by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(March 12, 2008) The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM), a homosexual advocacy group best known for its Pentecost Sunday protests, is planning to throw ashes and blow whistles at the Pope during several scheduled events on his April itinerary.
A statement on the group’s website calls on all Catholics of good will “to take the Papal visit as an opportunity to shower the Pope mobile with ashes instead of confetti. Ashes are an ancient and appropriate greeting for a sinner who has caused the Church so much division and pain.”
Whistles will also be used to greet him. “These were used by the Polish people to show shame for the violation of human rights by the Communist Government prior to the end of the cold war,” the statement reads. “This will be a loud call for reform that the Pope will be unable to turn a deaf ear to.”
Although the RSM has no intention of staging protests inside any of the churches on the Pope’s itinerary, they are calling for protestors to be present outside planned papal stops such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Ground Zero, St. Joseph’s Seminary and Yankee Stadium.
The group claims to be a community of Catholic gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals who are working for change within the Church. They are best known for their Pentecost Sunday protests when they attend Mass wearing rainbow colored sashes to identify themselves, then demand to receive communion.
“To continue to hide our identity only enables shame and homophobia,” the group explains. “We are committed to working from within the Church. If people are going to be that homophobic in the Church, and judge us on our sexuality, or by what we wear, we can’t do anything about that. We place that in God’s care, with a firm belief that God will judge our judges.”
The group wants the Church to change its teaching about homosexuality and adapt it to the secular opinion that same-sex attraction is normal and should be accepted the same as heterosexuality.
Church teaching, which is based on Scripture and Tradition. The Catechism states: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”
Science supports this stance with a long list of disorders associated with the homosexual lifestyle. Numerous and well-designed studies have found that persons with same-sex attraction are at a greatly increased risk of contracting serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases that may lead to a shortened life span. They also suffer significantly higher rates of psychological disorders, substance abuse problems and suicidal ideation than the general public. Although gay activists tell persons with same-sex attraction that there is no hope of change, numerous studies have documented the benefits of therapy in giving people various levels of freedom from same-sex attraction.
However, the Church is adamant that persons with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
It fully supports Catholics with same-sex attraction who are striving to live a life of chastity and to overcome homosexual inclinations wherever possible. The Courage apostolate, founded by Fr. John Harvey, OSFS in 1980, has five main goals: Chastity, Prayer and Dedication, Fellowship, Support, and Good Example.
No Pope in history has written more extensively on the subject of homosexuality than Benedict XVI. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he wrote in a 1986 document on homosexuality that “It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.”
He added, “’This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves, but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent.”
Since becoming Pope, he has issued guidelines for preventing homosexual men from being ordained to the priesthood and has referred to same-sex marriage as “pseudo-matrimony.”
However, he rarely makes such statements without adding that “The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”
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