Follow-Up to Novus Ordo Homo “Wedding”: Diocese explains what happened

A clarification that doesn’t make it much better…

Follow-Up to Novus Ordo Homo “Wedding”:
Diocese explains what happened

Two days ago, we published the post “Official ‘Catholic’ Same-Sex ‘Wedding’ in Austria”, using information from the semi-trad news and commentary site GloriaTV and the Graz-Seckau diocesan web site. What to any reasonable and objective observer looked like a “Catholic” pseudo-wedding ceremony for two lesbians, was almost that but not exactly. Considered in its entirety, what took place is, in a sense, even worse.

The conservative Novus Ordo Austrian news site kath.net contacted the diocese to ask them to explain what happened, and the response they received from the diocesan spokesman, Thomas Stanzer, was translated by Life Site. Here is an excerpt of their report:

An Austrian diocese has confirmed that an Austrian priest presided over a church service for two women in a civil union.

A series of photographs of Fr. Michael Kopp with two women in wedding clothes in a Catholic church in Austria have been making the rounds on social media since last week. A spokesman from the Diocese of Graz-Seckau has confirmed that Kopp indeed held a service for the women.

“The basic question is if homosexual people can feel themselves at home in the Church,” Thomas Stanzer told German Catholic news site kath.net this Monday.

“Family spiritual advisor Michael Kopp answered ‘yes’ to this question,” he continued.

Stanzer said Father Kopp “celebrated a liturgy of thanksgiving with two civilly married [sic] women who are both believing Christians and who had both found their way out of personal crises with the help of the Catholic Church.”

The diocesan spokesman underscored that this was “not a sacramental liturgy,” and quoted Pope Francis’ controversial encyclical [exhortation] Amoris Laetitia.

“Every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (250) states,” Stanzer said.

“At the same time it is stated there that the partnership-like connection of two homosexuals cannot be equalled with marriage (251). Both of these things Michael Kopp has followed.”

…

The photographs of the service, which very much resemble wedding pictures, were first posted to a Polish social media account and later published by Gloria TV. In one photograph the two women, one in a white wedding dress and the other in a white suit, light a candle together. In the next they hold hands as Kopp holds his hand over them in blessing. Another photo shows the women processing into the church together, preceded by two flower girls. Two beribboned chairs await them at the front of the church.

…

(Dorothy Cummings McLean, “Austrian diocese confirms that Catholic priest held liturgy celebrating lesbian union”, Life Site, Nov. 13, 2019; underlining added.)

So, to sum up: A diocesan family pastor held an official “Catholic” ceremony centered on two publicly homosexual women; although it was technically supposed to be a “liturgy of thanksgiving”, it was clearly made to visually resemble a Catholic (Novus Ordo) wedding. This was done with the approval of the diocese and in response to the “Pope’s” call to reach out to unrepentant sodomites so as not to “discriminate” against them, although stopping short of allowing them to go through a liturgical marriage rite.

While Francis’ henchmen and useful idiots will harp on the “this was not a wedding” part, that is simply not good enough to excuse anything. Either way, it was a celebration of unnatural vice. Granted, it was not the attempt to raise sodomy to the status of a sacrament, as it would have been had it pretended to be a wedding, but that’s almost irrelevant. It was clearly a perversion of Catholic morality and liturgy, a grave sacrilege and profanation of the church, and an offense against God too monstrous to imagine.

When this news story first broke as a “Catholic gay wedding”, some were thinking this was simply a case of one Novus Ordo priest going rogue and, on his own authority, officiating a mock wedding for a same-sex couple — once the diocese should hear about it, this would be straightened out and the cleric disciplined. Looking at this blasphemous and wicked spectacle overall, however, in the final analysis one can say that what actually happened is even worse than the scenario just described: Considering how the diocese has explained and justified what really happened, this sort of thing — this “made-to-look-like a gay wedding” — is apparently now perfectly acceptable after Amoris Laetitia. In other words, you are likely going to see many more liturgical ceremonies like that, because this is now the “new normal.” Not in every diocese, of course, but in more and more of them. And for that, as always, you can thank Frank.

It is clear that these Modernists are trying to push the envelope as far as possible to see how much farther they can go. Under Francis, it will always be three steps forward, one step back. Don’t let the Francis apologists focus all your attention on the one step back. The net total is still two steps forward.

Forward towards the abyss.

Image source: gloria.tv (screenshot)
License: fair use