A humble beacon for truth

When the Vatican condemned Sister Jeannine Gramick to silence for ministering to lesbian and gay Catholics and ordered her to renounce homosexuality as "evil," her answer was as courageous as it was simple.
She said no.
When Emmy and Peabody Award winning journalist Barbara Rick read about Sister Gramick in the New York Times, she tracked her down and told her she wanted to make a documentary about her story. Sister Gramick's answer in this case, thankfully, was yes.
The resulting film, "In Good Conscience: Sister Jeannine Gramick's Journey of Faith," is a moving and detailed account of a lone nun who stood up to her church in the face of injustice. With its universal messages of following your conscience and your faith, it appeals to a broad spectrum.
"It's not just for gay people or for Catholic people," said Rick, whose independent documentary company Out of the Blue Films, Inc. made the film. "It's for all people who struggle with matters of justice."
For Sister Gramick, struggling with matters of justice has become a way of life. It has been over thirty years since she befriended a gay man who challenged and inspired her to minister to gay and lesbian Catholics. Struggling with being filmed was another matter entirely.
"In the beginning it was very uncomfortable to know that there was a camera on you," Sister Gramick said. She found herself feeling very self-conscious. "Then after a while I thought, 'Well whatever, you know, this is who I am. I don't always look the neatest or have the nicest clothes, but that's who I am.'"
However, she does admit there are scenes she wishes Rick hadn't included. "Some of the scenes are very good for my humility, like the exercise scene, seeing me doing exercises with my hair all messed up and that sort of thing," she said.
But for Rick, portraying Sister Gramick as fully human – and flawed – was essential. "The success of the film in my mind was going to hinge on whether or not people could really relate to Sister. And I did not want to do an infomercial about Sister Jeannine where only her perfect side was shown," she said. "I just felt people would really warm to her as a whole human much more than a figure up on a pedestal. That's why I thought it was really important to portray her as she really is."
Sister Gramick is not only humbled by the film, she's flattered. "I just thought it was excellent," she said. "I'm not a big movie goer, but since then I've seen some other documentaries … and I thought well, this is not only informational, it has humor in it, it has hope in it, and that's been bourne out, I think, by … people coming up to me afterwards to say, 'Oh it was so uplifting' or 'It gave me so much hope' or 'It just made my spirits soar' and that is the, I think, the craft of the filmmaker."
Of course, having a good subject helps. For Rick, Sister Gramick was a natural fit for her next film.
"In May 2000, I saw an article … about this little nun who had been ordered silenced by the Vatican over her ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics," she recalled. "It just sounded so harsh to me and so medieval that this woman would be silenced and ordered to stop doing what seemed like very decent and honorable life's work – building bridges between the gay and lesbian community and church hierarchy."
But for Rick it was more than just an interesting story. It was personal.
"It just stirred in me an indignation about the way the male hierarchy treats women," she said. "I just have always felt a shame around my sexuality as a straight woman emanating from the church, so I can kind of relate in a deep way to people who feel oppressed because of their sexual orientation."
Of course, Sister Gramick's sexual orientation was not the issue – she doesn't disclose it, choosing to focus on her ministry – but her work toward the inclusion of gay and lesbian Catholics that raised the Vatican's ire.
"The Vatican had been concerned about the ministry that I had been in for years," she said. "I entered the ministry in 1971 and the first Vatican inquiry was in 1979."
Her first investigation, done by the School Sisters of Notre Dame of which she was a member, reported back to the Vatican that she was doing good work in line with what the church should be doing.
Not satisfied with that answer, the Vatican conducted their own investigation in 1986, headed by Cardinal Adam Maida, currently the Archbishop of Detroit.
"His investigation was slow to get off the ground," said Sister Gramick. They concluded their work at the beginning of 1995, but the Vatican still wasn't content.
And so Sister Gramick was investigated again, this time by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which asked her to make a public declaration that she agreed with the traditional teachings about the evil of homosexual activity and the disorder of homosexual orientation. "And I chose not to respond," she said. "I could not. I was not going to make any public declaration."
