Rainbow Sash Members to Disrupt Masses across US, Again

The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM), the group of homosexual activists that describes itself as "Catholic" despite its open stance against significant moral teachings of the Church, announced today that they will again be "challenging the Catholic Church's hierarchy" this upcoming Pentecost Sunday, May 27.

RSM members wear a 2-inch wide ribbon of rainbow colors across their shoulders (a symbol of the modern homosexual movement). They then present themselves to receive communion in Cathedrals and parishes across the nation in protest against the Catholic teaching that those who publicly and stubbornly persist in living in serious sin, or in promoting heretical teachings, may, and should be denied Communion by the minister of Communion.

The Sash movement uses a distorted interpretation of Church teaching on conscience that has been repeatedly refuted. "Out of fear and their own homophobia," said Joe Murray, US Convener for the RSM in a press release, "Church officials have chosen to go against their own teaching, that individual conscience is paramount in guiding the individual to spirituality. These ill-advised bishops cannot possibly know our hearts when they deny us communion. They are desecrating the Holy Eucharist by making it a weapon of division and exclusion."

The Vatican, however, has in the past affirmed those priests, bishops and ministers of the Eucharist who have refused Rainbow Sash members Communion. In 2005 the Secretary for Cardinal Arinze, one of the highest ranking Vatican officials, wrote on the Cardinal's behalf that "Rainbow Sash wearers…are showing their opposition to Church teaching on a major issue of natural law and so disqualify themselves from being given Holy Communion."

In 2006 the Cardinal again restated this teaching in an interview on EWTN, when he said, "These rainbow sash people, are really saying, 'We are homosexuals, we intend to remain so and we want to receive Holy Communion'."

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church…says it is not condemning a person for having homosexual tendency. We don't condemn anybody for that. But a person stands condemned for acting on it."

As far as US bishops are concerned, on June 6, 2004, Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, issued a statement that persons using the Mass as a stage for anti-Catholic protests would not be allowed to receive Holy Communion. The Cardinal wrote, "The policy of the US Bishops' conference, a policy I did not invent, was to refuse Communion to anyone who used its reception as an occasion to protest against the Church's teaching."

In the past, Masses where Rainbow Sash members have attempted to receive Communion have descended into chaos, with members snatching the Eucharist for themselves, or with other laymen taking matters into their own hands and distributing Communion fragments to sash wearers.