Posted on 05/30/2004 3:21:39 PM PDT by miltonim
ST. PAUL - A group of Roman Catholic laymen tried to prevent gay Catholics and their supporters from taking Holy Communion on Sunday by standing and kneeling in the church aisles at the Cathedral of St. Paul.
About three dozen men calling themselves "Ushers of the Eucharist" confronted members of the Rainbow Sash Alliance, a group that donned rainbow-colored sashes and ribbons in support of a right for gay Catholics to receive communion.
The men took turns kneeling in front of the altar to block the path of those wearing rainbow sashes and ribbons. There were no physical altercations, but the 100 or so sash wearers and others attending Mass were forced to walk around them.
The priest allowed everyone to take Holy Communion and encouraged people to use the side aisles to approach the communion rail.
Although many of the worshippers knew a protest was planned, others were surprised to see television cameras and protesters inside the cathedral.
"I think we should keep politics out of the church," said Michael Hanzal, of West St. Paul. "People go to Mass to worship, not for the 5 o'clock news to be thrown in your face."
Mike and Lynne Naylon, of Maplewood, who attend the service at the cathedral every week, said it was sad to see people trying to prevent others from taking communion.
"I've never seen anything like this," Mike Naylon said.
Some in the audience came specifically to support one of the two sides.
Elaine Eyre, who was there to support the Rainbow Sash Alliance, said you can't judge people. "We don't know what's in someone's heart," she said.
Heather Siewart said she came to support the Ushers of the Eucharist, even though she's Protestant.
"A lifestyle that goes against the teachings of the Bible is not something we can accept," she said.
Groups gathered at least an hour before Mass to pray and discuss their strategies. A separate group, Catholics Against Sacrilege, gathered on the cathedral's steps and prayed in support of the Ushers of the Eucharist.
Fifteen minutes before the cathedral bells rang, the rainbow sash wearers and the Ushers of the Eucharist engaged in a friendly, but tense, debate.
"You are pushing homosexuality as a form of love. It is not," David Pence, who organized the Ushers of the Eucharist, told Brian McNeill, who led the Rainbow Sash Alliance.
Several alliance members shouted back: "Yes it is!"
Doug Hughes, a rainbow sash wearer, said gays have received the Eucharist on Pentecost Sunday for centuries.
"The only difference now is that we're known," he said.
After Mass, both group leaders said they were happy to express their views peacefully.
"We're not bullies. We were very tame," Pence said. "It was time to stand up and say, 'don't do this.'"
"Everyone received communion," McNeill said. "It's a challenge to love our brother and sister Catholics when they do this."
Pence said the group's goal for next year is to get the church to refuse Holy Communion to rainbow sash wearers.
In a written statement, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said that while only baptized Catholics should take Holy Communion, "the determination of a person's spiritual readiness rests with the individual conscience and honesty of individual worshippers."
The Rev. Michael Skluzacek, in a written statement handed to people as they entered the cathedral, said the groups were "mistakenly using the Mass and the Eucharist to make their own personal statements."
This is simply not enough. The bishops have a duty to tell Catholics that they need to inform their consciences by the teaching of the Church, which is that absolution must be obtained for any mortal sin before one should approach the sacrament.
Why bash the Ushers?
You think the Minnesota Clergy would ever grow a spine?
The Ushers knew they never would.
So they did what they did.
More power to them.
"Shame on the "Ushers of the Eucharist" for usurping the office of priest, disrupting a Mass and potentially violating the civil law."
I don't agree with you there.
Rebuking sinners is one of the spiritual acts of mercy, and if that wasn't a rebuke to sinners -- the priest as well as the homosexuals, if that isn't redundant -- then I don't know what is.
They did not usurp his office, they protested his failure to exercise it.
What they disrupted was a sacrilege, and if that's not something that needs to be disrupted, nothing does.
If this is a violation of the civil law, then the law is wrong.
Good post, NYer.
"Yeth it ith!"
Yes. This is like idolotry. Shaping God, molding God into something like your own image, or an image you find more desirable.
When my brother converted from atheism to Reformed Judaism, he said he did it because Reformed Judaism was in line with what he already believed. Making God like him in a sense.
Oh, I think God likes pretty much everyone. ;)
I understand, but I understand his point as well. I left Catholicism because too many parts didn't jive with my understanding of the Universe.
But I understood that I was making myself an ex-Catholic. And I have great admiration for those who can keep the faith. When they understand it.
Is there a Gay Muslim movement?
If these people were sincere in their statement that they want to be accepted as believers, that is what they would do. If they are just interested in publicity, then they would disrupt traditional Catholic services to prove a point.
Oh, wait a minute...
Then that's between themselves and God, and they have had to answer for it. When they make a public statement that's in defiance to a WELL-KNOWN Church teaching it goes beyond individual conscience and into the public square.
These folks are USING the Church to force their lifestyle on the other parishoners and they have no right to do that. The priest should have asked them to remove their sashes or LEAVE!
Not if you're Catholic. One must avail themselves of the Sacrament of Penance which requires firm resolve to sin no more, sincere repentance for sins committed and auricular Confession as taught in Scripture.
What I said about the Bible applies to all Christians, whether they are Catholic or Protestant...NOONE is to take Communion unless they realize that unless they have asked forgiveness for their sins (and that is prayer between them and God not just a Priest)they would be "partaking of Christs Body and Blood" unworthily and would be jeapordizing their very life. READ IT FOR YOURSELF it is in I Corinthians Chapter 11: Verses 24-34
Taking Communion is serious business with God.
"It is a far worse sacrilege to commit an offense while falsely invoking the Holy Name of Jesus Christ or the Church."
You have got one really bizarre take on this. It was the sodomites who were disrupting the Mass, with their brazen display of the badge of their perversion.
"for the Holy Spirit always promotes unity in the Church."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Horse pucky. The Holy Spirit always promotes holiness, and I believe that when you have unholy terrors like these sodomites, the Holy Spirit promotes throwing their disobedient, perverted butts out! And ditto priests and bishops who allow this kind of atrocity.
I do not think it is very effective method - look how it worked for conservative Episcopalians. They should move this priest out of the church on a wheelbarrow (a traditional method to punish bad leaders in Eastern Europe).
Better yet it would be to use traditional American way:
Go for it, it will work!
Not always:
Eph:6:17: And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
Heb:4:12: For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Mt:10:34: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
1Cor:1:10: Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
The true unity has to be based on sharing "the same mind and the same judgment" in spirit of truth. There is no place in the Church to celebrate the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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