Wednesday, October 3, 2012

A Letter from Maine


Lector and C4ME Board Member, Kathy Tosney


Dear Friends,

This Sunday is the 30th in Ordinary Time – the plain-living-days minus the seasonal anticipation of Christmas or celebratory energy of Easter. These are days of reality: interacting with real people struggling to “do what’s right” for our families, friends, local communities and larger world.

This week, into this ordinary time, four U.S. bishops inserted extraordinary political demands. All abrogate Vatican II assurances of the primacy of individual conscience over Church dogma, particularly in matters of civil law and liberty.

400,000 Minnesota Catholic households received a letter from their bishops asking for donations to Minnesota for Marriage. It is a secular, political organization seeking a state constitutional amendment that would forever ban same-sex marriage.

San Francisco’s Archbishop-designate degreed that, “gay men and lesbians who are in a sexual relationship of any kind should not receive communion.” In New Jersey, the Archbishop of Newark’s “Pastoral Letter,” said that supporters of marriage for same-sex couples who “continue to receive Holy Communion while so dissenting [from his view on marriage] would be objectively dishonest” and should refrain from the sacrament.

Lectors in Maine received the Bishop’s mandate that the Prayers of the Faithful in every Mass until the November 6th election close with the priest praying:

Lord God and Creator,In the beginning you made man and woman so that they might enter a communion of life and love.We commend to your mercy the citizens of this State that we may be blessed in the knowledge and observance of your holy law.We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Also in Maine this week, another delivery of Catholics for Marriage Equality/God is Love buttons arrived. That’s 7,000 buttons distributed since our 2009 founding! C4ME’s ministry supports those who are harmed by the hierarchy’s politics and encourages Catholics to heed their hearts and vote their consciences for marriage for same-sex couples. Let us recommit ourselves to praying together and acting together over the next forty days to bring justice to our gay and lesbian family and friends and sanity to our church.

Thank you for your part in this healing work of advocacy,

Anne Underwood

Preach the Truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world. St. Catherine of Siena
______________________

SOURCE: Anne Underwood, a mentor and friend, works with Catholics for Marriage Equality Maine

No comments:

Post a Comment