LA Archbishop Holding Mass for ‘End to Prejudice’ as Dodgers Host Anti-Catholic Hate Group
CV NEWS FEED // Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez invited local Catholics to join him for a Mass with special prayer intentions against bigotry on the day the LA Dodgers will honor the anti-Catholic “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” (SPI).
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“Please join me! And please share this invitation with your friends and loved ones and neighbors,” Gomez tweeted. Those gathered for Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles “will be praying in a special way for our city and our country, for an end to prejudice, and for renewed respect for the religious beliefs of all Angelenos and all Americans,” he added.
SPI is a group of men who dress in lewd imitations of religious sisters’ habits. CatholicVote has reported
how aggressive SPI has been in its performative anti-Catholicism. Examples of SPI’s public acts of blasphemy and sacrilege include pole dancing on a cross, filling chalices with yogurt to simulate ingesting semen as part of a mock-Mass, and suggestively touching and dancing on a man dressed as the crucified Christ.
Numerous Catholic leaders have condemned the Dodgers’ decision to honor SPI, including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and former LA Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron. Barron has described SPI as an “anti-Catholic hate group.”
The Dodgers will award SPI with a Community Hero Award on Friday, June 16 – the Catholic feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Catholics everywhere have presented an increasingly united front in opposition to Dodgers’ decision. In addition to condemnations from a growing number of individual bishops, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has condemned the Dodgers’ decision. The USCCB also invited the faithful to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart during the event.
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Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, will lead a Eucharistic procession the afternoon of June 16 at one of the Dodger Stadium parking lots as part of a prayerful protest sponsored by Virgin Most Powerful Radio.
Catholic parishes in the LA Archdiocese are planning Holy Hours and other prayer events during the Dodgers’ “Pride Night.”
An earlier statement from the LA Archdiocese stated:
Honoring a group that mocks women religious, and worse, desecrates the cross, profanes the Eucharist, and disrupts holy Mass has caused disappointment, dismay, and pain in our Catholic community, as well as among our fellow Christians and people of goodwill.
The statement added that the archdiocese “stands for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which means we stand against any form of bigotry, hate, or sacrilege.”
Readers can click here for more details about the Mass Archbishop Gomez will celebrate Friday.
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