Opening Prayer: Our loving God, You want all good things for Your people and You give us treasure beyond compare in Your love and in Your word and in Your son Jesus, the Christ whom we follow. Grant that we may cherish your Gifts and bring ours to you so Your kin-dom may come. We ask this in the name of Jesus who lives with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, forevermore. Amen.

Today Jesus teaches us that there is treasure to be found, and we might just stumble across it; there are priceless pearls found when we search for them; and there are fish aplenty though some may not be tasty. In the words of the Epistle to the Romans(8:28-30), when we love God “all things work together for good” for us. And when we find the treasures of the kin-dom, they are worth everything. How wonderful is God’s giving to us.

I treasure the very few things that I received from my Grandmother Ella and Mother Anne that have survived the many decades since I was a young girl. Both gave me the intangible and enduring gifts of unconditional love and faith. They loved me no matter what. And their faith in God was passed down to me as their legacy. Those are gifts without price that made all the difference in my life. Over the fireplace in our living room there was always a little 3″ by 4″ plaque framed in gold leaf, with pine cones and little fir boughs in two corners that said: “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). I have it before me now. We knew poverty and illness and good times and bad times. My Grandmother would comment as the bad times passed-“It all worked together for good,as God said”. Sometimes I couldn’t see it, especially at times of loss and grief or change. But in time it was evident. What a priceless gift! As Mr. Gary, our church Elder, often says: God’s got your back! Wow!

In the first reading from Kings(3:5,7-12), Solomon asked only one thing of God, a wise and understanding, discerning, heart, and God granted his prayer.  That was his treasure, his gift from God and he gave it back in good measure. Many of us who counsel others have prayed that prayer in the midst of life’s complexities and challenges especially when we struggle with helping those who are hurting and upset.  It is lovely when that prayer is answered.

Sometimes the greatest treasures are found when we are not looking for anything. Pastor JudyB and I stumbled across the treasure of serving the homeless and hungry in Fort Myers when the City Council threatened that no one could feed people in the park. We went out to join those at Lamb of God, A Lutheran and Episcopal community, doing just that. And out of that, our whole ministry and church has developed. We stumbled across the treasure of God’s people. We were also actively searching for a way to serve and to enact justice and love. We found the way, for us the pearl of great price, in developing the ministry of the church in the park and then the church in the house. We also cast out our nets and hauled in a lot of fish over the years of becoming the Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic community. Not everyone stayed with us, some swam away of their own accord and some died as we tried to help them. But look at the haul, look at the people we serve, for us that is the treasure and the pearl of great price. You, our people, are the treasure, our church is the pearl of great price.

So what should we do? Give up everything to keep it to keep the pearl of greatest price to us-yes, indeed!  But that is true for ALL of us, each one of us has something to give to God’s people and we may need to give up many other things to give our utmost for God’s finest, God’s people. The last verse in the Gospel reading guides us (Matthew 13:52): we who love and study and teach God’s kin-dom must bring out our treasures, old and new, to serve our guests. We don’t just throw out the old and usher in the new, we bring both old and new treasures from the storeroom of God’s love, law and word, and, following Jesus, set the Table before the people of God,  and all are welcome! Amen.     Rev. Dr. Judy Lee

    Woman Priest  Rev. OlgaLucia Alvarez Benjumea serving at the Table

When we share our love, support and labor the American dream comes true for families who knew hard times, poverty, homelessness and hopelessness. Their hard work and partnership with Habitat for Humanity, corporations, churches like Good Shepherd,Thrift Stores like Lamb of God,St. Columbkille, and Pope John the 23rd and Managers Marge, Carrel and Cynthia, and many volunteers like Charlotte Williams, Debbie Carey and Kathy Lauwagie and Kathy Overby,  has made dreams come true for three families.   

On July 18,2014 Pastor Judy Lee and Pastor Judy Beaumont blessed the houses of three elated  recipients of Habitat for Humanity homes. Our Liliana and Marcella worked very hard and were one of the happy families receiving the keys for their new home.  Son, Gaspare was helping with the move at the time of the pictures. Claire and Hank Tessandori helped to furnish Liliana’s home.

Carol Schauf and her friend George, wonderful CTA(Call To Action) volunteers also came to help Liliana with home furnishings.  THIS is the key! Thanks be to God!

