A parish in Boston is holding a Mass in celebration of Boston’s Pride month. I’m not kidding.
Homosexual acts are a sin and pride is one of the seven deadly sins. So one parish in Boston decided to put the two together! What could go wrong?!
I’m quoting from the bulletin of St. Cecilia’s:
The Rainbow Ministry of Saint Cecilia Parish invites all friends and supporters of the LGBT community to a Mass in celebration of Boston’s Pride Month. The liturgy will take place on Sunday evening, June 19, at six o’clock, with a reception following. The theme of the liturgy, “All Are Welcome,” honors Christ’s message of hope and salvation to all people. We will also celebrate the diverse community that finds its home at Saint Cecilia and acknowledge, in a special way, the generous and warm welcome extended to the members of the Jesuit Urban Center in 2007. The Mass will be celebrated by Father John Unni and concelebrated by several of the priests who faithfully ministered at the Jesuit Urban Center for many years. Please plan to attend this special liturgy and support the diversity that makes Saint Cecilia such a special place.
Something tells me the homily won’t be quoting much from the Catechism unless there’s a serious misreading of “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF”.
But what’s next, a “friends with benefits” Mass? How about a “Masturbator” Mass. (Although the sign of peace might be a little weird, huh?) Seriously. Why not just have Mass celebrating all sorts of sins.
I don’t want a religion that accepts me for who I am. I know who I am and am unimpressed. I want a religion that calls me to be better than I am even as I resist it.
I understand that many people struggle with homosexual urges. Look, we all watch “Fight Club” for different reasons but having the Church push sinners to take pride in a sin just seems a bit like a bad idea, doesn’t it? Convincing people that they’re not sinners, they’re just diverse is damaging to the Church and it’s damaging to the people buying this pc hogwash.
And just in case you think that’s an aberration, the bulletin also invites everyone to “A June evening with the Boston gay men’s chorus. The Saint Cecilia Rainbow Ministry is purchasing a block of tickets for the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus concert to be held at John Hancock Hall on Thursday, June 9th at 8 p.m.” In case you’re interested, they’ll be doing a Beatles Medley. I guess the Judy Garland medley is a little too 90’s.
HT Pewsitter
June 11, 2011 at 2:24 am
We offer ourselves at the offertory of the Mass with Jesus Christ to God, our Father. "Gay Pride" brought to the Liturgy and offered to God is an insult. It is ultimately blaming God for human mortality (death)chosen by Adam and Eve in disobedience to God. It is like saying: Look, God, I am a homosexual and it is all your fault." Instead of saying "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will." We have Red Masses for lawyers, Blue Masses for law enforcement and now we have Gay Pride Masses for???What is it you do as a fraternity?? Human life on earth is to gain heaven as a saint. What is Gay Pride Mass and their mission this side of heaven? How is it that you build up the Body of Christ, the Catholic Church?
June 11, 2011 at 2:32 am
@Rick: http://rosaryvictory.blogspot.com/
God bless
Mary DeVoe
June 11, 2011 at 2:43 am
Homosexuality is not about sexuality but about the lack thereof. Pedophilia is not about rape but about assault and battery on a minor child whose civil rights are held in trust for him by God, by his parents and by the state, in that order. While both rape and assault and battery in pedophilia are crimes of violence against another human being and their civil rights held in trust, Gay Pride Mass is in defense of that freedom to exercise violence against another human being.
Mary De Voe
June 11, 2011 at 6:12 am
Here, in stark terms, is what is being celebrated: one man shoves his sexual organ into another man's anus, which, because this is contrary to nature, tears it and stretches it out, causes bleeding and fecal incontinence, gay bowel disease, immune system problems, anal cancer, HPV, and other STD's. Couch it in any lovely, clinical term you wish:"diversity," "pride," and "alternative lifestyle," it is still the same old horrific, brutal act.
The fact that Catholic clerics can celebrate this in the context of their holiest liturgy and not be immediately defrocked is food for thought, isn't it?
June 11, 2011 at 1:24 pm
This was never allowed by the archdiocese. It has now been canceled.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/11/gay_catholics_upset_as_mass_canceled_at_south_end_church/?p1=Local_Links
June 11, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Kudos to everyone here who stood for fidelity to the Church's teachings. We can take our church back from the Liberals and rebuild it through our online faith community in CMR & elsewhere. Vortex has an excellent video about this. Click here or go to http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2011/06/rebuilding-church-online-video.html
June 11, 2011 at 3:08 pm
The lgbt community, includes parents of gay kids, those of us who reach out to homeless gay kids, those of us who have friends and loved ones who are gay. There was nothing in that announcement that said there would be anything but a celebration of the Lord's table. And all WERE welcome at His table. I love that you guys think you have the guest list!!! Did the disciples who walked with Him, after the resurection, blind to who He was not Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread. You should be ashamed for trying to keep God's children from Him. I'm thinking the church you might be seeking can be found with the Anglicans….
Deb
June 11, 2011 at 4:01 pm
@ Anonymous 10:08. Every atheist who says "I AM" uses God's name in vain. The atheist is a liar. The Anglicans have a "symbol of the Body of Christ", because the Anglicans do not have the Body of Christ, only a symbol. The Real Presence, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar IS the Real Presence, the real Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And since you, Anonymous 10:08 do not know or accept this TRUTH, you would sow weeds in the garden of God, you would separate us from the True Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, only present in the Catholic Church. What person or their human failing are you able to assist? Certainly not developmentally arrested persons of same sex attraction. Certainly not anybody since you cannot even recognize Jesus Christ.
