Pride parade

[ironphoenix]

I'll be walking in tomorrow's Pride parade. There is a contingent of us from my parish; I don't know exactly how many of us there will be, but it's sanctioned by the parish itself (we even have T-shirts!). I have no idea whether there will be any reaction from the wider church institution. I think it's an important step for us in the Church who look at Jesus' life and teachings, and imagine what his radical inclusivity might be today.

To those who have been turned away by the church: I'm sorry, and we're trying to change things for the better.

Comments

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

I think you've explained yourself well, and I haven't taken offense. It's an intensely affecting issue for me, and I get the sense that it's one for you as well; hopefully, I'm not giving offense either.

Because your church is both authoritarian and disagrees with you ...

That is part of what makes this parade difficult for me: this may be akin to civil disobedience, from the point of view of the organization. Archbishop Terrence may take a dim view of this, and I'm not entirely sure of what that would entail.

That said, "my church" is a complicated, fragmented entity, much like "my country". I don't want to represent this as a universal opening-up on the part of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole; that would indeed be dishonest. I think the authorities and their supporters in this are sincerely opposed to our position, and don't want to present them as pretending to support it.

All I can say is that there are some of us who are working from within, and making that public is a step in a very long struggle.

Where I think I disagree with you is the notion that my church is an indivisible atomic entity. I sincerely hope that this leads to reflection and reform, not to schism--we've had too much of the latter already--but I acknowledge the possibility; last week's Gospel reading, after all, was the bit where Jesus says that his coming will bring about not unity, but division.