About Us
CCLonline.org is an online support and spiritual community for women who seek to integrate their lesbian and Catholic identity in their lives. We also offer information and resources of particular interest to Catholic lesbians.
Several of the volunteers behind the development of this site were members of the Conference for Catholic Lesbians, Inc., a national organization active from 1983-1996. CCL sponsored conferences, encouraged local groups, and published a quarterly newsletter, "Images". During that time, we meet, spoke or wrote to thousands of Catholic lesbians who were looking to connect with others for support and community. Read more about CCL's beginning.
Even after CCL ceased to function as an organization, the P.O. Box at Planetarium Station in New York City continued to receive requests for information, especially copies of Images. Since the supply was dwindling and would soon be gone, several of the founders of CCL decided to create an internet archive of Images articles. In 1999, the web site www.catholiclesbians.org housed the articles making them accessible to everybody. The site also included a Guestbook, where former members could contribute a memory or visitors a message. The Guestbook eventually became the Forum, which serves as an online faith community and a place where Catholic lesbians can connect with one another for mutual support, and comment on issues of faith and life..
We welcome your suggestions on how to improve this site, and recommendations for new or additional resources. We ask you to help us grow by contributing photos, prayers, news and articles, or even sign up as a guest blogger. Please write to us with your ideas or to volunteer.
CCL's Beginning
The idea for a national meeting of Catholic lesbians was first discussed at a retreat for women sponsored by New Ways Ministry in May 1981. There was a need for a place where lesbians of Catholic heritage could come together and be with one another as a group.A year later, the idea generated enough momentum that a group met to draw up plans for a national meeting. That conference, from which the organizational name is taken, was held at Kirkridge in November 1982. Over 100 women participated in that historic gathering, coming from the United States, Canada and Argentina.
A deeply felt need that emerged from the Kirkridge conference—and from an outpouring of letters from women who heard about the gathering but were unable to attend—was for a network through which Catholic lesbians could be in touch with one another for support and spiritual community.
At the first Kirkridge gathering, Dr. Mary E. Hunt eloquently distilled the essence of our dilemma and our dream: "Catholic lesbian women. What for some was, in fact, a contradiction in terms, has been for many others a delightful and fulfilling life already, with the promise of many years yet to come."
