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Twin Cities Catholic Archbishop Nixes Gay Pride Service

By Peter J. Smith

MINNEAPOLIS - ST. PAUL, Minnesota, June 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The new Catholic archbishop for the Twin Cities has told a parish that it can no longer hold prayer services celebrating the homosexual lifestyle and that parishioners ought to pray for peace instead if they want to remain in conformity with Catholic teaching.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, led by its new administrator, Archbishop John Nienstedt, informed parish staff members of St. Joan of Arc church that their annual homosexual pride prayer service planned for Wednesday - an event that has been held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Pride Celebration - must come to a permanent end.

Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told Pioneer Press that the archdiocese had suggested to the parish that they hold a "peace" service instead. The diocese insisted that the parish cannot advocate special rights to legitimize the "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender" lifestyle because it is a rejection of Catholic moral teaching.

"That descriptor (LGBT) was not possible on church property. We suggested they shift it, change the nature of it a little bit, and they did," said McGrath.

"The reason is quite simply because it was a LGBT pride prayer service, and that is really inimical to the teachings of the Catholic Church."

Nienstedt's courageous stand, however, has drawn the ire of radical homosexualist groups masquerading as Catholic ministries that believe his administration of the Twin Cities archdiocese is a departure from the methods of his predecessor, Archbishop Harry Flynn.

According to the Pioneer Press, David McCaffrey, co-founder of the self-styled Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, derided the Archdiocese's decision in an e-mail to supporters as "yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at LGBT persons and their families under Archbishop Nienstedt's reign of homophobic hatred."

However, Flynn, Nienstedt's predecessor, had also taken actions to prohibit Masses from taking place at a pro-homosexual event, to forbid speakers supporting the homosexual lifestyle from speaking at several parishes, and had banned the rainbow sash wearers from receiving communion, on account of their blatant rejection of Catholic teaching on homosexuality.

Whatever the case may be, parishes that once felt emboldened to flout publicly their Church's teachings on sexuality, are now singing a different tune under Nienstedt's firm hand. Homosexual activists have also seen zero participation by Catholic parishes that normally advertise in the "pride guide" for this weekend's upcoming Twin Cities Pride events.

Nienstedt has publicly stated that homosexuality is a disorder, and that while the Catholic Church welcomes those who struggle with same-sex inclinations, for their sake it cannot endorse what it understands to be harmful to them.

"The distinction is people who fully adapt to the GLBT lifestyle are not permitted to receive the sacraments or be the subject of a prayer service that endorses that lifestyle," said McGrath.

Nienstedt has warned that Catholics "who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle" are cooperating in grave evil, and commit what the Church calls a "mortal sin" when they do so with full knowledge and consent.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Minneapolis Archbishop Condemned for Giving Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07111905.html

"Catholic" Homosexuals Demonstrate against Bishop Nienstedt's Too "Authoritative Teaching"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07120703.html

Proposed US Bishops Document on Homosexuality Encourages Love the Sinner but Hate the Sin
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06101907.html

New Catholic Bishop Expected to Bring Orthodoxy and Opposition to Homosexual Agenda to Minneapolis
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jun/07060507.html

Archbishop Under Fire for Church Teaching on Homosexuality Supported by Catholic Parents
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112904.html

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