Deacon Mike Juback stood before parishioners at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church preaching love and forgiveness.
At a nearby intersection, protesters carrying signs with hateful messages against the gay community were making their way around Lake Arrowhead.
The opposing scenes were playing out weeks after an argument over a rainbow flag turned into murder in the mountain community.
On August 18th, Laura Ann Carleton was working at her clothing store located near Lake Arrowhead. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department says that’s when local resident Travis Ikeguchi tore down the shop’s Pride flag, yelled homophobic slurs then fired upon Carleton. The 66-year-old, who was not gay but supported gay rights, died at the scene. Shortly after, Ikeguchi was killed during a shootout with deputies….
After local churches decried the murder, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church announced it would protest four houses of worship September 16-17, including Our Lady of the Lake. The parish largely ignored the organization known for its anti-gay rhetoric and carried on with the normal Sunday Mass schedule. While a small group of the Baptists and their derogatory signs were seen along the mountain highway, they never made it to Our Lady of the Lake.
Parish council chair Bridgett Johnstone has lived in the area her entire life and knew Carleton. She says the protesters’ animosity doesn’t reflect her community or her parish….
Johnstone was not the only one offering prayers. The Gifted and Called Ministry of St. Mary Catholic Church in Fontana dedicated Masses for the souls of both Carleton and Ikeguchi. The faith sharing group for LGBTQ+ parishioners is a little known but emerging ministry in our diocese. The group at St. Mary’s started just this year, while another at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Chino started just last month. The diocese’s only long standing Gifted and Called Ministry, representing three parishes in the Coachella Valley, recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a special Mass.
Along with the new ministries, comes a new name for the umbrella group guiding them. “Embrace” replaces the former Commission to the Ministry for Families and Friends of Gay and Lesbian Catholics, launched some two decades ago under the leadership of Bishop Gerald Barnes. Embrace, now overseen by Bishop Alberto Rojas, is made up of appointed clergy, as well as straight and gay volunteers. Its purpose is to support the needs of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families through fellowship and resources. Embrace is available for dialogue with those who have concerns about LGBTQ+ ministry as it relates to Church teaching and doctrine.
Deacon Juback and wife, Susan, are Embrace commissioners and both have gay siblings including one who died during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Deacon Juback says he firmly believes everyone is “entitled to the Eucharist” but knows not all Catholics feel the same….
Father Al Utzig, pastor of St. Mary’s, says the Gifted and Called Ministry at his parish has been greeted with mixed reaction. In an effort to ease tensions, Fr. Utzig and Father David Andel, an Embrace commissioner, recently held a meeting with parishioners uncomfortable with the ministry. Fr. Utzig says he’s not “pushing anything” but acceptance.
“[LGBTQ+ parishioners] don’t feel welcome,” explained Fr. Utzig. “And they’re Baptized, they’re Catholic, they’re part of the Body of Christ. They need to be here.”
Bishop Rojas invoked that same spirit of inclusion in a March letter to St. Mary’s parishioners indicating his support for the new ministry….
The Office of Diaconate Formation in the diocese is also tackling how to better serve LGBTQ+ parishioners. Earlier this year, candidates for the diaconate received a one-day training course through the Office….
From Inland Catholic Byte
Almost any gay who doesn’t feel welcome in Catholic churches owes it to himself. No Catholic parish I’ve ever been in has done anything to exclude gays. Nobody even knows who’s gay nor cares. Now, if you attend Mass with your same-sex “partner”, hold hands, snuggle, and then ask to be involved in parish ministries, there will be some questions asked. But gays sitting in the pews at Mass? Nobody knows nor cares. If a gay can’t handle a priest or deacon preaching about sexual sin every now and then, toughen up, buttercup.
The alleged exclusion is manufactured in order to try to change doctrine.
I might be stepping out on thin ice but my limited experience tells me LGBTQ+ people don’t just want anonymity but want affirmation of their lifestyle at church either explicitly or implicitly. Such affirmation is critical for their psychic well-being. That may be why a gay-friendly parish will never speak of sexual sins even if they don’t celebrate them, and why every homily seems to be a carbon copy of the one previous, with emphasis on love and acceptance. If I am wrong in this, I will be gladly corrected.
Nobody is comfortable when they are being judged. Jesus spoke about not judging. He embraced people who committed sexual sins. He said “Go and sin no more” and “Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
When people go to a Christian Church, they are looking for that Face of Christ.
Nobody gets their lifestyle affirmed at Church but people want their humanity affirmed, their love affirmed.
Everybody knows that the Catholic Church disapproves of all sex outside of marriage.
Sometimes I think it is their own insecurity, because anybody can walk into a Catholic church and sit down and pray.
Like the comment above yours says.
I read a story once about a black woman who went in to Mass, sat down and the person in the row before hers looked at her, then turned back and she interpreted that gesture as rejection. The person who did it probably was praying and just looked in the direction of a sound or movement and never thought anything about her.
Gays are welcome in the Catholic Church, as you said.
If you feel insecure, just keep going, pray the prayers and if you are baptized, have had your first Communion and are in a state of grace, go to Communion.
If you have not attended Mass in a while, you will need to go see the priest and make a confession. He will guide you.
Welcome or welcome back.
The nonsense has started.
Note to the deacon: preaching love and forgiveness doesn’t fill the pews. And it’s not all that Jesus taught. Jesus also taught about hell. When was the last time the deacon preached about hell? When was the last time the “Inland Catholic Byte” had a story about hell.
Westboro Baptists might be closer to the truth than some Catholics believe.
The correlative to love and mercy is repentance.
