Tom Oddo and the Origins of DignityUSA
The post below was originally published June 10, 2025, on this site.
In 1969, between NBC airing the controversial TV special “The New American Catholic” and the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, Father Pat (Pax) Nidorf faced a growing problem: his San Diego parish saw increasing numbers of LGBTQ+ congregants who expressed frustration, remorse, and shame for their identities, unable to find a spiritual home that would accept them. Even in the wake of the most liberating event in modern church history, the radical openness of Vatican II did not translate to acceptance for gay and queer Catholics. On the contrary, the ripples made by the council inspired numerous clarifying edicts, papal encyclicals, and other publications from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). Where Vatican II had been light on details, Pope Paul VI and others filled in the blanks, and while varying levels of recognition were granted to gay Catholics, it did not translate to equality or full acceptance.
A Basement Gathering Becomes a Movement
Father Nidorf observed this disconnect and used his parish to start a counseling group strictly for gay Catholics. The group would be called “Dignity,” and originally met in the basement of his church. The first meetings of Dignity saw a handful of attendees, but word soon spread through the city and neighboring parishes.
While Nidorf never expected his group to grow beyond his church, by 1970 the first satellite chapter opened in Los Angeles. Unlike Nidorf’s group, the LA chapter represented a formally organized entity that would more closely resemble the Dignity of today: with a charter, officers, and a shared mission. Dignity/LA provided other cities and parishes a model to replicate. Chapter co-founder Joe Killian would rise to prominence in those early days, as new chapters were established across the West Coast in 1970 and 1971.
In 1972, a network of these chapters combined to form a non-profit organization under the Dignity name, electing Korean War veteran Joe Killian as its first President. Within the year, the group had transformed into DignityUSA, a new civil rights group with a national membership base stretching from Southern California to New England. Dignity/Boston had also formed in 1972, and quickly became a power center: At its first annual convention in August 1973, DignityUSA members elected a board of directors, with Bostonian Paul Diederich as President and Boston transplant Father Tom Oddo as National Secretary.
Dignity/Boston’s first anniversary that December was celebrated joyously by the congregants of St. Clement’s Eucharistic Shrine and other local parishes, a membership which Gay Community News described as a “wide age range which is so obviously lacking in the bars. Little old ladies with babushkas, denimed youths, lovey dovey lesbian couples, and coat-and-tied businessmen all sang and prayed together…” at one point while holding hands, standing in a circle. Tom prayed for those who could not understand their plight. Across the country, this feeling was palpable: gay Catholics finding community among each other, breaking bread together, praying, celebrating, and mourning together, dreaming of a new day and a new future in the church together. That spirit would grow among the faithful, which in turn grew DignityUSA’s membership and mailing lists.
In proportion to peer organizations of the day, DignityUSA’s growth was meteoric: With a membership of approximately 1,000 people in late 1973–early 1974, that number would grow to 15,000 by April 1975 (according to Tom’s figures and estimates), with chapters opening in nearly every major American city. With strength in numbers, the organization began to exert real political clout, creating its own newsletter “Dignity”—for which Tom frequently wrote—which was used as a mouthpiece to formally oppose church efforts to dissuade gay liberation and acceptance. Principles to Guide Confessors in Questions of Homosexuality, a March 1974 pamphlet written by the US-based Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices, and Father Daniel Pilarczyk’s presentation “Church Policy and Gay Ministry” at a conference in Dayton, Ohio in June were two early examples of these efforts, which were met with strong and clear opposition by Tom and others in the DignityUSA fold. But the real flashpoint came that summer in Detroit.
After Brian McNaught—then a young writer for the Michigan Catholic diocesan newspaper—came out in an interview with another publication (identifying as chapter president of Dignity/Detroit), his column was suspended by the paper. DignityUSA mobilized in his defense, with more than 100 demonstrators descending on the city, marching and fasting to demand his reinstatement. He was, instead, fired by the Michigan Catholic. But DignityUSA’s effort made a wave in church circles and became the first in a long line of remarkable achievements by the organization and Tom, its starry-eyed spokesman.
