Where's the Church for the Rest of Us?

First up, on the World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis had his usual luncheon with the downtrodden and people on the margins, and this year, he specifically invited transgender people, some of them former sex workers, to dine with him. Just a week earlier he had signed off on a note from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith affirming that transgender people can be baptized. As Father Patrick Briscoe helpfully pointed out, t’was ever thus, actually, but Francis’ Vatican is the first to say it out loud, and this is entirely consistent with the Holy Father’s splendid notion of accompaniment and his words at World Youth Day (“everyone, everyone, everyone!”). …

Having long-advocated helping LGBTQ people to feel included in the Church, I’m all for it. But I do understand why some of my more conservative Catholic friends are beginning to feel like “everyone, everyone, everyone,” gives them a jaundiced eye and says, “maybe not you.”

It might be a very good thing if the pope and his advisers cued into that, and perhaps ate a meal with the boring old pewsitters who pay the bills and wonder whether they, too, are still welcome. The prodigals need the hugs, certainly. But Scripture says the intense older sons do, too.