Jimmy Carter’s dream for affordable housing for everyone brought Habitat For Humanity into existence.. With the financing and labor of three Corporations and the sweat equity of the families and their friends and churches the houses were built and the American dream came true for three families on this day.

On Friday June 18,2014 our Good Shepherd Church Member Liliana with Marcella and their dog Spike at her side, received the keys to her own new home along with the families of Rosario and Seantai. It was such a joy to be asked to bless the houses of these three hardworking and wonderful families!

On July the 22nd,2014 we had the pleasure of visiting three of our other women in their new homes. Kathy recounted the miracles that restored her life and home. She could not stop thanking God for our help and for the opportunity to serve the other women in her community along with us. She is the onsite minister in her new community.Her favorite words are:

“I’m home,Thank God!”      

Here is Kathy and Pastor JudyB. in Kathy’s beautiful home! Kathy said that there is not a more beautiful word on earth than “home”.

This is Ruby in her new home. She still cannot believe that everything is new. She said once, when I was a child I lived in a real home like this. I thought I’d never have one again. Thank God and Goodwill Industries for the physically disabled, and you both for my home.

And Diane says she is happier than she has ever been in her new home. Her rent is high for her but she is showing us how she buys wisely and conserves her money. I am just fine, she says. Diane’s joy brings happiness to all she meets.

How wonderful it is to have what everyone should have, a home and food to   eat!

 Thanks to Kay Alexander, Diane has a new couch and two tables and a TV converter box. Diane has not had a TV in years and loves it! 

Diane’s smile says it all, Thanks be to God! And, a special thank you to The Father’s Table Foundation that assisted us in helping Diane to have a home and all the furnishings. Thanks to Carol and George pictured above as well, for helping Diane with a new bed and several necessary items.

 The sun is breaking through the darkness.

This is an article from the New Ways Ministry Blog by Bob Shine. What a courageous nun!

All I can say is Amen!

Rev. Dr. Judy Lee,A Roman Catholic Woman Priest and Pastor

Spanish Nun: Same-Gender Relationships Are a ‘Sacrament’ of God’s Love

I love the Scriptures that the church uses for worship for the 16th Sunday in “Ordinary time”. They address the question: What is the reign of God like?  What is the kingdom of God like? What is the kin-dom of God like? and primarily: what is God like?

The first reading from Wisdom 12:13-19 says that our God “cares for every living thing” and that God gives us good grounds for hope that we can be forgiven when we goof big time/sin. Sometimes, today’s theology can be too ethereal and make God into a principle for life living in everything-like DNA,some even say that God is not about caring for us. But this Scripture says otherwise and I believe it and know it through so much that happens to me and to our people.

On Thursday, Flora, one of our women with a professional background was experiencing much stress and was in the midst of a complete mental breakdown. We were called but got there just in time to see her throw the last of her belongings into her car and begin to drive off abandoning her home. “They” were after her and she was going to escape “them” in her car. We were able to get her to come inside and soothe her. She was totally incoherent but very frightened at the voices and “men” hounding her. We did not know that she had experienced a break once before in the past and with all of my clinical and pastoral experience, and having witnessed other psychotic breaks, I had never seen a breakdown of organized and rational thinking like this. I comforted her with gentle reality and invited her to come with us to a new Psychiatric hospital where she could get good treatment. In a moment of sheer grace, she accepted the invitation and later that day was accepted for a voluntary inpatient stay. She was so relieved that she thanked God profusely. One minute later she would have been gone in her car with fear at the wheel. Thanks be to God for caring for every living being!!!

The Psalm (86:5-16) reinforces our God is “abounding in kindness to all who call upon God”. And the epistle says that the Spirit of God comes to the aid of our weakness and even prays for us with “inexpressible groanings”. Indeed God heard the incoherent prayer of Flora and interceded so that she did not take flight when she desperately wanted safety and help.

