june 2010
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” That’s me a fool. And a fool too sometimes for the sack of a metaphoric Christ – anointed and or mark of a theoretical perfect evolutionary spirit or being. Anyway, the quote is a cliché and I don’t even want to waste the time looking up the source/author of the original quote.
I may be butting my nose in here but here I love to comment on things that touch my inner spirit or energy.
I ran into this story and it is old. I write it in thought to make a comment of people reacting in face of possible institutional hate or reacting gracefully in the face of moral or spiritual adversity.
It is not at all as serious as that but here is the link below. I guess I am back on my defense of Gays thing in response to what I see as unreasonable misunderstanding, anger and hatred against homosexuals and or their alternate life style (another cliché?). In any case it might be my retracing the steps of my life and or inherited and held onto homophobia over the years. Time to clean up some karma for this or any possible future life? Etc.
A couple of things connected for me with this article related to the New York city Gay Pride Parade last June 2010.
New York church maintains Gay Pride presence, but with blank banner
Apparently there is something of a somewhat independent parish, a Jesuit property on the edge of Greenwich Village. I have passed St Francis Xavier Church hundreds of times over the decades either on foot or viewed from the window of the old “6” bus going north up Sixth Avenue. Never been inside. A lot of steps, way high up from the sidewalk as I recall.
There is or at least was a Gay Outreach ministry at Xavier’s last year. The spies, the catholic purists, more catholic than the pope, more holy than Jesus, got hold of some video of Archbishop Dolan rededicating the altar there and the video showed at least that verbal credit was given to various ministries including the gay ministry. Dolan did not say anything. His body gestures, since he did not storm out of the church, have been interpreted as some sort of sacrilege or break in church canon law, not withstanding that Gays can and do conform to Catholic teaching and receive sacraments etc.
The purists, the fanatics turned some CNN interviews with some gay and lesbian members of the parish into proof that the RC church, this particular parish was in sin for being too “gay friendly”. One thing led to another and the “Cheesehead” archbishop known for sacrilege during mass – i.e. the Cheesehead scandal when he briefly donned a cheesehead hat for a few seconds of a homily in 2002 on a critical Packers game day, Sunday – had to do his bureaucratic duty regarding this Xavier matter. (And it is the purists and not me critical of Dolan for a stage prop on his head, but the pure Catholic blogosphere that has not forgiven him to this day – for being human.)
It had been pointed out to the archbishop from letters delivered by Vatican carrier pigeons (real modern communications stuff) of distress among the purists here in the colonies and the archbishop had to act to cover his ass.
The gay ministry had been marching for several years in the Gay Pride parade behind a banner announcing the Gay outreach program at St. Francis Xavier’s and handing out leaflets, not condoms, along the parade route per my research.
The archbishop had to act very quickly because of a time factor and forbade the St. Francis Xavier’s banner from being used in the parade and from being used by the fanatics with video cameras trying to turn a mole hill into a mountain of misery. The church could not be seen to endorse the Gay Pride parade in any way shape or form.
The gay community at St, Francis Xavier’s had to comply or lose their peripheral outreach ministry at the church.
The gay marchers chose instead to march under a blank banner. This is really all a tempest in a teapot kind of thing. I find it outrageous that people wanting spiritual comfort in the belief system of their youth have to be beaten down for the sake of mean spirited rule book carrying catholics. It reminds me of SMX – St. Mary’s in Exile in Brisbane Australia where a statue of Buddha on the property and use of modern language to describe Constantine’s Trinity invention were the basis of throwing a whole parish out into the street there.
Why are some catholics so unchristian, inhumane and nasty? Why would they rather see people thrown into the street instead of embracing them with love, the kind of love that the radical Jesus in his day preached?
Whatever.
Have a nice day.
june 2007