When Ideology

Trumps Jesus

Can you imagine Jesus doing anything hurtful and offensive to anyone grieving the loss of a loved one? I can't. Whenever we see someone grieving the loss or potential loss from illness of a loved one or relative Jesus is there to heal and even raise from the dead. He resurrects to life. It is a basic central tenet of our faith that the dead arise and we are in resurrection season. The only time he wept was with Mary over the death of her brother and his friend Lazarus.

So when I heard about a Maryland priest denying a daughter communion at her mother's funeral in a suburb of DC in Maryland I was shocked and outraged.
The mother probably was a parishioner or would not get a catholic service in that church in all likelihood with a priest presiding. There was a Mass at the funeral so it was not simply a remembrance or memorial service. The mother was in all likelihood and the family in all likelihood catholics in good standing there.
Perhaps the elderly mother, I thought, might have been one of those daily communicants- one of those elderly who can barely walk out of their condos making their way to the altar every morning to start the day with the Word of God and a little sunshine and smile of the friendly neighborhood cheerful priest with a tip of the cane to her fellow elderly neighbors. Maybe she was a member of some society like the Christ Child society knitting or crocheting blankets for babies in her senior years, or some sodality society where she baked muffins and banana nut bread for the annual bake sales. Who was this woman who lived around eighty years on this good earth and what did she do? Her daughter was there with a loving tribute to her mother to tell the good people who showed up to pay respects.

And her daughter, when she presented herself for communion after her tearful eulogy was deliberately and most unexpectedly humiliated and insulted by the priest in front of her friends and her mother's friends.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/barbara-johnson-maryland-lesbian-denied-communion-funeral_n_1316869.html


Wrong, Just Wrong. So Wrong I can't begin to say how Wrong.

The Archdiocese has issued a sort of disclaimer in stating that before that happens there is a pastoral obligation to discuss privately first what is up. My question is- who gave the order
to deny homosexuals communion at all- because they are 'in sin'?? As if there are not Knights of Columbus who are gay, or is it just that she is openly gay living with a woman?

If you start denying people communion who are in "sin" you might as well lock the doors and
keep Jesus locked in the tabernacle because we all are 'in sin' in some manner. People who don't give a full ten percent tithe are 'in sin' which is most of the church, people who are so greedy that they don't give anyone who asks something of them their coat also are in sin, people who are greedy, people who stay angry, people who lie, cheat, defraud, get drunk, slander are all in sin- and so you have maybe a saint or two still sitting in the pew after all those are eliminated. Who is to say Gay is a greater sin (if indeed it is) than any of those enumerated that lock one out of heaven according to scripture? In fact Gay is not listed among those enumerated sins at all. So this appears to be a political agenda in the wake of the gay marriage defeats that are slapping the Archdiocese in the face- Maryland being the latest giving full legalization after both houses of Senate and Delegates passed it despite massive lobbying efforts of the Archdiocese. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-martin-omalley/maryland-gay-marriage_b_1314982.html

Lets start denying communion to everyone who speeds in traffic breaking the law, or who gets parking tickets in DC, everyone who bought more expensive christmas presents for themselves than for their kids, everyone who gossipped, everyone who lusted after anyone, everyone who ever had sex outside marriage (fornication) everyone who ever took contraceptions (98 percent of all women just left the building with Elvis) and everyone who ever got drunk. Does the bible have some sort of sin score card where you get weighted demerits and so many add up and - no more Jesus for you.

I thought church was for sinners because we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Including Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinali. That priest owes this woman an apology- and because he deliberately humiliated her publically, he should be made to issue an apology publically also from the pulpit.