TRANSCRIPT
I’m Michael Voris coming to you from the Catholic prayer presence outside Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium.
This controversy arose from the decision by the Dodgers to first invite, then disinvite and then re-invite the group known as the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” — a group that largely mocks Catholic women religious to gain attention for fundraising for various liberal causes.
But what many don’t know is the background of this group. Where did they come from? When did they start? How did all this suddenly become a thing? Unsurprisingly, you have to go back not to L.A., but actually to San Francisco in the late 1960s and 1970s, where all sorts of outrageous groups were forming and roaming about trying to draw attention to gay causes.
Most of that activity originated and took place in a neighborhood area of San Francisco known as the “Castro District,” which, ironically enough, had been a heavily populated Irish Catholic enclave until all this began.
In the late 1970s, three men arrived from Iowa City with actual nuns’ habits they had tricked out of nuns at a convent there, saying, according to press reports, they were just borrowing them for a production of The Sound of Music.
Once in San Francisco, the men donned the habits, on Easter weekend no less, threw themselves into the morass of the Castro District, rose to prominence above the earlier groups and became established as the definitive group dedicated to mocking cultural and traditional values through denigration of mostly Catholic teaching.
In October 1980, they held their first formal fundraiser — a bingo game. An advance write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle immortalized their name as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
From there, it was “full-steam ahead.”
As their numbers grew, as well as support in a rapidly culturally transforming San Francisco overall, they began making national headlines with plays and skits mocking religious leaders like Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly and Anita Bryant.
They protested heavily against Pope John Paul’s visit to San Francisco in 1987, as well as Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States.
Beginning in 1995, the group began an annual 13-stop pub crawl in San Francisco, specifically to mock the Stations of the Cross. It also sponsors what it calls a “Hunky Jesus” contest, wherein participants mock the Way of Sorrows by featuring muscular men carrying crosses through the streets and waving to the crowds.
The group’s organizing structure is set up in extremely close parallel to a women’s Catholic religious order, with an actual application process. Then, after acceptance, a six-month consultancy, a novitiate period where the group’s history and purpose is taught, then an investiture ceremony where newbies are given habits, but not the full habit until they have passed through that stage and then make a public commitment to remain in the sisters for the rest of their lives. At that point, their clothing, habits and makeup are assumed in full.
No matter how you slice this and dice this, it is a precision strike against Catholicism. Much closer to their founding, they went to various Christian congregations to make their presence known, but in the passing of the years, they have focused their vile antics specifically on Catholicism almost exclusively.
Back in the 1990s, they actually used to attend regular Mass — in habit — at Holy Redeemer Parish in the Castro, and would even go up and receive Holy Communion.
It’s telling to look at the string of archbishops at the time the blasphemous “order” began and expanded. When they arrived in San Francisco in 1979 and went very public in 1980, John Quinn was the archbishop. He was rumored himself to be homosexual or, at the very least, sympathetic.
He remained archbishop until 1995 — nearly 20 years — and it was under his reign and largely tepid response that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence not only established, but flourished, facing almost no pushback from Quinn for their horrid mockery of Catholicism.
He would occasionally release a statement, and that was about it. In 1995, he was replaced by Abp. William Levada, who soon was facing accusations of sex abuse cover-up and mishandling of numerous cases of teenage boys being abused by priests.
It was under both Quinn and Levada that the group would attend and often present themselves for Holy Communion at Holy Redeemer — again, with very little pushback from either prelate, although there was the very occasional statement.
In 2005, Abp. George Niederauer arrived from Salt Lake City, where he had been the only religious leader in the state to not oppose a pro-gay legislative slate in Utah. He too, once in San Francisco, offered nothing to speak of in terms of asserting Catholic teaching, and at the end of his tenure in 2012, the juggernaut of the group itself was now well ensconced. Over those years, the blasphemous, anti-Catholic hate group claimed 13 houses and 6 missions in multiple U.S. cities, including here in Los Angeles.
Around the globe, there are roughly 600 fully professed members in Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay, according to various press reports based on the group’s claims.
Forty years ago, this was just a small group of many such groups who mocked religion and traditional values to gain attention and push their agendas. Now, 40 years later, they are the recognized, almost most-exclusive international group using outlandish mockery and blasphemy against the Church.
When the Dodgers invited and then re-invited them, it was ostensibly to honor them for contributing to the community for “good causes,” flowing from their fundraising.
Given this history, perhaps now you can see what a truly pathetic response it has been from virtually all (not quite all, but mostly all) the U.S. bishops, most especially L.A. Abp. Gómez — to publicly distance themselves from the crowd of lay Catholics gathering here today, preferring, in his words, to engage in dialogue.
How about a little dialogue with the sheep out here, Your Excellencies? Every single time some big story happens in the Catholic world where the good of the faithful is at play, you can count on the overwhelming majority of bishops to simply turn tail and start blathering on about dialogue, a dialogue which, by the way, never happens.
Coming to you from L.A. Dodger Catholic lay response on this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, this is Michael Voris for Church Militant.