ST. LOUIS (LifeSiteNews) — Faithful Catholics peacefully prayed the Rosary and sang the “Salve Regina” prior to an LGBT-themed Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, which serves as the parish for the Saint Louis University community and local residents.
The Mass was part of a pro-LGBT conference.
SLU, a Jesuit university in Missouri, hosted this year’s “Ignatian Q” event, an annual pro-LGBT conference for Jesuit universities. The conference, titled “Queerly Beloved: An Intersectional Celebration of Queer Spirituality,” ran from April 18-21. Events included a “drag brunch,” called “Holy Heels, and High LGBTEA Drag Brunch,” according to a LinkedIn post by the student government president.
The following day, though unconnected from this event, Dylan Mulvaney, a male who dresses like a woman, spoke at SLU.
The details of the Mass were recently published by Outreach, a dissident LGBT publication founded by Fr. James Martin and connected to America magazine.
Prior to a “Mass for LGBTQ Catholics,” a SLU student went up to the lectern to make announcements about the reception of Communion but became “confused and alarmed,” according to Outreach’s account.
Michael O’Loughlin, a homosexual America magazine contributor and defender of the blasphemous “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” wrote:
In the front rows of the church sat a crowd of about 20 people, separated by gender: men wearing jackets and ties seated on one side of the church, women in long dresses and veils on the other. Together, they were praying the [R]osary, in Latin and English, and many looked slightly older than the undergraduates at the conference. Both their attire and demeanor made them stand out. Many of the conference attendees sported clothing and accessories with rainbow and transgender flag colors.
The group continued praying during the announcement and then began to chant the “Salve Regina,” according to O’Loughlin’s account.
Saint Louis University recently hosted a pro-LGBT conference that included a drag brunch. pic.twitter.com/xQtOBBDnAe
— Matt Lamb (@MattLamb22) April 29, 2024
While O’Loughlin tried to compare the protest to pro-abortion and pro-Palestinian protesters disrupting Masses, the faithful Catholics did no such thing. As Catholics, they were attending a Mass and did so without interrupting it.
“The protesters remained kneeling in prayer during the entirety of the Mass, reciting the [R]osary aloud and at some points, shaking their [R]osary beads, apparently in protest,” O’Loughlin wrote.
Attendees who embrace the choice to live as “transgender” or homosexual predictably criticized the faithful Catholics praying at the Mass.
“It’s hugely important for us to be visible in the [C]hurch,” a gender-confused student named “Lane” Hartman said. Hartman is a female who identifies as a male.
Hartman “signed up to be a lector during the Ignatian Q Mass but when [she] realized that the encouraging community [she] was used to at College Church had been targeted by protesters, [she] broke down,” O’Loughlin said, using incorrect pronouns for Hartman, referring to the female as a male and using “Mr.”
Boston College theology doctorate student Nick Fagnant asked: “What will this teach them [conference attendees] about the Catholic Church?”
“Before Mass began, a Jesuit priest at the church asked a member of the group if they would leave the front row pews when they were finished praying the [R]osary, as they were reserved for conference participants,” O’Loughlin wrote. “The group refused, saying that they planned to occupy the space as a form of protest, relegating the LGBTQ[-identifying] participants to the peripheries of the church, a reality the priest described as ‘gut-wrenching,'” according to the account.
It is not clear how 20 people alone could take up that much space, particularly in a large church like St. Xavier’s.
What’s gut-wrenching is your gross and blatant disregard for the absolute peril that souls identifying as homosexual or transgender are truly in. Holding identity-affirming events like this mockery of the “Mass” serves only to commit souls to grave debauchery.
— Lepanto Institute (@LepantoInst) April 27, 2024
“What’s gut-wrenching is your gross and blatant disregard for the absolute peril that souls identifying as homosexual or transgender are truly in,” the Lepanto Institute wrote in response to Father James Martin. “Holding identity-affirming events like this mockery of the ‘Mass’ serves only to commit souls to grave debauchery.”
Catholic teaching on transgenderism, homosexuality is clear
The faithful Catholics who attended the event were pushing back against the distortion of the faith.
The Catholic Church condemns homosexual activity as a mortal sin and similarly condemns cross-dressing and bodily mutilation to look like the opposite sex. It also teaches that homosexual tendencies are themselves intrinsically disordered.
Individuals with inclinations to homosexuality are called to live a life of chastity, which includes a total renunciation of homosexuality, and those who suffer gender-confusion should be supported with prayer and counseling to help them accept their sex.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
The Catholic Church also teaches there are four “sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance,” one of these being sodomy.
The Church also rejects the idea that someone can change his or her sex and teaches the truth that sex is immutable.