Win a free trip to Rome in this exciting competition

All you have to do is:-

* Terminate the gay Soho Masses

* Instal the Ordinariate in one of London's most beautiful churches with links back to the Blessed John Henry, Cardinal Newman

and complete the following sentence in not more than twenty words:

"In future I shall uphold the teachings of Holy Mother Church and respond swiftly to abuses because..........................................................................................................................................

Well done Archbishop Nichols...now may we please have more Latin Masses in your Diocese?

The LGBT dress code

My post on the Soho Masses has been misinterpreted by one or two souls who thought that I was commending them.

I was not. I was condemning them.

But I was not and would never condemn the people involved. The state of their souls is a matter between them and Almighty God.

The cry so often goes up from the Catholic Gay community "Accept us, accept us".
And my point was that the Church should itself issue a decree of "Bring them home".

So if the homosexual lobby wish for full integration with mainstream Church, they have to observe the niceties of Catholic life.

Here, for a start, is the suggested dress and behaviour code:

1. If you do not wish to be noticed - don't wear OTT flowery dresses. In fact, unless you were born a Scottish male, do not wear dresses at all.

2. Avoid the colour pink. Catholics should not use the Mass as a canvas for their political statements.

3. Similarly, no rainbows to be on display (or AIDS ribbons for that matter, we are concerned with the spiritual here, not the secular).

4. Do not gather en masse at the entrance to the Church before or after Mass. It is impolite to block the way for others.

5. If females are to enter the sanctuary area, please cover your head, arms and ensure that your skirt is modest in length.

6. Similarly, males should not wear hats, shorts or short sleeved shirts.

7. Appear as your birth gender demands - this is not the place to parade gender preferences.

8. Pray for all, not just for those with the same sexual issues as yourself.

9. Remember that there are children in the congregation and that they should not be subject to influence of the morally wrong kind.

10. As with all Catholics, the reception of Holy Communion requires that the individual is in a state of grace and free from mortal sin. The Church teaches, infallibly, that to commit a homosexual act is a mortal sin. Failure to observe this when receiving Holy Communion,  is, in itself, a most grave sin.

And if you would like a number 11 then please do not show public signs of your "ishoos" outside the Church. By that I mean, no overtly sexual hugging and kissing or dating.

I hope that this post does not upset anyone, probably a fond hope.

All I can say in my defence is, that, it applies to us all, not just homosexuals.

Now how inclusive is that?

Isn't it time the Church calls an end to separation and brings the homosexual Catholic community under its wing?

It's a serious question. We have experienced the brouhaha that surrounds the so called "Gay Masses" at the Church of The Assumption of Our Lady and St Gregory in London's Warwick Street.

Bring these people in from the cold!

But the feet of the Church seem firmly rooted in treacle.
No change, no development.

I do not like what takes place at these "Gay Masses" - it is an aberration but, those who follow the Soho Masses every Sunday surely deserve something better than this.
It's isolationist, prejudiced, discriminatory, it's a form of sexual apartheid - an entrance for blacks and an entrance for whites, homosexuals or heterosexuals.

We do not have this form of discrimination in Menevia Diocese, We do not know, or particularly care whether our congregation members are lesbians, homosexuals, bank robbers, adulterers or serial paper clip thieves, it's not really our concern, it is purely God's concern.

We embrace all who attend our Masses but then, we don't harp on about  heterosexual issues in our bidding prayers, sermons or after Mass debates.

The Mass is for all and is set in a format for all. It does not need a rainbow banner draped across the sanctuary, or people wearing strange wrong sex garb.
It requires a dress code (yes, it does, even the OF Mass) and that code precludes men dressing as women or vice versa.

But Westminster Archdiocese appears content to corral these poor folk in a sort of sixties type time capsule where those who have this leaning appear as caricatures who stand outside the mainstream of what should be their Mother Church.

Bring them into the fold, do away with all this homosexual babble; if they wish to be accepted then accept them but they have to play their part, as part of the whole, not as freaks.

That means, of course, doing away with Masses that exclude, by their very nature, Catholic families or, even, young Catholic men and women.

Dedicate the Warwick Street Masses to Catholics (full stop), do away with the dated imagery and stop patronising this part of the community.

Better still, provide an EF Mass for all - I am sure that Our Lady and St Gregory would approve.

Ramblings.....(or rantings)

Served at Mass on Corpus Christi but, after Mass the celebrant left the procession to meet with the congregation as they left the church. We servers, complete with 3 non participating priests, proceeded to the Sacristy where we knelt for a blessing. The lead priest looked aghast and I had to explain that we wanted his blessing - he gave it, in English and with a look of shock and concern on his face.
At OF Masses are blessings not extended to the altar servers after Mass?

In correspondence with an Indian seminarian and fellow blogger. I posed the question as to how he regarded the fact that we in Great Britain are now recruiting young Indian priests to plug the lack of vocations gap. He stated that, as we (GB) had helped India over the years with missionaries, legal systems, railway networks etc, he was pleased that his country could reciprocate by sending us missionary priests to support us in our hour of need. Great sentiments but I still believe it to be a poor practice on behalf of the CBEW.

If tobacco commercials are banned on British television - why has the go ahead been given to screen commercials for abortion clinics?

If a 'Red Mass' may be held for Lawyers and a White Mass for Physicians shouldn't the Warwick Street Masses be Pink ones?

Has anyone seen Melanie Lately.....lately? This is The Tablet stringer who wrote on how striking one's chest at the Confiteor equates to child abuse. Can't find her on Google, even Ozzy Google.

Can we just agree that Shakespeare was obviously a Catholic - and move on?

Is Archbishop Nichol's style of management autocratic? (Vaughan School and Catholic Prison Chaplains episodes spring to mind).

Can we just close down the Catholic Church  in Austria and start again with a clean slate?

Just who is going to queue to confess their sins to the Holy Father in Madrid? Must be very brave or completely barking.

When will the LMS tackle Menevia Diocese regarding their website information on availability of EF Masses? - it is wrong on 4 counts (which is a lot when you only have 6 venues to list)

Why are Syro Malabar rite Masses springing up everywhere yet we still struggle to find a Church with a Sunday EF Mass?

Oh, and when will nuns learn that dressing a la British Home Stores marks them out more than a wimple and habit?