Canine entertainment included…
Gone to the Dogs: Canadian Novus Ordo Bishop Celebrates Mass with Furry Friend
The video we are featuring in the present post is a live specimen of a ‘Novus Ordo Mass’, also known as the ‘New Mass’, as it was celebrated the evening of Aug. 1, 2026, at St. Joseph’s Church in Tahsis, British Columbia. It was the so-called ‘Saturday Night Vigil Mass’, which uses the liturgy of the Sunday. Attendance at such a ‘Eucharistic celebration’ technically fulfills the Sunday obligation in the Vatican II Church.
The unusual thing about this particular Novus Ordo Mass was that there was a dog in attendance, making himself comfortable in and around the altar area (traditionally called the ‘sanctuary’). The animal presence was no accident, for it was the celebrant’s dog, and he routinely brings him along.
Aside from that curiosity, the liturgy itself was not in the least extravagant, extraordinary, or spectacular. It was simply one more run-of-the-mill ‘Eucharistic celebration’ of the Novus Ordo Church — a supposed Roman Catholic Mass offered in the liturgical rite known as the Novus Ordo Missae of ‘Pope’ Paul VI; which was first officially promulgated in 1969 in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and its modernizing ‘reforms’ in Catholic teaching, worship, and discipline.
Here is the video. We will comment on it in detail further down below:
The celebrant you see in the video is Gary Michael Gordon, but don’t bother complaining to his bishop about him. He is the bishop.
This Bishop Gary Gordon is the local ordinary of the ‘Roman Catholic’ diocese of Victoria in Canada. (Whether or not Gordon’s episcopal orders are valid is another matter, and not really relevant for present purposes.)
As for the dog, it is a golden retriever named Takú. Bp. Gordon introduces him in a video clip posted on the diocesan blog on Mar. 2, 2021. The prior episcopal pooch, of the same breed, was named Merlin, but he is dead. Gordon’s ‘about’ page on the diocesan web site informs us that the animal “passed peacefully on Sunday, November 13, 2022. A beloved and long-time member of our Diocese, he will be missed!” The following picture accompanies the biographical entry on the critter:
Em-barking on an exciting journey: Bp. Gary Gordon with Merlin
Before we analyze the video of Gordon’s Aug. 1 vigil liturgy, we should recall here that in one of the foundational texts of the Vatican II religion — the council’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium (1964) — Holy Mass is described as the “fount and apex of the whole Christian life” (n. 11; Latin: totius vitae christianae fontem et culmen). This beautiful phraseology has been retained in subsequent pseudo-magisterial sources, such as the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1324) and in John Paul II’s 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (n. 1), where it is rendered “source and summit of the Christian life”. Such lofty words are quite impressive on paper, and Novus Ordo apologists no doubt love to quote them as evidence of the high regard in which the Vatican II Church supposedly holds the Mass.
Yet, we all know that the actual reality looks very different. The average ‘Eucharistic celebration’ in the Roman rite of the Vatican II religion is a hodgepodge of sacrilege, levity, and utter banality. Gordon’s liturgy is no exception, it simply adds a zoological element to it.
While the Novus Ordo Mass, especially in its vernacular edition, is most likely not valid, in what follows we will treat it as if it were valid, simply for the sake of argument. It is, after all, what Bp. Gordon believes and his own religion teaches, and that makes his behavior all the worse.
A Liturgical Zoo
Reviewing the video from the very beginning, we find that in the first few minutes, before the Mass starts, the camera is already rolling and recording sounds from the pews (not in view). It quickly becomes clear that the bishop is there, talking to the people in attendance, introducing himself and also his canine friend. “He’s a very Catholic dog… He’s at least baptized”, the Novus Ordo bishop remarks before he has Takú ring the church bells. Gordon then jokes about how he knows this is a ‘Catholic’ church: Everyone is sitting in the back!
The whole atmosphere that is disclosed in the first few minutes of the video is quite characteristic of the general Novus Ordo attitude towards the Mass and the sacred: There is loud chit-chatting, goofing around, exchanging greetings, expressing birthday wishes, etc. This is very typical of how the Novus Ordo Missae is performed in the New Church, at least in the United States and Canada, but presumably in many other countries, too: There is no sense at all that something profoundly sacred is about to take place, much less the re-presentation of the Eternal Sacrifice of Calvary, in which the Incarnate God offers Himself to the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of the world and the salvation of many. The ambience is not one of solemn recollection but of levity. The impression one gets is not that people are getting ready to participate in the holiest act of the universe, but rather that they are waiting for a shared meal to begin, or for some theatrical performance to start.
