I would say that the text is boarder line incoherent. However, I think the song means to say that you don't have to be perfect to come to the Lord. I think it kind of misses the point though and comes across as sins don't matter. We know this isn't true. We all sin, and it is important that we recognize our sin before God and ask for his mercy. It kind of misses the asking for mercy part.

I have only read the text and not listened to it, but if I just came across the text without any context, I probably would not associate it with church.

This text does not actually tell me one thing about God or the Church. It is very nearly content-free.

tl;dr: "Love is a good thing."

anymore.

How long has this been true?

On our church's facebook page announcing this song as our "gathering song" is this Sarah Hart quote:

"A great church must love greatly. A great church must welcome greatly. A great church must see the dignity of every human being and welcome them into their church family."

I don't mean to pick on this woman because she seems to be very nice, but what is this statement? Is it supposed to be profound? How is it that she is not only writing liturgical music but is leading retreats?

What does it mean to "welcome greatly"?

Am I being too cynical by reading between the lines? Everyone we welcome won't want to come if they know they have to give up their sins to be in good standing with the family.

Thanks for the link to her facebook page. When someone like her is talking about being welcoming to LGBTQ people, do they mean people who have disorders that are challenging but who are striving to live chaste lives, or are they referring also to those who are "practicing" and are involved in immoral behavior and who see this immoral behavior as normal and not sinful?

She is calling the Holy Spirt "HER"????!!!!

Have you ever responded to her posts?

I chuckled about that too.

Well that’s not true… we have nothing of the sort at our masses and haven’t for a long time.

Ariasita,

Elaborate, please. I don't understand the question you're asking.

I think people who are struggling with certain temptations are unlikely to refer to themselves as LGBTQSIN. Those who do are the ones who want to flaunt it.

When she talks about welcoming LGBTQ people, is she required to make the distinction about which of the two subsets she is being welcoming toward?

Yes she should. it is confusing. She could say "adulterers are welcome" but there should be some clarity that adultery is something to turn away from and you are not "welcome" to receive Holy Communion while being a practicing adulterer.

On her facebook page she advocates welcoming this community. One very misguided fellow posted in response that he looks forward to the day when his gay son walks down the aisle with his gay partner to be married in a Mass setting. Obviously he is confused and people like Sarah Hart are misleading him.

The "Welcome" song has exploded among certain Catholic music composers.

Haugen's "All Are Welcome" was the first, and the song that sparked this thread is a more recent iteration of the genre, but there are plenty more:

All Are Welcome (All Belong) -- Manibusan
You Are Welcome Here -- Muglia
Akwaaba! Welcome -- Walther et alia
Welcome -- de Silva
Welcome Home -- Angotti
Welcome All! -- O'Brien

Does anyone ever venture into a Catholic church for Mass, wonder whether he's welcome to be there, and after hearing such a song at the gathering entrance breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Oh, thank goodness I'm welcome here; this song proves it."

I think it's about the silliest sort of song that can be sung at Mass except for an outright secularist song such as we've seen on videos from the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Since one of the most important parts of the liturgy is the Gathering, then naturally the Welcome song is also very important!

I think it would be better to avoid the "welcome" slogans, songs, signs, flags, conferences, and language altogether. Let the liturgy be the liturgy, and the Church should evangelize and witness to the truth and life of the Gospel through beautiful liturgy and personal lives of holiness in its members.

The Church can be and should be authentically welcoming without having to state it a hundred times over. One problem is that the explicit slogans and songs of welcome often are deliberately used to communicate a craftily ambiguous meaning.

What's next in the devolution? A song titled, "Welcome to Our Inclusive, Affirming, Diverse, Safe Space"?

So then her language should have clearly stated LGBTQ persons who are turning away from their inclinations and striving to live a chaste life are welcome?

Part of the problem is context. Is exceedingly apparent that culture, writ large, is embracing that particular lifestyle without any form of restriction whatsoever… And there are many Christians—and Catholics—who are following suit. Many are openly trying to change church teaching in this regard. So honestly, it would seem that some qualifiers are indeed prudent… someone who is not familiar with Catholic doctrine in any way, shape, or form, could unwittingly come into the church and be unaware that such behavior requires amendment of life. That sounds far-fetched, but the fact of the matter is that people are SO unchurched these days, that even these basic theological positions are no longer a given. There are even “practicing“ Catholics who seem confused about this stuff. (Heck, there are even priests…)

What about CA people? Are they welcome?

I have never seen a Catholic Church where there was a sign or a statement that LGBTQ are not welcome or that anyone else was not welcome.

Nor have I. And I’ve never felt that I had any more of a claim to the church than anyone else.

And as to why the one group is being singled out, it is because they are shouting to the rooftops to be noticed. You can’t ignore the rainbow-colored elephant in the corner when it starts shouting at you and parading up and down your streets. I have not noticed similar behavior for other groups of sins. People don’t throw parades for adultery or avarice, but they do strut half naked down the street for sodomy.

People in the LGBTQ segment of the populations are leaving and have left the Catholic Church with no intent of coming back.

Probably because they want to find a place where they can be comfortable with their sins. Being a Catholic isn't always easy and requires discipline and self-denial. Many heterosexuals leave for the same reason.