Throughout the year, Tom lobbied on behalf of anti-discrimination legislation proposed by Massachusetts state lawmakers, finding common cause with a young representative named Barney Frank. That fall, with Tom’s personal endorsement, Elaine Noble became the first openly gay person elected to a state legislature, joining the ranks of those representatives (including Frank) in the Massachusetts State House. By the next spring, as membership climbed into the tens of thousands, Tom was flying to Australia to explore an international partnership between DignityUSA and Acceptance, a similar group active in that country. The Sydney Morning Herald noted that, while priests associated with Acceptance in Australia were reluctant to identify themselves lest they be censured by their superiors, that was not the case with DignityUSA, citing Tom by name. It was clear, beyond the borders of the United States, Dignity represented something wholly new within Catholicism: gay liberation.
In subsequent years, DignityUSA openly demonstrated against the NCCB, petitioned the church for the creation of a theological committee on homosexuality, and produced a pamphlet of its own on LGBTQ+ topics, Homosexual Catholics: A Primer for Discussion. Written by Father Robert Nugent, Sister Jeannine Grammick, and Tom, the pamphlet presents various issues in a simple Q&A format, using language accessible to anyone seeking direct spiritual guidance on sexuality. Homosexual Catholics would see multiple printings, and can still be found online. Though it was written fifty years ago, the pamphlet’s message still rings true, its content still relevant to today’s church and the contemporary world, a timeless gay document from the days before the AIDS epidemic. Indeed, all of DignityUSA’s initial success occurred before AIDS was a known entity, before it was called Gay Respiratory Immune Deficiency (GRIDS), and before the virus tore through the LGBTQ+ community worldwide. As such, Dignity represents the oldest continually operating pre-AIDS gay rights organization in the United States, and maybe the world, owing to the tireless efforts of pioneering clergy like Pax Nidorf and Tom Oddo, and inspired lay people like Paul Diederich and Brian McNaught.
Nidorf left the priesthood in 1973, while Brian McNaught became a Director of Social Activism in the organization in 1975. Paul and Tom ended their board terms in 1977, shortly after perhaps the greatest victory of DignityUSA’s first five years. The NCCB had published, the previous November, a new pamphlet entitled To Live in Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Reflection on the Moral Life. Tucked away in a section on children, the document stated, “Homosexuals, like everyone else, should not suffer from prejudice against their basic human rights. They have a right to respect, friendship and justice. They should have an active role in the Christian community.” While its authors were sure to differentiate between simply being gay and engaging in sexual relations, this statement was a clear declaration by one of DignityUSA’s biggest foils that gay Catholics had a place in the church, beside heterosexual and cisgender congregants. Without access to such customs as marriage, the pamphlet even suggested that “the Christian community should provide [gay Catholics] a special degree of pastoral understanding and care,” the very goal Father Nidorf had set out to achieve in his parish basement.
While Tom largely stayed out of the Dignity spotlight through the end of the 1970s, he was still involved in the organization and was often contacted by journalists wanting the opinion of priests actively ministering to the LGBTQ+ community. He is quoted in a 1977 Boston Globe piece summarizing the motivating force behind the organization: “We in religion speak about Christ’s call to ‘loosen the fetters of injustice.’ It is time we put such words into action toward the gay community. Ending oppression is the very challenge to the Gospel.”
Tom’s own efforts to “loosen the fetters of injustice” saw him take a starring role in All Gods Children?, a WNAC-TV program that approached the topic of LGBTQ+ Christians with a variety of opinions, including those of non-affirming Catholic priests and Evangelical ministers. Airing in 1981 while he served as a professor (and later Acting Chair) of theology at Stonehill College, Tom is seen in archival footage adorning Dignity members’ foreheads with ashes, blessing them one by one in the insert of the program’s title card. While a remarkable image, it was just another Dignity Mass for Tom, one of many hundreds he participated in, underlining the triumph of the organization and the progress it won for gay Catholics worldwide. The next year, Tom was named the seventeenth President of the University of Portland, closing out the glorious first chapters of the Dignity story, an achievement even he couldn’t have envisioned. To this day, DignityUSA continues to serve LGBTQ+ Catholics against the current of church censorship, with 37 active chapters and a renewed mission to “[advocate] for affirmation and justice for people of all sexual orientations and genders.”