Beginning at the 3:10 time stamp, ‘Bishop’ Gordon, dressed in street clothes, can be seen barging into the sanctuary, along with his dog, rearranging some items on the pulpit. He then quickly walks into the sacristy, giving absolutely no acknowledgment whatsoever to the tabernacle, which is where the Blessed Sacrament is being kept. Gordon supposedly believes that his Creator and Lord literally dwells in this tabernacle, but you wouldn’t know it from how he acts in His presence. (To be entirely fair, we must point out that it is possible that Gordon genuflected towards the tabernacle at the foot of the sanctuary, inaudibly, before he appeared in view of the camera. How likely that is, given his antics throughout the video, is another matter.)
At 5:02, Gordon, now vested, reappears in the sanctuary with his dog, continuing his friendly chat with the people.
At 7:10, the liturgy begins with the opening hymn. At 7:31, Gordon walks back into the sanctuary and appears to be bowing before the crucifix or the altar table, as he carries the cruets filled with wine and water. Realizing he forgot his reading glasses, he heads back into the sacristy, walking past the tabernacle but again without even the slightest acknowledgment of the God he believes to be dwelling there.
Around 8:43, Gordon lights two tea lights. The two fake candles on the altar “don’t quite do it” for him, he explains. He then ad-libs himself into beginning the celebration of the “mystery of God’s love”, as he calls the Holy Mass.
There quickly follows the so-called penitential rite, in which those present are to ask God for forgiveness of their sins. (It is the Novus Ordo version of what in the true Roman Mass is the Confiteor.) Gordon introduces it, not by asking the people to elicit contrition for their sins so as to make themselves worthy of assisting at the Holy Sacrifice; instead, he wants them to prepare “to receive the Word and the Sacrament of Jesus” by recalling their “own need, in our lives, for healing and for peace”.
This is the typical smooth-sounding Novus Ordo language that tickles the ears of modern man. Constantly presenting sin as a matter of wounds in need of healing is the name of the game. It allows us to think of ourselves more as victims than as perpetrators. The Catholic Confiteor, by contrast, is candid and direct: “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa).
The Novus Ordo liturgy does allow for the Novus Ordo Confiteor to be prayed during the penitential rite, but it is only one option among many, and few bother to choose it (case in point: Gary Gordon). Furthermore, until relatively recent times, the English translation of the Novus Ordo Confiteor omitted the words “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” This was not corrected until 2011.
Next, Gordon’s exhortation to prepare “to receive the Word and the Sacrament of Jesus” is misleading. The Holy Mass is not chiefly about receiving from God, it is chiefly about giving to God, namely, adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and impetration (see Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, nn. 71-74).
Of course God also gives Himself in Holy Communion during Mass, but the people’s Communion does not belong to the essence of the Mass. In our day, there exists the mistaken idea that the (primary) purpose of going to Mass is to receive Holy Communion. This is not so. Strictly speaking, one is not required to communicate at any Mass, and Holy Communion can lawfully be received even outside of Mass. (Although there is a precept of the Church according to which one is obliged to receive Holy Communion worthily at least once a year during the Easter time, it is not required that this Communion be received during Mass. It could be administered by a priest outside of Mass. The Church’s ritual has a Communion rite for this purpose.)
Furthermore, one can have a Mass in which only the priest communicates (and he indeed must do so). We must remember that the Mass is not a meal; it is a Sacrifice. One may say that Holy Communion is a sacred meal, but reception at Mass is obligatory only for the celebrant because consuming the Host is an integral part of the Sacrifice.
The Council of Trent laid down dogmatically: “If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God, or that the act of offering is nothing else than Christ being given to us to eat: let him be anathema” (Session 22, Canon 1; Denz. 948). And Pope Pius XII taught clearly:
They, therefore, err from the path of truth who do not want to have Masses celebrated unless the faithful communicate; and those are still more in error who, in holding that it is altogether necessary for the faithful to receive holy communion as well as the priest, put forward the captious argument that here there is question not of a sacrifice merely, but of a sacrifice and a supper of brotherly union, and consider the general communion of all present as the culminating point of the whole celebration.