@Deb: you have more than your share of Gay Pride, when you set Gay Pride above Jesus Christ.
Mary de Voe
June 11, 2011 at 4:11 pm
@Rick: Saint Anthony of Padua is reborn or maybe St. Vincent Ferrer or maybe St John the Baptist: http://www.heavenwards.org/Heavenwards/Home.html
June 11, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Hate the sin, Love the sinner.
June 11, 2011 at 8:51 pm
I wonder if there will be priests hearing confessions before and during this "Mass".
In the case one can get confession, I wonder what the priest will say to gay people who are sexually active: That's OK, no problem, that's not a sin.
June 12, 2011 at 1:13 am
I think "idiot" comes from Greek "idios", i.e. peculiar to oneself.
June 12, 2011 at 4:01 pm
The "gay" mess has been cancelled? Renamed and rescheduled is more like it.
Exactly what religion is being practiced at St. Cecilia's? Parish council member Susan Donnelly explains to the Globe, "…….. it's more we're trying to celebrate the people who sit next to you in the pew. There's no agenda other than that."
You're definitely onto something Susan and it has a name: Unitarianism. They long ago replaced Christ's pesky "agenda" with humanity.
Lastly, the next time you decide to publish a suspect event in your bulletin, say for example a Golden Calf processional, common decency demands that you notify the Archdiocese. At least give them a chance to get their tap shoes on and "nuance" a more convincing response feigning ignorance and disapproval. This one was pretty disappointing.
June 12, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Mary, if you study Anglican theology you will be surprised to find that they do, in fact, believe that they have transubstantiation during the Mass. There are, in fact, some valid Holy Orders in the Anglican church, i.e., ordinations that can be traced by the laying on of hands from bishop to bishop back to the apostles. You would be surprised at how many American Episcopal communities consider themselves Catholic rather than Protestant. I don't know if the same is true in the UK.
I'm glad to hear that the gay Mass has been cancelled. It's alarming to see the discussion generated by this subject here; I think that we all have a lot of examination of conscience to do as a result. Compassion is not a sin, and now one can read hearts but God. I know that I find myself arguing positions I wouldn't normally take here just because the attitudes of some of the posters are so unbelievably prideful, self-rightous and downright smarmy. If this keeps up I may have to stop reading, before it becomes a near occasion of sin for me.
June 13, 2011 at 2:33 am
@Siobhan: Does not the person who rejects all or any of the teaching of Jesus Christ more or less starts his own heresy after aelf-excommunicating himself? Those persons who inflicted themselves onto minor children self-excommunicated themselves when they consented to violate the sacred trust of children held in trust by God, breaking God's commandment to love the Lord, held in trust by the parents and by the state, in that order. Abusers are criminals, outlaws, unrepentant sinners. Those who reject the apostolic authority vested in St. Peter as exhibited by their actions separate themselves from the true church of Jesus Christ. It is through the Holy Spirit that the transubstantiation of the bread and wine confect the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the Real Presence of the Sacrament of the Altar. Honestly, Siobhan I do not know how these who have separated themselves from the Catholic Church of Rome could still retain Apostolic Succession, especially since, some who have been wrongly excommunicated by the church such as Joan of Arc, now St. Joan of Arc, still must obey the restrictions of the rite of excommunication, until the excommunication is lifted. Now, I am talking about two kinds of excommunication. The first is when a person chooses to not obey or believe in Jesus Christ. The second is the official Rite of Excommunication. The First is remedied by returning to the Church through the Sacrament of Reconciliation with true contrition, the other must be lifted by the church.
Mary De Voe
June 13, 2011 at 2:47 am
let the Mass be called Gay Virgin Mass and let the participants celebrate their virginity and Christ's virginity. If Jesus Christ were not a virgin in perfect innocence Jesus would not have been able to redeem mankind. Certainly, there are petitions that all men would gladly lay down their lives for, among them, world peace, the alleviation of the suffering of mankind from war, poverty, famine and pestilence. Usurping the sign of God's pledge, the rainbow and inflicting it upon persons who are minors is not about freedom but about subjugation. Celebrating arrested development is not normal.
Mary De Voe
June 13, 2011 at 3:00 am
@Anonymous 8:13
There is a hierarchy: Nincompoops, imbeciles, morons and finally IDIOTS, the basest of the base. Leave animal instincts to the animals and enbrace the rational nature into which we are called by our Creator, the Beatific Vision.
Mary De Voe
June 13, 2011 at 4:20 am
"A Golden Calf processional" says it all.
Mary De Voe
June 13, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Mary,
Of course the Anglicans are excommunicated. There is a difference between "valid" and "licit" Holy Orders. In some cases, thiers are valid. They are never licit.
June 13, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Based on the activities of the New England church in the past decade or so, it appears that they are afficted with the Stockholm syndrome because, they have adopted Liberalism of various sorts. There is a grave need to keep the Curia posted of all their activities so that external observers may keep them honest and faithful.