"My role as a pastor is to help them (gay and lesbian persons) to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church and yet, at the same time, helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point," he said in dealing with offering Holy Communion to same-sex couples. "It (the Eucharist) is for everybody. I think that we have to make sure that we don't pigeonhole one group (LGBTQ) as though they are not part of the human family, as though there's a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake."

Cardinal Cupich's easy acceptance of the rainbow crowd doesn't totally line up with what the Catholic Church officially teaches in its Catechism of the Catholic Church.

"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture (Genesis 19:1-29; Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; and 1 Timothy 1:10) which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also offers this advice to persons struggling with a homosexual attraction: "The Church seeks to enable every person to live out the universal call to holiness. Persons with a homosexual inclination ought to receive every aid and encouragement to embrace this call personally and fully. This will unavoidably involve much struggle and self-mastery, for following Jesus always means following the Way of the Cross."

As with some traditional biblically-based Protestant denominations the Catholic Church -- along with conservative Evangelicals -- finds common ground in championing pro-life values and standing against the sniffing out of life in the womb.

This is where Cardinal Cupich ran into trouble with his Democratic National Convention prayer with Catholics and other believing Christians. He made no mention of the Catholic pink elephant at the convention -- abortion.

The Cardinal's three-minute prayer was so generic it could have been prayed with more conviction by a Jewish rabbi.

The Catholic Herald-UK reports: "The cardinal's prayer addressed the importance of unity and national responsibility, as well as of 'advancing human dignity and liberty.' The prayer, however, did not directly address abortion and so-called reproductive rights, despite those issues being directly addressed by speakers at the convention and a core plank of the Democratic Party platform."

But the Democratic Party celebrates and pushes for pro-choice principles which it calls "Reproductive Health Care" and "Reproductive Rights."

"Generally, people who identify as pro-choice believe that everyone has the basic human right to decide when and whether to have children," explains Planned Parenthood. "When you say you're pro-choice you're telling people that you believe it's OK for them to have the ability to choose abortion as an option for an unplanned pregnancy -- even if you wouldn't choose abortion for yourself."

Well, Planned Parenthood put its money where its mouth is. This week a Planned Parenthood mobile medical bus rolled into Chicago and set up shop to offer free abortion pills and provide male vasectomies during the Democratic National Convention.

Reports are that at least 25 babies, who were carefully being formed hidden -- but not safe -- in their mother's wombs, are slowly being snuffed out through the effects of the one-two punch of abortifacient medications.

The Chicago Catholic Cardinal is a white male. How did he get through the intersectionality vetting process?

In 2012 Blase Cupich was the VI Bishop of Spokane. During his tenure there he supported Gonzaga University, a Jesuit university in Spokane, which invited Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu to become the 2012 commencement speaker, at which time the South African Archbishop was also awarded with an honorary degree.

Archbishop Tutu's sparked pro-life protests on campus and a 600-signature petition was circulated seeking to rescind his invitation.

In 2014 Pope Francis tapped Bishop Cupich to become the IX Archbishop of Chicago. Two years later he was elevated to the Cardinalate. He has become one of the Pope's confidants.

The Democratic Party should have turned to The Episcopal Church for its invocation bishop. In fact, the current Episcopal Bishop of Chicago -- Paula Clark (XIII Chicago) -- is the first African American woman to be elected the Episcopal Bishopette of Chicago. Just as Kamala Harris is attempting to become the first black woman to be elected President of the United States, Paula Clark became the first black Episcopal bishop of Chicago. The two women have much in common.

If Bishopette Clark isn't woke enough to appease the Democrats need for virtue signaling, there is always Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson (IX New Hampshire) who has vast personal experience in dealing with White House politics.

Bishop Robinson burst upon the scene in 2003 when he was elected coadjutor for the Diocese of New Hampshire. He was the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. True, there were other gay bishops at the time, but they remained hidden in the closet. His open election shredded the fabric of the Anglican Communion from which the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) was conceived and birthed.

In January 2009 soon-to-be President Barack Obama reached out to his friend Bishop Robinson to give the invocation for the kickoff for his presidential pre-inaugural weekend events.

Bishop Robinson and the Democratic candidate for president developed a close relationship as the bishop advised Obama on gay rights issues during his first campaign for the White House.

In praying for the pre-inaugural event Bishop Robinson bent over backwards to make sure nobody felt excluded. Nobody except believing Christians.

"I am very clear," he said at the time, "that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won't be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer."

However, Christians were not pleased with the Christless Scriptureless generic prayer. It was not "their prayer" nor their way of praying. They felt excluded.

Bishop Robinson also had an OMG moment at the 2014 White House Easter Prayer Breakfast.

"POTUS 'preaches' at the Easter prayer breakfast," the bishop excitedly tweeted. "Then, out of the blue, asks ME to close with prayer. OMG! #privilege."

After the event Bishop Robinson told MSNBC "I did what I always try to do when I say a prayer, which is to ask God's blessing on all of God's children worldwide. I asked a special blessing on this nation and our president, and I always pray for the poor and the oppressed and the marginalized. I think God cares especially about them."