In the parables of Jesus in Matthew 13 we learn again this week that God is sowing the seeds of the “kingdom/kin-dom” in everyone and we don’t know which will be the seed that comes to full maturity and productivity to enhance the reign of God. Last Sunday I brought some seeds to church and some little pots and had the children plant the seeds in the pot and in the planter outside. Some are growing already and some are not.  The inside ones have been watered equally but some did not sprout and the outside ones are watered by the rains. We can’t judge what is going to happen but we will see as the little plants grow. Jesus is clear in the parable that the sower is God’s Chosen One, God is the sower, Jesus, the Christ is the sower. We are all the seed. Last week we thought about the conditions in life,the soil, that can nourish or choke out the seed. This week we learn again that God is sowing and the kindom will grow and flourish in many of us. The other readings illuminate that the nature of God,love, is also to be the nature of God’s reign: caring for all living beings with love and justice. Indeed there is a lot of war and hatred and violence in today’s world and materialism that chokes out goodness, BUT there are also endless examples of love and compassion and justice.  In our News here in SWFl, there is an attempt to share stories of the individuals who make a difference in the world by their extraordinary efforts. Yesterday I had the honor of blessing 3 Habitat For Humanity Homes as one of our members, Liliana, received the keys for her own new home as did two others.  The joy in the room was palpable. Corporate generosity, the giving of money and labor and time, and community labor, including from Lili and our own church members, and Jimmy Carter’s vision that poor people should own homes, made this miracle of homes for the poor possible.  This is what the kingdom/kindom of God looks like- it is in our midst.

My favorite part of the Gospel for today is where Jesus says that God’s reign is like a woman folding a very little bit of fermenting yeast into a huge amount of flour. First,we note that “the farmer” is a metaphor for God as is “the woman” who is the baker.  This is is Jesus talking revolutionary talk-in essence God is described in feminine terms-as a woman fermenting the dough!! This would have shocked his listeners who saw God in male terms. Also, Jesus saw the growth of the kindom as a fermenting process-this is a process of “corrupting”/breaking apart the dough so something new and tasty will emerge.This is a covert action. We are to be the ferment in the dough-the leaven in the world and in the church. We are to shake things up like Jesus did until we get it right. We are to make the church inclusive of all, at the Table, and in the priesthood-that all of God’s people may be served at Communion and with all of the Sacraments and may serve as priests and pastors of God’s people. And, we pray that we have the courage to ferment-to struggle with the poor and outcast for economic equality and justice.

We thank our loving God, our Mother/Father God for loving us, each and every one and seeking justice for all God’s people.

Amen!

We are all in the same boat!!!

Rev. Dr. Judy Lee ARCWP

i

it

This is a cartoon by Daryl Cagle from the Fort Myers-News-Press. It came in response to several letters to the Editor that sounded very much like this.

I guess  we will have to pray a lot to balance out this meanspirited “prayer”-but then I think God ,

who is Love, and on the side of these children, will help us find a way to assist them with love.

The early King James English version of “Let the little children come unto me….” was “Suffer the little children (to come unto me”)- sadly some still read it “Suffer the little children! ”

Here’s to a good dose of love, Pastor Judy Lee

Here are two good articles on behalf of the immigrant children. We must find a way to help them and not inflict further hurt. We need to find ways to act on their behalf even as we keep them and their self-sacrificing parents in prayer. Can you imagine how it must have been for these parents to pay passage to”Coyotes” (those who take the children to the border) to send their precious children to hope and freedom from violence and fear only to have them returned again-defeated. The Gospel is all about inclusion and hope, as the Sojourners article says: let the critics at least read the Gospel!

We must protect the young and innocent
Denys Arcuri 10:32 p.m. PDT July 10, 2014

Seldom has a story so affected me emotionally as the story of the “flood of illegal immigrant” children seeking safe haven in the United States and the reception they got in Murrieta.

That this country is still a beacon of freedom and justice is amazing to me when the reality apparently falls somewhat short of those ideals.

I hold this truth to be self-evident: There is a rule that is more important than the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. There is something more important than the issue of taxation without representation, than living a wealthier life, than religion.

It is this: We must first and foremost protect the young and the innocent.

Even animals understand this. A mother leopard will risk her life to protect her kittens. She might even adopt a wayward cub of another species.

For the record, I’m an old white guy. My life, my existence, is precious, at least to me and to those who are close to me. It ought to be precious even to you. But my life is not so important as the life of, say, a 6-year-old child. A child of any color from anywhere on earth. We already have the record of what I have done with my life, good or bad. But the child is all potential, all dreams, all hope. A child has not had the opportunities to experience all of life’s joys and tribulations yet. I have.

All other things being equal, a surgeon deciding whether to transplant a healthy heart into a 6-year-old black child from Ethiopia and yours truly, leaving the other to die, correctly and morally chooses to let me die.

There are roughly 320 million people in the United States. If we had a “flood” of immigrants here amounting to 1 percent, that would be 3.2 million people. But the numbers we’re talking about here amount to less than 10 percent of that 1 percent. Way less.

