Catholics attending Mass at a central London church on 3 July might be surprised by what they find. Instead of a normal Mass for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, visitors to Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory's Warwick Street will be forced to celebrate Gay Pride Sunday! The Warwick Street church is infamously home to the Soho Masses - the pro-gay "pastoral council" sponsored by the Archdiocese of Westminster. According to this group's website, the 5:00pm Mass at Warwick Street on that day is to be kept as the annual "Pride Mass", which, it would seem, tends to fall on the Sunday after London's Gay Pride march! [Update 27/6/11: Since highlighting this issue, it seems that those responsible for the Soho Masses website have removed the reference to "Pride Mass", but as a friend has informed me, these same words can still be found on the group's most recent printed newsletter (a scanned copy of which can be found at the bottom of this post). The Soho Masses Facebook page, a screen shot of which can also be found below, specifically refers to "Pride Mass". I have provided a screen shot from the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement, too, which mentions the Warwick Street's "Pride London weekend Mass".]
Boston's "All are welcome" gay Mass was originally cancelled by the Archdiocese, after Cardinal O'Malley received protests by concerned Catholics who feared that the Church was sending mixed messages by teaching that same-sex behaviour is a grave sin on the one hand, whilst approving of such behaviour by sanctioning a pro-homosexual liturgy on the other. After an anti-Catholic campaign in the local media and condemnation from the gay lobby, though, the Archdiocese of Boston now seems to have backed down and reinstated the Pride Mass, much to the delight of St Cecilia's "Rainbow Ministry" - Massachusetts's equivalent to London's Soho Masses Pastoral Council. According to Judie Brown, writing in Renew America, it seems that this caving into the ideals of the world is typical of the Cardinal's inability or unwillingness to stand up for Catholic truth - it was he who so publicly celebrated the funeral of the outspoken pro-abortionist, Ted Kennedy.
As everyone knows, the events associated with the Gay Pride movement tend to be offensive to the Catholic faith and to anyone who is devoted to the virtue of purity. "Pride" itself is the greatest of all sins, whilst Pride London definitely seems to promote other grave sins, especially in the forms of sexual promiscuity and homosexual lasciviousness. These pro-homosexual events also tend to be highly political, nearly always campaigning for laws that run contrary to the Gospel (such as "gay marriage") or for more access to those elements of "sexual health" that many in the Church view as being part and parcel of what Bl Pope John Paul II called the "culture of death."
It was made public a few years ago that homosexuals were not to be ordained into the Catholic priesthood. Whether our bishops took any notice of this Vatican instruction is another matter. But, from reading the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders, published by the Holy See in 2005, it is clear that men who have deep-rooted homosexual tendencies are barred from ordination to the priesthood. The document also states that those who "support the so-called 'gay culture'" cannot be admitted to "the seminary or to holy orders." Bearing this instruction in mind, one wonders whether those priests who actively support the Soho Masses or the Rainbow Ministries are suited to the Catholic priesthood, for they definitely seem to be supporting the gay culture.
Updated at 23:30 on 27/6/11: Since this post was first published, the Soho Masses website removed the reference to the "Pride Mass". But, just so that readers of this blog might see that this wording was not merely a figment of my imagination, please find similar or identical advertisements for a "Pride Mass" below: -
It seems that the Church in Westminster is not the only one in the western world to capitulate to the gay lobby by providing Pride Masses for practising homosexuals and those who abjure Catholic doctrine in order to embrace the politics of "sexual liberation." The Boston Globe reported this week that a "Mass at St Cecilia’s Church intended to celebrate gay pride month that sparked controversy and was canceled by the Archdiocese of Boston has been rescheduled for next month."
Boston's "All are welcome" gay Mass was originally cancelled by the Archdiocese, after Cardinal O'Malley received protests by concerned Catholics who feared that the Church was sending mixed messages by teaching that same-sex behaviour is a grave sin on the one hand, whilst approving of such behaviour by sanctioning a pro-homosexual liturgy on the other. After an anti-Catholic campaign in the local media and condemnation from the gay lobby, though, the Archdiocese of Boston now seems to have backed down and reinstated the Pride Mass, much to the delight of St Cecilia's "Rainbow Ministry" - Massachusetts's equivalent to London's Soho Masses Pastoral Council. According to Judie Brown, writing in Renew America, it seems that this caving into the ideals of the world is typical of the Cardinal's inability or unwillingness to stand up for Catholic truth - it was he who so publicly celebrated the funeral of the outspoken pro-abortionist, Ted Kennedy.As everyone knows, the events associated with the Gay Pride movement tend to be offensive to the Catholic faith and to anyone who is devoted to the virtue of purity. "Pride" itself is the greatest of all sins, whilst Pride London definitely seems to promote other grave sins, especially in the forms of sexual promiscuity and homosexual lasciviousness. These pro-homosexual events also tend to be highly political, nearly always campaigning for laws that run contrary to the Gospel (such as "gay marriage") or for more access to those elements of "sexual health" that many in the Church view as being part and parcel of what Bl Pope John Paul II called the "culture of death."
