EL ESCORIAL, Spain (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic church near the Spanish capital may be subject to deconsecration after a simulated homosexual “wedding” was held there.
The sacrilegious wedding-like ceremony took place in a private Catholic chapel, part of the Finca El Campillo, a palace residence in the Spanish town of El Escorial.
Father Florentino de Andrés, a parish priest in El Escorial, told the Spanish-language outlet ACI Presna that he had no prior knowledge of the event. He said that he would talk to the property owners, and if the reports of what happened were correct, he would demand that the chapel be deconsecrated.
Video footage of the event that took place on February 24 shows the chapel filled with guests who applaud two men in formal attire exiting the church while holding hands. The scene looked like the end of a marriage ceremony typically seen during the celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony, usually before or within a Catholic Mass.
Me pasan este clip, que es público en Instagram. Un acto de exaltación sodomítica acontecido en la ermita de una finca privada de bodas en Madrid.
Si sois católicos y os invitan a irreverencias semejantes, no seáis complices de un pecado mortal. Recemos por su conversión. pic.twitter.com/EpMmVwIyv2— P. Juan Manuel Góngora (@patergongora) February 25, 2024
According to ACI Presna, the ceremony also featured other elements similar to a Catholic wedding. The two homosexual men, who were civilly “married” a few days prior, exchanged rings. At one point, they knelt in front of a wooden cross. A picture from the ceremony shows that both carried a white cloth with blue stripes on their shoulders, in what ACI said was “a gesture similar to that known as the ritual of the vigil originating from the Mozarabic liturgy.”
“In this Catholic rite, the head of the wife and the shoulders of the husband are covered, who, kneeling, receive a blessing,” the ACI report stated.
Cristina González Navarro, who owns the property, including the Catholic chapel, insisted that “a wedding wasn’t held” and that “there was no priest” present in comments made to ACI.
The Catholic Church condemns homosexual activity as “intrinsically disordered,” mortally sinful, and a “sin that cries to heaven,” in accordance with Sacred Scripture and the constant Tradition of the Church.
Father Juan Manuel Góngora, a priest of the diocese of Almeria, Spain, condemned the sacrilegious display, calling it “(a)n act of sodomitic exaltation” that “happened in the chapel of a private wedding property in Madrid.”
“If you are Catholics and you are invited to such irreverence, do not be complicit in a mortal sin. Let us pray for their conversion,” Góngora wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The Archdiocese of Madrid issued a statement on February 26, saying they were not informed prior to the event and that the ceremony would have “canonical effects,” insinuating that the chapel might be deconsecrated.
“The Archbishopric of Madrid was neither informed nor consulted about the possibility of carrying out such a celebration being a unilateral act of the estate that will have canonical effects in this regard,” the statement reads. “Under no circumstances is it permitted to perform a civil marriage within a religious enclosure.”
“Family hermitages can only be used for the purpose granted by the Church,” the statement continued. “They cannot be a place for public religious celebrations unless expressly authorized by the bishopric, nor can they be used for commercial purposes or for civil celebrations of any kind.”
“In fact, at the time, they were conceived only for the private devotional use of the family owners and in no case to be offered as an optional lucrative service of a company dedicated to the organization of social events.”
While the diocese did express its discontent over the illicit use of the chapel as a “lucrative service” for “social events,” it failed to directly condemn the celebration of a gravely sinful sodomitic relationship inside a consecrated Catholic church.
The highly controversial Vatican declaration Fiducia Supplicans, issued in December 2023 with the approval of Pope Francis, must undoubtedly be considered a major factor causing the increase in ceremonies that look like homosexual “Catholic marriages.”
A recent same-sex “blessing” ceremony of two civilly “married” homosexual celebrities in Uruguay, which was approved by the Vatican in accordance with Fiducia Supplicans, was performed by a Catholic priest in the context of the “wedding” celebrations, sparking confusion and outrage among Catholics in the country.
READ: Vatican-approved ‘blessing’ ceremony for ‘married’ homosexuals sparks outrage in Uruguay
As Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has noted, a “blessing” of a homosexual “couple,” which Fiducia Supplicans allows for, necessarily approves their relationship, in contradiction to Catholic teaching. “Indeed, if one blesses the couple qua couple, that is, as united by a sexual relationship other than marriage, then one is approving that union since it is the union that constitutes them as such a couple,” he wrote in a recent essay.
Other prominent prelates, theologians, and canon lawyers have made similar statements, such as Cardinal Robert Sarah and Father Gerald Murray.