About Time

Just when you thought you'd heard it all. From Reuters:

(Reuters) - The Catholic Church will stop gay-friendly Masses in the central London church that has held them for the past six years, London's archbishop said on Wednesday. 

The 18th-century church in Soho, the heart of London's gay scene, has been hosting the twice-monthly Masses with the support of the local Church hierarchy, but Archbishop Vincent Nichols said in a statement that gay Catholics should attend Mass in their local parishes rather going to separate services. 

"The Mass is always to retain its essential character as the highest prayer of the whole Church," Nichols said, stressing there would still be pastoral care to help gay Catholics "take a full part in the life of the Church." ... 

Conservative Catholics in Britain have long complained to the Vatican about the Soho Masses, saying they flouted Church teaching on homosexuality, and small groups sometimes protested outside the church during the services. 

Now, a guy like me would ask a simple question: Why is an archdiocese and, more to the point, a bishop, allowing a "gay-friendly Mass" (and we all know what that implies: rainbow stoles and "I'm okay, you're okay" ethics) in the first place? It took six years to put an end to this? And we wonder why confusion reigns in so many quarters of Catholicism. While serious, faithful, yet exasperated Catholics were peacefully demonstrating outside the church for six years during the scandalous, sacrilege-ridden "gay-friendly Masses" what was Archbishop Nichols, the shepherd of the flock, doing? Just a question.