Archbishop Of Westminster Orders Church To Cease Mass Services For LGBTQ Congregants
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| Archbishop Vincent Nichols |
LONDON, UK -- The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, who also leads the Catholic Church in England and Wales, announced Tuesday that he has ordered the Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Central London must stop holding masses that were specifically designed for LGBTQ Catholics.
The so-called “Soho Masses” were set up six years ago by a group of openly gay Catholics and sympathetic priests to cater for those struggling to live within a church that takes an absolutist line against same sex relationships.
Damian Thompson, a religious columnist for The Telegraph noted:
"The gay Masses were an embarrassment, a relic of old-style gay rights campaigning that scandalised large numbers of Catholics."
As part of his Christmas Day message, the Archbishop attacked the government’s plan to introduce equal marriage in England and Wales and described it as a shambles.
The decision is seen as a significant win for the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church who have lobbied both the Archbishop and Rome to cancel what they saw as a deviation from official church teachings. It also comes at a time when the Catholic Church itself is redoubling its efforts to oppose same sex marriage legislation following moves in Britain and France to allow gay men and women to marry.
In recent years traditionalists had increased their campaign against the Soho Masses, even secretly recording a prayer session and releasing the video online.
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2 comments:
Soho Masses...I presume that refers to Soho in London and that the Catholics are not referring to Masses held in Small Offices / Home Offices?
Of course it might also refer to the Archbishop arriving at one of those Masses and saying,
" So, Ho...mosexual Masses? Why wasn't I told?"
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, or maybe the groin. I'm sure that any deviation from the 'party line' is intolerable to the Catholic hierarchy, but frankly, that was probably the only hope it had of retaining any shred of decency at all.
When the hardliners kick out their own flock, even if they consider them to be straying, they are sealing their own ultimate demise.
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