NEW YORK CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Father Donald Haggerty, a priest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, during a brief homily for Monday’s daily Mass criticized the Vatican’s Synod report, which erroneously suggested that homosexual relationships may not be sinful, comparing this denial of the faith to the synagogue’s persecution of the Apostles.
During his May 11 homily, Fr. Haggerty noted that in the day’s Gospel reading (John 15:26-16:4a), Our Lord warns the apostles that they will be expelled from the synagogues because they belong to Him, not to the world. The priest then delved into the “disturbing” Synod report, which proposed a “rethinking” of homosexuality, stressing that the faithful who oppose this document may be called “rigid” or “regressive” by the hierarchy, just as the synagogue had persecuted the Apostles.
The entire homily is viewable below:
“(The Synod study group) released a document that (is) a bit disturbing … and what they propose in there … when you you hear these words just now, ‘If you belong to the world, the world will love you,’” the priest said. “That document proposes a reconsideration, a rethinking of homosexual relations … they have two testimonies from men who are in ‘gay marriages’ … testimony to them about the possibility of changing Catholic teaching.”
READ: Vatican Synod report uses Fr. James Martin’s homosexual activist friend as testimony
“That’s a bit stunning that you could have a Vatican document being released in that manner. They will call the Church’s teaching ‘rigid, regressive, ossified,'” he added. “It’s kind of stunning to have that coming out of a document from the Vatican.”
Haggerty cautioned the faithful against embracing the worldliness of our time, which he emphasized is not just “materialism” but also the modern “culture of darkness” including the “homosexual agenda.”
“We need (in) our own way, to be very conscious, as Jesus says here. We have not been invited to embrace the worldliness of the time,” he said. “That doesn’t simply mean materialism. The culture of darkness spreads and permeates many areas, including that area. And there is a strong lobby within the Church, let’s be frank, for the homosexual agenda. And (the Synod report is) an example of it.”
“It’s a reminder to us, we are meant ourselves to embrace very fully the spirit of truth, to testify deeply in our own lives to have… a spirit of not simply submission (but) of love and obedience to Our Lord,” he added.
Several prominent Catholic prelates and other figures have blasted the Synod on Synodality Study Group 9’s report endorsing testimony without qualification claiming that “sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship” but in “a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfillment.”
In an interview with Vatican journalist Diane Montagna, Bishop Athanasius Schneider said the report suggesting homosexual “relationships” may not be sinful echoes the serpent in the Garden of Eden and has “crossed the line from orthodoxy into heresy.”
READ: Bishop Schneider: Synod report on homosexuality ‘crossed the line from orthodoxy into heresy’
“In issuing the Final Report of Study Group No. 9, the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops has stooped to promoting the propaganda of a global sexual ideology that is being aggressively pushed in politics and the media worldwide,” Bishop Schneider told Montagna.
“The proponents of this ideology are seeking the Church’s moral and doctrinal approval of homosexual acts and lifestyles – that is, of conduct that is contrary to God’s creation and the natural order,” His Excellency added.