The latest announcements from the Stockwell Masses Action Committee (SMAC) suggest that the controversial 'Heroin Masses' will move to another Church in Knightsbridge, much to the consternation of campaigners who petitioned Westminster and Rome for an end to the Masses deemed to be sacrilegious and disrespectful to the Sacraments, as well as scandalous to the Faithful and overtly political in nature.
Campaigners have fought long and hard for an end to the Masses and have asked difficult questions of the organisers of the pastoral care, such as, "Is a person who is shooting up five minutes before Mass in a State of Grace?"
Roger Greathit, one of the members of SMAC, defends the Heroin Masses on his blog, One More Dig at the Church, while writing articles that seem to deny Christ's Divinity and asserting that Christ and His Apostles were just a band of brothers looking for whatever drugs they could find to get high.
In Greathit's vision of the Apostolic mission, the Messiah wanted to liberate all His people and dish out as many 'Class A's as he could to the people He loved. In a recent post, he asserted that while Scripture says that the Lord turned water into wine, he is yet to see any evidence that He didn't get a crack pipe out as well and share it among the revellers along with some incredible opium for all the party to smoke.
The pastoral care offered by SMAC has been marred by controversy and has been a focal point of criticism by many in the Church who deemed that what had seemed a pastoral endeavour to reach out to drug addicts had become little more than a meeting place for addicts and dealers.
Some of the literature and material distributed after the SMAC Masses suggested that the Action Committee took a pro-drugs line that was completely out of favour with Rome.
Last year, video evidence emerged that in the bidding prayers, heroin addicts would use the occasion to promote their hope that the Government would legalise drugs and that the Catholic Church would change its traditional anti-heroin use outlook. During the years of the Masses, the annual Junkie Pride Parade was highlighted by the 'Heroin Mass' with aluminium foil draping down from the ceiling as a hallmark of the heroin identity politics that dominates current discourse over drugs.
Knightsbridge residents are said to be 'concerned' that the Diocese's 'pastoral care' will now be moved to their area, rather than their original place of worship in Stockwell.
For more information, read William Oddie of The Catholic Herald.
For some reason, comments are now closed.
2 comments:
As Mr Greathit rightly points out, no where in Scripture is the taking of heroin condemned. It's therefore absolutely clear that Jesus is in favour of it. I know the Pope's probably not, but why should we as Catholics listen to what some guy in a hat says who's never tried the stuff rather than relying on that bloke down the pub who reckons it's all right?
As you say comments to Dr Oddie's excellent post have been closed. One wonders what the policy is that dictates closure and the deletion of some comments.
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