Tag Archives: Diocese of Montreal

Anglicans in the Montreal Pride Parade

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I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the Diocese of Montreal was well represented in the Montreal Pride parade:

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The priest in the photo is Rev. Donald Boisvert whose book, “Out on Holy Ground” includes this gem on phallic worship and the holiness of gay sex. I note with interest that the usual reference to stable, long–term, committed relationships has been supplanted by the more accurate if less edifying, unknowable anonymity:

As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with riotous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.

A paradigm of contemporary Western Anglicanism.

Only in the Anglican Church of Canada: the porous-edge Cathedral and the transgender indie singer

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Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of Montreal has developed porous edges. I had to curb my rejoicing at the news that the Cathedral is taking on water and will soon be a fitting metaphor for the church to which it belongs – a decrepit heap of rubble – because that’s not what having porous edges means in Anglican-speak.

The astute Rev. Rhonda Waters has concluded that up until now, people didn’t come to church because they couldn’t find the door; hence the attraction of a church with porous edges – we can all ooze through the walls.

To make this even more enticing, the Cathedral recently screened a musical documentary about “a transgender indie singer who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home on the Canadian prairie.” It’s called My Prairie Home; other, less pastorally sensitive authors than I might have yielded to the temptation to replace the trailing “e” with a different vowel.

From here (page 3):

People are no longer familiar with churches and what goes on in them, quite the opposite in fact. As a result,we need to create edges that allow people to peek inside, to slip in and out at their own pace, to test our spaces and our communities without an invitation and without a commitment.

[….]

My Prairie Home, a porous-edge event designed not only to create an opportunity for people to check us out but maybe to surprise them as well. My Prairie Home is a musical documentary about Rae Spoon, a transgender indie singer who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home on the Canadian prairie.

Bishop of Montreal, having noted an objection to the ordination of an actively homosexual candidate, proceeds anyway

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The Bishop of Montreal, Barry Clarke, recently ordained Alain Brosseau, a candidate  who is in a same-sex relationship with Peter Wessel. A number of clergy and laity objected to the ordination, an objection that, predictably, was ignored by the bishop. In Anglican jargon, what the bishop did is known as listening.

The objectors must have known that their statement would have no effect because they have tried it before with the same result; perhaps the time has come for more radical action.

From here (page 7):

As has happened at several recent previous ordinations of candidates with same-sex partners, Bishop Barry Clarke noted briefly at the March30 ordination that he had received an objection to the ordination of one of the candidates but was proceeding in the light of his own reflections and decisions of the diocesan synod.

The announcement was greeted by applause from a number of those at the well attended ordination service.

The objection was to the ordination of Rev. Alain Brosseau (whose partner, Peter Wessel, read the lesson,Peter 5:1-4, at the ordination service).

The objection, not read out at the service, was also similar to ones filed on earlier occasions. It was signed by Rev. Nick Brotherwood on behalf of three other clergy and seven lay people.(Previous objections were signed by six clergy.)

It says in part: “We, the undersigned laity and clergy, understand that one of the candidates for ordination to the presbyterate on March30th is in a sexually-active, same-gender relationship. We believe such relationships to be incompatible with scripture, and, when they are also Civil Marriages, with our Marriage Canon, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. We believe such relationships are also inconsistent with the received tradition of the Church Catholic, as well as resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Proceeding with such ordinations would not respect the previous Archbishop of Canterbury’s request for gracious restraint in these matters for the sake of the unity of the whole Church.

“For these reasons we believe the manner of life of the candidate so described to be unsuitable for the exercise of this ministry, and respectfully ask you not to proceed with his ordination.”

The letter was signed by Nick Brotherwood on behalf of Linda Faith Chalk, John and Diane Degrace,Bruce Glencross, Marilyn Miles, Stan and Joan Pepler, Roger Spack, Susan Wallet and Tim Wiebe.

Church of England vicar wants to marry his male partner

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From here:

Cain-ForeshewA gay vicar from Kilburn has vowed to marry his partner of 14 years despite the risk that he could be thrown out of the Church of England.

