When asking parishioners to share a quality of their church, probably the most common response is “our church is welcoming.” I’m guessing that you would likely say that about your church. This is great that we feel that our church is welcoming place. All churches should be. I would tend to believe that if you didn’t think your church was welcoming, you would find another church at which to worship.
However, it is important take a closer look at what it is to be welcoming. It isn’t the church that is welcoming, it is the people; it’s you and I. So are we really as welcoming as we say they are? If we see someone dressed differently… if we see a crying baby during Mass… if we see someone’s cell phone go off during Mass… If we see someone speaking another language or of another race… if we see someone who identifies differently than us… what is our response?
In a public address in September 2021, Pope Francis said sometimes Catholics, instead of having humble and open communities, “can give the impression of being the ‘top of the class’ and keeping others at a distance.” He encourages us to “ask for the grace to overcome the temptation to judge and categorize.”
He said “it is necessary to walk together, without prejudice and without fear, placing ourselves next to those who are most vulnerable: migrants, refugees, displaced persons, victims of trafficking and the abandoned. We are called to build an increasingly inclusive world that excludes no one.”
Pope Francis said Jesus wants us to stop judging others and to worry about our own behavior first. “Indeed, the risk is to be inflexible towards others and indulgent towards ourselves,” he noted.
June is a month in which those who identify differently than what is traditionally recognized and feel excluded for that bring awareness to this fact. It’s important that we follow Pope Francis’s call now more than ever to walk together without prejudice and without fear; to welcome our brothers and sisters into the church so that it can be “a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.”
Read Pope Francis’ address here
