by Thomas C. Fox for The National Catholic Reporter:
This is a love story, shaped by sadness, pain and hope, and it began in November 1983 when a 19-year-old boy sat down with his mother on their living room sofa and with tears in his eyes, said, “Mom, I’m lonely. I’m lonely for another man.”
As the mother, Mary Ellen Lopata of Rochester, N.Y., tells the story, her son, Jim, wasn’t referring to any man in particular. His words, “I’m lonely,” simply described his experience of longing for companionship as a gay man. Lopata recounts that it took years from that encounter for her to face and process her pain and years longer before she had the courage to share her story with others. “I was shocked and confused. I cried and cried.”
That moment marked the beginning of what for Lopata has been a 25-year journey that has done nothing less than revolutionize her life, and give solace to countless other gay and lesbian children and their parents. Lopata’s conversion -- and that’s what it was -- has, by the accounts of many, reshaped the way countless Catholics, and in some cases their bishops, view and receive gay and lesbian persons.
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