Catholic Holy Redeemer members tired of drag queen bingo, sexfests
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
Catholic Holy Redeemer members tired of drag queen bingo, sexfests*
Posted: October 25, 2007
The recent highly publicized photos and video of San Francisco
Archbishop George Niederauer serving communion to two flamboyantly
dressed members of the ultra anti-Catholic "Sisters of Perpetual
Indulgence" was no happenstance. And soon they will be on their way to
the Vatican for any who have not yet seen them.
"I am the gentleman responsible for the filming of the whole thing,"
Anthony Gonzales, chief of the St. Joseph's Men Society, said that
shortly after the first round of publicity over the photos and video. "I
sent one of my men to film this.
Two "sisters" at Holy Redeemer church in San Franscico
"We knew he was going into this parish in the heart of the Castro Street
Fair to celebration and be part of the celebration of their lifestyle,
and we were waiting to see what he was going to do and how he was going
to do it," Gonzales said.
And the reason?
"We can't even take our children to Mass anymore. We can't even go to
our churches," he said. "We finally got to the point, and said, 'Hey,
look, we can't take this anymore,'" he said.
"We want the Roman Catholic faithful to return, and are sick and tired
of having to deal with men who are faithless, who are our leaders," he
said. "They come into positions of power because of other homosexuals,
or at least are promoting them into positions of power.
"We want to keep the fires burning. This guy has to know he can't
continue to get way with his actions. He's played dumb before," he said.
"He says, 'I guess I made a mistake.' So he always makes these mistakes!"
"He says he didn't recognize two gay men dressed in drag coming up to
receive communion in clown makeup!" Gonzales wondered.
That incident was publicized with the mens group video on the Catholic
blogsite Quamdiu Domine.
The archbishop, in an diocese newspaper editorial, apologized for
serving the two "Sisters," explaining he didn't recognize who they were.
He described the Oct. 7 event has routine. "The congregation was devout
and the liturgy was celebrated with reverence. I noticed no
demonstration, no protest, no disruption of the Eucharist," he wrote.
"At Communion time, toward the end of the line, two strangely dressed
persons came to receive Communion. As I recall one of them wore a large
flowered hat or garland. I did not recognize either of them as wearing
mock religious garb," he said.
"Afterward it was made clear to me that these two people were members of
the organization 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,' who have long made a
practice of mocking the Catholic Church in general and religious women
in particular," he said.
"Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of
Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until
October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they
approached me. After the event, I realized that they were members of
this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had
been a mistake. I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San
Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so," he said.
But Gonzales and several other activists said such "incidents" long have
been occurring at the church, and it's likely that the archbishop knew
about them. So now is time for action, they said.
"We are going to be submitting all of this information to Rome, getting
it into the right hands," Gonzales said. "I believe that he is
constantly a proponent of homosexuals."
Archdiocese spokesman Maurice Healy said that Niederauer does not know
the membership of that particular church. "There's a lot of people who
are upset. I think we're equally upset," he said. But the archbishop has
a policy of reaching out to "those people," he said.
Gonzalez disagreed. "They don't reach out to that community to call for
repentance and healing and their reconciliation with Christ. They say,
'This is your lifestyle and we are here to give you approbation.'"
Gonzalez, a theologian, said a compilation of documentation will be
forwarded to Rome within the next few days. "We're also composing a
letter to Neiderauer asking him to excommunicate the group, Sisters of
Perpetual Indulgence, so that this mistake cannot happen again. And
we're asking him to excommunicate [San Francisco Mayor] Gavin Newsom and
[U.S. House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi for not adhering to Catholic doctrine
on same-sex relationships and abortion."
The incident with the "Sisters" was just the final straw, Gonzalez said.
He said just last fall the pastor of Holy Redeemer gave the "Sisters"
permission to run a bingo operation at the church hall. Healy said the
archdiocese wasn't aware of what was going on, and when it found out, it
ordered it stopped.
But other activists said that they have been notifying the church
archdiocese of their objections to such issues regularly. One such case
was a recent "Drag Queen Calendar Nite" at the church. Those who
objected notified the church office of their concerns before the event,
but apparently were ignored since it was held anyway.
"I had hoped that after the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence obscene and
perverted monthly bingo nights (supplying male sex toys for prizes) had
been stopped that this type of activity was no longer going to be a
problem there. Obviously not," one wrote in an e-mail to the church.
On the Catholic Blog, participants listed some of what is being prepared
for Rome's attention.
The information includes a video advertisement for the "Sisters' Revival
Bingo," where one winner boasts of getting "more gay porn than most
young boys have" and organizers boast of "spanking" participants.
Also assembled was documentation from Americans for Truth about the
church's repeated sponsorship of booths and other entries in the various
San Francisco "gay" festivals, such as the recent Folsom Street Fair, on
which WND reported.
'Sisters' receiving Communion
In support of their concerns that Niederauer not only is aware of the
"gay" activities at the church, he's pleased, the activists cited his
opinion that the "gay"-themed "Brokeback Mountain," is "very powerful,"
and endorsement of a plan to have Catholic adoption agencies refer
babies for adoption by homosexuals.
Worse yet, the activists cite X-rated YouTube videos that feature the
same "Sisters" who organized the drag queen event. One of the less
offensive has one of the bingo organizers, named "Heklina," singing
about "taking a young handsome boy out for luncheon…"
"The AB issued an apology, but, if he's sincere about it, he'll issue a
press release to publicly excommunicate the organization and the
members, so that no priest or pastor in his diocese has any trouble
deciding what to do," wrote one activist who requested anonymity
Allyson Smith, an analyst for Americans for Truth, noted that the
Catholic Church believes communion involves the actual "body and blood
of Jesus Christ" and such participation by the "twisted 'sisters'" is
offensive to many.
Her opinions were echoed abundantly on a response section to the
California Catholic News story about the situation:
* May God have mercy on his soul," wrote "semperficatholic."
* "We need to bulldoze to the ground every Catholic Church in S.F. and
send these left handed Catholics to the Masonic lodge where they truly
belong. Let Satan put up with them," added "pablo."
* Mark was succinct: "Blasphemy."
* "You could say the Archbishop has a 'wide stance' toward
perversion-enthusiasts in the church," added "Grandma Hat."