The Boston Archdiocese has decided to allow a "Gay Pride" Mass at St. Cecilia's Parish in South Boston. I learned of this just this morning from Michael Brown's Spirit Daily. Michael had published a link to The Boston Globe article informing the public that the Mass will be held on July 10th. And then I received a comment from a parishioner of St. Cecilia's which is very revealing. The anonymous individual wrote, "It is happening in three weeks, on July 10 and there's nothing you can do about it. Yap, write letters, wring your hands, and spew forth your anti-Christian bile all you like, it's happening and the entire parish, as well as the Archdiocese, couldn't be more pleased. It will be prayerful, as are all liturgies at St Cecilia's, there will be good music, a packed church, and good preaching. Come by if you want to see a real community that gathers to worship God in action. Of course, you won't though. So, start writing to Rome, you have less than three weeks to keep showing the world how pathetic and uncharitable you all are."
It's easy to see that love is a strong suit in this person's brand of Catholicism. Those of us who have the sheer unmitigated gall to accept the Church's teaching regarding homosexual acts and same-sex "marriage" are deemed to be "pathetic and uncharitable" characters who are spewing "anti-Christian bile." We have been accused of "bigotry, hate and injustice" and of fostering an atmosphere of "prejudice."
It shouldn't surprise us that the Boston Archdiocese would allow a "Gay Pride" Mass. For the Boston Archdiocese has succumbed to the leaven of infidelity. Why a pride Mass? Cornelius a Lapide, a brilliant Scripture scholar, has explained that, "First among the vices of Sodom is pride. Then the satiety of bread, or rather of food, delicacies, banquets. Third, the abundance of goods, of luxury and pleasure. Fourth, idleness. Fifth, lack of mercy...
Hear St. Jerome: 'Haughtiness, satiety of bread, the abundance of all things, idleness, pleasures, such were the sins of Sodom. Because of these, they forgot God, since the continual presence of riches seemed perennial and thus there was no need of recourse to God to obtain them.' Therefore, we first encounter pride in the sins of Sodom. Then God chastises the proud, permitting them to fall into a great and ignominious lust, as can be deduced from Rom 1:27.." (Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Commentaria in Ezechielem Prophetam, Paris: Vives, 1880; Vol. 12, pp. 618-619).
Pride. Vanity. Saint Paul so vividly describes this process of degradation in the first chapter of the book of Romans. He explains how pride leads to idolatry and how God abandons such people to their own passions:
"Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies." (Romans 1: 21-24).
And what does this mutual degradation consist of? St. Paul (or more accurately the Holy Spirit through St. Paul) explains that this mutual degradation is the practice of homosexuality: "Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." (Romans 1: 26-27).
St. Paul notes the unfortunate consequences which result from this process of degradation: "They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandal-mongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." (Romans 1: 25, 28-31).
Haughty and boastful. Qualities which jump out of the anonymous comment left at this Blog. By allowing a "Gay Pride" Mass, the Archdiocese of Boston has given the green light to celebrate the first sin of Sodom. The darkness continues to spread.
When I read the following words from the anonymous commenter, I had to do a double-take: "There will be good music, a packed Church, and good preaching...Come by if you want to see a real community that gathers to worship God in action." I say this because I remember years ago a Christian woman saying the very same thing about her church, the People's Temple.
I'm not suggesting that the people of St. Cecilia's Parish are going to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. But it would certainly seem to be the case that a Catholic parish is embracing something even worse than a Jim Jones. Pastor Jones led his congregation to a physical death in French Guyana. But the "Gospel of Sodom," the "Gay Pride Gospel," will lead souls to final impenitence and an eternity in Hell, all under the guise of advancing something "Christian." It was Saint Cyprian of Carthage, writing against the Greco-Roman pagan world and its vices, who said: "That Jupiter of theirs is not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders...now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion." (Letters 1:8).
Photo above is of a "Gay Pride 2011" demonstrator.
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1867, which lists the "sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance."
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