DignityUSA is an organization with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts that focuses on LGBT rights and the Catholic Church. Dignity Canada exists as the Canadian sister organization. The organization is made up of local chapters across the country, and functions both as a support and social group for LGBT and LGBT-accepting Catholics to worship together. "The goal of "Dignity" is to serve as an advocate for change in the Roman Catholic Church's stance on homosexuality", and as an activist group for LGBT rights and education about LGBT issues. Since 2007, Marianne Duddy-Burke has served as Executive Director.
Founding
Dignity was founded in 1969 in San Diego, California, by Father Pat Nidorf, first as a counseling, then as a support group. The first chapter of Dignity formed in 1970 in Los Angeles. In 1982, lesbian members of Dignity founded the Conference for Catholic Lesbians out of concern that Dignity was too oriented toward males. DignityUSA has been recognized by the IRS as a 501 nonprofit organization since August 1982.
On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic body charged to "spread sound Catholic doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines", issued a letter entitled On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. In it, the Catholic Church affirmed its position that homosexuality was an "objective disorder" and that all support should be withdrawn from any organization that undermined the Church's teaching or were ambiguous about or neglectful of it. According to write Neil Miller, an immediate effect of the document was the decision by several American bishops to order that DignityUSA no longer be allowed to hold Mass in Catholic churches. Dioceses in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Pensacola, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., and New York City all rescinded permission for the organization to hold services on church property. In some cases the group chapters had been holding Masses for a decade or longer.
Honors
DignityUSA was given Call To Action's 1994 Leadership Award. Dignity Chicago was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1997.
