A practising homosexual would need to "repent" before receiving holy communion or being considered for appointment as a minister of the Eucharist at the country's first Catholic parish to be run by the conservative Opus Dei organisation, according to parish priest Fr Fergus O'Connor.In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, O'Connor, of Our Lady Queen of Peace parish on Merrion Road in Dublin, also said some divorcees would not be allowed to receive holy communion or act as a minister of the Eucharist at his parish.
But all are welcome to pray at his church, he stressed.
"The teaching of the church is that if a person is a practising homosexual, [they] would need to repent. So that's the teaching of the church," he said.
He said for someone to receive holy communion "worthily", or to receive it before dispensing it as a minister for the Eucharist, as is the custom, church teaching held that they must be in a "state of grace".
If someone has divorced and remarried of their own free will, they are not in a state of grace and should not approach the altar for communion, he said.
But if, for example, someone was divorced against their will and had not remarried, then they could proceed.
"A person who is not in a state of grace should not approach the altar to receive holy communion. They can come up and get a blessing and so on, but they shouldn't receive holy communion," he said.
Asked about what an Opus Dei ministry would mean on a practical level in his new parish, he said he had "no other approach than that of the church... the genuine charity of Jesus Christ."
"Wherever I can I give people the doctrine of the church, where God wants them to be in whatever area this may be. There is no Opus Dei viewpoint on this; all Opus Dei does is teach the teachings of the church," he said.
Public curiosity about Opus Dei was increased after the publication of the book, and subsequent film, The Da Vinci Code, which drew attention to the use of "corporal mortification" by some Opus Dei members.
But the depictions in the book were rejected as "grotesque exaggerations" by Opus Dei.
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(Source: ST)