November 28, 2007

New York Times – "Gay Pastor in the Bronx Could Lose Her Collar"

There is a good article in last Sunday's New York Times about Pastor Katrina Foster, one of the 82 ELCA ministers who introduced themselves to the wider ELCA during the 2007 Churchwide Assembly. The article can be accessed here.

The article begins with:

In 1994, when the Rev. Katrina D. Foster became pastor of Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx, she threw herself into ministering to her small, mostly Caribbean-born congregation. She not only preached to them on Sundays but lived in the neighborhood and showed up to support them in everything from surgeries to legal matters.

But Pastor Foster was keeping a secret from her congregation. She held onto it even after a woman came to live with her in the parsonage, then joined the church choir.

Some people would say, "It's so nice you have someone to live with you in that 11-room house," said Pastor Foster, 39.

But in 2002, when the woman, Pamela Kallimanis, became pregnant, they knew the time had come. So Pastor Foster sat her congregants down one by one…