Archbsp Withholds Communion from gay-rights supporters

[Tigg]

The archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis denied Communion to a group of college students from St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict because they were wearing rainbow-colored buttons in support of gay rights, a member of the group said Tuesday.

Elizabeth Gleich said that when students with the rainbow buttons approached Archbishop John Nienstedt at a Sept. 26 evening Mass on the St. John’s campus in Collegeville, he made a sign of the cross over their heads but refused to hand them hosts.

Nienstedt was traveling and could not be reached for comment, archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said Tuesday.

McGrath said it’s church policy, from the Vatican downward, to deny Communion to people who make a public show of opposing church teaching or try to make political statements at Mass.

(click on link to read entire article)

“We wanted to make a statement to Archbishop Nienstedt, to stand in solidarity with GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) students on our own campus that we don’t agree with what he’s doing,” Gleich said.

twincities.com/education/ci_16263244?source=rss

 

[SunnaB16]

Its time Miss Gleich and the other staunch "Catholics" involved realised that were not to receive the Blessed Sacrament when we`re not in the state of Grace.

Hats off to the Archbishop!

Fr. Corapi said hed rather argue with a Hells Angel than to argue with someone who`s been subjected to well over a decade of lousy catechesis.

 

[mark_a]

The archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis denied Communion to a group of college students from St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict because they were wearing rainbow-colored buttons in support of gay rights, a member of the group said Tuesday.

Three cheers for the archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis!!

 

[LemonAndLime]

Although I agree with the Archbishop’s sentiment, I have to make a few points.

Where they campaigning for Gay equality, or gay marriage? Surely the Church is not opposed to gay men and women having the right to live in peace alongside straight people?

I thought the Catholic Church taught that we should support and care for gay men and women, just that we cannot condone any sexual behaviour or “marriages”. I read a quote from the Vatican website on another thread that the Church recognises that in some circumstances, non-sexual relationships between gay people may be beneficial.

 

[Scoobyshme]

I’m always happy when a bishop or archbishop shows that he has a spine!

I’d excommunicate them, so that they’d know, without a doubt, that they’re off the reservation. It would actually be an act of charity and a great pastoral move, to try to get them back in the fold, rather than act in denial like all is fine with them and God.

 

[PatriceA]

Although I agree with the Archbishop’s sentiment, I have to make a few points.

Where they campaigning for Gay equality, or gay marriage? Surely the Church is not opposed to gay men and women having the right to live in peace alongside straight people?

I thought the Catholic Church taught that we should support and care for gay men and women, just that we cannot condone any sexual behaviour or “marriages”. I read a quote from the Vatican website on another thread that the Church recognises that in some circumstances, non-sexual relationships between gay people may be beneficial.

It shouldn’t matter, its the fact that they were trying to make a political statement while receiving the Eucharist that was the problem. If they are truly concerned about the equality of gays, then meet with the Bishop in private. There is a time and place for such views to be made known, but in the communion line is not one of them.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Although I agree with the Archbishop’s sentiment, I have to make a few points.

Where they campaigning for Gay equality, or gay marriage? Surely the Church is not opposed to gay men and women having the right to live in peace alongside straight people?

I thought the Catholic Church taught that we should support and care for gay men and women, just that we cannot condone any sexual behaviour or “marriages”. I read a quote from the Vatican website on another thread that the Church recognises that in some circumstances, non-sexual relationships between gay people may be beneficial.

LemonAndLime, that is the correct understanding of Catholic doctrine and practice.

Archbishop Nienstedt is a very outspoken supporter of marriage as between one man and one woman. In this sense, he has become a target of gay rights organizations. The reports coming out from this incident and others are very one sided, and obviously aimed at undermining Catholic teaching.

That tactic by these groups is to present gay rights as equal, but there is always the underlying fact that these same groups see the view of Catholics (and others) as a threat to their goals. They are relentless in their attacks, and the Catholic view of this is that this is just another one of their attacks.

