BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut, December 11, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Another U.S. city has officially introduced open homosexuality into its St. Patrick’s Day parade. And again, the Catholic diocese is continuing to stand by the parade.
The committee for the Stamford, Connecticut, parade announced its choice of state Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald as its 2016 grand marshal November 22.
McDonald is openly gay, his biography on the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Website closing with the statement, “Justice McDonald and his husband, Charles, live in Stamford.”
The local Catholic diocese has indicated it has no issue with the move to have the openly homosexual judge lead the parade, according to the local news outlet the Stamford Advocate.
McDonald was at odds with the Catholic Church in Connecticut in 2009 when as a state senator he proposed controversial legislation along with another lawmaker to regulate the Church’s finances.
SB 1098 was specific to the Catholic Church, and would have removed parish priests and the bishop from their oversight positions, giving power to a lay board. The bill was ultimately tabled, but not before significant backlash for its apparent violation of the Fourteenth Amendment ban on discriminatory legislation.
“We are deeply concerned about statements made by elected officials suggesting that Connecticut's existing religious corporation statutes, including those applicable to the Roman Catholic Church, are unconstitutional and should be amended,” the Diocese of Bridgeport, under Bishop William Lori, said in a report from Catholic News Agency at the time. “These statements are misinformed.”
The spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport said current Bishop Frank Caggiano was not asked about the St. Patrick’s Day parade committee’s choice of McDonald as grand marshal, saying as well it would not dispute the decision and calling the St. Patrick’s celebration a day of inclusiveness.
“The diocese respects the decision of the committee,“ Brian Wallace said. “It’s a day of inclusiveness. It’s a day people drop their differences. We hope people have a good day and enjoy the parade.”
The diocese did not respond to LifeSiteNews' request for comment by press time.
Stamford St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee Chair Michael Feighan told the Stamford Advocate that McDonald, who aside from being a judge, has served on municipal boards and already been involved with the parade, met all the criteria for grand marshal role.
He is thought to be the first openly gay grand marshal in the U.S. selected to lead a St. Patrick’s Day parade, the report said.
In 2013 McDonald was confirmed as the first openly gay justice to the Connecticut Supreme Court, according to the Connecticut Mirror.
St. Patrick’s Day is the feast day honoring Ireland’s leading patron saint, and the annual Catholic observance holds substantial cultural significance for the Irish community, with parades and countless other festivities across the U.S. each year.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan upset Catholics earlier this year when he served as grand marshal for the 2015 New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, after the parade committee allowed an openly homosexual activist group march in the parade with its identifying banner, breaking the event’s previous two-hundred-plus-year stance of only allowing Irish themed groups to participate in the parade honoring the Catholic saint.
The New York City parade committee’s agreement to allow the homosexual activist group after decades of pressure from gay activist groups was supposed to also mean a pro-life group would take part in the Catholic event, but no pro-life group has been allowed, and earlier this past fall the parade committee voted to allow a second homosexual group.
A Massachusetts Catholic school pulled out of its local St. Patrick’s Day parade this year after it learned a homosexual activist group would be allowed to march while openly identifying its homosexuality, its principal at the time citing Catholic Church teaching.
“Catholics are forbidden to sponsor or even participate in an event which openly promotes unnatural and immoral behavior,” Immaculate Heart of Mary School’s Brother Thomas Dalton said. “The Church will never accept nor condone same sex marriage and the homosexual lifestyle.”
NEW YORK, March 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan led Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day parade on Tuesday as grand marshal, despite backlash
from faithful Catholics unhappy with the organizers’ decision to allow
an openly homosexual activist group to march in the event.
“I’m as radiant as the sun, so thanks be to God for the honor and the
joy,” said Cardinal Dolan on Tuesday morning, as he led 250,000
marchers down Fifth Avenue – including a delegation from “Out @ NBC
Universal,” a group of gay activists who work for NBC, the network that
televises the parade.
Catholic commentator Michael Voris and his team from ChurchMilitant.TV were present at the parade and were able to question Dolan
on his decision during a press scrum. “Your Eminence, do you have
anything to say to the loyal Catholics who find what you’re doing here a
great scandal to the faith?” Voris asked.
“No, come on in. We’d love to have you,” Dolan replied.
Voris reports that he and his cameraman were then removed from the press scrum, providing video of an official telling them to leave, and then calling police over to escort them out of the area.
