I don’t understand why a reasonable person would want to be confirmed in the Catholic Church. I don’t know why you’d want to be part of a club that doesn’t think gay people deserve equal rights, or that women have no business being part of Church leadership, or that eating Jesus makes perfect sense.

But some people go through the motions, anyway. They do the mental gymnastics and figure they can accept the good parts of the Church and just ignore the bad. Cafeteria Catholics are still Catholics, right?

Rev. Gary LaMoine doesn’t think so and he’s rightfully putting a stop to it. LaMoine was checking up on 17-year-old Lennon Cihak on Facebook — because that’s perfectly normal behavior for a Church official… — and saw this picture:

Cihak was showing his support for marriage equality. Treating gay people like humans deserving of the same rights as the rest of us? That goes against everything the Church stands for! So LaMoine told him he couldn’t complete his confirmation:

[Mother] Shana, who said she was confirmed at the same church, was called into a private conversation with the priest soon after the photo was discovered and was told her son wouldn’t be allowed to complete confirmation. … “I just thought it was wrong to single him out,” Shana said. Her husband, Doug Cihak, agreed. “(LaMoine) was talking about ‘God doesn’t believe in this.’ Well, God created Lennon,” said Doug, adding that he was baptized and raised in the same church.

Interestingly enough, several of the other kids getting confirmed in the Church liked Cihak’s picture on Facebook — but the priest just ignored that.

That’s where he goes wrong. I think he did the right think in rejecting Cihak. If you don’t agree with Church beliefs, you shouldn’t be allowed to get confirmed. I hope LaMoine asks every person who wants to get confirmed in the future if they support gay rights, women in Church leadership, use of contraception, pre-marital sex, and the ability for women to choose what happens with their bodies. And then, as the kicker, ask them if they think the cracker is Jesus.

And if anyone disagrees with the Church’s line on anything, tell them they can’t be part of the Church. Install a purity test and don’t let anyone else in. (You know all those couples who pretend they’re Catholic and go through counseling with a priest so they can have their wedding in the Church? Say no to them, too.)

I guarantee the membership rolls will dwindle as all the reasonable, rational, decent people get kicked out of the Church by the bigots-in-charge — and it would hasten the demise of an already-morally-and-intellectually-bankrupt organization.

Lennon Cihak is the lucky one here. He may not realize it, but he just averted disaster. His mother is realizing it, too:

[Father] Doug [Cihak] insists he’s not mad at LaMoine, calling him just a “messenger” of the church. The same could not be said for his wife, who said she doesn’t plan on returning to the church ever again, her son nodding in agreement.

It’s the Church’s loss, anyway. Lennon Cihak has a heart and the Church doesn’t. Hopefully, some of Lennon’s friends see what’s happening and they reject the Church before the Church rejects them.



