I just blogged about the unique Catholic message for those who are gay and lesbian: delight, ye chosen of the Lord, in being special "victim souls" who live a lifelong crucifixion of loneliness and isolation from intimate relationship. Because God loves you soooo much (and we do, too) . . . .
And as a corollary of that "loving" message, be forewarned that you may also expect to be denied bread from the eucharistic table. If you're not dressed right, that is. And happen to be gay or lesbian, or standing in solidarity with your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
This week, Archbishop Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis has been turning away communicants at Catholic churches in his diocese who are wearing rainbow sashes or rainbow pins in solidarity with their LGBT brothers and sisters. If you're wearing these insignia, you get a blessing.
But no bread.
Because God loves you soooo much (and we do, too).
As Brian Cones proposes, if you're a Catholic expecting holy bread from the holy table these days, best perhaps to stick to basic, somber black--and how fitting for those of us called to be specially blessed "victim souls," isn't it? The color of perpetual mourning . . . .
Oh, but (as Ed Gleason notes in this Commonweal thread) if that colorful sash is a sash designating your membership in the Knights of Columbus, the Knights of Malta, the Dames of Malta, or the Knights of Peter Whoever, bring it on: the more colorful, the better. It's only the rainbow sash we don't want.
It's only the gays and lesbians we don't want to welcome.
Evidently, when Jesus said, "Take this, all of you and eat," he didn't have people in bright rainbow colors in mind. Or gays and lesbians.
Never mind that he offered his holy bread even to Judas. His apostolic representatives on earth today obviously know the mind of Christ better than he himself knew it, when he broke his bread and gave it to all sinners, without reservation.
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