Fr Andrew Cain from St Mary’s with All Souls, revealed his engagement to fiancé Stephen Foreshew, an atheist, on Valentine’s Day.

He stated firmly that he planned to ignore edicts sent down from his own church leaders that described marriage as only a “lifelong union between one man and one woman”.

I have a suggestion for Messrs. Cain and Foreshew: move to Canada. Since the Anglican Church of Canada worships the triune god of Inclusion, Diversity and Homo-erotic sex, along with assorted demigods  – eco-justice, utopianism and smudging among others – you will be welcomed with open arms. The additional benefit of your wife-husband being an atheist would make you a shoe-in. I’d start with an application to the Diocese of Montreal, if I were you.

Diocese of Montreal Lenten study: “It’s not all good”

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After months of prayerful discernment, the Diocese of Montreal has developed a Lenten series that provides new and penetrating insights on what Lent is not about. Never before has the church presented a Lenten study that is this irrelevant to Lent.

A proud moment:

diomontreal

Diocese of Montreal: “respectful and dignified” objections to the ordination of partnered homosexuals

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From here:

In this case, the bishop said during some brief introductory remarks in French that he had received a letter objecting to the ordination of Alain Brosseau as a deacon and Donald Boisvert as a priest and appreciated the respectful and dignified tone of the objection but did not agree with the arguments and was proceeding with the ordinations.(the letter is similar to ones the same six clergy – Rev. Nick Brotherwood, Rev. Linda Faith Chalk, Rev. Michelle Eason, Rev. Chris Barrigar, Rev. Canon Bruce Glencross and Rev. Tim Wiebe – have presented on similar occasions in the past, saying the signers believe sexually active same-gender relationships are incompatible with scripture and, if civil marriages, with church law and traditions.)

I vaguely remember Norman Mailer writing (or perhaps it was in an interview) that if one believes something strongly enough, then the only defence of that belief that has integrity is one that goes in swinging – he was an amateur boxer. I’m not sure that that would work in a cathedral but, on the other hand, a “respectful and dignified” objection that everyone knows will be ignored seems to me to be worse than a waste of time: it is little more than a ritual conscience absolver.

If only the newly consecrated Donald Boisvert were as reticent in his panegyric to phallic worship in homoerotic and sadomasochistic sex. From his book, “Holy Sex” [Correction: “Holy Sex” is actually a section from Boisvert’s book Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men’s Spirituality):

Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.

Diocese of Montreal to “move forward in God’s mission” by closing another church

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From here (page 7):

Past and present clergy, wardens, altar servers, choristers. Organizers over the years of Sunday school, bazaars and rummage sales and men’s activities. Altar guild members.

Partners in other churches. Bishop Barry Clarke of Montreal – from 1993 to 2004 parish priest of St. Paul’s Church in Lachine – asked members of these and other groups in a near-capacity congregation of over 300 parishioners and wellwishers to stand and be recognized as he presided over a closing service marking the end of the 139-year history of the parish.

He also urged them not to waste energy trying to assign blame for the closing of the church or to focus too much on its dramatically impressive buildings, dating from 1963-64.

[…..]

“For us to move forward in God’s mission we have to do things differently,” he said.

The diocese has no discernible plan to “do things differently”; unless you count its accelerating descent into heresy tinged liberalism accompanied by an increasing cannibalisation of its assets in order to stay afloat – all disguised as a Ministry Action Plan – as different.

Page 8 of the same paper, without the least hint of irony, proudly announces: “Quebec diocese to offer blessings to same-sex couples”, something that the Diocese of Montreal approved in 2010. Catering to 0.8% of the population has worked out so well for other dioceses that Quebec has decided it wants a piece of the action.

Diocese of Montreal ordains two men, both married to other men

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Rev. Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert were ordained by Bishop Barry Clarke in June, Camara as a priest and Boisvert as a deacon; both Camara and Boisvert  are married – to men.

Anyone still labouring under the misapprehension that the Anglican Church of Canada is not being consumed by an obsession with homoerotic sex, need look no further for illumination than to the preoccupations of those whom it is ordaining. Here is an extract from “Holy Sex” by Deacon Boisvert:

Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.

