Holy Trinity holds “Pride Mass,” Catholics protest
Briana Oser
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On Wednesday, Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., hosted its third annual “Pride Mass.”
According to the parish’s website, “This celebration is an expression of our parish’s mission statement TO ACCOMPANY ONE ANOTHER IN CHRIST, CELEBRATE GOD’S LOVE, AND TRANSFORM LIVES. Our LGBTQIA+ ministry is a response to the Holy Father’s call to go out to the margins. Our celebration of Pride is not celebrating personal vanity, but the human dignity of a group of people who have been for too long the objects of violence, bullying, and harassment.”
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Catholics believe the Church should imitate Christ’s call to welcome the marginalized. Christ loved the poor and the troubled, and he loved those who were broken by sin. But he did not love sin itself.
Catholics sought to defend this reality in a prayerful protest before and during the Mass. The American Catholic Society TFP (Tradition, Family, Property) brought messages about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, prepared speeches, and had a drum and bagpipes play “Immaculate Mary” between decades of the rosary.
They stood on the sidewalk across from the church with banners that read: “A homosexual ‘Pride Mass’ in the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a double sacrilege. Reparation! Reparation! Reparation!” And, “The month of June belongs to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, not to homosexual ‘Pride.’ Reparation! Reparation! Reparation!”
A priest with a rainbow stole stood outside and videotaped the event. A mother with a Pride hairpiece laughed at the protesters, walking into the church with her rainbow-clad baby on her hip.
Catholics celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart during June, one of their most popular devotions. Hence, the Church dedicates the month of June to the Sacred Heart.
Catholics worldwide have been combating the Prideful agenda this month with prayer and acts of love for the Sacred Heart. They view Pride month as a period of intense spiritual attacks, as companies and media encourage love of self over love of God.
Catholicism is a religion of ends. It holds that the purpose of mankind is unity with God in Heaven after this life. Every action of the Church ought to be instrumental to this purpose: in prayer, or instruction, or works. The Church teaches that our vocations, God’s calls for our individual lives, guide us to our purpose.
One of these vocations is marriage. Marriage, as understood by Catholics, is a sacrament of the Church, a binding covenant established by God uniting one man and one woman for life. Catholics perceive dating, and romantic relationships formed prior to marriage, to be for the definite and set purpose of the marital vocation.
The Catholic understanding of marriage, therefore, does not allow for homosexual acts. What is the point if romantic relationships are for marriage, and marriage does not definitionally involve two men or two women?
And if the point of the Church on Earth is to bring souls to Heaven and lead them away from sin, why is a Catholic parish celebrating something that so clearly contradicts its own doctrine? And therefore, failing in its role?
Hosting a Pride Mass is just as ridiculous as holding a Gluttony Mass, or an Envy Mass. A Mass that celebrates sin should be condemned by Catholics universally.
The TFP was a little loud and boisterous outside of Trinity church. The protest was organized but the bagpipes and drum were not quite peaceful. This causes a tension: Is a Catholic ever justified in disrupting Mass?
Maybe the well-meaning Catholics in the TFP and other Catholics present felt forced to interrupt Mass. An extreme act of sacrilege calls for a response. A Pride Mass is disruptive to itself by nature: it attempts to embrace sin at the literal sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood.
Fortunately, Catholics believe that Christ already defeated sin. But what about the poor souls attending the Mass, who are consumed by it?
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The TFP passed out Pope Pius X’s prayer of reparation to attendees. The prayer implored Christ’s forgiveness for those participating in the blasphemy. Protesters asked God to make them perfectly charitable and help them to observe the purity and love of the Virgin Mary. Catholicism is loving at its core: It does not want to see its members fall.
People of faith must stand strong in these situations. As Pride attempts to take over as America’s new religion, people of faith must remain even firmer.
Briana Oser is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.