Stop the Church

{{See also|Catholic Church and homosexuality|Catholic Church and abortion|LGBT rights in the United States}}

O'Connor ministered to those dying at an AIDS hospice, bathing them and changing their bedpans, and supported others who did so.

ACT UP opposed the public position of the church on condom use and safe sex education to control the spread of AIDS, and identified pronouncements such as O'Connor's statement that "Good morality is good medicine" as harmful.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} The protest was organized following a meeting of senior clergy where they had reinforced doctrine opposing the use of condoms.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} ACT UP nicknamed the cleric "Cardinal O'Condom."{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} They also opposed the church's anti-abortion position.{{sfn|Riemer|Brown|2019|p=275}} In the 1980s, O'Connor wielded a great deal of power in both the church and in society at large. WHAM! subsequently joined the protest, swelling its numbers and adding the issue of abortion rights.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}}

Stop the Church was held on December 10, 1989, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} The idea had originated with ACT UP members Vincent Gagliostro and Victor Mendolia.{{sfn|Riemer|Brown|2019|p=275}} Cardinal John O'Connor was celebrating a Mass attended by Mayor Ed Koch and other political leaders. Koch and the other dignitaries attended as a sign of support to O'Connor.

The protesters had indicated in advance that they planned to protest. While pretending to be church ushers, some handed out flyers explaining why they would disrupt the service to those entering the catherdral.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} The crowd outside grew to 4,500 people.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|pp=433-435}} The demonstrators stood outside the cathedral shouting and raising placards that read "Eternal life to Cardinal O'Connor now," "Know your scumbags," "Curb your dogma," "Papal Bull," and the like. Some tried to "storm" the church, but police stopped those who were obvious protesters from entering. Plainclothes police officers, expecting trouble, were sitting in the pews during Mass.

At the outset of Mass, O'Connor said he knew there were a number of protesters in attendance but asked for a peaceful service. Originally, the plan was a silent protest with a "die-in" during the homily portion of the Mass. When it appeared that the protest was having little effect on O'Connor, who continued on with Mass, Michael Petrelis stood on a pew and shouted, "You bigot O'Connor, you're killing us!"{{sfn|Riemer|Brown|2019|p=275}}{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} The cathedral then descended into "pandemonium."{{sfn|Riemer|Brown|2019|p=275}} A few dozen activists interrupted Mass, chanted slogans, blew whistles, "kept up a banshee screech," chained themselves to pews, threw condoms in the air, waved their fists, and lay down in the aisles to stage a "die-in."{{sfn|Faderman|2015|pp=433-435}}

Ann Northrop was inside the Cathedral and said, "I happened to be the last person carried out, and by that time, everything had calmed down and was silent. So I started saying — and it was ringing through the cathedral — 'We're fighting for your lives, too. We're fighting for your lives, too.'" O'Connor asked worshipers to "pay no attention to" those disrupting the Mass.{{sfn|Faderman|2015|p=434}} The organist also played in an attempt to drown the protesters out.

One protester, Tom Keane,{{sfn|Faderman|2015|pp=434-435}} took the consecrated Eucharist from the priest, crumbled it into pieces, and dropped the pieces to the floor. He then lay on the floor of the church in an attempt to prevent others from receiving Communion and was later arrested. Keane's desecration of the Eucharist became the biggest news story in the days to come.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=137-138|ps= "Media accounts of the protest underscored one particular action that occurred within the cathedral: a young man crumbled the sacred host."}} Years later, Keane said he decided to act in the moment and, while in hindsight he might not have repeated the act, he felt no regret.

One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested, including 43 inside the church. Some, who refused to move, had to be carried out of the church on stretchers. Only minor charges were filed, punished primarily by community service sentences; some protesters who refused the sentences were tried, but did not serve jail time.

The protests were condemned by politicians and editorials in the major daily newspapers. Some in the gay community also considered that invading the privacy of worship was at odds with the gay community's arguments on sexual privacy. Mayor Ed Koch viewed it as disrespectful and New York Governor Mario Cuomo "deplored the demonstration." The cathedral protest was criticized as "stupid and wrong-headed" by Andy Humm, a spokesman for the Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Rights, while one ACT UP leader, Peter Staley, denounced the protest as an "utter failure" and a "selfish, macho thing."

