Exclusive 6-Year Old Mass Services for Gays, Lesbians at a Soho London Church Wraps Up (VIDEOS)
Finding the exclusive Catholic mass services for gays and lesbians being offered at a Soho London church directly running against the teachings of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the archbishop who had approved its concept in 2007 has called for the closure of the services.
On Sunday night, the final mass service exclusively made for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) Catholics was offered and held at the Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Soho, central London.
Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said the exclusive services disagrees with the teachings on sexuality by the Roman Catholic secular religion.
"The moral teaching of the church is that the proper use of our sexual faculty is within a marriage, between a man and a woman, open to the procreation and nurturing of new human life," the Archbishop said in January.
This was way back in 2007 when he said the masses were to be held to give the LGBT community the chance to venerate their Catholic fight, provided the services do not screw up the teachings of the church.
The BBC reported that it was only two years ago when he defended that the masses "gives gay Catholics the chance to identify themselves by their Catholicism rather than their sexuality."
Renate Rothwell, a Congregation member, said she felt sad with the archbishop's turnaround.
"The tears which are shed are angry tears, because I feel angry that this didn't need to have happened," she told the BBC.
Stonewall, a gay rights charity group, described the development as "a real shame."
But according to Christopher Lamb from The Tablet, a Catholic newspaper, he believed the sudden reversal by Archbishop Nichols came from pressure from the upper echelons.
"I wouldn't say it's a U-turn because Vince Nichols is still very keen to support gay Catholics. I think it is of course a change of direction, but I think it was because of the pressure he came under by the authorities in Rome," he was quoted by the BBC.
In lieu of the discontinuation of the LGBT Catholic mass services, Archbishop Nichols called on the Soho Masses Pastoral Council to develop pastoral work for them.