Pennsylvania Lutheran seminary fires its president
is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Rev. Latini herself is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The denominations have long cooperated closely.
During the past decade, both denominations reversed their outright bans on ordaining or marrying noncelibategays and lesbians.
That happened only after long debate in which various interest groups squared off year after year, with conservatives citing Scripture and tradition in opposing homosexuality and liberals citing examples of Jesus and others in the Bible embracing the marginalized.
Beginning as a college student in 1996, Rev. Latini worked for nearly five years as director of one of those groups, OnebyOne. It urged gay people to change or resist their sexual orientations as temptationsto sin.
Rev. Latini acknowledged saying that some people could change their orientations. She has long since repudiated so-called “conversion therapy” as harmful, as have many mental health associations.
She never denied that part of her work history but didn’t mention it on her resume or in her interview with the seminary search committee, which also failed to discover it in a backgroundcheck.
She said Thursday that she felt her relevant work history occurred after her ordination.
“I came from a really fundamentalist, conservative background,”she said.
By the time she was ordained, “none of that represented who I am anymore,” she said. She sees “beauty and diversity in God’s creation, and that’s related to a variety of sexual orientations and gender expressions.”
Before she was hired, she did tell the chairwoman of the seminary trustees, who investigated and received positive recommendations from those Rev. Latini had workedwith on such issues.
That chairwoman, the Rev. Elise Brown, resigned earlier this month, and in all at least eight trustees have quit recently.
Southwestern PennsylvaniaSynod Bishop Kurt Kusserow said he was “deeply grieved”by the situation.
“Even if the decision was a necessary one, it does not end thewoundedness,” he said.
Given the seminary’s priority on inclusiveness, he said the decision by Revs. Latini and Brown not to disclose her work history made it seem they were hiding it — instead of presenting it as a positive story of a spiritual journey.
It was a “sad irony of trying to do the right thing ending up being the wrong thing,” he said.
In meetings this week with synod pastors and deacons, he said he found that many are dismayed by the wholecontroversy.
Some have asked: “Where is the church’s witness to compassionandforgiveness?”
Bishop Jim Dunlop of the Lower Susquehanna Synod was acting president of the seminary and pledged to “listen with an open mind and heart to the stories and perspectives of all the seminary stakeholders, including LGBTQIA+ members, our African-American members and any others who feel as if their voices are not heard.”