The Rainbow Sash Movement is preparing itself spiritually for Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2007. Our focus has become prayer, and daily mass. There are some in the Church who tell us to love it or leave it, others who say we should join other Church communities that are welcoming of GLBT People. Our response is to call these to open their eyes, ears, and have an open heart to understand we love the Church and are only calling its leadership to walk the talk of inclusion and not exclusion
We believe our presence at Cathedrals and parishes across the nation is a response to the call from the Holy Spirit. That presence will speak to our love, faith, and hope for this Church whose focus should be Jesus Christ, and what he did and said. Additionally our presence will test the pastoral abilities of clergy who operate under homophobic guidelines of Eucharistic exclusion.
On Pentecost Sunday we are calling our Bishops to humbly recognize “the signs of the times” and the “signs of the Lesbian and Gay Community at work with the Holy Spirit”. Our presence is an act of merging our faith and social action. There must be a union between evangelization, liberation, faith and life, and pastoral approach. .
The US Bishops Conference must implement the message of love expressed in “All our Children.” They must show the way to make real the sentence of Pope John XXIII “The Church belongs to all, but especially to the poor”. It is our hope that they can be reconciled with the Gospel message of Agape in their actions.
On Pentecost Sunday we are calling on the Bishops to acknowledge the diversity which exists within the Roman Catholic Church, and to encourage Catholic LGBT people to play a full role in the expression their faith.
Finally I call on the Bishops to stress the importance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council which favors the Church as a community of the People of God. There should be no discrimination among neighbors in this community.
Joe Murray
US Convener
Rainbow Sash Movement
