Features

A local activist will be in Italy next week to protest the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-gay positions. 

Kara Speltz of Oakland will travel to Rome on Monday, where she will join 22 members of Soulforce for four days of nonviolent protests in the Vatican. They hope to be accepted by Pope John Paul II, but realize their chances are slim. 

Soulforce, a network of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, is joining Dignity/USA, a similar organization, to plan the protests. Most of the participants will be Roman Catholic. 

“My life is my church,” said Speltz, an openly gay Roman Catholic who considers herself very religious. 

The group will visit the Vatican each day Jan. 3-6, bringing gifts. They will walk down the Via della Conciliazione – the Avenue of Reconciliation – and present gifts for orphan children the first day, gifts for people living with AIDS the second day, and gifts for occupants of a battered women’s shelter on the third day. They hope that a priest will bless the gifts before they are delivered to the people in need, a longtime tradition at the Vatican. 

Speltz said on the fourth day the protesters will present themselves as gifts, but are dubious that the Vatican will accept them. 

Earlier this month the Pope met with right-wing Austrian leader Joerg Haider – who many protesters labeled a Nazi – but has not welcomed gay protesters to the Vatican, Speltz said. “It is very hard to see somebody like that welcomed in the Vatican and then they say to us that we are not welcome.” 

The group has already met with police officials in Rome to obtain a permit for a nonviolent protest, but there is a possibility they will be arrested for their protests. 

“It’s not conceivable, but it’s also not something that we are planning on,” Speltz said. 

In November, Soulforce staged a protest of the Catholic Church’s exclusionary policies towards gays in Washington, D.C. More than 250 people gathered and 104 were arrested for blocking a driveway to the National Shrine. 

Speltz has been arrested three times protesting with Soulforce and several other times before that, protesting during the Vietnam War. 

She is comparing this fight to the Vietnam War era, when she protested, but did not “turn her back” on her country. Today she will not turn on the Catholic Church, even if she does not agree with its policies towards gays. 

“I love my church too much to do that,” she said.