Making people welcome at St Robert's
A Church where everyone is welcome
What does it mean to be a truly welcoming and inclusive parish community?
Recently, with the help of Monsignor Keith Barltrop, a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster, parishioners at St Robert’s explored the sometimes challenging questions surrounding how we remain faithful to the Church’s teaching on human sexuality while ensuring that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, feels genuinely welcomed, valued and respected.
The conversation continued at a further gathering at which Sr Patsy MacDonald, a member of our parish, presented an excellent overview of how issues of human sexuality are presented in the scriptures. This broadened our discussions to consider how we welcome people across differences of age, race, language, culture, gender, sexuality and neurodiversity as well as those who have experienced the pain of divorce or whose personal circumstances and relationships do not always fit easily within the Church’s teaching on marriage. We reflected on the distinction between simply welcoming someone into our church and helping them feel that they truly belong.
At the heart of these conversations is a simple but important conviction that every person is created in the image and likeness of God, and all have a place in the life of our parish community.
Being a welcoming Church does not mean setting aside or compromising the teachings of our faith. Rather, it challenges us to find ways of communicating and living those teachings with the compassion, sensitivity and love which lie at the heart of the Gospel. As Pope Francis reminds us in Evangelii Gaudium, we are called to communicate the truth of the Gospel without renouncing that truth, while remaining open to the circumstances and needs of those we encounter. Faithfulness to the truth and love for the person must always go hand in hand.
Our calling is not simply to open our doors, but to open our hearts; to listen, to understand, to meet people where they are and to accompany them on their journey towards Christ. This does not mean that every question has an easy answer, or that differences of understanding will simply disappear. But it does mean recognising that no one should feel excluded from the life of the Church or from the invitation to grow in faith.
This is an ongoing conversation, and one which will continue at the next meeting of our Parish Pastoral Council.
We would very much welcome your thoughts. How can we make St Robert’s a place where everyone experiences not just a welcome, but a genuine sense of belonging? Are there barriers, perhaps ones we have not even recognised, which we could do more to overcome?
If you have suggestions, experiences or reflections you would like to share, please email office.strobert@dioceseofleeds.org.uk.
Together, we can continue building a parish community in which the truth of our faith is proclaimed with conviction, the love of Christ is expressed with compassion, and everyone who comes through our doors can experience both.
