All Are Welcome - Part 2

Friday 15th August. 1215 Mass at St James caters for the town centre Catholics and is usually short to allow people to come in their lunch breaks. This year the Feast of the Assumption Mass was expanded by having to accommodate a funeral ritual. I turned up just before Mass and the coffin was being unloaded from a gleaming black Mercedes hearse. Bonus points for Walkers Undertakers, sticking to traditional black and a suitably upmarket motor. A bagpiper in full Scottish kilt and shaggy headgear leads the procession in to the tune of "Amazing Grace". Another bonus point. The bagpipe tone was made for lamentation, though there are plenty of jaunty airs played on it. The opening hymn is "Hail Queen of Heaven", Double bonus points, for the feast of Our Lady and its heartfelt pleas for mercy and salvation.

Then Father Dominic opens his mouth and it's all downhill. He reminisces about Joe's life as a faithful Catholic and a parish pilgrimage to Walsingham, a shrine of Our Lady in the east of England, about five hours drive from Reading. Joe was accompanied on that pilgrimage by Pat, his partner of 20 years......er, excuse me, is Pat male or female?? I think female, though I wouldn't swear to it. Any mention of marriage or teaching on chastity? No, I thought not. Wouldn't do to upset the mourners or any of the numerous parishioners with irregular sexual couplings and illegitimate children. Wasn't Our Lady blessed ever-Virgin? Well, I wouldn't stress it too strongly, especially not on the feast of the Assumption.

I remember reading the comment of one Protestant theologian after the formal definition of the doctrine of the Assumption in 1950 by Pope Pius XII: "The Assumption is just an assumption". What is not an assumption is the assured salvation of Joe and all the other people whose funerals I have attended in recent years. It is as assured as the rising of the sun. A bloody big Assumption if you ask me.

It is of course the inevitable consequence of the "All are welcome" philosophy I described in my previous post, though to call it a philosophy suggests too much logical and coherent thinking. If you are extending a posthumous welcome to anyone, regardless of lifestyle, how can you exclude the living, regardless of lifestyle? If you give a Catholic funeral to a prominent Freemason, how can you refuse him Communion while he is alive and well? How can you say anything to the parish councilor showing off her illegitimate child to the cooing congregation at the after-Mass coffee? Or expel the happily fornicating seminarian (who is shaping up to be the next priestly front page in our diocese)? Or forbid the cohabitee from being a Special Minister of Communion? Or control the Medjugorge zealots promoting their monstrously fraudulent scam? The last is probably the most difficult as they profess such a fierce devotion and are exemplary parishioners in every other way.

Of course, everyone should be welcome in a Catholic Church - the Hell's Angels, Freemasons, gangstas, cohabitees, Medjugorge nutcases and all the rest of us poor sinners whose multiple vices are not quite so publicly visible. The problem is promoting a welcome which is almost on the level of an invitation to the neighbourhood barbecue, where your only commitment is to turning up for the beer and burgers. All the above are welcome, but only on the understanding that they are willing to change and that Catholic doctrine will be charitably, but firmly preached whenever necessary.

Friday 15th August. 1215 Mass at St James caters for the town centre Catholics and is usually short to allow people to come in their lunch breaks. This year the Feast of the Assumption Mass was expanded by having to accommodate a funeral ritual. I turned up just before Mass and the coffin was being unloaded from a gleaming black Mercedes hearse. Bonus points for Walkers Undertakers, sticking to traditional black and a suitably upmarket motor. A bagpiper in full Scottish kilt and shaggy headgear leads the procession in to the tune of "Amazing Grace". Another bonus point. The bagpipe tone was made for lamentation, though there are plenty of jaunty airs played on it. The opening hymn is "Hail Queen of Heaven", Double bonus points, for the feast of Our Lady and its heartfelt pleas for mercy and salvation.

Then Father Dominic opens his mouth and it's all downhill. He reminisces about Joe's life as a faithful Catholic and a parish pilgrimage to Walsingham, a shrine of Our Lady in the east of England, about five hours drive from Reading. Joe was accompanied on that pilgrimage by Pat, his partner of 20 years......er, excuse me, is Pat male or female?? I think female, though I wouldn't swear to it. Any mention of marriage or teaching on chastity? No, I thought not. Wouldn't do to upset the mourners or any of the numerous parishioners with irregular sexual couplings and illegitimate children. Wasn't Our Lady blessed ever-Virgin? Well, I wouldn't stress it too strongly, especially not on the feast of the Assumption.

I remember reading the comment of one Protestant theologian after the formal definition of the doctrine of the Assumption in 1950 by Pope Pius XII: "The Assumption is just an assumption". What is not an assumption is the assured salvation of Joe and all the other people whose funerals I have attended in recent years. It is as assured as the rising of the sun. A bloody big Assumption if you ask me.

It is of course the inevitable consequence of the "All are welcome" philosophy I described in my previous post, though to call it a philosophy suggests too much logical and coherent thinking. If you are extending a posthumous welcome to anyone, regardless of lifestyle, how can you exclude the living, regardless of lifestyle? If you give a Catholic funeral to a prominent Freemason, how can you refuse him Communion while he is alive and well? How can you say anything to the parish councilor showing off her illegitimate child to the cooing congregation at the after-Mass coffee? Or expel the happily fornicating seminarian (who is shaping up to be the next priestly front page in our diocese)? Or forbid the cohabitee from being a Special Minister of Communion? Or control the Medjugorge zealots promoting their monstrously fraudulent scam? The last is probably the most difficult as they profess such a fierce devotion and are exemplary parishioners in every other way.

Of course, everyone should be welcome in a Catholic Church - the Hell's Angels, Freemasons, gangstas, cohabitees, Medjugorge nutcases and all the rest of us poor sinners whose multiple vices are not quite so publicly visible. The problem is promoting a welcome which is almost on the level of an invitation to the neighbourhood barbecue, where your only commitment is to turning up for the beer and burgers. All the above are welcome, but only on the understanding that they are willing to change and that Catholic doctrine will be charitably, but firmly preached whenever necessary.