Now it cannot be over-emphasized that the eucharistic sacrifice of its very nature is the unbloody immolation of the divine Victim, which is made manifest in a mystical manner by the separation of the sacred species and by their oblation to the eternal Father. Holy communion pertains to the integrity of the Mass and to the partaking of the august sacrament; but while it is obligatory for the priest who says the Mass, it is only something earnestly recommended to the faithful.
(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, nn. 114-115)
This goes to show how far removed from the true Roman Catholic teaching on the Holy Mass the Novus Ordo Mass is.
Returning now to the video, we find that at 13:37, while a lay lector reads the responsorial psalm, Takú bursts straight into the sanctuary. He briefly sniffs the lector and then sits down in front of the altar table, scratching himself profusely.
Gordon begins delivering his Sunday sermon at 18:00. It focuses on — you guessed it — God’s love, care, and compassion. At 19:50, Taku briefly steals the show as he rolls off the sanctuary platform, a moment the bishop does not leave uncommented.
Around 22:55, Gordon begins to drop a really deep spiritual insight on the people gathered. After relating how his furry friend is always happy to see him, no matter what is happening, the episcopal luminary remarks: “It’s the reason why I think ‘dog’ is ‘God’ spelled backwards.”
At 24:19, he ends his homily by summarizing: “That’s the Good News: God cares.” Really, that’s the Good News? That’s a bit general, for pretty much anyone who believes in one true God and is not a deist, believes that God cares in some way. Yet Christ didn’t preach a generic “God cares” message. Rather, He preached: “The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel” (Mk 1:15).
So what is the Gospel, the Good News? It is that “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him” (Jn 3:16-17). God became incarnate to redeem us, to offer to the Father a perfect Sacrifice so as to make salvation possible for us, and to show us how we must live if we wish to avoid eternal punishment in hell and attain everlasting happiness with Him in Heaven.
Clearly, God does care. But to reduce the Holy Gospel of Christ to a generic, greeting-card-style ‘God loves you’ message, is quite an affront to the Most Holy Trinity, and not helpful to souls.
Next come the bidding prayers, also called the prayers of the faithful. Although none of the petitions were in themselves objectionable, it is noteworthy that they were all for merely temporal, natural ends: for consolation of those suffering; for rain; for healing and peace, etc. These are legitimate requests, but what is striking is the total absence of any spiritual, supernatural goods being prayed for, such as the conversion of sinners, relief for the holy souls in purgatory, or the grace of final perseverance, for example. All earthly joy and suffering will come to an end; our eyes ought to be fixed on eternity: “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth” (Col 3:2); “They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them” (1 Jn 4:5).
At 28:03, Gordon announces tongue-in-cheek that Takú will help take up the collection. At 28:45, the dog can be seen putting his nose into the collection basket, which makes the bishop ask the congregation: “Did he eat it?” As the dog disappears, Gordon continues the ritual, picking up the paten with the host and reciting the Jewish table blessing the Novus Ordo liturgy prescribes: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation….”
The canine reappears just in time for the elevation of the host and hurries off into the nave during the consecration of the wine.
The most dreaded part of any Novus Ordo Mass comes at the 36:32 mark. “Let us offer one another a sign of peace”, the Canadian Novus Ordo bishop demands. He then takes off his glasses and starts shaking the hands of the people in the pews. Never mind that he had just touched the Body and Blood of Christ with his fingers.
A few minutes later, after receiving ‘Communion’ himself, at 38:29 Gordon walks to the aisle to distribute ‘Communion’ to the people. Meanwhile he rubs his episcopal nose with the same fingers that had just held the Body and Blood of God Incarnate and that are about to distribute the same to the people.
“The dog is first in line”, remarks a boy at 38:36. The bishop looks at the dog and says, “Hey, Takú, come here, come here, come here. Sit here. Sit. Sit. Stay.” He appears to make gestures at the dog with his right hand while his left hand holds the paten with the hosts. The dog complies, and the distribution to the people begins. At 39:09, the bishop briefly interrupts distribution as he reminds Takú to “stay” in place.
