Here’s a followup on that group of laymen in Minneapolis who were determined to do on Sunday what the archbishop wouldn’t. They stood up in opposition to the Rainbow Sash-ayers who were determined to put their finger in the Church’s eye while trumpeting their dissent from the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.
The group, Ushers of the Eucharist, knelt down in the aisles to block the gay activists. What was the cathedral rector’s response? “In a written statement handed out before mass, the Rev. Michael Skluzacek, pastor at the cathedral, asked parishioners to pray for those who are ‘mistakenly using the mass and the eucharist to make their own personal statements.’” Gee, which group do you think that was aimed at?
“In a written statement handed out before mass, the Rev. Michael Skluzacek, pastor at the cathedral, asked parishioners to pray for those who are “mistakenly using the mass and the eucharist to make their own personal statements.”
I know Fr. Michael very well and he is an orthodox priest and an ideal priest. Since it was a written statement prepared before the Mass, perhaps it was intended for the ‘sash-ayers’. His recourse to prayer seems to be the Christian thing to do, especially under the circumstances, i.e., obedience to Archbishop Flynn and care for the spiritual well-being of the parishioners which innocently find themselves caught up in what would seem to me to be an extremely heartbreaking event. I am sure that Fr. Michael is taking this issue most-seriously and is doing the best to serve God from the perspective of vocational duty as an orthodox priest.
The Rev. Michael Skluzacek (search) said in a written statement that both sides were “mistakenly using the Mass and the Eucharist to make their own personal statements.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121345,00.html
Here it says both sides…
Guilio, I have no reason to doubt what you say about Father Skluzacek’s character. However, he should never been placed in that position by Archbishop Flynn.
From the news reports in Chicago, Cardinal George made a wise decision to deny the Eucharist to those wearing the rainbow sash in contempt of Church doctrine. It was very quiet at Holy Name Cathedral, just a handful of whiners came out.
Draw any conclusions, but one certainly is that Flynn (his excellency) mistakes cowardice for prudence.
I agree!
Best regards, Giulio
“It’s just presumptuous to call another person a sinner,” McNeill said.
No, they are calling themselves unrepentant sinners.
“The eucharist and the tradition of the church is bigger than me and it’s bigger than Archbishop Flynn,” Pence said. “Our bishop is a good man, but an extremely weak man and we want to give him courage.”
It’s sad when the parishioners have to lead the bishops. Most of our bishops are extreme moral cowards.
…“Archbishop Harry Flynn’s stance that the Rainbow Sash Alliance will not be denied communion except under “extreme” circumstances…
This is how the bishops fail my children (and Catholic children everywhere…)
Please do not post multiple posts to the same entry. Try to get all your thoughts into one post because every time you post a comment, everyone else gets an email notification and we don’t want to spam others.
Will do as you request, Dom. Sorry. (We have enough Spam as it is!)
Best,
Sinner
The article closes with “… I’ll be back next year.”
Isn’t that telling… they have no interest in the nourishment our good Lord supplies us with His Holy Body EVERY week.
They are are only “using” the Body of our Lord to make their statement.
Sounds an aweful lot like what happens in every non-maritial or contraceptive sexual act. The “using” of another for our own selfish purposes.
May God have mercy on them!
Maybe I wasn’t clear. It was the “Rainbow Sash Alliance organizer Brian McNeill” who remarked: “God willing, if I’m alive and breathing, I’ll be back next year.”
I was trying to make the point that the Sashers (not the Ushers) were using our Lord in parallel to how they use others in their unchaste acts.
Essentially their error is consistant, using the most intimate situations possible for man (Holy Communion and sexual intimacy) for their selfish aims.
I have been thinking about this issue alot since participating as an Usher of the Eucharist. When a Catholic is getting married outside of the Church without Church approval, perhaps a divorced Catholic for instance, we are told that it is a scandal to participate in the wedding in any way. We are not supposed to attend, i.e. participate in the scandal. I agree with this of course. With all due respect to Archbishop Flynn, why is it that the Bishops are allowed to be complacent in scandal (which in my view would be analogous to attending an unapproved wedding)? Archbishop Flynn says the circumstances need to be extreme. Before the 90’s when homosexuality gained wide acceptance in this country I truly believe that the AB would have acted quickly with regard to the Rainbow Sashers. We are frogs in warming water folks. And it’s gettin hot.
I continue to reflect on the story of the prodigal son which is essentially analogous to the rainbow sashers insisting that the Church come and live in the pig sty, waiting for the husks of corn to fall rather than to come home to the open arms of the father in the mercy of the true Church. I also believe that anyone considering this issue should reflect on 1 Cor 5 and the scathing rebuke of Paul of the whole community (not just the Bishop) for failure to act for the good of the man who was living with his father’s wife.
Corinthians 5:1-5
It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.
You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.
In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
No quibling about the conscience of this man. The concern is for his salvation in removing him from the community so that he might repent. We have people who are openly accepting and even involved in homosexuality and we are tacitly approving by allowing them to come to mass with a symbol of their disobedience accross their chest. Scandal!
God bless