Pope Francis Urges LGBTQ+ Community to Repent in the Power of the Holy Spirit
Author: Andrew Comiskey
May 16, 2022
I’ve been waiting all my
Catholic life for this. In response to Fr. Martin’s questions about how the
Church should respond to the rainbow set, Pope Francis urges them to discover
the Book of Acts as ‘the image of the living Church’!
Yeah, I know, the pontiff
sandwiches that fiery-28-chapter invite to radical conversion between the
somewhat banal reminder of God as inclusive Father and Church as welcoming
Mother. Both true in the light of Acts’ call for all persons—believers and
unbelievers (Jews and Gentiles) alike--‘to repent and turn to God, so that your
sins may be wiped out, and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord
Jesus…for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved’ (Acts 3:19; 4:12).
Every Easter, we Catholics
have the privilege of getting saved again by immersing ourselves in Acts. For
50 days! If we don’t allow the fire of the Holy Spirit which roused the early
Jewish Church to rouse us, we need to repent. If we don’t allow the Spirit to expand
our borders to invite Gentiles to Church so that they may repent and be
refreshed by the One who saves, we need to repent! Jesus will give us His heart
for how the Church can and should be, ‘the image of the living Church.’
That is a far cry from the
LGBTQ+ Mass featured in Fr. Martin’s ‘Building a Bridge.’ There hurting,
unchaste persons raise (literally) the rainbow flag over the congregation and
declare to God and each other: ‘we are out, we are proud, don’t you dare
challenge us...’ The Church of Acts, on the other hand, followed the Apostles’
radical call to repentance; in the power of the Spirit, they forsook all
secondary identifications except ‘Christian’ and joyfully folded together into
one Body.
I think of my brothers and
sisters in Canada and France whose laws forbid them from speaking publicly of
how Jesus freed them from LGBTQ+ misidentification (‘hate speech’). Yet like
the apostles, they respond to the government: ‘Judge for yourselves whether it
is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help
speaking about what we have seen and heard…’ (Acts 4:19, 20).
Yes, I know Pope Francis
can be confusing for persons like me who dare to live chastity (far more
counter-cultural than asserting ‘gay’ Catholicism). But I will take him at his
word, the Word of God alive and well and leaping off the pages of Acts to
ignite ‘the living Church.’
Peter received the vision
from heaven (Acts 11) about what is unclean (the Gentiles) becoming clean
through ‘repentance unto life’; we can apply this pointedly to persons who have
strayed from the Church and misidentified with disordered desire (any LGBTQ+
variant). And to them, to us, to me, the Council of Jerusalem reminds us that our
new freedom to take our places and contribute mightily to this one Body must
involve repenting of idolatry and all expressions of sexual immorality (Acts
15:28, 29).
Fr. Martin doesn’t
understand this, or he would repent of referring to confused seekers as LGBTQ+ Catholics
and would infuse his message of inclusion with a Spirit-ignited call to repent
of sexual sin. When we are lit from within by the Spirit that catapulted Jesus
from the tomb, united with fellow firebrands, who needs sin?
‘Save yourselves from the
corrupt generation…Go and tell the people the full message of this new life’
(Acts 4:31; 5:20).
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