Then in September 2015 Bishop Robinson was among the select 15,000 assembled on the South Lawn of the White House to welcome Pope Francis to Washington, DC. Although Mariann Budde is the Episcopal Bishopette of Washington, Bishop Robinson got the invitation.

"I'm on the south lawn of the White House, a beautiful morning in DC, awaiting @POTUS and @Pontifex," he tweeted at 3:30 AM as he waited to get in.

This was a heavily "Catholic" event so Bishop Robinson stood out in his Episcopal fuschia bishop's shirt and round clerical collar in a sea of Roman Catholic cardinals, bishops, priests, and nuns.

However, when national media needed someone to explain things about the Catholic elements of the event, did they seek a Roman Catholic for answers? No, they sought out the then retired New Hampshire bishop.

Both MSNBC and CNN turned to the infamous Episcopal bishop for his take on the unique unfolding of the Catholic elements of the event.

The Episcopal bishop noted that it was a great honor to be a part of the official welcoming ceremony heralding Pope Francis' first trip to the United States. But he hoped that the Roman Pontiff would "speak truth to power."

"We learned this phrase in seminary that the mission of a priest is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," Bishop Robinson explained. "I think Francis is much beloved for the afflicted. It will be very interesting to see, however, if he speaks truth to power either at the White House or in Congress."

Bishop Robinson's undergraduate education comes from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee where he picked up a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies followed by a Master of Divinity from the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in New York City. Eventually, as bishop, he was awarded an honorary degree from Sewanee's School of Theology.

Following Pope Francis' White House welcome, CNN's Chris Cuomo nailed Bishop Robinson on the South Lawn of the White House.

"You are controversial, Sir," Cuomo flatly stated. "Do you feel that way, and what do you think it is about?"

"I didn't feel very controversial standing in the middle of 15,000 people -- far, far away from the Pope," Bishop Robinson replied. "I was honored and humbled to be invited, to be here at the White House, to help welcome the Pope. But the controversy, I think, was a bit of a tempest in a teapot."

But the problem with Bishop Robinson is he is a white male, just as Cardinal Cupich is a white male. That erases any other diversity, inclusion and equity attributes he may have.

However, no fear, there are plenty of sitting black bishopettes who can check the double diversity box along with Bishopette Clark. They are: Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows (XI Indianapolis); Shannon MacVean-Brown (XI Vermont); Carly Hughes (XI Newark); Phoebe Roaf (IV West Tennessee); Kym Lucas (XI Colorado); Ketlen Solak (IX TEC Pittsburgh); Dorothy Wells (XI Mississippi); and Gayle Harris (Virginia-assistant).

There is also Deon Johnson (XI Missouri) who also checks two diversity boxes -- gay and black.

Although there are no bishops who hit the DIE trifecta -- nailing three intersectionality boxes: female, black and lesbian.

As of yet there are no transgender bishops in the Episcopal House of Bishops. However, there are a few transgendered priests and deacons serving in the Episcopal Church.

Just as the Democratic Party fully embraces abortion so does The Episcopal Church.

There has been a slow but steady creep from the 1967 General Convention which stated to have an "unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions in this matter [the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them," to the 2022 General Convention which passed Resolution D083 determining that "all Episcopalians should be able to access abortion services and birth control with no restriction on movement, autonomy, type, or timing." And that this "protection of religious liberty extends to all Episcopalians who may need or desire to access, to utilize, to aid others in the procurement of, or to offer abortion services."

The Roman Catholic Church -- the Church Cardinal Cupich represents -- is emphatic about its total opposition to abortion in any form basing its conviction in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;" and Psalm 139:15 "My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth."

"Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion," the Catholic Church states in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish."

Based upon this teaching of the Catholic Church Cardinal Cupich was the wrong bishop to offer the invocation at the Democratic National Convention since the Democratic Party's platform highlights abortion rights (reproductive health care); vitro fertilization (IVF) and "gender-affirming health care," (transgender body mutilation) all aspects of human sexual health care the Catholic Church rejects.

There is so much in the Democratic Platform that goes directly against everything the Catholic Church stands for and what the Episcopal Church fully embraces.

The platform also seeks to create a special LGBTQ Equality Act to recognize sexual orientation and gender identity as "protected classes" under civil rights law which will forbid discrimination based on those identity orientations along with race, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, disability, family status .
One plank of the Democratic Platform states: "We will pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again."

The Democratic Platform seeks for the enshrinement of abortion into national law by making Roe v. Wade the law of the land, just as same-sex marriage was made the law of the land in 2015 with the Supreme Court's tight 5-4 Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

At that time the Episcopal General Convention was meeting in Salt Lake City and upon hearing the news the House of Deputies erupted in cheers and tears of joy.

I'm sure there would have been many Episcopal bishops who would have leapt at the chance to give the opening invocation at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

The only caveat would be -- straight white males need not apply.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline