Denver Newsroom, Aug 16, 2020 / 04:42 pm (CNA).- Shannon Ochoa remembers recognizing that she was attracted to women from a pretty young age.
Starting around the age of 13, Ochoa said she was “all gung-ho” for chastity talks and signing a purity promise. But she also realized that the talks she was hearing only addressed sexuality from a heterosexual perspective.
“A lot of the advice you’d get was about the opposite sex, and so when you’re sitting there, crushing on your friend next to you at the women’s talk, you’re like, ‘Oh, what do I do?’”
For a while, Ochoa said, her strategy was to say nothing. By and large, her experience of people talking about same-sex attraction was within a political context – this was around the time that California was voting on the legalization of gay marriage.
“So I was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to shut up; not tell a soul about this,’” Ochoa told CNA.
“Because that’s always helpful, right?” she joked. “Not to have a space to process?”
Eventually, through her relationship with God and others, Ochoa would come to confront her same-sex attraction and to grapple with what that meant for her as a Catholic Christian.
Today, Ochoa is one of the founders of Eden Invitation, a relatively new ministry in the Catholic Church that seeks to provide community, accompaniment and resources for people who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria and who want to follow Christ and Catholic Church teaching.
“We exist to create spaces to receive the whole person, to grow systems of mutual support, and to empower for mature Christian discipleship,” Ochoa states in an introductory video for the ministry.
Both Ochoa and Anna Carter, the other founder of Eden Invitation, credit their strong faith backgrounds with providing them the framework and the love for God necessary to stay and thrive in the Catholic Church as people who experience same sex attraction.
It wasn’t really until Ochoa’s involvement with ministry on her college campus at the University of Madison Wisconsin that she “encountered the person of Jesus, in a really raw way. Where I just knew that he saw me, he knew me and he had a place for me in his Church,” she said.
While some might see Church teaching as oppressive, since it calls people with same-sex attraction to live chastely, Ochoa said she knew she could never leave the Church.
In a way, she said, she “knew too much” – she could not deny the love of God or the truth of his Church’s teachings, she said.
“I just had so many prayers where the Lord has spoken over me in intimacy, or encountering the tapestry of a Christian apology, unpacking natural law and its impact on the human person and our society, as well as our environment. It’s just so deeply woven together…that’s just hard for me to deny,” Ochoa said.
Speaking about living as a Catholic with same-sex attraction had slowly become a part of her ministry. She would incorporate the Church’s teaching on this subject into bible studies she was leading, and she slowly started attracting bible study members and friends who were wrestling with the same questions she was, about how to live a fulfilling life in the Church as a Catholic experiencing same-sex attraction.
“There was a longing in my heart to know and understand my experience that didn’t feel like it was being talked about in the Church, but there’s also a longing in more secular spaces,” she said.
After graduating college, Ochoa worked in different ministry positions, and it was then that she met Anna Carter, who shared with her a vision for a ministry that would accompany Catholics experiencing same sex attraction or gender discordance who wanted to follow Church teaching.
“I was like discerning this and bounced it off of a few friends of mine, one of whom was Shannon, a friend from the local area,” Carter told CNA.
“And then (Shannon) said, ‘That’s funny that that’s what you’re discerning. Let me tell you about my life,” Carter recalled.
“And it was just so beautiful, because it immediately shifted the perspective,” Carter said. “I think initially my idea was like, I’m going to speak and write about this.”
Instead, Carter and Ochoa started thinking about their experiences, and what kept them in the Church.
“Why did you stay Catholic? Why are we still here? What did we have that maybe some other people who have left the Church didn’t have? What do we wish we had?” she said.
Both Carter and Ochoa agreed that they had both experienced a solid foundation of theology and formation in the Christian life, but what they longed for more of was other people who understood that experience and who would support them as friends and as Christian disciples.
“And so really out of that space came this dream and this desire to give people community, in addition to formation,” Carter said.
Eden Invitation establishes community through its weekly book clubs, which meet virtually to discuss books on various aspects of the human person from the perspective of a Christian anthropology. Currently, they are reading Pope St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici, or “The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful.”
They also have an online community platform, as well as occasional spiritual retreats, among other more casual gatherings.
The ministry takes what Ochoa and Carter call a “whole person” approach to human formation. The tagline on the ministry’s website reads “Eden Invitation: original personhood beyond the LGBT+ paradigm.” They want to explore not only what the Church teaches about same sex attraction, but also, “what does it mean to be human?”
“Being a member of the body of Christ, being a temple of the Holy Spirit – that is our deepest identity,” Carter said.
“We say no to certain things, because we have a really rich and dynamic yes to what it means to be a human being,” she added. They draw inspiration from other saints who lived as single people, like Dorothy Day or Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. They talk about what it means to live a robust life as a single, chaste, lay person in the Church.
Carter said she likes to use Garden of Eden imagery in some of her talks on this topic. In the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, there is a tree that is off-limits to Adam and Eve: God commands that they do not touch it.
For people experiencing same sex attraction, Carter said, there is also a “tree”, so to speak, that is “100% off limits.”
“If we spend our life circling that tree and pining after that tree, of course we’re not going to think there’s any possibilities. Or if all of the teaching and all of the explanations about this experience is fixated on telling us over and over again, not to go to the tree, what are we going to look at? The tree!” Carter said.
“You know, but the truth is: we have the run of the garden, and that’s where we’ll find our vocation and mission.”
Carlos Martinez, a member of Eden Invitation, said he most appreciates the community he has found within the ministry.
“We all experience pain points and sufferings through this within the Church and outside of the Church, but having other people around you who understand what you’ve experienced…it’s just been a testament of the beauty of what the ministry is and what Eden really strives for, which is a desire to grow in holiness with God through this.”
Martinez is from Texas but currently lives in New York City as a student at Columbia University. He said he was “shocked” when he moved to New York to see so many Catholic parishes be so open about their ministries for people on the LGBT spectrum.
“I don’t say that in a negative tone,” Martinez said. It was an openness that he hadn’t yet encountered, and many of these ministries were engaged in “beautiful forms of apostolic charity” like visiting gay men’s health centers, or starting Bible studies. But a lot of the ministries Martinez encountered were more concerned with affirming his same-sex attraction, and did not emphasize true and clear Church teaching.
It was very different from his experience as a Catholic in Texas, where Church teaching was “beat like a dead horse…but then there’s no community, there’s no relationship with Christ through this experience.”
The ministries available to people who experience same sex attraction or gender dysphoria within the Church, and also want to follow Church teaching regarding sexuality, are few. Courage is one ministry that exists to support people with same sex attraction who want to be faithful to the Church, but Martinez said Eden Invitation appealed to him because of its whole person approach, and because its members tended to be younger than the average Courage member.
For Martinez, it took a lot of prayer and discernment to find where he felt the Lord was calling him to be.
“I would just pray for, okay, where is the Holy Spirit in all of this noise?” Martinez said. “I really want to be open about this. I want to share my testimony. I want to utilize this.”
“Through a lot of prayer and guidance from the Lord…where I think the Holy Spirit is the most present, which for me personally, is in what is being done in Eden Invitation.”
Eden Invitation is “where I find that the ministry is holding true…with what we believe within the Church, but also (seeks an) understanding of that and unpacking that more in solidarity with other men and women who experienced this, and confronting it with clergy.” he said.
On Eden Invitation retreats, Martinez said he has been able to have frank conversations with priests, who he encourages to speak more openly about how people who experience same-sex attraction can live fully as Catholics, rather than taking a one-or-the-other approach of affirmation or apologetics.
“You don’t hear it in homilies, you don’t hear it in a group, conversational setting with an activity or within a Bible study. The only time I was able to talk about it was through confession and through Courage,” Martinez said. “It just sucks in a way, because while we don’t know why we ….like with anything, we can utilize our sufferings, our crosses, every part of who we are, we can utilize the uniqueness of what we are and how we were made in Christ.”
