Hi, Heather: Sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations in your new church. This past summer a notice appeared in our (Catholic) church bulletin - you could have knocked me over with a feather. Our pastoral associate, who is an older lady and right hand to our pastor, meaning she really runs things, he just thinks he does, felt that the issue of moms nursing their babies during Mass needed to be addressed. She later told me that the suggestion had come from our Liturgical Music Director. He was noticing that many moms were hanging about uncomfortably in the back of the church or in the church lobby which has a wall of glass and piped-in sound so that one can still see and hear the service, furtively nursing their babies. He wondered if it had been communicated to these moms that it somehow wasn't OK to nurse during the Mass. Anyway, she wrote in the bulletin that nursing babies were welcomed with open arms in the main sanctuary as well as anywhere else in the church. But... if a mother felt uncomfortable nursing in "public" she was welcome to use the pastoral assistant's office. The Sunday that her notice appeared in the bulletin she came up to me (she knows what I do for a living, as many of our parishioners are also "my moms and babies") after Mass and asked me if what she had written was OK. She was terrified of offending someone. I hugged her and told her it was the best thing she could have done and that the moms and babies of the parish would gratefully thank her. We also have a large, young parish, doing about 30 baptisms a month. Sorry for the length. I think your pastor, Heather, is most likely to listen if you throw in lots of passages from the bible about how both Old and New Testament figures (including Jesus) were nursed. God Bless. Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,CLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html