Since the film's completion, there's been no word from the Vatican. "I presume they are aware of it because the film premiered in Italy and it was all over the Italian newspapers," she said. "But there's been no communication between the Vatican and me or my superiors."
"The status is I guess as it had been in 1999. The order was issued and I have decided to follow my conscience and that's where it stands," she continued. "There's always the possibility that the Vatican could, you know, choose to make a further intervention. But it's been five years."
Even under intense scrutiny Sister Gramick is not shy about speaking her mind when she disagrees with the church. When asked about the nearly $500,000 the Catholic Church spent in Michigan to pass the anti-gay marriage amendment she said, "I think that's scandalous. When there are so many people in poverty, so many people in need, to spend that amount of money to assault the dignity of someone who happens to be lesbian or gay is a great scandal. It makes me ashamed of my church which I love very deeply. It's a cause of great embarrassment to me because it's a scandal."
When it comes to marriage for same-sex couples, Sister Gramick agrees with the National Coalition of American Nuns that it is both a civil and a moral right. "If heterosexuals have a civil right to marry and a moral right to marry in whatever church then if you deny that right to homosexual individuals then that is discrimination," she said. "So I see the denial of these rights as civil and moral discrimination."
After seeing the film and hearing her story, many people are calling Sister Gramick a hero, Rick included.
"It makes me feel humble. But it makes me feel happy to think that what I have done could give some people hope and courage," Sister Gramick said. "I believe that what I'm doing is not heroic, it's just ordinary. It may be difficult but it's something that everyone must face, that is being faced with something that you don't believe in and making the choice whether to do that, what you don't believe in, because it may be easier or less fearful, or doing what you believe is right. I mean, they are choices that we all face."
The universality of Sister Gramick's story has contributed to the film's appeal. "It has been getting an intense and amazingly positive response in theaters," said Rick.
AIDS activist Larry Kramer told Rick after a screening in Boston that "In Good Conscience" was every bit as good as "Fahrenheit 9-11."
"We were so moved by that," she said. "Every filmmaker would love to see her film in a movie theatre, but we really think this has potential for a wide popularity."
While the film is looking for a distributor, a grass roots movement to get the film out in the world is growing.
"We just showed it to a Catholic organization out in Milwaukee and nearly a thousand people were at that screening, they were busting at the seams in the auditorium to watch it," said Rick. "So what we're hoping is that using the grassroots approach it'll expand and sort of explode onto the scene and get into the theatres."
Of course, it also helps to have funding. The list of the film's patrons so far is impressive, including Deborah Santana, Trudie Styler, former Museum of Modern Art President Agnus Gund, Henry van Ameringen, Ellen DeGeneres, and Susan Sarandon.
Rick is grateful for the support as making this film has truly been a labor of love. "I've had so many people come up to me in tears after the screening," she said. "I've been so touched by the reaction, so gratified. It's an amazing gift to be able to do a piece of work, to see it in your mind's eye and then make it real, and make it happen over a lot of years of hard work, and then have people receive it."
Above all, Rick said, she wants people to walk away from the film hopeful. "I want it to reignite hope for people, and also for it to ignite people into action, to try to change things. And I hope that it will make things safer and better for people who live on the fringes," said Rick.
"And I hope people remember the true meaning of Christianity. That's a message that gets lost a lot in the fundamentalism of today, the basic message of loving others as yourself," Rick added. "What you do for your brothers and sisters, or what you do to them, is saying a lot about who you are."
Sister Gramick, whose conviction and compassion have touched countless people through her ministry, her 1992 book "Building Bridges" and now this film, hopes to be a humble beacon for those who wish to follow their truth. "Whether they're homosexual or heterosexual, whether they're Catholic or non-Catholic, I hope they come away with a conviction of following where they believe God is leading them," she said. "We all are religious people, we're all spiritual people. We all are driven, I believe, by beliefs that are spiritual beliefs and I hope that this film helps each of us to follow that spiritual path that we are called to walk."