“Why is this just not a conversation that we can just talk about at Mass? There’s fear of the backlash from the congregation, there’s fear with donors, there’s fear all around,” Martinez said.
“When have we ever caved to fear as a church? Did the apostles cave to fear when they were the only one who received and knew the Word of God and had to trust in the Lord to speak to the world about his good news and his glory? No.”
Martinez said he would encourage people that minister to teenagers and young adults to also be open about this topic, since most people start recognizing same sex desires or attractions at a fairly young age. He encouraged them to have open conversations about it, to be compassionate as well as clear about what the Church teaches, and to be informed about what resources are available to them, such as Eden Invitation.
He said he hoped at one point it would be easy for Catholics who experience same sex attraction to be open about their experiences and to find authentic friendships within the Church.
For Martinez, he said that within Eden Invitation, “I feel like my full, authentic self, and it has enabled me to come out to everyone. It has really been transformative for other men and women out there who experience this when I get to share my story, and people who are close with me who don’t experience this.”
“It’s very freeing that I can just express myself and be myself, knowing that my expressions, and the way I am joyful, and how excited I get about things, my personality, all comes from (God’s) love. It’s all loving, and nothing about me, about who I am, is a defection, or is some form of rejection from God. On the contrary, it’s enabling me to be closer to him.”
For Ochoa, she said Eden Invitation has given her a sense of hope and empowerment within the Church.
“It’s a space to encounter joy and hopefulness. I think that’s one of the markers we’ve seen in our community, is that there’s a certain levity,” she said. “We’re not making light of the whole situation, but there’s a certain levity in just being able to laugh about some nuances of this experience.”
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, another marker of the community, for Ochoa and others, has been “having a sense of home. Home in the Church.”
[…]
This incident should be properly investigated. But we must remember that not every accused priest is guilty, as we have seen with the case of Cardinal Pell.
Yes, and Father Gordon MacRae.
I wonder if Father Rulter was framed, the PI Gomez doesn’t have a squeaky clean record, and miss Gonzalez taped outside the office door. Why shouldn’t they get some money from the archdiocese, seems money can be a great motivator for schemers. Sounds like a set up and seems fishy.
How’s it a setup if it’s indeed him at the computer watching the gay porn? More like caught red handed.
You cannot tell who is at the computer, so you cannot accuse unless you know the facts beyond a doubt. I listened to the young woman’s account, it just doesn’t sound like her story adds up. She says she was in the office taping, and the taping is outside of the office because the door is in her filming shot. I think it’s a set up.
Fr. Rutler exonerated May 2021. The judge dismissed the case. The video was obviously a con job. She’s the security guard. She easily brings in a bald guy after hours and they fake a video. It never shows the guy’s face, much less him coming at her. According to LifeSiteNews, the lady security guard has been implicated as working for NY gangs in similar cons. I know, con artists in NYC, who would imagine? Not the first con artists to make fake sex assault charges against our Church, it’s easy money these days.
Time to give Fr. Rutler the David Haas treatment. Persona non grata now.
Praying for Fr. Rutler. A certain section hate him. I love him.
I am a parishioner & I feel this was a set-up. Father Rutler is the holiest & most devout priest I have ever met. May Our Lord Jesus Christ, protect him from this satanic attack
Check her political views firstly and then her past.
Story makes me sick. I hope it is not true.
A very well-known, respected cleric is unabashedly watching gay porn after inviting a female security guard to come in from the cold and then attempts to attack her though he was allegedly watching men engaged in sex acts. Doesn’t add up. They all smell money.
There are quite a few aspects of this accusation/story that just don’t seem plausible or believable.
Only if you refuse to accept the rot and filth in the Church hasn’t been expunged yet.