(see here)

Defiance against church teaching on marriage is completely and utterly the goal of the Rainbow Sash Movement. The student approaching the archbishop for communion were wearing the rainbow sash. From a Catholic view, this is open defiance of the Church, in a Catholic Church, and in clear view of a Bishop…on a Catholic campus.

I don’t know what they expected. It all looks like a publicity stunt to me.

 

[Tigg]

Although I agree with the Archbishop’s sentiment, I have to make a few points.

Where they campaigning for Gay equality, or gay marriage? Surely the Church is not opposed to gay men and women having the right to live in peace alongside straight people?

I thought the Catholic Church taught that we should support and care for gay men and women, just that we cannot condone any sexual behaviour or “marriages”. I read a quote from the Vatican website on another thread that the Church recognises that in some circumstances, non-sexual relationships between gay people may be beneficial.

We really need more information, don’t we? Church teaching requires all to be treated with compassion and respect and is pastorally concerned with ministry to the LGBT group. However, despite the shenanigans at St. Patrick’s a couple of months ago where the pastor was interviewed as saying he was only concerned with promiscuity, the Church clearly states that no matter your sexual orientation, you MUST be chaste.

This article states that those who were denied were advocates of same-sex marriage:

catholicexchange.com/2010/10/07/135046/

Like all fringe groups, it’s really hard to distinguish the Rainbow Sash Movement from the other more aggressive groups who flaunt their sexuality with every known perversion under the sun.

 

[Tigg]

It shouldn’t matter, its the fact that they were trying to make a political statement while receiving the Eucharist that was the problem. If they are truly concerned about the equality of gays, then meet with the Bishop in private. There is a time and place for such views to be made known, but in the communion line is not one of them.

Absolutely! Again, from the second article, here is a response to your comment.

Another PRiSM member, Ana Seivert, complained in a Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) report that the archbishop’s action was “political.” “We weren’t the ones who made it political,” she said. “Once the archbishop denied communion, he made it political.”

I believe someone is very deluded!

 

[LemonAndLime]

LemonAndLime, that is the correct understanding of Catholic doctrine and practice.

Archbishop Nienstedt is a very outspoken supporter of marriage as between one man and one woman. In this sense, he has become a target of gay rights organizations. The reports coming out from this incident and others are very one sided, and obviously aimed at undermining Catholic teaching.

That tactic by these groups is to present gay rights as equal, but there is always the underlying fact that these same groups see the view of Catholics (and others) as a threat to their goals. They are relentless in their attacks, and the Catholic view of this is that this is just another one of their attacks.

(see here)

Defiance against church teaching on marriage is completely and utterly the goal of the Rainbow Sash Movement. The student approaching the archbishop for communion were wearing the rainbow sash. From a Catholic view, this is open defiance of the Church, in a Catholic Church, and in clear view of a Bishop…on a Catholic campus.

I don’t know what they expected. It all looks like a publicity stunt to me.

Yay I got something about Catholic doctrine right!

I accept though that it was inappropriate for them to make a political statement in the line. And seeing as they are a group campaigning for the right to get married, I think the archbishop was acceptable to deny them communium. It’s like lining up while holding a pack of condoms.

 

[Linda_Marie]

Receiving Communion is not a right. It is a privilege.

Do they not understand that the Eucharist is not just a piece of bread and a sip of wine? That it is the actual, not symbolic, Real Body and Blood of Jesus? This is God Himself and they are playing political games while trying to receive Him?

The Archbishop did them a favour and they just don’t realize it yet.

 

[cyberwolf001]

It’s the right of the Archbishop to do this and if the activist don’t like it they can file a formal act of defection an go else where.

 

[rlg94086]

Although I agree with the Archbishop’s sentiment, I have to make a few points.

Where they campaigning for Gay equality, or gay marriage? Surely the Church is not opposed to gay men and women having the right to live in peace alongside straight people?

