Monday, May 16, 2005
RAINBOW SASHERS DENIED COMMUNION
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A Roman Catholic priest denied Communion to more than 100 people Sunday, saying they could not receive the sacrament because they wore rainbow-colored sashes to church to show support for gay Catholics.
Before offering Communion, the Rev. Michael Sklucazek told the congregation at the Cathedral of St. Paul that anyone wearing a sash could come forward for a blessing but would not receive wine and bread.
No, it is not because rainbow-colored sashes show support for gay Catholics. It is because rainbow-colored sashes show support for gay dissent from the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. I guess the reporter wasn't listening when Bishop Harry Flynn said the sashes are "more and more perceived as a protest against church teaching," declaring that it has never been acceptable "to use the reception of Communion as an act of protest."
This nun wasn't paying attention:
Sister Gabriel Herbers said she wore a sash to show sympathy for the gay and lesbian community. Their sexual orientation "is a gift from God just as much as my gift of being a female is," she said.
What catechism was she reading? She seems to think that sin is a gift from God.
If all the parish youth decided to wear purple and yellow ribbons to show solidarity for the "gift of fornication," the same rule would apply. It would apply to married people who wore ribbons to show support for the "gift of adultery." It's not about homosexuality. It's about sexual morality. Only married man and woman have the right to make use of the gift of sex, and then only with each other. The gift is meant to strengthen families, and families are an integral part of the gift. It's purpose is to create them in the first place, and then to build a bond between husband and wife that can endure the inevitable hardships that go along with it. Those who choose not to procreate give up the use of the gift. What's so hard to understand about that? No one is being oppressed here. Sin is not a right.
It's good to see that the bishops are beginning to put their actions where their doctrine is.
