishing respond to the claim that the state has the power to redefine marriage, and that the new definition is both just and compassionate?”
Yount noted that several entities collaborated on the event’s programming.
“Input toward speakers in the Adult Congress came from many sources, including the Pontifical Council for the Family (at the Vatican), members of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, committee members of the World Meeting of Families-Philadelphia 2015 and the many hundreds of emails, letters and spoken suggestions from people around the world who wanted to contribute their thoughts,” she said. “It was truly a global effort, with all suggestions taken into account.”
The lead-up to the conference has been affected by a number of incidents that shine a spotlight on the ongoing divisions among conservative and progressive Catholics.
Earlier this month, St. John the Evangelist Church in Center City backed out of hosting a coalition of national LGBT groups staging events the same week as the World Meeting of Families. The Archdiocese said it provided “guidance” to the church about the event, which has since been rescheduled at Arch Street United Methodist Church. In June, a Catholic school in Merion Township fired its longtime religious-education director after a parent complained to the archdiocese about her same-sex marriage, prompting a sharp national outcry.
And, at least one pro-LGBT organization — Fortunate Families, which supports the parents of LGBT children — has been prohibited from exhibiting at the event.
“The message Archbishop Chaput is sending to LGBT people — not only by the presence of conversion-therapy folks at the conference but also the banning of mainstream organizations and the denial of services outside of the conference — is directly contrary to what Pope Francis has said,” Sherrard said. “He has advocated for a more welcoming, compassionate church than it’s often been perceived to be in the past. But Chaput is doing his damnedest to thumb his nose at that.”