The Catholic Church has constantly condemned homosexual sex as well as the so-called "gay culture" - a lifestyle that inevitably leads to the destruction of souls and promotes the secularisation of society. The Church also, of course, clearly states that homosexuals should be respected and protected from unjust discrimination, and openly invites men and women who suffer from the cross of same-sex attraction to unite their chastity and pain to Our Lord's Cross so that they "should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection" (cf. CCC 2357 - 2359). Bearing this in mind there are several orthodox groups in the Church that minister to homosexuals, usually helping them either to embrace their vocation to chastity or to find healing for their disordered sexuality. It is a grave scandal for local Churches to reject the services of these groups, whilst actively encouraging such organisations as Rainbow Ministries or the Soho Masses - which appear to dissent from Church teaching and also seem to promote sins against the Sixth Commandment.
It was made public a few years ago that homosexuals were not to be ordained into the Catholic priesthood. Whether our bishops took any notice of this Vatican instruction is another matter. But, from reading the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders, published by the Holy See in 2005, it is clear that men who have deep-rooted homosexual tendencies are barred from ordination to the priesthood. The document also states that those who "support the so-called 'gay culture'" cannot be admitted to "the seminary or to holy orders." Bearing this instruction in mind, one wonders whether those priests who actively support the Soho Masses or the Rainbow Ministries are suited to the Catholic priesthood, for they definitely seem to be supporting the gay culture.Just imagine if a confused young man ever approached the Diocese of Westminster for advice concerning his possible homosexuality. Would he be offered prayerful support and encouragement to reject gay culture and embrace chastity, or would he be sent to Warwick Street to participate in the "Pride Mass", where one assumes all the errors of "Gay Pride" are promoted? The Church should never lead men and women into confusion - especially in matters of morality and personal sin. As Pope Benedict XVI said during his visit to Westminster Cathedral last year, both the "beauty of holiness" and "splendour of truth" should be witnessed to clearly by the Church, so that she may "speak convincingly of the wisdom and liberating power of God’s word to a world which all too often sees the Gospel as a constriction of human freedom, instead of the truth which liberates our minds and enlightens our efforts to live wisely and well, both as individuals and as members of society."
Is it wrong for so many Catholics to believe that the promotion of Gay Pride Masses is a grave scandal to our Christian vocation and witness, as such events only seem to confound those who are seeking the splendour of truth and the beauty of holiness?
"But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Gal 6:14)
Updated at 23:30 on 27/6/11: Since this post was first published, the Soho Masses website removed the reference to the "Pride Mass". But, just so that readers of this blog might see that this wording was not merely a figment of my imagination, please find similar or identical advertisements for a "Pride Mass" below: -
a) From the Soho Masses Facebook page, which specifically refers to "Pride Mass".
b) From the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement website's events page.
c) From a scanned copy of a recent Soho Masses newsletter.
Relevant words have been highlighted by me.
[Main images: Top: A participant in a Gay Pride parade; this image is attributed to Esparta and is published under a Creative Commons licence; source: Wikimedia. Middle: A typical Gay Pride parade, Cologne 2002; this image is attributed to Norbert Blech and is published under a Creative Commons licence; source: Wikimedia. Bottom: "Gay Slaves" from London Pride 2008; this image is attributed to Gay Wash and is published under a Creative Commons licence; source: Wikimedia]
Good post. One is reminded of Pope Benedict's plea to the English and Welsh bishops, during their ad limina visit in 2010, that they "ensure that the Church's moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended."
ReplyDeleteThe "Pride Mass" is to be followed by a reflection by James Alison, whose mockery of Catholic teaching on the complementarity of the sexes and the nature of marriage can be found all over the Internet.
But to object to this seems to be labelled 'unpastoral' or 'Catholic Taliban'.
ReplyDelete@ motuproprio and Reluctant Sinner
ReplyDeleteWith respect RS, I agree with Motuproprio. Looking at the stats. I'm not sure the time and space spent on agonising over this issue is justified.
Some people in this minority do appear very vocal and flamboyant but the photo of people who indulge in sado-masochism is not representative.
When looking at same sex sexual attraction, and not necessarily sexual experience, the figures have changed over a ten-year period, with women showing the most significant difference.