I thought the Catholic Church taught that we should support and care for gay men and women, just that we cannot condone any sexual behaviour or “marriages”. I read a quote from the Vatican website on another thread that the Church recognises that in some circumstances, non-sexual relationships between gay people may be beneficial.

The only, minor, correction I would make is that the relationships need to be “disinterested friendships.” Two people with same-sex attraction who are sexually attracted to each other shouldn’t live together in a sexless relationship. It would be about as smart as two married (to others) co-workers who are attracted to each other sharing a hotel room on a business trip.

 

[mary_bobo]

The archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis denied Communion to a group of college students from St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict because they were wearing rainbow-colored buttons in support of gay rights, a member of the group said Tuesday.

Elizabeth Gleich said that when students with the rainbow buttons approached Archbishop John Nienstedt at a Sept. 26 evening Mass on the St. John’s campus in Collegeville, he made a sign of the cross over their heads but refused to hand them hosts.

Nienstedt was traveling and could not be reached for comment, archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said Tuesday.

McGrath said it’s church policy, from the Vatican downward, to deny Communion to people who make a public show of opposing church teaching or try to make political statements at Mass.

(click on link to read entire article)

“We wanted to make a statement to Archbishop Nienstedt, to stand in solidarity with GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) students on our own campus that we don’t agree with what he’s doing,” Gleich said.

twincities.com/education/ci_16263244?source=rss

Wonder when they will get around to the public show our Catholic members of Congress show when they go against Church teaching??

 

[RobbyS]

Its time Miss Gleich and the other staunch "Catholics" involved realised that were not to receive the Blessed Sacrament when we`re not in the state of Grace.

Hats off to the Archbishop!

Fr. Corapi said hed rather argue with a Hells Angel than to argue with someone who`s been subjected to well over a decade of lousy catechesis.

A false idea is almost impossible to dislodge from someone else’s head. Try teaching plane geometry to a child who has been taught false “facts” by a beloved but ignorant elementary school teacher.

 

[Elizabeth502]

The only, minor, correction I would make is that the relationships need to be “disinterested friendships.” Two people with same-sex attraction who are sexually attracted to each other shouldn’t live together in a sexless relationship. It would be about as smart as two married (to others) co-workers who are attracted to each other sharing a hotel room on a business trip.

Agreed. This is common sense.

I need to say that I was really troubled and disappointed in a homily I heard today. It began in totally the right way – talking about today’s readings and emphasizing Jesus making the outcasts (lepers) whole by healing them & thus restoring them to the community, which at the same time restoring their honor & erasing their social shame. There are many ways in which we can all relate to this, particularly because the homilist brought up contemporary situations of shame, such as foreclosure, unemployment, homelessness. There was much from today’s gospel, and his introduction, that everyone in the congregation could have related to.

Instead, he chose to make a political statement about gay identity. Seriously. Now clearly this is a group that is often “shamed.” Many shameful stories have been in the news lately, documenting man’s inhumanity to man. But that’s not what he chose to focus on. Instead he wanted to talk about his gay brother, and in doing so, implied that his brother was in fact better than straights becasue he was gay. (Yes, this was a priest speaking) The rest of his homily also implied, strongly, that gays were more “special” than others, more of a “gift.”

I found the journey that the homily led to, to be a real turn-off. It’s one thing to acknowledge equal dignity of all people; it’s another to engage in a distortion of that concept by putting an artificially inflated worth onto a group of people or a lifestyle. Believe me, it was a very political speech. Perhaps if anyone had come up to that communion line with an X through a rainbow flag, that person would have denied communion by the homilist? I don’t think political statements belong in Mass or at Mass. I try to leave my own politics at home and acknowledge our unity as one Body, and try to receive new insights from others, but the “insight” from the homilist did not ring true. Apparently I was in the minority, as several people clapped, loudly, after this homily, whose tone was very defiant.

One conservatively dressed woman, and her young-adult daughter, left shortly after the homily, at the beginning of the Offertory. Also one older man.

