(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV has appointed a San Diego auxiliary bishop who celebrated an “All are Welcome” LGBT-themed “Pride” Mass – during which a drag queen activist was permitted to speak – as the new bishop of Monterey, California.
Bishop Ramón Bejarano was the celebrant of the July 13 Sunday Mass, which was organized by St. John’s “LGBTQ Ministry” and had the full backing of the Diocese of San Diego under Bishop Michael Pham, one of Pope Leo XIV’s first episcopal appointments.
“I apologize for the pain and distress that I and the Church have caused to many of you,” Bishop Bejarano reportedly said in a 2024 “All are Welcome Mass” sermon at the same parish. “I apologize for the stigmatization and trauma we have caused to others because we have told them that they are not valued and that they are not worthy of the love of God. There are many others out there who feel rejected and unvalued.”
Bejarano was also among the 68 American bishops who in 2021 signed a letter asking the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to end discussions on prohibiting then-President Joe Biden and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving Holy Communion.
Drag queen thanks bishop for ‘standing up’ for the ‘LGBTQ community’
Drag queen “Nicole” Murray-Ramirez, a former board member of the powerful LGBTQ+ lobbying behemoth Human Rights Campaign, thanked Bishop Bejarano for his work “standing up” for the “LGBTQ community.”
Murray-Ramirez wrote extensively in a Facebook post about what an honor it was to speak during the Mass and praised Bejarano.
“The Bishop’s sermon was a most powerful one that focused on (the fact) that God loves ALL of us the way we are,” wrote Murray-Ramirez.
Based on Murray-Ramirez’s account, it appears that Bejarano omitted any mention of the Church’s teaching on same-sex “marriage.”
“I had the Honor to be asked to speak and it was so wonderful to see and hear the well deserved thunderous prolong ovation that Bishop Bajarano received when I sincerely thanked him on behalf of all of us for standing up for not only the LGBTQ COMMUNITY but the undocumented and refugees,” Murray-Ramirez continued.
Photos posted by Murray-Ramirez from the Mass on Facebook show the “drag queen” posing for a photo and being blessed by Bejarano. The pro-LGBT Mass was also attended by San Diego’s openly homosexual, nominally Catholic Mayor Todd Gloria, who also posed for a picture with the bishop.
Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality is clear
The Catholic Church teaches that God created humans as “male and female” and gave them to each other in marriage so they could “increase and multiply.” Sexual attraction and sexual acts between a male and female are specifically created by God for the purpose of procreation. The Catholic Church is logical and consistent when she teaches that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered” since they are “contrary to the natural law” in that they “close the sexual act to the gift of life.”
“They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Church also teaches that same-sex attraction is “objectively disordered” since God created members of the opposite sex to be attracted to one another for the sake of procreation.