During its planning, members of ACT UP were divided on the wisdom of the protest with some saying that protest should not target worshipers; others said it was more important to gain attention than it was to avoid offending the people attending the Mass. Shortly after the protest, Larry Kramer, Robert Garcia, Ann Northrop, Mark Harrington, and Peter Staley appeared on a television panel to discuss the protest, where they faced oftentimes hostile questions from the audience.{{cite web |last1=Shearn Coan |first1=Jaime |title=Crucial Circulations: VHS and Queer AIDS Archives |url=https://www.centerforthehumanities.org/distributaries/crucial-circulations-vhs-and-queer-aids-archives |publisher=Center for the Humanities |access-date=20 April 2022}}{{cite web |title=1990 Talk Show W/ ACT UP: Larry Kramer, Mark Harrington, Peter Staley, Ann Northrop, Robert Garcia |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDA0NShQL8s |website=YouTube | date=11 January 2015 |access-date=20 April 2022}}

The protest became one of ACT UP's most well known actions.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=139}} Protests at the cathedral continued for the next few years, though they were smaller and less disruptive.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=138}} In 1992, another woman crumbled the Eucharist, but it was unclear if the action was tied to the larger protest.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=138}} O'Connor feared, however, that it would start a trend, writing that while he would never "deny for a moment the right of peaceful protest," he believed "such desecration [of the Eucharist] bespeaks either madness, or hatred equivalent to madness, or something so inexpressible as to border on demonic."{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=138-139}}

Robert Hilferty's documentary about the protest, Stop the Church, was originally scheduled to air on PBS. The film was eventually dropped from national broadcast by PBS, but still aired on public-access television cable TV stations in several major cities including Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=138}} The documentary used footage filmed "guerrilla-style" by Hilferty, an ACTUP member.{{sfn|Petro|2015|p=138}}

"ACT UP activists now say the St. Patrick's protest changed the way many Americans viewed the Catholic Church. It was no longer untouchable, and its policies – on everything from condoms and abortion to gay marriage and women priests – were no longer sacrosanct." Filmmaker Jim Hubbard, a member of ACT UP and director of the documentary United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, said, "I wasn't clear about what going inside the church would add at the time. But now I think that the shock of going inside and confronting the cardinal really worked. It helped bring ACT UP to mainstream attention. It brought the crisis to a point where the government and the mainstream media really had to start dealing with it."

In June 2019, the main characters of the television series Pose, radicalized by members of their community now fighting AIDS, participate in the Stop the Church action and are arrested.{{Cite news|last=Rodriguez|first=Mathew |date=2019-06-12|title=Here's the Story Behind the St. Patrick's Cathedral Action Depicted in 'Pose'|language=en-US|work=The Body|url=https://www.thebody.com/article/heres-the-story-behind-the-st-patricks-cathedral-action-depicted-in-pose|access-date=2021-08-20}}

{{Portal|New York State}}

• Eucharist in the Catholic Church
• HIV/AIDS activism
• Anti-Catholicism in the United States

{{reflist|refs=

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{{cite news | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/05/04/cardinal-john-j-oconnor-dies/bfb9085a-e178-41c7-a497-eb8717032a8a/ | title = Cardinal John J. O'Connor Dies |first1= Hanna | last1= Rosin | first2= Colman | last2 = McCarthy | date = May 4, 2000 | access-date = April 27, 2020 | newspaper = The New York Times}}

{{cite magazine | magazine = Marxism Today | url = http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/90_03_49.pdf | title = Cardinal Sins | first = Rex | last = Wockner | page = 49 | issue = March 1990 | access-date = April 21, 2020}}

{{cite magazine|magazine=Out|publisher=Here Publishing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bmIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA122|access-date=April 21, 2020|date=June 2001|title = Going to Extremes |pages=122–123|issn=1062-7928 | quote=The news coverage in that night and in following days was dominated by the desecration of the host.}}

{{cite book|last=Munt|first=Sally R. |title=Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8w3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT95|access-date=April 21, 2020|date=September 29, 2017|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-351-90715-6|page=95 | quote = Although 111 people were arrested, the news media focused on and distorted a single Catholic demonstrator's personal protest involving a communion wafer.}}

{{Cite news | url = http://www.outweek.net/pdfs/ow_27.pdf | title = AIDS/ Abortion Rights Demo Halts High Mass at St. Pat's | first1= Andrew | last1= Miller | first2 = Rex | last2=Wockner | page = 2 | date = December 24, 1989 | magazine = Out Week | number = 2 | quote = The single incident, considered an act of sacrilege by many, has since consumed reams of newsprint...}}

{{cite news| url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DE113EF930A35752C0A966958260 | work=The New York Times | title=Rude, Rash, Effective, Act-Up Shifts AIDS Policy | first=Jason | last=Deparle | date=January 3, 1990 | access-date=April 23, 2010}}

Steinfels, Peter. (September 13, 1991) [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CEFDE1739F930A2575AC0A967958260 Channel 13 to Show Film on AIDS Protest] New York Times. Accessed July 4, 2007.

