Free Republic

One winter day in December 1775, months after the battles at Concord and Lexington marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the nascent American military formally met its commander-in-chief. A group of Virginia rifleman found themselves in the middle of a massive snowball fight with a regiment of quick-talking New Englanders who ridiculed the strangely dressed Virginians in their “white linen frocks, ruffled and fringed.” The colonies were still strangers to each other at this point: The Declaration of Independence was months away, and the ragtag army representing the rebels was far from formally “American.” The meeting of nearly 1,000...

Press Release Source: Rainbow Sash Movement The Following Statement Has Been Issued by the Rainbow Sash Movement: Pentecost Once Again Calls for Dialogue on Gay/Lesbian Catholics Sunday May 15, 9:28 pm ET CHICAGO, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Pentecost has come and gone, and the sky has not fallen. For members of the Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) nationally it was a time of deep prayer. Around the Nation members of the Rainbow Sash Movement entered Cathedrals and parishes. Such as Rochester New York where individuals tried to block the way of Rainbow Sash Members from receiving communion. Eventually the Rainbow Sash...

Archbishop Harry Flynn has told gay-rights supporters they will not be allowed to receive Holy Communion while wearing rainbow-colored sashes because the practice has come to be perceived as a protest against Catholic teaching and is unacceptable to the Vatican. Flynn's decision, conveyed in a letter this week to the Rainbow Sash Alliance USA, reverses his four-year policy of not interfering with sash-wearers receiving Communion at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Rainbow-sash supporters in St. Paul and elsewhere have typically organized their presence around the Christian celebration of Pentecost, which this year is May 15

The Cathedral of St. Paul Sunday became a pulpit for both a Catholic gay rights group that showed up and received Communion wearing rainbow sashes and a rival group that prayed the rosary on the church steps to express disapproval.