Both the parade’s organizers and Cardinal Dolan drew criticism
from faithful Catholics last year by approving Out@NBC Universal’s
request to march in this year’s parade, under a banner that makes
reference to their homosexuality. The controversial decision prompted
the Catholic League and at least one Catholic school to pull out of the parade, while nearly 5,000 people signed a petition urging Cardinal Dolan to withdraw from the event as a show of support for Catholic teaching forbidding homosexual behavior.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan responds to a question about
his decision to serve as grand marshal at the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
ChurchMilitant.tvBut the cardinal refused to back down, expressing support
for the group’s inclusion. “I have no trouble with the decision at
all,” Cardinal Dolan said at a press conference announcing his
appointment as grand marshal. “I think the decision is a wise one.”
Meanwhile, the parade’s organizers further upset rank-and-file Catholics by refusing to let a pro-life group march, saying they didn’t want to risk taking attention away from the gay group.
“That won’t be happening,” parade committee vice chairman John Lahey
said of the pro-life group’s request to march. “What we want to do is
keep 2015 focused on the gesture of goodwill we made towards the gay
community with the inclusion of OUT@NBCUniversal.”
For the second year in a row, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
refused to attend, saying that despite all the controversy, the
organizers behind the celebration of Ireland’s patron saint haven’t done
enough to make the event gay-friendly.
According to the mayor, while he saw the inclusion of a single
homosexual group as “progress,” he won’t participate in the parade until
it is “open to [homosexual groups] who would like to participate who
don't happen to work for NBC."
"Having only one delegation associated with one company that allows
members of the LGBT community is, obviously, a pretty narrow
concession," said de Blasio, after marching in the gay-oriented “St.
Pat's for All” parade in Queens on Sunday. "We'd like to see something
that's more inclusive."
"I will not be marching [in Tuesday’s parade], but I look forward to
progress in the future," de Blasio stated, at an unrelated press
conference the following day. "I do think the first step was taken this
year and I'm hopeful that soon there'll be others taken."
It seems likely that de Blasio’s hopes will be realized. While at
least one homosexual group was turned away from participating in this
year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, organizers were quick to note that it
was simply a matter of the available slots having been filled prior to
the group’s application to march, and said homosexual groups were
“welcome” to apply for slots in 2016’s parade.
Meanwhile, a number of Catholics disillusioned by the organizers’
actions offered an alternative event on Tuesday at Church of the Holy
Innocents, not far from the festivities on Fifth Avenue.
Proudly on
display was the Children First Foundation’s “Choose Life” banner – the
same one that was rejected by parade organizers. The event, dubbed the
“St. Patrick’s Day Lenten Pilgrimage,” included four Masses, the
opportunity for Confession, and a prayer vigil for unborn children.
(Associated Press) NEW YORK – The Catholic League says it will sit out next year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York because parade organizers aren't letting an anti-abortion Catholic group march.
Catholic League head Bill Donohue said Thursday that his organization won't participate in the March 2015 parade for the first time in 20 years.
Parade organizers said last week that they would allow OUT(at)NBCUniversal to march. That's an LGBT resource group at the company that broadcasts the parade.
Gay activists say inviting the NBC employee group isn't enough.
But Donohue says parade organizers promised him that if a gay group could march under its own banner, a "pro-life" Catholic group would be included also.
He says the organizers backed out of their pledge.
Parade spokesman Bill O'Reilly called the Catholic League's decision disappointing.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Vortex, where lies and falsehoods are trapped and
exposed. I’m Michael Voris.
When a Catholic bishop who is given care of souls does just the opposite, then he is a
wicked bishop.
What New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has done in welcoming gays officially into the
parade celebrating one of the most revered saints in the Church is purely diabolical.
That’s right, Your Eminence, someone has got to say it to you flat out—you are in the
grip of the devil.
You continue to be a non-stop source of scandal for the faithful, both in what you do and
in what you fail to do.
You have in this case given your blessing to an organized group of souls publicly
celebrating their sodomy in a parade that celebrates the sanctity of a man who converted
a nation away from paganism.
What you are doing is evil, and if you can’t see that, then you are blind.
You give your approval to sin—public approval to mortal sin from a Churchman. You
have done this before, but never on so grand a scale. You give active homosexuality a
free pass in your archdiocese.
You are not fit to be a successor of the Apostles. You sully the bride of Christ with your
wickedness.
You invite the most anti-Catholic man ever to hold the White House to a public dinner.