In 1990, 93.3% of men said they had only ever had sexual attraction towards the opposite sex, whilst by 2000 this had fallen to 91.9%. 93.6% of women in 1990 said they had only ever been attracted to men, but by 2000 this had dropped to 88.3%. From this we can therefore deduce that 11.7% of women and 8.1% of men have felt a sexual attraction towards the same sex at least once in their lives.
Many devout Catholics would not wish to deny this minority Christian compassion and inclusion.
Scandalous and so sad.
ReplyDelete@ Margaret
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid your figures are out of date, as it seems that the numbers attracted to the same sex were really over-inflated during from the 1950's till the late 1990's. Now, though, even as society has become more "tolerant" of homosexuality, the percentage of the population that identifies as "gay" or as having had same sex experiences is much less than previously thought.
Here are the stats from the National Office of Statistics report, published last year (as taken directly from the BBC website): -
"The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says 480,000 (1%) consider themselves gay or lesbian, and 245,000 (0.5%) bisexual.
The ONS received 450,000 responses in its new Integrated Household Survey.
The survey provides the biggest pool of social data in the UK after the Census, ONS says.
London had the highest percentage of those polled who identified as gay, Lesbian or bisexual and Northern Ireland lowest.
People aged 16 and over were questioned about their self-perceived sexual identity, and asked to respond with one of four options: heterosexual/straight, gay/lesbian, bisexual or other.
The data showed that 95% said they were heterosexual, 1% gay or lesbian, 0.5% bisexual, 0.5% other, and the remaining 3% either did not know or did not answer."
It is estimated that about 1.5% of the population suffer from paedophilia, too. It seems to be a figure indicative of sexual disorder in general.
I agree that all men and women deserve compassion and inclusion - but not to the extent that it ruins their souls. All are welcome in Church, welcome to come and know Christ and be transformed by him - as opposed to try and impose their own values onto his eternal truths. The Church is here to save souls, not led them to perdition - and for that, her compassion must always be allied with the truth and with the need to call men and women to holiness.
As for the photos, they are all from Gay Pride parades - and demonstrate that, regardless of arguments to the contrary, "Gay Pride" is really about "sexual hedonism" or "sexual liberation" - both of which, according to Christian morality, lead to the bondage (excuse the pun) of hell and damnation.
Well said, RS. As we know, the Catholic Church is the church for sinners. That's all of us. No exclusions and no need for special services which, by their nature, are exclusive.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how it is that some sections of the community imagine that the rest of us don't have to grapple with demons on a daily basis. Some of them highly sexual.
What has not yet been grasped is that the more we "liberate" ourselves the more enslaved we become.
This war of statistics is regrettable. While gay and lesbian people are striving for fundamental equal rights in secular society, they are constantly confronted with the defamation by the catholic church. The problem is that a number of politically powerful and wealthy churches, principal among which are yours, have taken on as a mission the denial of the privacy, civil rights and equal protections under the law of gay and lesbian citizens. Whatever you believe about the personal conduct of your members does not justify your aggressive political agenda nor your outrageous distortions, including full-page advertisements in the New York Times that compare same-sex attraction to pedophilia and bestiality.
ReplyDeleteIn your paranoia about homosexuality, you are waging a propaganda war that distorts the truth-- featuring photographs of bizarre subculture groups, comparisons of same-sex relationships with sexual crimes against children, the claim that equal rights are the cause of, and comparable to, the criminal behavior of your own child-rapist priests.
This apparent obsession you have is harming others--it justifies ill treatment, bullying, physical assault, suicide, self-hatred, and the denial of basic human rights. It even sends a message that beating and killing gay people, whom you portray as dangerous perverts, is acceptable. Your propaganda war features a secular political agenda that seeks to harm a whole class of people, who generally are quite successful in society and thus are major taxpayers. (And why are we so successful, by the way? It's because gay and lesbian people are overachievers who are striving for acceptance.) Your assault on the equal protection also promotes an agenda in which the secular government intrudes into people's private lives--whether those people are in your church or not. And worse than all of these, it seeks to blame gay and lesbian people for the real sins of your church--child rape. Gay and lesbian people who are honest about their same-sex attractions and have the courage to face the truth about themselves do not rape children, nor do they look for sex in toilets, nor are they on an all out campaign to condemn others who, like themselves, have same-sex attraction.
I don't care what you do in your church services or who you hire and retain as your clergy, except when they rape children--then I think every one of your priests and bishops who cover up the truth should be charged as accessories to rape. I do care about your campaign of lies, bigotry, fundamental dishonesty, and condemnation of others, which seems to be very unchristian indeed. In fact, preoccupation with what you perceive as someone else's "sins" is something Jesus severely condemned. Perhaps this is why Jesus had little time for religious zealots and the "righteous" of his day.
