Dossier on RCCLGCM/SMPC

The Soho Masses Pastoral Council was founded by members of the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian Gay Christian Movement.

The Lesbian Gay Christian Movement also has caucuses for other denominations, and campaigns against traditional Christian morality; here, for example, they are trying to claim that genital sexuality outside marriage is not forbidden in the Bible. Among their links they include organisations which are part of the self-described gay sub-culture, which ceaselessly promote an immoral lifestyle, such as the Gay Times. In other words, there is no question of this group comprising Christians who happen to be gay; it comprises people committed to an immoral lifestyle who want to rewrite Christian morality to suit themselves. Their recent conference accused a variety of Christian leaders, including the Pope, of homophobia.

The new website of the RCCLGCM includes this on its homepage:
The LGCM Statement of Conviction
It is the conviction of members of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement that human sexuality in all its richness is a gift of God, gladly to be accepted, enjoyed and honoured as a way of both expressing and growing in love, in accordance with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Therefore it is their conviction that it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship.

They RC Caucus was asked by Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor to remove 'Catholic' from its name, but declined to do so. Wanting to use an alternative vehicle to negotiate for permission for special Masses, Martin Pendergast set up the Soho Masses Pastoral Council; the people involved in the two organistations, however, are largely the same, and Pendergast remains a leading light in both the SMPC and the LGCM, recently condemning the stance of Catholic bishops on the Sexual Orientation Regulations at the LGCM conference. Pendergast, a former Carmelite priest, is also notorious for his 'civil partnership' with the former head of CAFOD, Julian Filochowski; Filochowski dedicated a collection of essays attacking Church teaching to him (see here).

The SMPC organised Masses in an Anglican church, St Anne's, for years, inviting sympathetic priests to celebrate Mass and preach. Although these Masses did not have the permission of the Archdiocese of Westminster, no action was ever taken against the priests involved. After many complaints, and the involvement of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Levada, in Feb 2007 Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor gave the SMPC the use of a Catholic church, Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street, suggesting he was mindful of complaints and was taking control of the situation. The same suggestion was made when he changed the parish priest. But although Anglican women ministers no longer preach, and bidding prayers for those who have recently contracted civil partnerships are no longer said (they are still to be seen here), the Masses are still used as a platform to undermine the teaching of the Church, in four ways.

First, only priests sympathetic to the SMPC agenda are invited to say Mass and preach. They never mention the Church's teaching on sexuality, but rather emphasise their sympathies with the SMPC.
Second, the fact that the SMPC 'organises' the Masses gives credibility, within the Church, to them as an organisation, to their leaders, and to their wider views.
Third, their bookstall at the back of the Church and their Newsletter, handed out with the hymnbooks, contradict the teaching of the Church.
Fourth, they promote events and organisations of the gay subculture which promote an immoral lifesyle, such as the LondonPride march (see picture above), of which the RCCLGCM and SMPC were both official participants (for another example see here). Their joint stall at the march, manned by Martin Pendergast, was also the stall of a third dissenting 'gay Catholic' group, 'Catholics for AIDS Prevention and Support'. Pendergast helped write an article attacking Church teaching on condoms in his capacity of Sectretary to Catholics for AIDS Prevention and Support', here. (For the 2008 event, see here.)

The Church's condemnation of sex outside marriage does not need to spelt out (though see here). Two important documents on specific issues are these:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 'The Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person', 1986: (See here for the full text.) 17: 'All support should be withdrawn from any organisations which seek to undermine the teaching of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which neglect it entirely.'

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2003 document, Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions betwen homosexual persons.
"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection. (n.5)"

The wider picture is that these Masses are an encourgement to bishops around the country and beyond to hand over the 'pastoral care' of homosexual Catholics to people who reject the teaching of the Church most relevant to that care. The groups genuinely trying to help homosexual Catholics live according to the teaching of the Church, such as the Encourage Trust, are sidelined and ignored.