NO ROOM AT THE TABLE FOR LESBIANS

Imagine for a moment that famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper. Now, imagine that you're one of those seated at the table with Jesus. There's a knock at the door, and when somebody gets up to answer it, they find a hungry lesbian standing in the doorway. Now, imagine Jesus looking back over his shoulder at the woman and yelling, "Get lost, woman. We don't serve Lesbos here!" I don't know about you, but I'm having a tough time imagining that scenario, because nothing Jesus ever said leads me to think he'd harbor such cruelty toward a suffering woman.

Now, if want to talk about the Roman Catholic Church, well, that's another matter.

Rev. Marcel Guarnizo of St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland recently pulled the "get lost" routine on Barbara Johnson, a lesbian, at her elderly mother's funeral. Not only did Father Guarnizo publicly humiliate Ms. Johnson by refusing to give her communion; he vacated the altar when Ms. Johnson delivered her mother's eulogy and refused to show up at the mother's graveside ceremony. If that is indicative of the Catholic faith in action, it's time to declare Catholicism morally bankrupt, close up shop and search for an alternate path to salvation.

I'm sure that religious critics of my view would argue that Father Guarnizo's actions were justified as a proper response to a person he believed had engaged in sinful behavior, but when's the last time anybody read a story about one of the thousands of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church being denied communion? Raping a kid isn't an impediment to receiving Holy Communion, but apparently being a homosexual is. That doesn't sound very Christ-like to me.

The whole sordid episode reminds me of the day when a priest at Mass declared that people who voted for Democrats were committing a sin and were unfit to receive Holy Communion. That's the day I left the Roman Catholic Church, and I've never once since then regretted my decision. The Catholic Church is more interested in saving fetuses and ruling people's sex lives than it is following Christ's social gospel of feeding and taking care of the poor and oppressed, which is why voting for a Democrat is supposedly a sin and voting for a Republican is akin to angelic behavior. To me, that's about as hypocritical as one can get.