We often see Third World countries dealing with hundreds of thousands of refugees from war, famine and disease. Sudden massive populations of immigrants amounting to a much greater burden to the host countries who have far fewer resources than we do. Ho-hum. Bear in mind that these countries shouldering these burdens are not known as the light of the world, the keeper of the peace, the leader among the world’s nations.

I am not a religious person, but I think it’s appropriate at this point to ask: What would Jesus do? Would He wave a flag in front of a starving child, do you think? Would He curse him with hate speech and tell him to go back to his life in an earthly hell? Remember, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”?

It’s also appropriate to ask if we need to change some laws to prevent exploitation by those who would defraud the system. Yes, we do. And that applies to immigrants and native-born citizens as well. Do we need to expose children to rape and murder by deporting them? No, we don’t. In fact, we are morally bound to do the opposite.

The Statue of Liberty has inscribed on it the words:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me . . .”

The Declaration of Independence says that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If you are going to wave the red, white and blue and spew hate to this wretched refuse newly deposited on our doorstep, please don’t assume to be speaking for all Americans when you do. Xenophobia, power and the bottom line might frame your idea of this country’s raison d’être, but I’m clinging to what I consider crucial American values: kindness, acceptance, freedom and peace.

Denys Arcuri is a longtime valley broadcast journalist, freelance writer and former legislative assistant for the late Supervisor Roy Wilson. Email him at denysarcuri@yahoo.com

Put your faith into action for social justice!

Sojo Logo Forward this message to a friend ⇒

Dear Judy,

Jesus: “Let the little children come to me.”

Fox News Pastor: “Children stuck at the border? Build a bigger fence.”

Yep, that’s right – Fox News recently featured Texas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress claiming that the “Christian” way to respond to immigrant children in distress is to build a stronger border fence. You’ve heard the stories: tens of thousands of children are currently stuck at the border after fleeing crime and violence in their home countries. These children need our compassion – not calls for a bigger fence.

This pastor has gone too far – and Fox News is only enabling his outrageous claims. Let’s tell Fox their pastor is wrong: Christians need to welcome immigrants and love our neighbors.

Pastor Jeffress has a history of making shameful statements posing as religious truth. In January, he said that President Obama was paving the way for the antichrist. He’s now on the record saying that the “right thing to do” with children alone in the desert is to lock them out. Pastor Jeffress needs to read Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

We know better. Let’s make a strong statement against these outrageous claims by calling on Fox to feature pastors who actually read their Bibles!

With evangelicals across the country united for immigration reform, Fox News has plenty of other religious voices to choose from. Let’s remind them that the pastors they feature should reflect biblical teaching!

In faith,
Janelle, Tim, and the rest of the Sojourners team

 Can we not share with

the world’s children?

In Solidarity and love,

Pastor Judy Lee, ARCWP

Come By Here: Church With the Poor, America Star Books is now available in both English and Spanish: Ven Aqui:Iglesia de Los Pobres. This book is about our ministry with the homeless and hungry and others facing poverty in Fort Myers, Florida. It shares stories about our street ministry and about the triumphant individuals who became the core members of our church. It discusses theology from the bottom up. Both translations are available in paper and as e books, nook or kindle. They are available from: americastarbooks.com; amazon.com, BandN.com and elsewhere.  We continue to discuss this ministry often in this blog.

To see the cover and back material please Click on the link below( after the letter in Spanish).  Clique despues el espanol.

Rev. Dr. Judith A. B. Lee

Querida Comunidad,

Yo tengo buenas noticias: mi libro Come By Here: Church With The Poor esta en Espanol ahora!
Eso es: Ven Aqui:La Iglesia de los Pobres, America Star Books,ISBN 978-1-63084-50205. Es posible a ordenar a
Americastarbooks.com o Amazon.com, o BandN.com, en papel o en Kindle o Nook (electronico).