Stop and read the Bible, then look at this situation. Our faith, if you believe it, teaches that homosexuality is a mortal sin. Efforts by liberal Catholics to shame the Church into supporting/acknowledging LGBT behavior is very distressing to Catholics who follow the truth.
The Catholic Church teaches that the use of the sexual gift outside of a Sacramental marriage is a mortal sin. By mortal sin, it means a sin that causes the loss of sanctifying grace received at Baptism. There are many mortal sins that if done with full knowledge and full consent of the Will deprive the soul of sanctifying grace.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is a condition of unknown origin and that people who suffer it deserve our respect, compassion and sensitivity and must be accepted. It is a great trial and their suffering should be united with the suffering of Jesus on the Cross.
They must remain chaste, like every Catholic, and through prayer and the Sacraments, like every Catholic strive for Christian perfection.
This is a paraphrase of CCC 2357-2359, 1861, 1997
Homosexuality is an “inherent disorder” It is a mortal sin when a homosexual act is committed. Heterosexual acts outside of marriage are also mortal sins. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
At least that’s what the current edition says. Who knows if it will change after the synod.
It can be a mortal sin.
An inherent disorder is a genetic disorder. The catechism does not say that.
The Catechism states that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.
And homosexual inclination is objectively disordered.
CCC 2357, 2358
I take vigorous exception to “Peggy’s” use of the phrase “inherent disorder”. We have to be precise when using words.
Firstly, this is because the Catechism does not use the phrase “inherent disorder” in relation to homosexuality. The correct phrasing in the Catechism is “intrinsically disordered” (2357), and the Catechism uses it to describe homosexual acts.
The Catechism also calls other vices and sins “intrinsically” or “inherently” disordered such as calumny, lying, masturbation; and there are many actions that the Church calls “intrinsically disordered,” which in an of itself are evil and wrong.
The phrase “intrinsically” or “inherently” disordered in relation to homosexual acts means that homosexual acts are “not ordered to” the goods of marriage, which are procreation and the deepening of love between man and woman. This makes homosexual acts intrinsically wrong.
Secondly to use the phrase “inherent disorder” is wrong because it implies a psychiatric malady, which is not what the Church means by “intrinsically disordered.” The Church by using the phrase “intrinsically disordered” judges the moral and spiritual ends of an action, not the psychiatric condition of a person.
Misusing words like this gives fuel to the wrong efforts by people like Martin to “change” what the Church says about homosexuality and homosexual acts. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the words used by the Church.
What is wrong is the “misuse” of the Church’s terms.
As noted by “can,” the Church indeed judges homosexuality as “objectively disordered” (2358). This is how the Church phrases her teaching. “Inherent disorder” is not.
But “inherent disorder” means the same thing.
It is nice when I can agree with jon, which is the case here. Well spoken, jon.
All are welcome in this place. 🙄
Instead of reaching out to gays, there should be more concerted outreach to young adults and helping them find Catholic spouses to marry and start families with. The church’s young people are not getting married much and they are leaving the church. And BTW, going gay won’t bring young people to church. The Anglicans and Lutherans have found out that going gay and ordaining women empties churches.
Instead of an umbrella group called Embrace, I’d like to see a ministry called “Clarity” that would ensure Catholic teaching is clearly proclaimed in homilies, parish religious education, RCIA, and rainbow ministries. There seems to be a mission of obfuscation instead of clarity in the church these days.
There is more than one way to love.
God is Love.
Sex is not love.
It is important that everyone obey the sexual morality of the Church but sometimes they need to see acceptance of their humanity and love before they can switch to a higher love.
Let God love them in every way.
You can start your ministry but don’t make it in opposition to Embrace.
No one is denied “acceptance of their humanity”. Puh-leeze. What a phony, non-concern. This conflating of “humanity” with inclinations and activities is a deliberate semantic mind-game. Everyone’s human dignity is acknowledged, and everyone is “welcome”…on Christ’s terms, not their own.
By acceptance of their humanity, what we mean is being given respect, the respect due to every child of God.
Why?
As an alcoholic in recovery (36 years sober) I know that there are sins that exclude us from Communion with the Church. The problem isn’t the Church’s teaching, it’s the “self will run riot” that excludes us when we choose our problem over the solution. I know of two gay folks who come to Mass in our parish. There are probably more, but that’s none of my business unless they are sinning and letting people know that they support sin. Most people in the parish know I am a recovering alcoholic but also know I am not receiving Holy Communion drunk or even with one drink. That’s out for me and I am glad it is.
All people are welcome in our Church. Christ invites ALL people. Some will drop their sin and follow Him. Others will try to hold on to their sin and pretend to follow Him. He knows who is who.
Congratulation on your sobriety.
What about giving out umbrellas.
I lived in the Diocese of San Bernardino for 17-1/2 years. The chancellery was totally closed minded about starting Courage/EnCourage or Eden Invitation in any of the parishes. One time the MFGLC group showed up at our parish, and I took the time to try to promote these faithful Apostolates to them. You could hear a pin drop with their silence, but at least I took the time to get my point across.
I do not know what MFGLC is, but those are not diocesan ministries. They are independent.
You would do best contacting them online.
America magazine published an article that advances Pope Francis’ openness to blessing gay unions.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/10/09/pope-francis-blessings-same-sex-couples-246224
jon is wrong: the pope and Tucho have expressed willingness to approve of blessing gay unions.
Thank you for sharing that article. However, it is a prime example of why America magazine is not reliably Catholic and why the Jesuits are suspect. Nevertheless, it reflects the views of some Catholics who want doctrine to change and think gay marriage and gay sex are just dandy.
“Diocese starts Umbrella Group”
I take Umbrage at that !