Barbara Kralis goes deeper into the story of Cardinal Mahony and the Gay and Lesbian Rainbow Fish used in his diocese.
Baiting the hook with the Rainbow Fish
previous post
"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." GKC
10 comments
Wow, I just read this. I don’t think that I really perceived how really bad Cardinal Mahoney is. He is doing grave harm to the Church.
Is he also a homosexual? That would possibly explain some of his actions.
Hard to believe in a time when the sex abuse scandals are so hot, this man would be calling attention to himself this way. He needs to be retired — forcibly if necessary.
More On Cardinal Mahony
Barbara Kralis has written an excellent article on the Rainbow Fish pin endorsed by Roger Cardinal Mahony’s ‘Ministry with Lesbian and Gay Catholics’ [MLGC]. Here is the article: Cd. Mahony’s fishy fish lure It is quite good, and well worth
That fish, again, and again I’m thinking that Courage could use a logo/symbol. Many may say that the Cross should be enough, but it fails to express our support for the Courage folks because so many of us have abused the Cross by beating the needy over the head with it, just as the Fish as sign is currently being abused as a message for tolerance of sinful behavior.
How ’bout the Pieta? Maybe it’s an individual thing, but somehow I feel that the situation calls for such a symbol. It may take me a month to understand why I think so.
Or a Calvary image? Jesus and Veronica? Jesus and Simon? Jesus and the weeping women? Does Courage have a patron saint? In any case, I think the right symbol is to be found within the Passion. Where else would we find the model and reason for our courage, each one of us?
j, good comments. i have a chastity prayer given to me by my sister back in ’91 from *courage,* and it says “st. charles lwanga, pray for us.” i still don’t know what st. charles lwanga has to do with *courage,* but i’m gonna have to ask at our next meeting. *courage* operates on the basis of anonymity. there are a handful of members, however, like me, who are “out of the closet” so to speak regarding our sexual orientation and have no problem discussing this issue openly and evenly with others. i think that’s because i lived so many years in the mainstream gay community & dealt with “coming out of the closet” already. so sexual orientation isn’t an issue that i’m ashamed of per se. i think the popular gay culture is on to something. their “come out come out wherever you are” mantra has served it well. by de-stigmatizing and changing what being gay means, they’ve given those struggling with this issue an avenue to be open, honest, and just “who they are.” it’s buying into a lie, though, and is all about pursuing lustful desires vs. the gospel. i’ve been saying for a few months now in my local *courage* group that those members who are comfortable discussing the struggle should “come out” as well, but “come out for chastity and the Church!” i like the pieta as a possible symbol; or a Calvary symbol. i’ll discuss this at group this week. thanks!
I just sent the author of that article this email:
Dear Mrs. Kralis,
I have just read your article “Cd. Mahony’s fishy fish lure” on http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kralis/070104. Your statement in footnotes 18 that Fr. Dick Sparks’ bishop was Archbishop Levada and is Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco confuses me.
As you note, Fr. Sparks is a Paulist and is currently assigned to UC Berkeley’s Newman Center, in the Diocese of Oakland (not the Archdiocese of San Francisco). As I understand it, he serves in the diocese under the direction of his Paulist provincial, with the leave of Bishop Allen Vigneron, though his tenure here is soon to end (if it has not already).
Be this as it may, I would not have you blame unfairly Bishop Vigneron for the unacceptable behavior of Fr. Sparks. I know that Bishop Vigneron takes very seriously his fatherly and brotherly role to the priests in his diocese, as well as his responsibility to the lay faithful. The relationship between the ordinary of a diocese and the religious that serve in the parishes of that diocese is a particular one. I am sure that neither you nor I, nor anyone who has not accepted that yoke, can rightly judge how a bishop pastors his flock, including the priests under his authority.
I urge you to keep in your prayers all of our bishops, that they receive from God the grace they need for their earthly tasks and their eternal reward. I will do the same.
In Christ,
I wonder whether articles of that nature are designed to shore up the faithful or imbitter them? I think the tone was not one of gentle Christian correction for the Cardinal so much as self-righteous indignation.
Mahony has been pulling this stuff for a long time. People are really getting tired of him. For his sake he is lucky Holy Mother Church isn’t a democracy; or else he would of been gone long ago. I’m just glad I don’t live in Los Angeles. I would find it extremely difficult to submit to his authority. Submission to Mahony would truly be a cross to bear, a cross worthy of sainthood if I bore it well. If he was gathering actively sinning homosexuals together and preaching the error of their ways, that would be one thing. But he deludes them into thinking that what they are doing is okay, that it isn’t a sin. Didn’t the bible warn about such people?
I really hope he finds the error of his ways and shakes Satan lose from his back, for the sake of his eternal soul, and the sake of all of us.
Pray we get a good Archbishop when Mahoney retires…
Jeron, it would be worth your while to look up St Charles Lwanga. His mission gives Courage a quite a challenge! But it is something, I think, that would have to come FROM Courage and definitely not a mission to be imposed. I don’t think such a banner can be a common point of solidarity until most people know the difference between Courage and Dignity, and until we have mostly healed from the effects of hatred and discrimination.
ps–i’m j when i’m lazy.
Comments are closed.