@ NXT
ReplyDeletea) It is the Church that is under assault, along with reason and freedom, by the so-called gay rights lobby. For that lobby is far more powerful than any religious community and those who wish to preserve truth and human dignity.
b) You have even bought into the gay lobby propaganda, which will defame the Church at any cost - to the point of over-emphasising so-called paedophilia in the clergy. In fact, Catholic priests are less likely to sexually assault a child - though there is a homosexual problem amongst clerics. The liberal gay-loving press don't bother with sexual abuse cases amongst openly gay men or members of other groups or religions - as that would undermine their campaign of hatred against the Catholic Church (an institution established by Christ to protect real love and absolute truth).
I haven't got time to dissect the rest of your comment. Suffice to say, that I remain confident that you will come to know the truth before it's too late.
May God bring you to a realisation of your real self.
I haven't "bought into a lobby." That is complete nonsense. I'm living my life and watching and listening to bigotry and spiritual arrogance from people like you, who want to impose your beliefs on pluralistic, secular society and convert secular governments into theocracies, no doubt to impose another round of inquisitions.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is undermining your church it's your own clergy--spiritually arrogant, intellectually dishonest, spiritually dead, and too often criminal. Gay people are not "trying to destroy the catholic church." They are just trying to keep it from destroying equal protection under the law.
And you are pretending that gay and lesbian adults are pedophiles? That's a laugh. You have absolutely nothing to back that up with. If you would dare to actually meet some gay adults you would quickly find out that they have zero sexual interest in children. I don't need a "gay-loving press" or a "homosexual lobby" to know that. I know thousands of gay people. But again, you're in love with a lie and obsessed with your own hatred.
As for the catholic church, There is no life in it. It is obviously spiritually dead. This is why its clergy are such a mess and why is has nothing to hold onto but political power, threats and intimidation, and why it worships a "holy father" such as Benedict. Only a very bizarre cult could sustain the illusion that there's anything good about that guy.
a) What do you mean by "impose your beliefs"? Aren't those with a different opinion to yours allowed to express it? Seeing that 70% of the British population identifies as Christian, whilst only 1% identifies as homosexual, wouldn't it be more correct to say that the gay rights lobby and various fundamentalist secularists are imposing their beliefs and desires on the rest of us?
ReplyDeleteb) I have no idea why you think I want to convert secular governments into theocracies - which I do not. Defending the definition of marriage, amongst other things, is not a sign that I want to remove the Queen as head of state (even if she, only in England, is head of the national church).
c) Glad to see that you've missed the irony of your first comment, when you called me (even if you did refer to me in the plural) a pharisee. You will notice from the title of my blog, that I am only too well aware of my sins, and do not deny them in any way, shape or form. Yet, you seem so self-righteous (and prejudiced) that you are able to accuse over 1 billion people and 500,000 priests of being "spiritually arrogant, intellectually dishonest, spiritually dead, and all too often criminal"! You do realise that Goebbels (Nazi Propaganda Minister) said the exact same thing as you in an anti-Catholic speech delivered on 28 May 1937?
c) What is equality? Is it a one way street? Homosexuals have far more equality under English Law than do Catholics. I have no idea what on earth you are talking about. More Catholics have been killed by the British state than any amount of (what we would now call) homosexuals (who might have been hanged in Protestant England for buggery).
d) I have in now way, shape or form said that homosexuals are paedophiles. Show me where I said that? The only place I could have come close to seeming to say something like that (but only if the person reading it was lacking in intelligence) was when I said that most of the clerical abuse cases were homosexual and not paedophilic - in that around 90% of the victims were boys over the age of 15 and up to 18. A paedophile is attracted to pre-pubescent children.
e) As for your last paragraph, well maybe you should apply the standards you demand of others onto yourself? If you got to know Catholics and the Church, you would realise that i) it has never been more alive and growing, ii) the clergy don't seem to be in a mess at all, iii) it has no interest in political power - but holds onto the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that there is no-one on this planet who "worships" the Pope - a severe sin (idolatry).
Your last sentence just, sadly, proves what an embittered and lost soul you really are. May you soon be released from the darkness of your own delusion.
I must confess that your comments on here seem irrelevant to the subject that I wrote about. As you will note, I am writing about an internal Catholic matter in this post, not about other churches or the so-called secular state. For that reason, I will no longer be engaging with you - as it is charity to avoid colluding with such eccentricity. You may continue posting your comments, if it makes you feel better about yourself.