Communion Denied to Activists

Gay Rights Supporters Wear Rainbow Sashes to Minn. Mass

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 5, 2006; Page A07

More than 50 gay rights activists wearing rainbow-colored sashes were denied Holy Communion at a Pentecost service yesterday at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in St. Paul, Minn., parishioners and church officials said.

In an act that some witnesses called a "sacrilege" and others called a sign of "solidarity," a man who was not wearing a sash received a Communion wafer from a priest, broke it into pieces and handed it to some of the sash wearers, who consumed it on the spot.

Ushers threatened to call the police, and a church employee burst into tears when the unidentified man re-distributed the consecrated wafer, which Catholics consider the body of Christ. But the Mass was not interrupted, and the incident ended peacefully, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

"It was confrontational, but we decided not to try to arrest the guy," he said ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400773.html

That is about the craziest thing I have heard in a long time.

In addition to getting married, it's also illegal for gays to receive communion. :sarcasm: Religious tolerance marches on.

.. to oppose the Church's position: RCC is denying communion for the act of visibly supporting gays ...

and must be whipped into submission. :sarcasm:

when gays can't have communion. :sarcasm:

Everybody will decide to turn gay! Won't somebody think of the children??? :sarcasm:

n/t

For receiving communion illegally??

They (the ushers) threatened to call the police on the guy (singular) who broke up his own communion wafer and gave it to "some" (plural) of the sash wearers.

You are the one who needs to *read the article.

sheesh

"sheesh" is right

They were NOT threatening to call the cops for anybody "receiving communion illegally" as you stated.

You apparently don't understand my point.

Why in the world would anyone even suggest calling cops for this? Is it against the law for a gay person to take communion? Maybe the church discourages it but I hardly believe it is a criminal or civil offense as well. I would imagine the cops would have wondered what they were supposed to do once they got to the church. Line up all the gay people, ask who had communion and then arrest them????

Now do you understand?

Why would calling the cops even have been brought up?????

and your concern... I'm saying your concern, in this case, is due to conflating events.

The article indicates that the ushers were threatening to call the police about the person who broke his communion wafer into peices and was handing it out to sash wearers NOT about the people recieving communion.



The article then goes on to say "we decided not to try to arrest THE GUY" (singular), indicating the man who was not wearing a sash(singular) who shared his communion wafer.

No threats were made to call the police on the people who recieved communion from the man.
(at least that's not shown in the article... if you know differently please share your source )

You're obviously correct that there is no civil law saying gay people can't recieve communion and to threaten anybody over that is silly.... but that's not what was done in this case.

They CONSIDERED calling the cops because this guy was sharing his communion wafer.

That is just downright dumb.

it was downright dumb.
Hopefully it was sufficiently dumb that other members of the congregation are now questioning their pastor, the church, or both.

These people (you know, hateful Christians, not the loving kind) actually got it in their head that they could use SECULAR LAW ENFORCEMENT to punish someone for violating their RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.

That way theocracy lay!

I just don't know what to say. I'm sure not all Roman Catholic Churches are this way. I'm a progressive Presbyterian and our only requirement for Holy Communion is that the partaker acknowledges Christ as his savior. We will give the symbols of the body and blood to a member of any other Christian denomination, gay or straight, sinners are we all. I think Jesus meant that to be so. And on Pentecost! The day we celebrate the birth of the church.

nt

then again... I have a hard time understanding why a gay person would want to be part of an organization that damns them to hell. :shrug:

The Catholic church I was raised in was not intolerant. This move to the right is actually fairly recent.

and our church was extremely tolerant.
So much so that I have the impression that it was an anomaly.

I can see how the social structure in some parishes might be appealing, but the church hierarchy still considers homosexuality a abomination.
Which leaves me scratching my head as to why anybody would WANT to be a part of an organization that thinks of them that way.

I feel much the same way about the log cabin republicans.

My own experience with the Roman Catholic Church, and religion in general, has been vastly different than yours.

I think it is because there is a very strong streak of anti-authoritarianism in my family which I personally witnessed going back to my great grandparents, but probably rooted in the reasons my ancestors came to the United States in the first place. I've heard it condemned as "cowboy theology."

When I was a kid my mom was absolutely fearless about theology. Her mob of children in tow, she would get into fierce arguments with priests and other religious people. When I was a kid our family briefly took refuge with the Quakers because my mom had made herself unwelcome everywhere else by her intense opposition to the Viet Nam War. She could not understand why any Christian church wouldn't oppose the war and shelter conscientious objectors of any sort.

Years later, at my own wedding while waiting for my bride, I was fearful my dad and my brothers would get into some horrible theological argument with our Priest. It was my very good fortune the conversation turned to fishing -- I would have hated to be married by a Priest who'd just had his feathers ruffled.

My wife's family is Irish-Mexican-Native-American-Roman-Catholic which appears to be something very different than Conservative White U.S. Roman Catholic, or even Mexican Roman Catholic.