At 39:57, while he is purifying the chalice, Gordon looks over at the dog and says in a low voice, “Good boy” (see screen shot above).
About a minute later, this particular edition of the “fount and apex of the whole Christian life” finally comes to a close. “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your joy”, the liturgical canine handler proclaims at 41:05.
But it is not time for the closing hymn yet. Gordon suggests first that everybody sing ‘happy birthday’ to one of the people in the pews who was celebrating her birthday, and of course they are all happy to oblige. The closing hymn then follows the birthday ditty.
By 43:35, the singing was finished and the bishop had processed out, apparently with Takú by his side. One can hear the chit-chatting among the people resume, until the feed cuts off and we are mercifully delivered.
Having thus witnessed the highest expression of the Vatican II Church’s worship, we decline to imagine what the lesser expressions might look like.
Concluding Remarks: Compare and Contrast
A few more observations are in order.
Overall, we can say that this video is a good representation of the problems with the New Mass as it is actually celebrated. It is characterized above all by informality and flippancy, to the point where even bringing a dog to it barely raises an eyebrow.
Given its utter banality, every Novus Ordo Mass is competing for attractiveness, for attention, for hipness. In such a liturgical dog-eat-dog world, it’s hard to stand out anymore. Perhaps that is why Bp. Gordon likes to bring his canine friend along. It’s surprising that he hasn’t trained him yet to bring the cruets during the ‘preparation of the gifts’ (called ‘offertory’ in the real Mass), but then perhaps that is in the works.
We notice that at no point did the tabernacle play any role for Bp. Gordon. Whereas in the true Roman Catholic Mass, the tabernacle is the central focal point and is fixed directly on the altar, in the Novus Ordo Missae, the tabernacle is typically relegated to the side somewhere. Can’t let Christ get in the way of the celebration of man!
Gordon did not acknowledge the Eucharistic Lord in His prison of love. As far as the bishop’s observable actions in the video are concerned, that tabernacle might as well not have been there. Even though the veil draped over it and the lit red candle beside it indicated that Christ was present there — in other words, it wasn’t empty — Gordon treated it like a potted plant. This is reprehensible, but certainly consistent with all his other antics, especially his handling of the Eucharistic species.
Even the Novus Ordo Church officially teaches that Christ is truly and substantially present in every particle of the Blessed Sacrament (see Novus Ordo Catechism, n. 1377), but almost nobody acts like it. Whereas in the Traditional Latin Mass, the priest must keep his thumb and index finger — the only two fingers that are permitted to touch the Sacred Host in the first place — together until he can purify them over the chalice with wine and water during the ablutions, lest even the smallest particle should be lost and the Body of Christ defiled, such ‘details’ don’t matter in the New Mass, at least not in practice. Typically there are lay ministers handling the Eucharistic species anyway, and Holy Communion is normally given in the hand. This means there will be countless particles all over the floor and in the pews, with people trampling on them constantly.
That is the practical reality in Novus Ordo Land, but in the case of Bp. Gordon’s own Eucharistic celebrations, the matter is even worse. After all, who knows what his dog has licked off church floors over the last few years….
A recent article in The Irish Catholic about Gordon and his dog notes of the bishop: “Those who work closely with him describe him as theologically conservative but ministerially progressive.” What he is liturgically, we have seen above.
The Novus Ordo Sect, that counterfeit ‘Catholic’ church, has caused so much damage to souls that Gordon will have no qualms of conscience about any of this. When he made his examination of conscience that night, we can safely assume that it never even crossed his mind that there was anything amiss with his Eucharistic celebration of that day.
For comparison’s sake, here is a video of a traditional Roman Catholic Mass, offered by a traditional Roman Catholic bishop. It is a Low Mass offered by Bp. Donald Sanborn on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Notice in particular the absence of dogs:
See the difference?
Which of these two liturgies express the timeless Roman Catholic Faith? Which of these clergymen act in accordance with Catholic teaching regarding the Holy Mass? Which of these two liturgies is a worthy mystical reenactment of the Sacrifice of Calvary? Which of these two Masses expresses the utmost respect for God, for the Holy Eucharist, for the sacred?
The Vatican II Church is a counterfeit of the true Roman Catholic Church, and its Novus Ordo worship service is a farcical mockery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Image source: YouTube (screenshot)
License: fair use
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