By Hilary White
BOSTON, September 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A man who describes himself as a “happy, porn-writing sodomite” has expressed surprise at having been relieved of his duties as church reader at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Boston, Massachusetts. Scott Pomfret, an author of homosexual “romance” novels, told local media that he was not surprised that some backlash had come with the publication of his “gay memoir.” But he said he was “kind of speechless” that it had come from the Franciscan friars of St. Anthony’s where Pomfret had served as a lector at Mass for years.
“I anticipated in my book that perhaps the archdiocese might boot me out, but it never occurred to me that it would be the friars,” he told the Boston Globe. “I am still kind of speechless – I am on some level amazed that it came from the friars, since these guys sat through interviews with me for the express purpose of this book.”
Pomfret, a lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he had told the friars that he was an advocate of same-sex “marriage” and lived with his male “partner” and wrote homosexual “erotic works.” Even so, they allowed him to serve as a lector most Fridays.
“The fact that I write erotic gay romance novels is no secret among the friars,” Pomfret said Monday on his blog.
“In ‘Confession, I related how Father Myron asked me how ‘Hot Sauce’ was doing and that Father Bear-Daddy had read a copy. When Bear-Daddy informed me that he had read it, he had laughed about its contents (and told me he had passed it on to a friend).”
Indeed it seems unlikely that the Franciscan friars could have failed to know about Pomfret’s accomplishments as an author. Amazon.com lists at least 6 homosexual pornographic novels authored by Pomfret and his partner, and his work was featured in articles in the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Publishers’ Weekly reviewed Pomfret’s “Fresh Men: New Gay Voices” calling it “a moving portrait of the tense intimacy between an aging gay man and a teenage hitchhiker with ‘runaway eyes.’” Excerpts of his novel “Sucksluts Anonymous” are posted online.
In his autobiographical book, “Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir,” various members of the local Catholic hierarchy are featured anonymously and indentified as being active homosexuals. Pomfret says that some of the friars agreed to be interviewed for the book.
Executive director of St. Anthony’s Shrine, Fr. David Convertino, told the Globe, “There were people who felt it was incompatible for someone to stand up publicly and say, ‘I’m a pornographer, and I’m a lector at St. Anthony Shrine.’”
Convertino said, “There’s a public stance that he’s taking, and it seems that most of this is to sell the book.” Fr. Convertino also denied that the Shrine had dissolved their “gay and lesbian spirituality group,” saying it had been changed to focus on occasional events such as retreats instead of monthly meetings.
New Ways Ministry, the organisation that was condemned by the Vatican for its homosexualist advocacy, lists St. Anthony’s Shrine as one of the most “gay friendly” parishes in the US. St. Anthony’s Shrine website links to the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgendered Ministry run by Boston Gay Catholics (BGC). BGC “envision[s] a future church that welcomes all – and we intend to do our part to build Her.”