Reaction to San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer giving Communion to two men in mock nuns' garb during an Oct. 7 Mass has been overblown, said the pastor of the church where the Mass was celebrated.
"It is most unfortunate this incident has clouded the fact the archbishop came to meet with his people and celebrate a beautiful and reverent Mass together -- and that is what really happened," said Father Stephen Meriwether, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Parish.
"This incident has been blown way out of proportion," he told Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper.Reaction has run the gamut from some who insist the "sisters" had set out to embarrass the church and the archbishop to others who felt the unannounced visitors who videotaped the Mass were more of an intrusion than the costumed men.
In a column written for the Oct. 19 issue of the archdiocesan newspaper but made public Oct. 11, Archbishop Niederauer apologized for giving Communion to "two strangely dressed persons," but said he did not realize they were members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that has "long made a practice of mocking the Catholic Church."He said he had never met members of the group that describes itself as "a leading-edge order of queer nuns" and "did not recognize who these people were when they approached me.""I did not recognize either of them as wearing mock religious garb," he added.
CNS
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