Ariasita: I appreciate your honesty, and the vantage point that you present. On the other hand, there are people here on this board who identify as LGBT, or SSA, etc., and who are striving to live according to the precepts of Natural, Divine, and Ecclesiastical Law: should their difficulties and sacrifices be minimized? Without trying to harp on this issue, the Church expects all Catholics to abide by her teachings, and so it isn't as if homosexuals are being singled out any more than gossips or liars are when the Church says that lying and gossiping are sins. Further, the Church doesn't say that homosexuals are intrinsically disordered, it says that homosexual ACTS are intrinsically disordered. There is a big difference here. The act is disordered because it utilizes the sexual faculty in a way for which it isn't intended; the person who experiences these attractions is made in the image and likeness of God, having intrinsic value as a human person, and, if baptized, as a member of the body of Christ. And, for the record, there are heterosexual acts that are intrinsically disordered too, and for the same reason.

It is unfortunate that the secular culture has made it difficult for the Church to minister to the LGBTQ community by setting up a kind of false dichotomy between accepting people as they are and helping them in their conversion toward Christ. Any sinner (which, by the way, includes every member of the human race except Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, and Our Lord, the Word Incarnate) must be met where they are, and accompanied, but that accompaniment needs to be toward Christ, and that conversion necessarily entails taking up one's cross, whatever that might be. The purpose of the Church isn't to make nice people, that's what Emily Post is for; the purpose of the Church is the salvation of souls, and that necessarily entails hard work and mortification, and the renunciation of any and all sinful activity, no matter the amount of carnal pleasure may be had.

To bring this back to Sacred Music, a lot of ‘fallen away’ members of the community posses pristine sacred music sensibilities and were given musical gifts that would heighten the liturgy yet who would never step foot in a Catholic Church again. Is that fact of interest to the Church? I don’t know.

This is actually an interesting point. It is quite common for music ministers to be of a certain persuasion. This is well known in the music world. Organists appear to be particularly prone to this. With that in mind, I think the church is aware. And many of these ministers simply put on a façade (although many don’t) and just go about their work, saying the right things in public, and then doing whatever they want in private (a habit that extends to nearly every person, in truth). Many have overt blessing from their pastors, I believe. Others carry very heavy burdens, torn between fealty to the church and the very strong cultural currents that always whisper in their ear that it might not be *that* bad.

So I went to Sarah's page and made a post under one of her LGBTQ advocacy posts. It's incredible the number of responses which she gets from people who are very confused, and she is not helping at all, or is perhaps leading them into error. I believe the post I made is reasonable, charitable, and expressed in a way that gives the benefit of the doubt. Do you think she "welcomed" me or my input? I was very soon blocked from her page after making my post, but I made a copy of it in case it would be deleted. Please feel free to let me know if I was wrong to post this or if I was unfair, etc. This is my post to her:

If we specifically call out "LGBTQ" to welcome, then I think there is a danger of implying that one can practice Catholicism and at the same time be in an illicit relationship. It needs to be made clear that the Church welcomes them and will help them overcome their disordered desires (as well as of those who are heterosexual and are struggling to remain chaste). None of us are welcome to participate fully and receive Holy Communion if we are not in a state of grace, and that would apply to anyone who has a sexual relationship who falls under "LGBTQ." And of course that also applies to heterosexuals who fornicate, commit adultery, or use contraception, etc. All are welcome, but on God's terms which are not necessarily terms that are comfortable or that we like. As someone who hears your music in my church, it would be a great relief to see you clarify that you are not advocating that sexual sins be condoned, but that you are primarily welcoming the LGBTQ people to come and see what our Church is about, and if they wish to practice the faith, they need to turn their backs on their sins, as must everyone else with their sexual sins, improper relationships, non-sexual sins, etc. Of course they might still have inclinations and desires, as do heterosexual people, but they can be dominated by prayer and reception of the sacraments. Thank you.

Ariasita,

Your line of reasoning reminds me of one my mother put forward when a movie came out about Allan Turing and Enigma. She said (partly echoing the movie) that it was a shame to destroy some one who had helped to defeat the Nazis, and all because of whom he loved.

The Church's teaching on morality is binding on all of us. It doesn't matter which part of the moral law we struggle to fulfill. Imagine if someone were to come on this forum (I can imagine who among the regulars might do this just to illustrate the point) to say that he wanted the Church to give up teaching that workers had to be paid a just wage. He wanted to be rich, and if that meant defrauding the workers or their rightful earnings, it was horridly judgmental of the Church to try to condemn him, rather than accompany him and welcome him. And what if that same tycoon insisted on a month celebrating avarice and gluttony? And what if someone argued that the wealthy needed not to be turned away from the Church by being made to feel as if they were committing a sin which cried out to heaven for vengeance?

I think we ought to be praying for her (not that the public criticism is wrong; it isn't). The writing of hymn texts is a spiritually dangerous business even when they are declared to be orthodox. When they are heretical, well... I've long thought that heresy is out for blood; it wants, craves, human victims. We ought to be praying for her.

That I don't know.

OCP is recommending her song be sung at Mass on the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time at the "Presentation and Preparation of the Gifts":
https://www.ocp.org/en-us/blog/entry/16th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-jul-17-2022

They intend these questionable, harmful songs to be sung at Mass, even if they say with a wink and their fingers crossed that their hymnals contain lots of music for use at different types of gatherings, devotions and liturgies, so not every song in Breaking Bread is intended for use at Mass.

And I guarantee you a significant number of OCP subscribers will program her song in just that place because OCP told them that's how they should stack their hymn sandwich that weekend.

No one is supposed to chose other texts for the mass. The texts can be chanted or sung polyphonically and/ or with organ.