A "Gospel Mass" and "Gay Masses" in Seattle


But the revolution has gone even further. Some bishops not only tolerate, approve, and promote such aberrations-----they take part in them. The 28 February 1981 edition of The Catholic Herald Citizen in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee carried a report of what it described as a "Gospel Mass" which look place in St. John's Cathedral. "What," you may be asking, "is a 'Gospel Mass'?" That was the question I posed myself when I first read the report. Having done so I can tell you. It is, and I quote: "The kind of celebration that sends shivers down the arms and spine, that spurred both joyful hand-clapping and moistened eyes." The hands clapped and the eyes were moistened at the spectacle of what we in England would term a bevy of buxom wenches cavorting before the altar. The costumes they wore appeared designed to accentuate their more than ample proportions. But, and here we are coming aown to what I believe is known in the United States as the "nitty-gritty," there were three bishops present-----three bishops of the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church, successors of the Apostles, men who not only possess the awesome power of bringing Christ down upon the altar but also have the power of creating new priests, who can do so in their turn. Did these bishops rise up in protest? Did they take up their croziers and drive the buxom wenches from the sanctuary? No, they did not. One of them, Bishop James Lyke of Cleveland, Ohio, felt so shivery and tingly that he rose to his feet and joined in the hand-clapping!

"Gay Masses" in Seattle

Does this "Gospel Mass" in St. John's Cathedral represent the absolute nadir of liturgical profanity in the United States today? No, it does not! The emotions which the Milwaukee Go-go Girls may have aroused in the gentlemen present for the "Gospel Mass" may have been inappropriate for a Cathedral, but at least they were not perverted. But Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle allows "Gay Masses" in his diocese. Surely this must be the absolute nadir! Men and women who publicly flaunt their addiction to a sin crying out to heaven for vengeance are recognized as a legitimate group within his diocese by a Catholic bishop, and allowed to use the Mass as a means to advertise their perversion and meet new partners.