More than an hour before the Dodgers game started on Friday night, June 16, there was a protest and a strong police presence inside and outside the stadium to maintain order. Police were there in response to several weeks of outrage leading up to the team’s 10th annual Pride Night at Dodger Stadium. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were to receive a Community Hero Award before the first pitch of the game was thrown.
The people who did make it inside the stadium in time to witness the pre-game ceremony seemed to have a mixed reaction to the satirical LGBTQ+. Many in the public have no idea who they are or why there was such a flap about the proposed award.
So, who are the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? Is it a Catholic order of nuns? A performance group? A bunch of drag queens mocking the Catholic Church? Officially, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, also called also called the Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI), are a charity, protest and satirical performance organization that uses humor, drag and religious imagery to call attention to hypocrisy and sexual intolerance. The organization is considered blasphemous by some Christians.
On Friday the Dodgers rescinded the invitation after Sen. Marco Rubio and conservative Catholic organizations criticized the group for mocking Catholicism and encouraging “perversion”. The sisters’ appearance is anything but unobtrusive: “With their signature white makeup, oversize wimples (they call them Hoobie Doobies) and supersize lashes, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence turn heads wherever they go.”
The group was founded in San Francisco in 1979 by three gay men who began running around the city in nun’s habits. What started as an audacious joke quickly became more serious when the AIDS crisis struck in the early 1980s and they held the first fundraisers for AIDS organizations and put out the first safer-sex pamphlet.
The spirit of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is rooted in San Francisco’s 1960s counterculture movement, which embraced sexual positivity, mind-expanding drug use, and poked fun at mainstream culture. The group’s approach and appearance was not new or extraordinary for the place or time, the 1960s, in the Castro District.
The group has been involved in many notable events over the years.
In 1982, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held the first fundraisers for AIDS organizations and put out the first safer-sex pamphlet.
In 1990, they organized a protest against the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality.
In 2013, members of the group attended The Hunky Jesus Competition event at Dolores Park in San Francisco. This is an annual event held by the group in San Francisco. It is a costume contest where participants dress up as Jesus in a variety of creative and often humorous ways. The competition is held on Easter Sunday and has been a tradition since 1979. Needless to say, some Christians find it extremely offensive, especially as it is held on Easter.
The right-wing Catholic League has been particularly vocal in its opposition to the Sisters and has accused them of being anti-Catholic. Senator Marco Rubio was instrumental in getting their invitation to Dodger Stadium rescinded exactly for this reason.
Sister Vina Sinfurrs defends the group, saying that they do not mock Catholicism; their mission is to serve. As she expresses it, theirs is a “ministry without judgement”.
Sister Jeannine Gramick, a member of the Loretto community who ministers to the LGBTQ+ community, has said that many members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have themselves been victims of discrimination by the church, told they were going to hell, thrown out of the confessional and more.
They point out that their dress was intended to mock the religious zealots and hypocrites who condemned them to hell, even as they tended to AIDS patients when few others would, and raised money for refugees and the city’s poor when community administrators instead, ignored them.
Not all Catholics are offended by the Sisters. Many, especially among those in the LGBTQ+ community who have been wounded by the institutional church, have expressed support for the Sisters and their mission.
In the end, after a protest by the LGBTQ+, the sisters were re-invited and reaccepted the award as Dodgers leadership vowed to better educate themselves. Instead of bitterness, the sisters offered up a benediction: “May the games be blessed! May the players be blessed! May the fans be blessed! May the beer and hot dogs flow forth in tasty abundance!”
Sister June Cleavage, a cisgender female member of the group, (the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence welcome people of “every gender, race, romantic alignment, class, species, phylum, beverage preference, & sexual proclivity,” according to their website.) stated, “You don’t come to this organization without understanding, without compassion and without having fought these kinds of battles before on a smaller scale,…I think it comes with the calling.”
