Catholic parishioners are moved to extend a hand, not judgment

[rug]

Published Sunday, October 27, 2013 at 1:00 am / Updated at 10:01 am
By Michael O'Connor and Joseph Morton / World-Herald staff writers

At his sister’s wedding reception, Taylor Leffler sat down for a friendly chat with friends of hers who are gay.

For Leffler, a 22-year-old Nebraska native studying for the priesthood, the conversation was spurred by a powerful reason: Pope Francis’ call for Catholics to reach out to others, rather than shun them or preach to them because you disagree with how they live their lives.

In a now famous interview this fall with a Jesuit magazine, Francis said the Roman Catholic Church is obsessed with subjects like homosexuality and abortion, and he urged the church and its members to be less judgmental and more compassionate.

Though his papacy is just seven months old, Francis has caused a sensation among Catholics, and some say his call for forgiveness and mercy is changing how they treat others and live their faith.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20131027/LIVING/131028886

Did it really reach this point?

Leffler said when he saw his sister’s gay friends at the wedding reception, he had a couple choices. In the past, if he had sat down with them, he said he would have felt obligated to tell them that the church considers homosexual acts sinful.

Instead, Leffler followed the words of Francis and reached out in friendship. He asked them about themselves such as where they were from and what they did for a living.

I know this is Nebraska but geez.

There is something to be said for a change in tenor.

[47of74]

1. If you look down further in that article...

...you see Iowa's Congressional Embarrassment - Steve King - spouting off. God, that man makes me sick.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. King is actually contradicting himself

He says that the Church can inform morality, and that morals are enshrined in law, but morals should not influence how he votes on something like food stamps. Actually, it does: He is merely showing the truth of John Kenneth Galbraith's dictum, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."