Just a crew of sickly, yet hopeful sinners

In response to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of allowing fortnightly Masses in his Westminster diocese specifically for homosexuals Amy Welborn posts:

What I would like to know is this:

What, in the present situation, in the Diocese of Westminster is preventing "homosexual people so as to enable them to enter more fully into the life of the Church?" What?

Are persons who experience same-sex attraction being stopped from coming to Mass?

Are persons who experience same-sex attraction being prohibited from praying?

Are they not allowed to purchase or read copies of the Bible or the Catechism?

Are persons with same-sex attraction who dwell in the Diocese of Westminster being banned from the Sacrament of Reconciliation, from access to spiritual direction?

Are persons with same-sex attraction not allowed to visit the sick or assist the poor? Are persons with same-sex attraction not allowed, in the Diocese of Westminster, to pour their lives out in sacrificial discipleship of Jesus Christ?

Great questions and surely ones that will not be answered in any straightforward manner. The first question is rather easy is answer in that the Church does not affirm sexual acts outside of the marriage bond and many rightly understand this. Some outside of the Church seem to know Church teaching better than those inside of it. What about special Masses for adulterers and fornicators – two groups much larger and just as much in need? It would seem to me that if you are going to have outreach to those with same-sex attraction that the vehicle to do that would be in a forum outside of the Mass. Modeled on groups like Courage where both the truth and beauty of Church teaching on human sexuality is explained, not explained away.

Amy continues:

Here is the thing.

I don’t want to worship at Sunday Mass in the midst of a congregation that looks just like me and that shares my particular situation in life, if I can honestly help it. I want to worship, every Sunday, with the most intense, vibrant mix of people around, a concrete symbol of the reality of this thing called Church. Well-dressed, poorly-dressed, old, young, straight, gay, families, singles, every color, with every kind of accent, the clear-eyed saintly lady over to the side near Mary’s statue, and the exhausted sinner, worn out from Saturday night, hunched near the back, hoping, listening, waiting for a clue and just a little more strength.

That’s Church. That’s the Body of Christ. No divisions, no clubs, no identity politics. Just a crew of sickly, yet hopeful sinners, trying to open ourselves just a little bit more this week to the power of that healing, redemptive medicine that we know the Physician has ready for us, as he waits for us, in love.

I mean…isn’t that the point?