Just what the doctor ordered for ailing Canadian Anglicanism: phallic worship.

Here, in his book “Sacred Space”, Boisvert describes his life’s most “spiritual moments” in – where else – gay bars and bath-houses:

Because I am a gay man, my first time in a gay bar, my first visit to the baths, and most poignantly, the first time I stepped into the Stonewall Inn in New York City have also been uplifting, spiritual moments in my life.

I am looking forward to the gradual transformation of Christ Church Cathedral into a “Sacred Space”; my bet is that it will be a gay bathhouse – once the baptismal font has been enlarged.

Boisvert used to be a Roman Catholic, an affiliation that proved unsympathetic to his yearning to worship penises. Unsurprisingly, he has received a warm welcome in the Anglican Church of Canada as it sinks inexorably into Boisvert’s murky world of cruising other men looking for a spot of “Holy Sex”.

From here (page 4):

To say that Donald Boisvert has come out as a gay man would be an understatement. You could almost say he wrote the book (or books).
His ordination as an Anglican deacon by Bishop Barry Clarke June 3 is another event in his distinguished and public career as a scholar and activist concerned particularly with sexuality and the relation between sexuality and religion.
In a note for The Montreal Anglican in 2009, on the occasion of his being received into the Anglican Church by Bishop Barry Clarke, he wrote:
“I was raised a Roman Catholic; I studied for the Catholic priesthood; and I am a scholar of Catholic religious culture. I have a great deal of affection for the Catholic Church, in large part because it marks my cultural heritage and it guided me through my youth, but also because it still has a great deal to offer. But I am gay, and I have more and more difficulty with the Vatican’s archaic teachings on human sexuality, including its position on women and their place within Catholicism.
More broadly, however, the Catholic Church remains a deeply entrenched patriarchal institution, with an authoritarian and rigid governing structure.

It is difficult to refrain from speculating on why Bishop Barry Clarke would ordain someone whose chief interests lie in the exploration of the ritualistic aspects of sadomasochism and the holiness of male genitals. Is the bishop a witless lunatic, a closet adorer of phalluses, a neophyte practitioner of wanton sex looking for instruction?

Who can say – perhaps he just picked up Boisvert in a bathhouse.

Note: I’ve updated this article since Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert, while married to other men, are not married to each other as I had previously stated.

Diocese of Montreal gets everything backwards

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The synod of the Diocese of Montreal voted to support keeping the long gun registry, which would  cost Canadian taxpayers another billion dollars and criminals nothing at all. The synod also voted to oppose “tough on crime legislation” which would most probably expose Canadian taxpayers to more crime, leaving them less money to pay for the long gun registry, and ease the burden on criminals trying to make a dishonest living.

There was also broad support for the objectives of the Occupy Movement – whatever they are.

It appears that God did not intrude upon the meeting in any way.

Not bad for one synod.

From here:

Delegates to the 152nd synod of the Diocese of Montreal voted by strong majorities to urge the federal government to rethink its plans to abolish the long-gun registry and to adopt tough-on-crime legislation expected to greatly increase the prison population.

[….]

Another resolution, with support from the Revd Canon David Sinclair among others, gave some support to the objectives of the Occupy Montreal protestors against income disparity and other social ills. It supports “Occupy Montreal and all others who have drawn attention to the grave disparities of the current economic systems.”

The Diocese of Montreal ordains another active homosexual

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From here (page 5):

Robert Ledo Camara and Rhonda Waters are the two newest clergy in the Diocese of Montreal but for all their relatively young years they also are old hands around the diocese.

[…..]

But he [Camara] and his partner, Gabriele Spina, still called Montreal home. The two men were married in 2005 in the Birks Chapel at McGill about a year after a decision, A decision of the Quebec Court of Appeals the previous year had legalized same-sex marriage in the province.

As the article points out, Robert Camara wasn’t ordained just because he is married to another man, but because he knows Portuguese: very useful in French speaking Montreal.