‘Destroying false images of God: The experiences of LGBT Catholics’ is the title of the next seminar in the Work in Progress in the Social Studies series, to be held on Tuesday from 6 to 7 pm in the University’s Gateway Building Hall E, Msida campus.
In the seminar, Angele Deguara, a lecturer and subject co-ordinator of Sociology at the Junior College, will discuss her PhD research on how LGBT Catholics in Malta and Sicily, whose sexuality and lifestyle choices do not conform to Catholic Church morality, deal with the inevitable conflict between their religious and sexual identities.
Ms Deguara said that Charles de Montesquieu once wrote: “If triangles had a God, they would give Him three sides”. She added that perceptions of God tend to be based on one’s perception of self and change as one’s perception of self changes.
“LGBT Catholics’ image of God changes as they struggle to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, as they go through a process of ‘conversion’ from deviants and sinners to loved children of God,” she said.
Giovanni, from Palermo, one of the people interviewed, compared faith in God to peeling an onion – with every layer one peels off, one destroys false images of God
“Giovanni from Palermo, one of the people interviewed in the study, compared faith in God to peeling an onion – with every layer one peels off, one destroys false images of God.”
Ms Deguara said many of the LGBT Catholics have moved away from the image of God often projected in religious art, books or in catechism classes; many have shed traditional images of God transmitted to them by their mother or other close family members.
“Among the childhood images of God that stuck in their mind were: God as a mystery or as a magician who grants one’s wishes upon hearing prayers; God as creator of Adam and Eve; God as the setter of morality, as someone who watches over people from above, as someone who takes account of what we do and to whom we have to answer on judgement day.”
She said most of the people interviewed in the study believe in a Catholic or Christian God. A few still see God as a father or brother, as a creator, as someone who they have to answer to after they die. Most refer to God in the masculine but not everyone personifies God.
“Some do not ‘see’ God. They conceive of God as a force, as energy, as light. Others see him in mundane things or in nature. Regardless of how he is projected, God’s image in the mind of LGBT Catholics tends to eventually evolve from that of accountant, judge or law-giver to that of a loving God who embraces them as spiritual and sexual creatures.”
The public is invited to attend.
The seminar is convened by Paul Clough, Peter Mayo and Michael Briguglio.