Cardinal Denies Sanctioning Sash Sacrileges

As posted by my fellow pundit Barbara Kralis on Fidelis . . .

Cardinal Arinze denies he approved a U.S. archbishop giving sash-wearing "gays" Holy Communion

During the past five years, on the Catholic Church's most holy day, Pentecost Sunday,(1) openly "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender" persons wearing rainbow-colored sashes have gathered in large groups inside several U.S. cathedrals to protest the Church's teachings and divine laws against sodomy.

Scandalized and sorrow-filled faithful sit watchfully in the pews as sash-wearing persons whose acts are "intrinsically disordered"(2) walk arm and arm down the aisles in an attempt to receive the Holy Eucharist. While almost all U.S. Bishops have denied these protestors Holy Communion, it is known that four bishops continue to give them the Eucharist. Thus the scandal of a few continues to inflict disunity on the Church.

On December 14, 2004, Catholic News Service (CNS) published an article entitled "Archbishop speaks to Vatican Officials about Rainbow Sash protests." CNS is owned and operated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). CNS quotes Archbishop Harry Flynn of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Archbishop Flynn said that while in Rome during his December 2004 ad limina meeting,(3) he privately discussed whether sash-wearing "gays" should be allowed to receive Communion with His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He told CNS that after speaking to Cardinal Arinze, he was not asked to change his policy of giving the Eucharist to sash-wearing homosexual activists. He said he received no sense that the Vatican was pushing for a single policy on this matter.

"I got the clear understanding that this is recognized as a very complex pastoral issue which must constantly be looked at in all its ramifications," CNS quoted Archbishop Flynn as saying.

There was encouragement to keep on teaching and also to be aware of the forces everywhere, including the United States, that are against the long tradition of the teachings of the Church.

Archbishop Flynn added, "Sometimes we don't come to the same conclusion about how to handle it."

In a letter to this writer, dated January 15, 2005, Cardinal Arinze has refuted the statements given by Archbishop Flynn. Cardinal Arinze's secretary wrote:

Dear Ms. Kralis,

His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Arinze, asks me to thank you for your communication regarding a news release from the Catholic News Service dated December 14, 2004. It concerns the Cardinal's private discussion with the Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, His Excellency Archbishop Harry J. Flynn.

Cardinal Arinze wants you to know that the report was not exact and does not show his stand. He has written Archbishop Flynn about it.

Rainbow Sash wearers, the Cardinal says, are showing their opposition to Church teaching on a major issue of natural law and so disqualify themselves from being given Holy Communion.

I wish you a happy New Year.

Sincerely,

Does this indicate that the Catholic faithful in the Archdiocese of St. Paul will suffer scandal once more on Pentecost Sunday 2005?

Recently, the Rainbow Sash Movement issued a nationwide call for others who oppose the Church's teachings on sodomy to join them on May 15, 2005 by wearing the Rainbow Sash in a parish or a cathedral. Will Cardinal Mahony, Los Angeles, and Bishops Clark, Rochester; Flynn, St. Paul/Minneapolis; and Gumbleton, Detroit; once again give the sash-wearing sodomites Holy Communion in open dissent from Church teaching?

The Church's teaching and divine law are so well defined on the matter of sacrilegious reception of Communion that virtually all U.S. Bishops have dutifully denied these manifestly sinful persons the Eucharist. As stated in the Code of Canon Law, c. 915, they are not to receive the Eucharist.(4)

In fact, the decision of the USCCB to deny the Eucharist to groups of militant "gay" protesters at Masses during their plenary meetings was a precedent set by Cardinal James A. Hickey, Archbishop of Washington, DC, at a Mass in St. Matthew's Cathedral in 2000.

It is well to note that the Rainbow Sashers did not wear their sashes to the 2004 Pentecost Sunday Mass at Cardinal Mahony's cathedral as a way of saying "thank you" for his warm reception in years past. Cardinal Mahony has notified the Rainbow Sash Movement that the Los Angeles Cathedral will welcome their members as part of the Catholic family and that when they present themselves for Communion, they will receive it. (5)

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual acts committed by "gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders" to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan. Such acts go against the natural moral law and "close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."(6)

Let us pray that the munus episcopale or office of the bishops or episcopes (overseers) will guard the truth that has been entrusted to them by the Holy Spirit and bring all souls to God, no matter the cost, even persecution and death. (2 Tim 1:14)

"It was at Antioch [where Ignatius was bishop] that the disciples were called Christians for the first time." (Acts 11:26) St. Ignatius taught:

The Bishop holds the supreme office in the community not by his own efforts or merits, nor by men's doing, nor for personal glory. No, he holds it through the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.(7)

Endnotes:

1. Seventh Sunday after Easter, Whitsunday; an important solemn Holy Feast honoring the visible descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. It honors the establishment of the Church founded by our Lord on St. Peter. It occurs 50 days after Easter; the priest's vestments are red signifying the Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire. The coming of the Holy Spirit on this Feast is the complement of the Redemption, and the Spirit of God comes into the hearts of men.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357-2359.
3. The obligation incumbent on certain members of the hierarchy of visiting, at stated times, the "thresholds of the Apostles," Sts. Peter and Paul, and of presenting themselves before the pope to give an account of the state of their dioceses. The object of the visit is not merely to make a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles, but, above all, to show the proper reverence for the Successor of St. Peter, to acknowledge practically his universal jurisdiction by giving an account of the condition of particular churches, to receive his admonitions and counsels, and thus bind more closely the members of the Church to its Divinely appointed head. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912)
4. Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. (Code of Canon Law, c. 915)
5. Rainbow Sash Movement PR Newswire Press Release, May 27, 2004.
6. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to be Given Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, §4; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357.
7. St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Philadelphians.