News
Featured Image
Father Philip Dyer-PerryOur Lady of the Rosary Staines / YouTube

LifeSiteNews has been permanently banned on YouTube. Click HERE to sign up to receive emails when we add to our video library.

WESTMINSTER, U.K., June 22, (LifeSiteNews) – A pro-abortion and pro-LGBT priest appointed to a prominent position in a London seminary by Cardinal Vincent Nichols will not be taking up his role after numerous reports of complaints by concerned Catholics.

Father Philip Dyer-Perry of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in the Diocese of Westminster had been appointed by Cardinal Nichols as the pastoral director of Allen Hall seminary, which is based in the diocese. He was due to take up his position later this fall, but will no longer do so.

In a statement emailed to LifeSiteNews, the Diocese of Westminster wrote: 

Fr. Philip Dyer-Perry has given further thought to his appointment as Pastoral Director at Allen Hall Seminary and his prayerful discernment has led him to ask the Cardinal for permission to withdraw. This request has been granted. The Cardinal thanks Fr. Philip for this searching discernment and for his continuing reflection. Fr. Philip will continue his ministry as Parish Priest at Staines.

His appointment was reported last week by Church Militant, which reported that sources in Westminster informed them that there has been “an unprecedented number of complaints” made about Dyer-Perry’s appointment due to his position on moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality. 

U.K. commentator and blogger Mark Lambert reported that his Westminster sources mentioned to him that the (then proposed) appointment was “wrong in every way.” 

“Fr. Dyer-Perry seems to be one of those priests who is trying to be ‘hip,’” wrote Lambert. “He is prepared to manipulate, ignore and twist doctrine in order to present it as what he considers to be more palatable to modern ears.”

Damian Thompson, associate editor of The Spectator, described the news of Fr. Dyer-Perry’s original appointment to Allen Hall as “scandalous.”

While the news of Fr. Dyer-Perry’s views on morality seems to have prevented him away taking up the role of pastoral director at Allen Hall, Cardinal Nichols appears to believe that Dyer-Perry has a sufficient grasp of the faith and issues of doctrine to continue in his role as parish priest.

Meanwhile, Dyer-Perry also continues to serve on the Board of Governors of Allen Hall seminary. A media spokesperson for the Diocese of Westminster commented that his position there would be “reviewed in due course.”

Pro-abortion, pro-LGBT priest refers to God as ‘she’

Fr. Dyer-Perry was previously described by John Smeaton, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), as having a “revolutionary” position on abortion. Writing for Voice of the Family, Smeaton stated, “I cannot recall anyone purporting to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church in England and Wales expressing a position on abortion which so clearly opposes the Fifth commandment and which does so in the form of the most commonly used and discredited arguments of the pro-abortion lobby.”

Given Dyer-Perry’s support for abortion, Smeaton described his then-appointment to Allen Hall as “a grave threat to the future of the pro-life struggle in Britain, and its resistance to barbaric anti-life laws, since he will be forming the Catholic priests who form the Catholic people from whose ranks the vast majority of the pro-life movement is made up.”

Smeaton’s comments were made in reference to Dyer-Perry’s reaction to Poland’s 2020 ruling that widely banned abortion as being mostly illegal under the country’s constitution. According to a message to Polish parishioners in the parish newsletter reproduced on Independent Catholic News, Dyer-Perry called the ruling “a bad one.”

While proclaiming that he is pro-life himself, Dyer-Perry attacked the pro-life ruling since it “fails to respect the choice and autonomy of the mother,” and that it should be the mother’s decision whether “to continue with the pregnancy.”

“Political and religious leaders do not necessarily know best,” he wrote, before making a reference to the oft-used pro-abortion argument that men should not have a say in the debate. “Matters are not helped when those who seek to impose this new law are, predominately, male.”

The backlash after the ruling in Poland demonstrated the poor decision of the government, wrote Dyer-Perry. The ruling led to the formation of “two distinctive and opposing camps – pro- and anti-abortion,” he declared. “This is not the way to progress the protection of the unborn child.”

In his letter, Dyer-Perry also indicated his support for LGBT ideology by noting that his pro-life beliefs meant that he supported “those seeking equal rights for LGBTQ persons.”

He also used the letter to reveal his support for the violent, anti-Christian Black Lives Matter protests.

Then in a Facebook video from May, announcing his assignment to Allen Hall, Fr. Dyer-Perry referred to God using the female pronoun “she,” a style of address notably used by pro-LGBT Father James Martin, S.J. Twice in his video address and in his written message, Fr. Dyer-Perry addressed God as female: “Where is she calling me? Where is she calling you?”

Such a style of address is in direct opposition to the teaching of the Church, and her canonized Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught the “name HE WHO IS most properly belongs to God.” The formula, given by God to Moses (Exodus 3:13-14), is the most proper name for God, wrote Aquinas, due to its signification, universality and consignification.