Sometimes Facebook is Wrong

On Facebook, there has been a silly argument that the reason for our original bulletin cover this weekend was to support the supreme court ruling on gay marriage. That is false.

Quick version: If you want feedback about the supreme court decision, then please listen to this homily by Fr Vogel. We will warn you, Fr Vogel did a very crazy and unusual thing before he commented on the supreme court ruling: He actually read it.

If you're wondering about the bulletin -- let's go a little deeper.

St. Columbkille Parish is the only parish we know of in the Omaha Archdiocese that is having 1-2 Holy Hours every day for two weeks leading up to July 4th. During this time we are primarily praying for Religious Liberty, but we knew full well that the Supreme Court Decision might come out during these two weeks. We asked our parishioners to pray also for traditional marriage.

Fr Damian has often said strong reactions can be a sign that you are doing something right.

During VBS, different groups wore different colored shirts. The idea was then to take a picture of all the VBS kids as a rainbow - the sign God gave us as a covenant of His love for us. This picture was taken on Thursday June 18th. Those who read the bulletin each week will have likely noticed that we try to tie in between the Collect Prayer and the image each week. For this week, Deacon David Krueger thought this image would tie together with this week's prayer of standing up as children of light for truth. The bulletin was printed and shipped on Wednesday, June 24th, two days before the Supreme Court Ruling came out. Had we known what the ruling would be and when it would come out, we wouldn't have used that image at that time.

Saturday there was a little teasing that this bulletin could be politicized -- then it was.

We have redone the bulletin cover as an online version. Some parents were rightly concerned that they did not want the images of their children to be politicized. We agree entirely. We apologize to those families.

Also, we continue to pray for our country this week. Please join us.

The Omaha Archdiocese's Response to the Supreme Court

In response to the Supreme Court's decisions yesterday, the Omaha Archdiocese had this statement:

Those struggling with same-sex attraction should be assured that the Catholic Church is and always will be welcoming of any person who seeks a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Catholic Church’s clear teaching is that everyone should be treated with respect, dignity and love and condemn any form of unjust discrimination.

The Church strongly affirm that marriage, as authored by God, is the joining of one man and one woman in a lifelong, loving union that is open to children, ordered for the good of those children and the spouses themselves.

It is disappointing that the Court did not affirm that the federal government has an obligation to promote traditional marriage, its contribution to the common good and the family, and can therefore justly give married couples rights and benefits it does not extend to others. Fortunately, the Court did not hold that the Constitution requires states to recognize so-called same-sex “marriage.” Thus, the Court’s decision was not based on a constitutional defect in the definition of marriage as one man and one woman.