A Message of Hope Amidst the Vatican Hullabaloo

Well said Jim. Well said. (from Rev. Susan Russell's blog, An Inch At A Time)

Yesterday Jim Naughton spoke to NPR's "All Things Considered" about the announcement last week that the Vatican is setting a place at the table for "disaffected" Anglicans to come home to Rome.

You'll want to click here to listen to the interview and hear Jim be his usual faithful, on-message-for-Jesus self, but if you need to save that treat for a little later, here's the core message we all would do well to internalize:

I think for Episcopalians, what we need to do in the wake of this announcement is to continue going out there and saying, look, we do offer very traditional liturgy, beautiful music, a style of worship that many people like. But we are a democratically governed church. We think men and women are equal at the altar, and we respect the dignity of gay and lesbian Christians. If that makes us outcasts, I think that that's a status that we embrace happily. So if what we're talking about here are people offering alternatives, I think Episcopalians offer that alternative to their Catholic brothers and sisters.

And (I would add) to ANYONE seeking a community of faith committed to traditional values of love, compassion, peace, justice and equality.