Is the Church a big Church?

It’s a big Church
Next time you step through the doors of your parish, take a look around at other people gathered there. Chances are you will see all shapes and sizes, all races and nationalities, and all sexual orientations. As James Joyce once said about the Catholic Church, “Here comes everybody!”

The catechism of the Catholic Church states that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” and says that people with same-sex attraction (like all baptized Catholics) are called to live chaste lives. But many of these people say they feel shut out by the Church. So, how does the Church try to reach them and bring them back into the fold? The views and ideas on this are almost as varied as the membership of the Catholic Church itself. That is something I found out first-hand this week when I went to The Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, and visited the New York headquarters of the Courage Apostolate near Columbus Circle.

A group of parishioners from St. Francis Xavier marched in this year’s NYC Gay Pride March. I met a few of them who told me they were away from the Catholic Church for years, even decades, until discovering St. Francis Xavier’s ministry to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community. Church members have marched in the Gay Pride March for years, carrying a banner identifying the parish in front of their group. They say it is a very important outreach for their church, and has brought many homosexual people back into the Catholic faith.

This year, their banner was blank. Archbishop Timothy Dolan requested that the marchers not carry a banner with the parish name this year for fear people might think the group was sponsoring the parade or endorsing other actions or sentiments in it. Fr. Joe Costantino, pastor of St. Francis Xavier, said there are many things that happen at the parade with which his parish cannot agree. So, parishioners turned their banner around so it would appear to be blank as they marched through Manhattan.

Many Catholics have been critical of the parish’s decision to march in the parade in the first place, and some have said appearing at such an event shows you agree with other things going on there. One person who expressed this opinion to me was Fr. James Lloyd. The Paulist priest works with the group Courage, which encourages people with same-sex attraction to refrain from acting on their desires. According to the Courage website:

Persons with homosexual desires have always been with us; however, until recent times, there has been little, if any, formal outreach from the Church in the way of support groups or information for such persons. Most were left to work out their path on their own. As a result, they found themselves listening to and accepting the secular society’s perspective and opting to act on their same-sex desires.

His Eminence, the late Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York, was aware of, and troubled by this situation. He knew that the individual dealing with same-sex attractions truly needed to experience the freedom of interior chastity and in that freedom find the steps necessary to living a fully Christian life in communion with God and others. He was concerned that many would not find this path and would be constantly trying to get their needs met in ways that ultimately do not satisfy the desires of the heart.

Cardinal Cooke founded Courage to help people with same-sex attraction live according to Catholic teaching.

Courage is fully endorsed by the Catholic Church, and anyone seeking information about the group can go to their website, or call (212) 268-1010.

>>>This is an article by Matt McClure from a Catholic TV program in the Brooklyn area known as Currents. Certainly something worth pondering. Does the Church always look and act as Christ did?