By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, March 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Alex Munter is no stranger in Ottawa. As a candidate to become the mayor of the nation’s capital city, Munter is making rounds and gaining notoriety. His efforts to gain public favour will be aided next month by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, a historic church which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.Â
Munter is also no stranger internationally. As the national co-ordinator for the movement which pushed homosexual ‘marriage’ to a reality in Canada, Munter was quoted by media around the world rejoicing over Canada’s decision to redefine traditional marriage. Munter released the ‘Canadians for Equal Marriage’ official statement on the law’s passage (https://www.equal-marriage.ca/resource.php?id=464 ) and was also quoted by CBS, FoxNews, and as far a field as Britain’s BBC News Service.
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While St. Joseph’s church may not have considered the political implications of featuring a mayoral candidate as a host for a benefit concert, surely the scandal of a major mover behind homosexual ‘marriage’ push being front and centre at the church was considered? Perhaps not, although St. Joseph’s pastor Rev. Richard Kelly did not answer questions posed by LifeSiteNews.com.ÂAt least one local Catholic who called the pastor with concerns about the matter was told to drop the fixation with homosexual ‘marriage’.Â
A visit to the St. Jospeh’s Church website reveals some rather controversial material which backs several reports from locals that the parish is lacking in faithfulness to Church teachings. The ‘links’ page (https://www.st-josephs.ca/links.html ) on the website features three links to ‘glbt’ (gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered) sites, at least one of which is in favour of same sex marriage and none of which seem to suggest in any way the Church teaching that homosexuality is a disorder.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Ottawa told LifeSiteNews.com that he had not heard of Munter’s homosexual activism. Archdiocesan spokesman Guy Lajoie said he would look into the situation at the church.Â
Another anomaly at St. Joseph’s is the fact that women prepare and give some of the homilies, a practice which is permitted with the pastor’s agreement, according to Lajoie.Â
In the most recent such homily available on the church website, Heather Eaton preaches on the evil of toleration of bad things such as war, homelessness, racism. An odd addition to her list of evil tolerances comes in this statement delivered in a homily on January 23, 2005: “We tolerate heterosexual people making decisions for same-sex relationships.” (see the full homily here: https://www.st-josephs.ca/resources/homilies/2005-01-23.html )
But Fr. Kelly too gives homilies, and receives much applause during them, particularly when he pushes buttons contrary to Church teaching. An excerpt from a homily Fr. Kelly delivered in October 2005 is cited on his website, complete with instances of applause from the congregation.“Will the church invite and welcome and include persons who are women and who desire to be ordained and minister in the church?,” asked Kelly to applause. But the “long applause” as indicated by the online homily notes were reserved for this statement: “Will the church invite and welcome and include those persons of our brothers and sisters who are different, who are gay and lesbian, to a place in the church?” (see the full homily here:
https://www.st-josephs.ca/resources/homilies/2005-10-09.html )
Lajoie later informed LifeSiteNews.com that he had spoken with Fr. Kelly who informed Lajoie that he was not aware of the website’s links to pro-homosexual marriage orgainzations, and that those links would be removed. Further, according to Lajoie, Fr. Kelly said he could do nothing about Munter’s hosting the event as Munter was a member of the committee for the project.
To respectfully express concerns to Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais:
[email protected]