Even after other bishops and cardinals made private appeals to you to rescind the
invitation, you went ahead with it.
You go on national television and distort the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ
with your horrible comments about gay football player Michael Sam, saying “Bravo” to
his sodomy. What the hell is wrong with you?
What other conclusion can people who love the Church draw, other than you
don’t.
To everyone who cares about the Church, looking in from the outside, it looks like you no
longer believe the Catholic faith—because as you know, there is no such thing as a partial
Catholic—you’re either all in or not.
But you and other wicked people in the Church have allowed an attitude to grow, an
atmosphere to come to life, where people think they are free to pick and choose what they
want.
Do you think you have any chance of escaping hell when you die if you don’t repent of
all this before your death? Do you even believe in Hell?
You cavort with child-killing politicans, you give them shout-outs at the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass, you go on national television to an audience of millions and practically mock
the idea of ever preaching against the sins of the flesh—the sins that the Mother of God
revealed to the seers at Fatima most souls go to hell for.
And in the area of what you do NOT do—you do not support faithful Catholics who want
some sanity in their parish community, free from all the modernist deformations you
celebrate. Instead you threaten to close their parishes.
You do NOT make a clear definitive statement in support of Jesus Christ when standing
with followers of the false religion of Islam. You confuse the faithful about the nature of
Islam by your silence. You will not call it for what it is—a heresy, a false religion. Islam
denies the divinity of Christ; it rejects the Holy Trinity. Muslims do not possess
supernatural faith. And knowing all this, you publicly encouraged followers of this false
religion to remain in it.
How dare you parade, now literally parade, around New York in the red robes of a
bishop, meant to signify the death you would happily undergo to preserve the flock, when
in reality, far from preserving them from death, you are actually bringing death to them.
You need to repent publicly and swiftly. You need to admit the many sins and scandals
you have caused and tell the world you were wrong. You need to lay aside your ego, your
need to be praised by men, for the sake of your own soul and the souls of those whom
you influence.
What you are doing is evil and wicked. You tear at tradition-minded Catholics and
support and uphold sodomites. Do not think the punishment visited on you will not be of
the most severe sort when you die, perhaps even before you die, if you do not change.
You need the humility to publicly recognize your sin, admit it, repent of it, and resign
your office now. And for the record—any other bishops in the United States who have
lost their faith need to step aside as well for the same reasons.
The time has come—for an authentic Catholic Uprising!
Gays exclusion led to Boston Beer Company decision
(WCVB) BOSTON — After
its support of the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade led one Boston
restaurant to boycott its brew, the Boston Beer Company – which
manufactures Sam Adams – has pulled its sponsorship from Sunday's
parade.
Club Café, in the South End, had announced it would
not serve the company's beer because of the ongoing controversy over the
exclusion of openly gay individuals from marching in the parade.
Boston
Beer Company said that it is disappointed that an agreement could not
be reached between the gay rights advocacy group MassEquality and parade
organizers that would have allowed a group of gay veterans to march,
despite pressure from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Rep. Stephen Lynch.
"We
share these sentiments with Mayor Walsh, Congressman Lynch and others
and therefore we will not participate in this year's parade," the Boston
Beer Company said in a statement.
"We were hopeful an agreement
could be reached to allow everyone, regardless of orientation, to
participate in this parade. However, given the current status of the
negotiations, this may not be possible," the statement read.
A
1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that the South Boston Allied War
Veterans Council could include or exclude whichever groups it wanted.
"As
a result of this (decision) we are again proud to serve Sam Adams and
Boston Beer Company Products," Club Café said in a statement on its
Facebook page.
The parade organizers' phone was not answered. The
parade, one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the nation,
draws as many as 1 million spectators to South Boston.
O Blessed Apostle of Ireland, glorious Saint Patrick, many centuries ago you converted Ireland to Christ. Receive my grateful and heartfelt prayers today and intercede for me and for those I love.
I unite my prayers to those of all your spiritual children, turning confidently to God through the ages. May I begin anew at this moment to love God with all my heart and serve him with all my strength.
Gain for me that missionary spirit which inspired you to work for the gospel. Open my heart to charity for all the poor that they may find joy and relief and give glory to God with all the saints.
NEW YORK, March 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan led Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day parade on Tuesday as grand marshal, despite backlash
from faithful Catholics unhappy with the organizers’ decision to allow
an openly homosexual activist group to march in the event.
Prayer to Saint Patrick