God Does Not Disown Any of His Children: Pope Francis Speaks a Cautious Word of Hope

I've dedicated Pride month posts to be positive in tone, and good news for LGBTQIA2S+ people and our allies. This is important to remember when the likes of the Texas GOP party is calling those of us who are LGBTQIA2S+, living an "abnormal lifestyle choice...We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values." Here's the link to this reference: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texas-gops-new-platform-calls-gay-people-abnormal-rejects-trans-identi-rcna34530.

Here's the good, positive news! Pope Francis is speaking out in a new letter to the Catholic Church, in which he says that "God does not disown any of his children."

In a letter to Father James Martin--a Jesuit priest who launched "Outreach" website earlier this month--Pope Francis wrote that "God is Father and he does not disown his children...and the style of God is closeness, mercy, and tenderness. Along this path you will find God. 

The Pope said he would encourage LGBTQIA2S+ people to read the Acts of the Apostles to discover and image of the "living church." He wrote, "I would have them recognize it not as 'the rejection of the church,' but instead of 'people in the church,'" The Pope said "The church is a mother and calls together all of her children." 

"Take for example the parable of those invited to the feast: 'The just, the sinners, the rich and the poor, etc (Matt. 22:1-5; Luke 14: 15-24). A 'selective church,' one of 'pure blood,' is no Holy Mother Church, but rather a sect."

Here's a link to the article: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/05/09/pope-francis-james-martin-outreach-242952

In the Catholic Church, these "seeds" of thoughts and opinions by the Pope are usually the way that change happens in the Catholic Church. Change is incremental, to say the least, in the Catholic Church, as it is in most institutions, especially global ones. But in recent months, women have been given more power in the administration of the global Catholic Church, thanks to Pope Francis. And such expressions of the beloved community, in which Pope Francis declares and reminds us that God does not disown any of God's children, God's people, is welcome news in the hatred being spewed out from others in the world in which we live, let alone in other Protestant denominations.

And that's good news, indeed.

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