There are too many holes in this story. The claim is that this happened to her during her 2nd day on the job. Why is a petite 22-year-old girl hired as a security guard to guard grown men against potential violent rioters, when she herself is vulnerable (and if we go by her claim, she wasn’t able to protect even herself against a 75-year-old, so who was she possibly hired to protect)? Security guards, especially against rioters should be big and intimidating, (take a look at the security guards with bloodhounds that Saks Fifth Avenue hired), and perhaps undergo training to actually be able protect people against violent criminals as this specific job would have required. How long was this 22-year-old girl working as a security guard? Was she placed here merely for this job?
Not to mention that this same company also describes itself as a “high profile” private investigation firm. Also, why did this 22 year old girl call the founder of a separate “Emmy Award-winning documentary maker” and private investigation firm at 2:45am just over an hour after she claims he supposedly grabbed her? I grew up in the Bronx. What 22 year old from the Bronx can afford to hire a top “counter-terrorism who worked on high-profile murder cases” as a private investigator? People are capable of making authentic looking crime reinnacments for TV and this firm won an Emmy award for a crime documentary. We know this girl and the security firm she worked for had access to the building. It is undeniable that it is possible for someone to stage this whole thing to create that 18-second video clip only showing the back of a bald man’s head. This could be just a slightly more sophisticated smear then what happened to the good Cardinal George Pell who was proven to be innocent after being imprisoned for almost a year. What we need is security camera evidence of who went in and out of the office and buidling. And don’t tell us that the cameras spontaneously shut off that night.
Smells like someone who knows there are millions of dollars that can be made from an Archdiocesean abuse payout.
Well researched and thought through. Forget the money aspect and realise his views anger a particular vote group. I stand with Fr. Rutler
May 2021 update: Looks like you called it, probably. Our man, Father Rutler, exonerated. Case against him: thrown-out. God be praised. Hope he’s back at pulpit asap. Glad to see our Church not robbed or extorted by false accusations.
Just hold on. Don’t be so rash. This case doesn’t make any sense. He watched gay porno while she was in the office sitting behind him? What? How do you go from watching gay porn to then sexually attacking a woman? This is crazy. The woman sounds nuts.
Exactly. Arthur or Martha means something. Not being flippant.
She does not sound reasonable
The incident reminds me of Jussie Smollett. He watches the stuff knowing she is in the room? His proclivities go both ways? She texts her mother instead of just running away outside? She hires a PI to submit a police report rather than calling 911? It could be true, but those questions need good answers. If he’s guilty, then punish him. If she made it up, punish her.
I was thinking the exact same thing! He knows she is behind him and he is still going to begin watching homosexual porn?? This was the accuser’s second day on the job and he felt comfortable enough with her that he would let her see him, a celebrated priest, watcing porn? In addition, if Fr. Rutler is into men, why would he want to sexually assault a woman? It just doesn’t add up, in my humble opinion!
Even If the pc wasn’t wiped clean, it spoils be easy to subpoena the IP history, if he was habitually watching gay porn, should be Easy to prove, if there is only one instance, or none… then it spoils be easy to prove it is a false accusation.
“The alleged incident took place during Gonzalez’s second night on the job, Gomez said.”
Her second night? There’s a lot about this story that doesn’t add up, but this detail in particular suggests a frame job.
May justice prevail.
The whole story sounds like that of a stereotypical movie plot to smear a good priest. Yes, there have been evil men who committed sexual abuse after being ordained to the priesthood. These ase are evil acts. For now I cannot at all believe that Fr. Rutler has done any such evil acts that he was accused of. The right to due process is in our Constitution. He is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Anyone questioning Fr. Rutler’s innocence and taking the accusation of those living in a strictly secular society as fact should watch at least one video of Fr. Rutler speaking about any topic at all.