I've been attending Roman Catholic Mass pretty faithfully for the last twenty years. My wife and I have been fortunate in that we've always lived in places where the Church is very liberal and multi-ethnic. But I have attended Mass in places that make me very uncomfortable. I suspect if our family lived in such a place we would not support the Communion.

They're using extortion to manipulate the electorate and politicians.

American Catholics-- who are mostly people of good conscience-- need to throw-off the shackles of their McVatican franchises and declare their Independence from Pope Ratso.

I remember reading a thread about it in here.

There were arrests when protesters showed up at a Bishops' meeting after being refused communion, 11/2002:

http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/112202/112202g.htm

Edit: Whoa, it even went to trial the next year:

http://www.soulforce.org/article/593

And every year they do this, more and more catholics will wake up and demand that the church stop treating its homosexual members like abominations.

From the first article:

You know that can't have been good for his career.

I understand his heart was in the right place, but he just equated being gay with bombing and nuking people.

It's in the "hate the sin, love the sinner" mold. Not terribly loving, at least not to THIS queer.

sometime last year.

Way to expose the hypocrisy, eh?

:applause:

I thought the Catholic's church official position was to reach out to the gay community and bring them into the fold. I know they don't consecrate gay men as priests (knowingly) and they are against gay marriage, but is the act of gay sex a mortal sin? Isn't unresolved mortal sin the only reason a person would be denied communion?

Goblin, are you out there? Can you shed some light on this? Was this church acting in accordance with the Church rules?

They are asked to be celibate the rest of their lives and they can "officially" come back into the fold. This is only at higher and more conservative places. Go a few miles from the St. Paul Cathedral and you will find St. Joan of Arc Parish, the most GLBT-tolerant parish in MN and maybe even the US. They are still officially a Roman Catholic Church. If I was a Eucharistic Minister and this happened I would give communion to everyone who comes up, even with the sash.

http://www.stjoan.com/erfr.htm

The late liberal priest who created this atmosphere recently passed away.

http://www.startribune.com/466/story/446471.html

church...:eyes:

The protestors, or the Church?

" For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

The equation works both ways.

that's right; the activists should not have been arrested. Redistributing the host isn't against any secular law. I admire their action.

It is illegal in nearly every jurisdictions to intentionally disrupt a religious service. That is a Good Thing, as it prevents people like Fred Felch and his ilk from entering a UCC church during a same-sex wedding to picket. While I find the situation mentioned by the OP to be extremely bigoted and narrow minded, it certainly would have been within the church's legal rights to summon the police and have the sash-wearers removed from the premises. Likewise, given the very strict rules regarding the treatment of consecrated communion wafers, the church would have equally been within its rights to have removed the person who illegally (under canon, not civil, law) distributed communion to people who were perceived to be in a state of sin.

I never want to see a cop in a church, unless he or she is there to pray. It's not any business of the state to be used by any church (mosque, etc...) as an instrument of church authority. Let the church empower ushers to throw people out of the building if there is a disturbance during a religious service.

This is not a matter of the state being used by the church as an instrument of church authority; this is a matter of protecting the church's rights to assemble and worship in accordance with its doctrines, ie it is a matter of enforcing the part of the supreme law of the land (see US Constitution, Article VI, para. 2) known as the First Amendment. Unless you think it is perfectly acceptable for people to come in during your worship services and start screaming that you are going to Hell because you don't belive in the same things they believe in. Where again do you go to church? :hi:

The only issue is how "disruption" is defined. A congregant who drinks from the chalice is perfectly normal in an Episcopal church, but would count as a disruption at a Roman Catholic church. Arm waving and loud utterances are fine at an Assemblies of God service, but not at a Quaker meeting. If someone calls the police and says there is a group of agitators disrupting mass, the police have no choice but to come and escort the agitators from the premises. The fact that the "disruption" is in the form of protest sashes objecting to Church doctrine is not relevant. The fact that someone showed the spirit of Christ by violating the Church's strict rules on who may distribute and receive communion is not relevant.

Whether or not any arrests would be made, or whether any charges would stick, are different matters.

I agree that disturbing the peace in a private building is an instance where police can be called in to aid in the restoration of order. And I certainly agree that the hinge is on the word "disruption." But where is the line between a parishioner's piece of cloth and the bishop's disruption? And why should the state be called in to enforce the church's choice? Is the state then in the business of helping the church police its own doctrinal purity? Why is the church unable or unwilling to bounce people on their own? I disagree with your assertion that the state is not "being used by the church as an instrument of church authority." The state very clearly acts in the interest of the church in this instance under the color of the First Amendment. In this instance, the RC church wished to implement certain criteria for reception of the host, and parishioners decided to protest that decision by passive action at Mass; the state apparently can and will act in a manner protecting the church.

(FYI, drinking from the chalice is allowed in the RC church.)