Catholic laymen tried to prevent people who wore rainbow-colored sashes in support of gay and lesbian rights at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minn., yesterday (pictured above), from receiving communion, and the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago refused to give communion to people wearing rainbow-colored sashes yesterday, The Associated Press reports. People beg for the Catholic church's acceptance when instead they should leave the anachronistic, backasswards church in order to work on real spiritual growth and to help the church die the natural death that it needs to die (and that, thank God, it appears to be dying). (Associated Press photo)
Fuck the Catholic church
It bewilders me why gay men and lesbians beg the Catholic church for acceptance (and why anyone else would beg the Catholic church or any other "Christian" church for acceptance, for that matter).
Take, for example, this news item from The Associated Press:
CHICAGO -- Parishioners who wore rainbow-colored sashes to Mass in support of gays and lesbians were denied communion in Chicago, while laymen in Minnesota tried to prevent gay Roman Catholics from getting the sacrament.
Priests at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago refused to give the Eucharist to about 10 people wearing the sashes at Sunday Mass. One priest shook each person's hand; another made the sign of the cross on their foreheads.
"The priest told me you cannot receive communion if you're wearing a sash, as per the Cardinal's direction," said James Luxton, a Chicago member of the Rainbow Sash Movement, an organization of Catholic gay-rights supporters with chapters around the country.
An internal memo from Chicago Cardinal Francis George that became public last week instructed priests not to give communion to people wearing the sashes, which the group's members wear every year for Pentecost. The memo says the sashes are a symbol of opposition to the church's doctrine on homosexuality and exploit the communion ritual.
"The Rainbow Sash movement wants its members to be fully accepted by the Church not on the same conditions as any Catholic but precisely as gay," George wrote. "With this comes the requirement that the Church change her moral teaching."
Rainbow Sash Movement spokesman Joe Murray was among those denied communion in Chicago. He said members wearing the sashes should be seen no differently than a uniformed police officer or Boy Scout seeking communion.
"What we saw today in the cathedral is discrimination at the Eucharistic table, and that shouldn't be happening," Murray said. Those denied communion returned to their pews, but stood while the rest of the congregation knelt.
The movement, which started about five years ago in England, also has members in Dallas, New Orleans, New York and Rochester, N.Y.
...A Vatican doctrinal decree last year directed at Catholic politicians said a well-formed conscience forbids support for any law that contradicts "fundamental" morality, with abortion listed first among relevant issues. A second Vatican statement said it is "gravely immoral" not to oppose legalization of same-sex unions.
The Catholic church and most other "Christian" churches are an anachronism. Patriarchy and hierarchy, which breed only oppression and which the Catholic church and most other "Christian" churches embrace, have got to go.
Further, spirituality is supposed to be an inside job, a private matter, not a public matter and not an outward display, as Jesus Christ clearly taught:
"Be careful not to parade your religion before others; if you do, no reward awaits you with your Father in heaven.
"So, when you give alms, do not announce it with a flourish of trumpets, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Truly I tell you: They have their reward already.
"But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing; your good deed must be secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
"Again, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in synagogues and at street corners for everyone to see them. Truly I tell you: They have their reward already.
"But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:1-6)
That pretty much negates and invalidates just about everything that "Christian" churches do. Jesus clearly opposed public displays, but that's about all that the "Christian" churches are about.
The Catholic church, which spawned all of the other "Christian" churches, never had it right from Day One.
Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus ask that a church be created after him. In fact, he despised institutionalized religion; the New Testament is filled with his scathing criticisms of the Pharisees, who comprised the institutionalized religion of his time and place. Here are some of his many criticisms of the Pharisees:
"The scribes and the Pharisees occupy Moses' seat; so be careful to do whatever they tell you. But do not follow their practice; for they say one thing and do another. They make up heavy loads and pile them on the shoulders of others, but will not themselves lift a finger to ease the burden. Whatever they do is done for show." (Matthew 23:1-5)
"Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdon of Heaven in people's faces; you do not enter yourselves, and when others try to enter, you stop them.
"Alas for you, scribes and Pharisess, hypocrites! You travel over sea and land to win one convert; and when you have succeeded you make him twice as fit for hell as you are yourselves." (Matthew 23:13-15)
"Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look fine on the outside, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and of corruption. So it is with you: Outwardly you look like honest men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:27-28)
(If Jesus had had a blog, it would have been at least as "angry" as mine, I suspect...)
The hierarchy/patriarchy of the Catholic church and other "Christian" churches are nothing but modern-day Pharisees.
And here's yet another of Jesus' clear-cut teachings that the Catholic church outright violates:
"Do not call any man on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." (Matthew 23:9)
The reason you are supposed to call a Catholic priest "father" is to reinforce that patriarchal, dependent, parent-child dynamic. It's all about making sure that you don't spiritually grow, because if you did, you would threaten the authority and political power of the church hierarchy. The system is set up against you, not for you, set up to keep you in shackles, not to make you free, and Jesus' teachings were about freedom and self-discovery, not about blind obedience to clueless, power-hungry hypocrites.
Spiritual evolution does not -- not -- depend upon such meaningless outward acts as taking a God-damned communion wafer from some church official who drank the Kool-Aid. No church official is any better than anyone else, including and perhaps especially the pope. (You know, I just refuse to capitalize such words as "church" and "communion" and "pope." It gives them a status that they don't deserve. I'll probably have to stop capitalizing "Catholic," too, which I capitalize only to prevent confusion.)
Organized religion and its rituals, its outward observances, are just an illusion that people cling to because it keeps them in a childish state of dependency in which they never have to stand on their own two feet and never have to do the hard work of spiritual evolution. They want to believe that if they take a frigging communion wafer, somehow they are working on their spirits. They stupidly believe that kissing church officials' asses once a week or so somehow fulfills their sacred duty, as human beings, to work on their spiritual growth.
If only it were that easy. Spiritual evolution is an inside job, a lifelong job, a difficult job that requires a lifetime of commitment and hard work.
It's long past time that gay men and lesbians -- and everyone else -- toss aside organized religion, which never served their spiritual growth in the first place, go into a room by themselves, shut the door, and pray in secret.
1:48:01 PM 
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