Fr. Rutler is, figuratively, not on the same plane of this modern and superficial world. I cannot imagine that he would concern himself with, and engage in, such perverted and diabolical acts and matters. He is not a priest who goes around wearing a t-shirt and jeans and taking goofy selfies with people he meets on the street. By this I mean that he is not trying hard to relate to secular society in an effort to better live in it, because my impression is that he has other, higher matters to concern himself with in his dedication to the priesthood. He’s written over thirty books for our edification; hosted countless EWTN shows (that any skeptics really must first watch any video of one of his shows before blindly accepting the new spoon-fed secularist belief of “guilty until proven innocent” wherein all hell immediately breaks loose for anyone who is accused); he created the Shrine to Persecuted Christians, and he has converted hundreds if not thousands of souls via his preaching about the lives of the saints and the unchanging philosophical and moral truths. Visiting his parish multiple times, one easily gets the impression that he is too committed to saving the souls of Catholics including himself to be doing absurd things. Absurd things, such as this false accusation that he was looking at homosexual pornography (on consecrated property…), while in front of a security guard, then grabbing her inappropriately. There are, without a doubt, diabolic forces behind this.
Sancte Míchael Archángele, defénde nos in proélio; contra nequítiam et insídias diáboli esto praesídium. Ímperet illi Deus, súpplices deprecámur, tuque, Princeps milítiae caeléstis, Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos, qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in mundo, divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde. Amen.
Be our protection Archangel Michael. Indeed.
Comments like yours make me question Jury Justice. Put your stones away.
Bottom line, this strong holy man is just plain not that stupid. This plan was put together by a stupid person.
S2E1 of “Throw Some Implausible Mud at a Catholic Priest”.
“No smoke without fire?”
Nobody innocent is ever falsely accused of something, because that false accusation is smoke so there must be a fire?
Is this the method you use to get out of jury duty, and it has taken over your life?
When I see the words ‘22-year-old female security guard’ I truly know the end for our civilisation is near.
Fr. Rutler is not a stupid man. He would have to be a complete imbecile to watch porn in the presence of a total stranger!!
I don’t know if the accusations are true or not, but several things don’t add up.
1. Why would a priest who has so conscientiously crafted and maintained his conservative/traditional priestly persona for years watch porn, knowing that someone was sitting behind him with a clear view?
2. IF he was watching gay porn, that’s an indication that he has a same sex orientation. Why then would he grab a female by her breasts?
3. Why would the guard bother to FILM him watching porn, as is alleged? He wasn’t breaking a civil law. What was her intent?
I do hope the allegations aren’t true. At this point, Fr. Rutler is innocent until proven otherwise.
A lot here is strange, but it’s unwise to comment. If it’s true, it’s quite demoralizing.
A setup and an attack on Fr. Rutler and our Church
1. All allegations must be taken seriously. 2. As frustrating and humiliating as investigations can be for all concerned, and as tempting as it is to remain engaged, Fr. Rutler is right to cooperate and to cease the public exercise of his ministry. 3. Ms. Gonzalez and Fr. Rutler will be grilled, hopefully with sensitivity and thoroughness applied in equal measure to both parties. 4. A thorough investigation of Ms Gonzalez’s phone and Fr. Rutler’s computer will clarify matters.
Let’s pray for the truth to prevail and for a speedy resolution to this unsettling story.
This thing stinks of setup, and that so many supposedly good Catholics respond immediately with a position of “neutrality” or an assumption that one of the great defenders of the faith for four decades might have committed such an act, shows how jaded and cowardly so many Catholics have become. One hopes, further, that Cardinal Dolan is not leaving this purely to the police, but is actively using his many resources to figure out who in his pastoral charge might be part of this outrage.
About fifteen years ago I attended a Mass at the Church of Our Savior on Lexington Avenue where Father Ruttler was pastor at that time. After Mass I greeted him and
commented” You need to be commended for not watering down the teachings of the Church.
In his characteristic self-effacing manner and with down cast eyes he simply said “Thank you very much, I don’t want to go to hell for preaching false doctorine.”
Has anyone else noticed that cheap latex bald cap the man in the chair is wearing? And since when did Father Rutler get arms that look like they could bench press 300 pounds?