Dignity USA celebrated its 50th anniversary with a conference over July 4th weekend. The conference titled “True to Ourselves, True to the Spirit”, gave attendees the opportunity to reflect on the organisation’s past as well as its future.
Theologian Mary Hunt, one of the keynote speakers, said the conference was a moment for “rejoicing” because Dignity members had helped shift Catholic attitudes. “People in the church went from seeing same-sex love as something unspeakable and sinful to now being rather normative and mainstream”.
As with Quest, a part of Dignity’s work has been an attempt to dialogue with the institutional church, usually encountering tremendous resistance on the part of the hierarchy. Despite the challenges, Dignity members spent much of the conference’s final day in small groups discussing the organisation’s future.
An 18-minute video, “In Our Own Words: 50 Years of DignityUSA” was screened during the conference. You can view it by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw2V-nLS_-k