“Este libro conmovedor les da voz a los pobres y ilumina el ministerio con los que se enfrentan a la pobreza,la falta vivienda, la opresion sistemica y una serie de desafios en la vida….Afirmar que una buena noticia para los pobres debe incluir dejab de ser pobre, cuenta una historia de esperanza en medio du una profunda lucha. Comienza y termina con la teologia de los pobres como lo determinan los Evangelios, el pueblo mismo y teologias pertinentes. Es la iglesia que emerge lleno de vida de las cenizas de las iglesias institucionales moribundasque no pueden hacer la iglesia con los pobres y marginados, incluso aunque puedan ofrecer limosnas”

“Conocida como Pastora Judy para los miembros de la comunidad del Buen Pastor en Fort Myers, Florida, Rvda. Dra. Judith Lee vive para servir a los pobres. Con Doctorados en Ministerio y Trabajo Social, ha estado al servicio de las personas sin hogar desde 1882. Autora de numerosas publicaciones, ella es professora emenrta en la Universidad de Connecticut. sElla fui ordenada una Presbitera Catolica Romana en Julio de 2008 y es una lider en la Asociacion De Mujeres Presbiteras Catolicas Romanas.”

(Disculpame porque este computadora no tiene los acentos!)

Muchas gracias por su atencion!

Rvda Dra. Judith A. B. Lee

Judy

9781630845025_cov (1)      por favor notar, la nombre del nuestra grupo de presbiteras es: La Asociacion de Mujeres Presbiteras Catolicas Romanas.

Please click on the link below to see pictures of our ARCWP, Roman Catholic Woman Priest, Marina Teresa Sanchez baptizing an infant and a young man in Playa Reciente, Cali, Colombia. Rev. Marina Teresa has a full ministry in this community of Afro-descendent Colombians. We welcome the newly baptized to the Body of Christ and give our loving support and blessings to our sister Priest, Marina Teresa.

We thank our sister priest Rev. Olga Lucia Alvarez for her blog on this wonderful celebration.

COLOMBIA-CALI: REV. MARINA TERESA SÁNCHEZ EJERCIENDO SU MINISTERIO EN PLAYA RENACIENTE.ARCWP.

I preface this article on the baptism of the children of gay parents with the words of Jesus:

Matthew 19: 13-15 (TIB)
“Then small children were brought to Jesus so he could lay hands on them and pray for them. The disciples began to scold the parents,but Jesus said, “Let the children alone–let them come to me. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” And after laying his hands on them Jesus left that town”.

What the church should do about requests for baptism is made clear in Jesus’ words. Instead, the church finds ways to scold the parents-whether they are gay parents, or divorced parents, or parents civilly married or not married, they may well be scolded instead of welcomed. Let us remember verse, 15. “Jesus left that town”. Sometimes it seems to me that Jesus will leave the scolding church behind even as he left many towns behind, sometimes shaking the dust off his feet when he was not received. As Roman Catholic Women Priests we too are scolded by the church, but we choose to remain within it thus far, seeking with our life’s blood to renew it. We baptize all children and adults who seek baptism, we open up the sacrament freely and deny it to no one who truly wants to be part or to have their child become a member of the Body of Christ. I have baptized twenty individuals since my ordination in 2008, from babies to grandparents and all ages in between, mostly children and youth. It is my greatest joy to open the Sacraments of the church with extravagant affection, to quote the author Susan Ross.
Rev. Dr. Judith A. Lee, ARCWP
Here is the Article from RNS Religious News Service:

Could baptizing children of gay couples become a new battleground?
David Gibson | June 26, 2014

(RNS) Despite numerous controversies over dismissing gay Catholics from church posts and the U.S. hierarchy’s campaign against same-sex marriage, Catholic leaders have carefully, if quietly, avoided doing anything to block gay couples from having their children baptized.

But a move by a bishop in Wisconsin to route all such decisions through his office is raising questions about whether that neutral zone will now become another battleground, and whether the growing acceptance of gay parents will inevitably draw more attention to this practice and force church leaders to establish clearer rules.

The default position for most bishops — reiterated in a major Vatican document released on Thursday (June 26) — is that if the parents pledge to raise the child Catholic, then no girl or boy should be refused baptism.

They generally let parish priests make the final call and let them administer the sacrament, though it is usually done in a private ceremony with the biological parent — not the adoptive mother or father — listed on the baptismal certificate.

The new debate was prompted by the emergence of a memo — first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal — that was sent in early May to priests of the Madison Diocese by the top aide to Bishop Robert Morlino.

