Philly Archbishop Chaput and his wacky “pray-the-gay-away” campaign has scheduled workshops for his priests — sort of a how-to session. Please take note, ACT UP, along with those who care about the separation of church and state, the nonprofit status of the church and most importantly, those victims of sexual abuse by the church, since I’m about to spill the beans.
If you recall, last week I revealed that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Vicar for the Clergy, Reverend Monsignor Sullivan, put out a letter on Aug. 13 requesting all priests to attend a workshop on “Clarity and charity: An authentically Catholic response to homosexuality.” Led by Rev. Philip G. Bochanski, executive director of Courage International, which is the Catholic Church’s franchise of chastity and pray the gay away, but they do it with charity, it’s scheduled for Friday Oct. 5 at Saint Helena Church in Blue Bell.
First session is at 11 a.m., and the second is at 1:15 p.m. Each of the priests are asked to pay $75 for the privilege of attending, and as the letter states, the funds may come from “parish/institution funds.” A catered lunch is included in the price of admission. So I called the communications office of the Archdiocese and asked if any of those funds come from our tax dollars. Also wanted to ask if this was open to the public. You’re not surprised that they didn’t return the call. Does that mean that, yes, they are using your tax dollars for a wacky-quacky program? Don’t you think that if they’re using tax funds on a sexual issue, it should be to train their own priests? Let me paraphrase the attorney general’s report with the word he uses for the actions of priest and bishops — that word is “rape.”
Or at the very least, the Church could use that money from the catered lunch to help their victims of child sexual abuse? Next week we might discuss Rite Aid Pharmacy’s involvement in this.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. You can follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MarkSegalPGN or Twitter at https://twitter.com/PhilaGayNews.