{{cite web|last = Crouch|first = Stanley|work = Salon|url = http://www.salon.com/news/col/crouch/2000/05/10/cardinal|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040918060031/http://dir.salon.com/news/col/crouch/2000/05/10/cardinal/index.html|archive-date = 2004-09-18|title = Mourning the loss of Cardinal O'Connor|date = 10 May 2000|access-date = 2006-01-01}}

{{cite podcast |url= https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/01/surviving-aids-crisis-gay-catholic |title= Surviving the AIDS crisis as a gay Catholic |website= Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church |publisher=America |host= Michael O'Loughlin |date= December 1, 2019|accessdate= January 10, 2019}}

{{cite news | url = https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/06/21/pose-revisits-controversial-aids-protest-inside-st-patricks-cathedral | title = 'Pose' revisits controversial AIDS protest inside St. Patrick's Cathedral | first = Michael J. | last = O’Loughlin | date = June 21, 2019 | access-date = June 24, 2019 | publisher = America}}

{{citation|last=Allen|first=Peter L. |title=The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lpL5WGCNMwAC|access-date=July 27, 2018|date=June 2002|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-01461-6|page=143}}

{{cite book|last=Carroll|first=Tamar W. |title=Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rzHtBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA158|date=April 20, 2015|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-4696-1989-7|pages=157–158}}

{{cite web|url=http://www.rferl.org/content/before-pussy-riot-act-up-confronted-church-and-won/24668230.html|title=Decades Before Pussy Riot, U.S. Group Protested Catholic Church -- And Got Results|last=Sindelar|first=Daisy|date=6 August 2012|publisher=Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty}}

{{cite podcast |url= https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/20/meet-gay-priest-who-served-aids-patients-Mass-prayers-and-art |title= The cost of AIDS ministry to a gay priest |website= Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church |publisher=America |host= Michael O'Loughlin |date= December 20, 2019 |accessdate= January 10, 2019}}

ACT UP. [http://www.actupny.org/YELL/stopchurch99.html 10 Year Anniversary of "Stop the Church"] Accessed July 4, 2007.

{{cite book |last=Hunter |first=James Davison |title=Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America |publisher=Basic Books |date=1991 |page=153 |isbn=978-0975372500}}

{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/03/nyregion/rude-rash-effective-act-up-shifts-aids-policy.html |title=Rude, Rash, Effective, Act-Up Shifts AIDS Policy |first=Jason |last=DeParle |date=January 3, 1990 |newspaper=New York Times |page=B1 |access-date=August 7, 2018}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/keane.pdf |title=ACTUP Oral History Project, Interviewee: Tom Keane, Interview Number: 176 |date=February 24, 2015 |access-date=August 3, 2018 |publisher=The New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film Festival, Inc |pages=20–21 |quote="I put my hands out, and suddenly I have the Communion wafer in my hands, and the priest says, 'This is the body of Christ,' and I say, 'Opposing safe-sex education is murder.' Then I sort of—I didn’t really know what to do, and I think in some sense, some part of me was sort of saying, 'Well, fine. You guys think you can tell us that you reject us, that we don’t belong, so I’m going to reject you.' So I took it and I crushed it and dropped it." |archive-date=September 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200902214032/http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/keane.pdf |url-status=dead }}

George J. Marlin, Brad Miner, Sons of Saint Patrick: A History of the Archbishops of New York, p312

{{cite book|last=Shaw|first=Randy|title=The Activist's Handbook: A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YouwITlDATkC|access-date=April 21, 2020|year=1996|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20317-4|pages=222–223|quote=The coverage most prominently featured the person who threw the wafer;}}

{{cite book|last=Cohen|first=Peter F.|title=Love and Anger: Essays on AIDS, Activism, and Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0hmsAgAAQBAJ|access-date=April 21, 2020|date=January 14, 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-71225-1|page=27|quote=...the crumbling of a communion wafer by just one member came to represent the entire demonstration in the eyes of the media and the public.}}

{{Cite web|date=2020-02-25|title=Ann Northrop Looks Back On The Crucial Role Women Played in ACT UP|url=https://www.hivplusmag.com/activism/2020/2/25/ann-northrop-looks-back-crucial-role-women-played-act|access-date=2021-07-12|website=www.hivplusmag.com|language=en}}

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• {{cite book | first = Lillian | last = Faderman | title = The Gay Revolution | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eT8jBQAAQBAJ | year = 2015 | publisher = Simon & Schuster | isbn = 9781451694130 }}
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• {{cite book|last=Petro|first=Anthony Michael |title=After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SPoJCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA282|access-date=May 11, 2020|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-939128-8}}

Category:Criticism of the Catholic Church

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