James Bartylla is Vicar General of the Diocese of Madison. Under an administrative change enacted earlier this year, his office now handles priests’ inquiries about whether to baptize children of same-sex couples. In the past, this issue was largely left up to the discretion of individuals priests.
Show caption

Monsignor James Bartylla is vicar general of the Diocese of Madison. Under an administrative change enacted earlier this year, his office now handles priests’ inquiries about whether to baptize children of same-sex couples. In the past, this issue was largely left up to the discretion of individual priests. RNS photo courtesy Brent King, Diocese of Madison
In the memo, the vicar general of the diocese, Monsignor James Bartylla, says there are “a plethora of difficulties, challenges, and considerations associated with these unnatural unions (including scandal) linked with the baptism of a child, and such considerations touch upon theology, canon law, pastoral approach, liturgical adaptation, and sacramental recording.”

Bartylla says that pastors must now coordinate any decision on baptizing the children of gay couples with his office and that “each case must be evaluated individually.”

A spokesman for the Madison Diocese, Brent King, said in an email that the new policy would not affect the church’s openness to baptizing a child if a parent or guardian “is sincere in presenting a child for baptism” and if he or she “truly intends to raise the child in the faith and all that means.”

“We want everyone to receive this most important sacrament, and we are dealing with this sensitive matter prudently, for the child’s sake and the integrity of this most sacred sacrament,” wrote King. He added that the diocese would have no further comment.

But some suspect that Morlino, one of the more outspoken conservatives in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, will use the new policy to curb baptisms that he considers problematic.

“While this process might protect couples from the negative whims of a local pastor, Bishop Morlino has such a strong record against supporting lesbian and gay people that I worry he might be more restrictive about baptizing their children than most local priests would be,” said Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry, a leading advocacy group for gay Catholics.

If that happens, he said, it “has the potential to blow up into a pastoral disaster.”

Officials at the USCCB said these decisions are left to local church leaders, and indicated there are no plans to formulate a national directive beyond the guidance offered in a 2006 statement on ministering to gay people. That document says that baptizing the children of gay parents is “a serious pastoral concern” but that the church should not refuse them access to the sacrament.

Since the bishops passed that document, however, an ongoing wave of victories for same-sex marriage advocates has continued to push the issue into the public arena. As more gay Catholics can marry, and can be open about their relationship, more gay couples may be presenting their children for baptism.

“The question with gay couples is whether their opposition to the church’s teaching on marriage means that they do not in fact intend to raise the child in the faith,” said Rita Ferrone, the author of several books about liturgy and a consultant to U.S. dioceses on liturgical matters.

“Gay parents may or may not be ideologically opposed to church teaching, but chances are they do not merely disobey but also reject the various norms they have transgressed,” Ferrone said.

DeBernardo said the problem with a policy that focuses specifically on gay parents is that it “stigmatizes lesbian and gay couples as being more suspect than any other parents.”

“It is very likely that no parents that present a child for baptism are perfectly following all church rules,” he said. “Why single out only lesbian and gay parents for further scrutiny?”

Countering any trend to curb baptisms, however, is the long-standing presumption, in church teaching and among even conservative church leaders, that no child should be denied baptism.

That welcoming stance was given a powerful boost with the election of Pope Francis, who as an archbishop in Argentina castigated priests who refused to baptize the children of unwed mothers. “The child has absolutely no responsibility for the state of his parents’ marriage,” he also said.

As pope, Francis has continued to promote that view.

Last September he said that while the church has the right to express its opinions it cannot “interfere spiritually” in the lives of gays and lesbians. In January he personally baptized — in the Sistine Chapel — the child of a couple married civilly, not in the church. And in May he said in a homily the church should baptize little green men from Mars if they asked for it.

Some bishops are taking a cue from Francis.

In Mexico, Bishop Raul Vera Lopez personally baptized a 16-month-old raised by a lesbian couple. He did that in May, just two weeks after meeting in Rome with Francis and discussing his ministry to gay people with him.

“If I find the natural daughter of one of two women, how can I deny her baptism? If the parents seek it, it’s because there is a Christian faith,” Vera Lopez explained. “The pope has the same attitude as Christ did.”

In Argentina in April, the archbishop of Cordoba also defended the decision to baptize the child of a lesbian couple during a service in the city’s cathedral, and said he cleared it with the Vatican.

“Baptism is a right of every human person, and I think that the Holy Father as well, ever since he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, always advocated for great openness in administering these sacraments,” said Archbishop Carlos Nanez.

And just this week, a major document published by the Vatican to guide future discussions on family life stressed that almost all the world’s bishops would greet requests to baptize children living with gay couples “with the same care, tenderness and concern which is given to other children.”

YS/AMB END GIBSON