YouTube clip sparks outcry over ‘dissent’ at Soho Mass

BY DAVID V BARRETT
TWO PRIESTS have criticised the “gay-friendly” Masses held monthly in central London after a short video posted on YouTube appeared to show bidding prayers that dissented from Church teaching. One of the bidding prayers at the Mass in Soho asked “that the various communities which we represent, ethnicity, language, gender and sexual orientations, find means to celebrate this diversity and strive for greater social justice for all people”. Another prayed for “lesbian and gay, bisexual and transgender organisations here and throughout the world, and especially those which gather to support people of faith, that they may reflect the rainbow covenant of justice and integrity which God establishes amongst us”.
Another of the prayers, read by Joe Stanley, chairman of the Soho Masses Pastoral Council, said: “Let the community of the Church, its pastors and people, embrace the challenge with which God is engaging with us, that a joyful and life-giving vision of sexuality be proclaimed that embraces the fullness of human diversity and excludes no one. God in your mercy, hear our prayer.” One commentator, Fr Tim Finigan, who re-posted the video clip on his blog, said: “Isn’t it about time an end was put to this? It is a scandal to all faithful Catholics and a travesty of the Church’s genuine concern and care for people who have particular problems and temptations.” Mr Stanley said he did not think Fr Finigan’s view of the Soho Masseswas representative.
“Our experience of ordinary Catholics in the pew is very different from the comments in the blogosphere,” he said.
“The Masses keep getting represented as ‘gay Masses’,” he said, emphasising that they are public Masses that extend a particular welcome to gay people and their parents, families and friends. The Masses have aregularattendance of “well over 100” with many more occasional participants.
The Masses began in 1999 in the Convent of the Helpers of the Holy Souls in Camden Town, north London. When the convent property was sold in 2001 they moved to St Anne’s Anglican church, Dean Street, Soho, then in 2007, after consultation with the Diocese of Westminster, to their present location on the first and third Sunday evenings of the month.
The Masses are served by a rota of 15 priests from several dioceses and religious communities, some of them living or working in Westminster diocese.
Mr Stanley said that when the video was recorded during the Mass without permission, disturbing worshippers, both he and a police officer present specifically asked the young man filming not to do so. When they then argued that the filming contravened the law on freedom of religious worship they were assured by the protesters outside the church that the film would not be published online.
Daphne McLeod, chairwoman of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, an orthodoxlobbygroup, said: “I don’t want anyone to think we’re homophobic, but they are serious sinners and going to Holy Communion and committing sacrilege, doing it deliberately to make a point that their way of life is fine, which it isn’t. “It’s fine for them to attend Mass, but not to receive. We pray in reparation for the sacrilege that is being committed in Warwick Street. If you’re in a state of mortal sin you’re excluded from the sacraments.” Fr Ray Blake, parish priest of St Mary Magdalene in Brighton, said on his blog that he did not object to offering Mass for a particular group, such as “for the elderly, for children, for the sick, for women or men or particular language groups and yes, for men and women who are homosexual, or as the Catechism says, ‘have a same-sex attraction’”.
“What I find scandalous,” he continued, “is that Mass is offered for a group of people who, as this video shows, obviously dissent from the teaching of the Church and gather primarily to challenge that teaching, rather than to worship.” In a statement the Archdiocese of Westminster said: “As with every Catholic Mass, the bidding prayers celebrated at the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory ask for the intercession of God in the lives of people who may be in need.
“Bidding prayers for every Mass must reflect the teaching of the Catholic Church and this applies to the Mass held every fortnight where a particular welcome is extended to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered Catholics and their families.”