Pentecost A time of Faith and Challenge
So many in our Faith have been hurt and alienated by judgmentalism. Gays join divorced Catholics, and Catholics who find nothing in this Church that is relevant. There are the victims of sexual abuse whose only hearing is imposed by courts outside the Church, because courts inside the Church will not listen.
We hear the slogan chanted about pro life and yet life is not at issue it is doctrinal purity. Women are offered up on the altar of dogmatic purity and are forced to have children against their will. Those who judge these women are clueless to the convention of rape.
The victims of HIV/AIDS are the poor. Poverty knows no borders. Poverty does not care if your white or non white, male or female, gay or straight. The Catholic hierarchy turns a deaf ear to the suffering of so many dying of this disease. As a gay man who is Catholic I can attest to this.
I will enter Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago on Pentecost Sunday because I believe women, the poor, and GLBT people are important. I will no longer be comfortable in the pew of my parish Immaculate Conception Parish. I will wear a Rainbow Sash because it says so much of whom I am, and who we are that I will not be shamed. Nor will I any longer play the shell game with the bishops. We must enter into a relationship of truthfulness and integrity. For to long this element has been missing from our church, even our priests have been infected by the don't ask don't tell mentality, they have become immune to poverty.
Comfort in the face of poverty is just as sinful as comfort in the face of homophobia, sexism and racism.
I call on Catholics and priests to bring meaning to their faith, and stand for something other than conveniance of worship.
Join us in Cathedrals and parishes on Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2007 as we challenge the lack of love.
God Bless
Joe Murray
