The Diocese of Montreal is in radical decline:
Delegates to the annual diocesan synod approved a budget for 2017 with revenue of $2.08 million and expenses of $2.38 million, calling for a $300,856 operating loss, a little less than the $331,975 loss now forecast for this year. The operating losses were $529,482 in 2015 and $400,983 in 2014.
Diocesan treasurer Ron O’Connell told delegates, “Our diocese cannot sustain this rate of loss.” He said, “It’s very important that these things be addressed sooner than later, so that people understand that it’s time for action.” A number of parishes as well are facing threats to whether they can sustain themselves, he said, and some of them need assistance from the diocese in finding ways to “re-purpose” church buildings and other properties.
Fear not! Help is at hand in the form of a Pride Mass to Celebrate Human Diversity:
On Sunday, August 12 at 6pm Christ Church Cathedral will host a Pride Mass for a third consecutive year, as a kick-off to the Montreal Pride Week. Both Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson and the dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Bertrand Olivier, will preach.
The beauty of all this inclusion and diversity is that not only does God love us while we were yet sinners, but, because he made us this way with a sinful fallen nature, he doesn’t want us to change even after we come to him. It’s all a part of being made in his image. It’s very comforting: my sin is all his fault.
The Pride Mass is a sign that we are open to a discussion about what it means to be loved by God for who God created us to be, without having to change or conform.
The Pride Mass is not just for LGBTQ+ persons, but for all who wish to celebrate the numerous ways in which God has created human beings in God’s image, and to celebrate the diversity of the human family.
If that doesn’t solve the problems of a diocese that is crumbling financially, spiritually and physically, I don’t know what will.
Both… will “preach”. There — fixed it for them.
Both might well preach but it will NOT be the Gospel but simply a confirmation of their dedication to the god of political expediency. The ACoC is simply providing further proof that they consider THE WORD inferior to that of apostate so-called bishops. They need to learn that PRIDE is one of the deadly sins!! Might I suggest it falls just below that of apostasy.
Pride is not just one of the deadly sins – the traditional “seven deadly sins” came with a ranking and pride was considered the worst. There is Scriptural authority behind the tradition for 1 Tim 3:6 identifies pride as the sin of the devil, and hence the source of all sin. Ironically, pride is itself a far worse sin than the sin which those who march under the “pride” manner do so to celebrate.
Celebrating “Pride” is therefore celebrating sin, and associating “Pride” with the Mass is dragging sin into the sacred.
If all this ‘inclusion’ is what is preached, why exactly should I bother to get out of bed on Sunday mornings, give money, or work?
Another financial remedy could be to apply for the Federal Government summer jobs funding; they do more than qualify for the attestation. Even the Prime Minister would approve, especially now that he has been given no less than Papal sanction for sin:
“GOD made you that way!” And on Pentecost, no less.
When we cannot find any other excuse for our sin – and that includes the sin of homosexuality – Satan always provides that simple excuse – “God made me that way”. However, if we are totally honest with ourselves – regardless of any sin – we will be brought to confession and repentance. Tragically many of our so-called political leaders readily use that Satan devised excuse, “God made me that way.”
The original sin:”Yea, hath GOD said?” + Genesis 3:1,
asked by “the father of lies”, our LORD’s Title for The Adversary.
“the enemy of our souls”.
I always shake my head when people say, “God made me this way.” No He didn’t. God has only made two people – Adam and Eve. He may have knit us together in our mother’s womb, but we were “made” by the union of a father’s sperm with a mother’s egg. We were made ‘defective’ because the world was made defective – by the actions of those first two.
As the CoE extends its invitation to all and sundry to serve within it, at the Rome Synod on the Family, Professor Gerald Van Den Aamden offers a most incisive and critical report:”‘Homo-tyranny is upon us’ in the Church.”..make that plural. both Roman and Protestant.
V. ‘Lifesitenews’ May 28/18, article by Doug Mainwaring.
And since the ACC played such a subversive role via its former Editor of the now defunct ‘Presbyterian Record’, by introducing similar reportage “conversations” into The Presbyterian Church in Canada, c.c. the Minority Dissent Report of its Doctrine Committee to be presented at its Sunday, June 3/18 General Assembly meeting a U. of Waterloo.
Wonder if free speech will prevail there?
Further to which: US State Department just released a report listing Canada as one of the international countries that endangers religious liberty, which liberty it deems fundamental to all other liberties. V. ‘Lifesitenews’, May 31, 2018.
Note the Canadian Prime Minister’s objections to the steel/aluminum tariffs on the grounds that Canadians and Americans fought together.
Fought together to defend and uphold liberty and its freedoms -religious liberty among them.
How is that for a real ‘balance of trade’!