I guess it will not happen in my lifetime that the western world will begin to acknowledge once again that we are human beings first, sexual beings second (or 3rd, or 4th, or whatever). Tired of everything being about how much better gays are than straights. I think it would be equally inappropriate if it had been declard in the homily that straights are better than gays. That also would not have been the message of the Gospel passage.

 

[SunnaB16]

A false idea is almost impossible to dislodge from someone else’s head. Try teaching plane geometry to a child who has been taught false “facts” by a beloved but ignorant elementary school teacher.

Yep!
First impressions are deep.
Get em while theyre young.

 

[Dale_M]

Instead, he chose to make a political statement about gay identity. Seriously. Now clearly this is a group that is often “shamed.” Many shameful stories have been in the news lately, documenting man’s inhumanity to man. But that’s not what he chose to focus on. Instead he wanted to talk about his gay brother, and in doing so, implied that his brother was in fact better than straights becasue he was gay. (Yes, this was a priest speaking) The rest of his homily also implied, strongly, that gays were more “special” than others, more of a “gift.”

I wasn’t there, so obviously don’t know, but I wonder if the priest was trying to say that a compensation for the bearing the burden of homosexuality is that it gives his brother special insights or opportunities. I ask because a somewhat common idea in US culture is that disability or hardships brings out of the ordinary skills e.g. the blind person whose hearing and smell is enhanced, or the abuse survivor who is attuned to others needing help.

Did the priest affirm the Church’s teaching on homosexuality or mention his brother is living a celibate life? I am wondering if perhaps the priest was trying to say, having homosexual attraction is not all hardship and suffering, but there are compensations that others might be able to recognize and utilize.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I wasn’t there, so obviously don’t know, but I wonder if the priest was trying to say that a compensation for the bearing the burden of homosexuality is that it gives his brother special insights or opportunities. I ask because a somewhat common idea in US culture is that disability or hardships brings out of the ordinary skills e.g. the blind person whose hearing and smell is enhanced, or the abuse survivor who is attuned to others needing help.

Can’t agree more. If he had said it that way, I would have been on board, Dale. But that is never (at least in all the talks, homilies, conversations, etc.) the way I have heard the “specialness” presented. It is presented as some kind of superior triumphalism that says “gay is better.” You know, that’s every bit as divisive as claiming they’re inferior.

Did the priest affirm the Church’s teaching on homosexuality or mention his brother is living a celibate life?

He did not, and that was obviously another problem, particularly since the words were coming from a priest, not a lay person. (Naturally, it was a homily.)

I am wondering if perhaps the priest was trying to say, having homosexual attraction is not all hardship and suffering, but there are compensations that others might be able to recognize and utilize.

I think you should have given the homily, Dale. Clearly you get it, and much better, and you get also the need to communicate clearly & effectively.

 

[edwest2]

I listened to a Catholic woman from Canada on Catholic Radio who has been barred from speaking publicly about certain homosexual issues. The person talking to her, Al Kresta, asked why that was. She replied, “I guess they don’t want me to hurt their feelings.”

For years, homosexuality was listed as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and then, in 1973, it was voted to be removed. Gays should never be harassed or beaten or harmed in other ways, but a review of history shows what was once private, just like heterosexual sex, is now loudly proclaimed to be public. Look at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. On their web page is an ad that reads: “Real STR8 Lads- Tied Up, Beaten.” You know, typical entertainment.

In England, some people who ran across some outdoor gay sex went to a police officer. He told them to find a different route.

It’s one thing to be asked to be left alone and for privacy. But I don’t think my mom and dad would have joined a leather event or walked around in their underwear in public, much less some of the outfits worn at such events.

Right to privacy? Yes. Left alone? Yes. But this? Come on. And that’s where it’s all headed folks. Don’t be deceived. It’s not about pride, it’s about accept me in my high heels and speedo because, well, you know, it’s just how I want to be.

God bless,
Ed