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Published: October 18, 2007

Phone call from the archbishop

Niederauer tells pastor to remove thank-you note in parish bulletin received from member of Catholic-mocking transvestite nuns

San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer has asked Most Holy Redeemer church to remove from the web site edition of its parish bulletin a thank-you letter from a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a homosexual group whose members dress in drag as nuns.

The archbishop made the request on Oct. 15, a day after the letter appeared in the weekly parish bulletin. The letter has since been removed. The letter was published in the parish bulletin just three days after Niederauer publicly apologized for his “mistake” in giving communion to two Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at a Mass celebrated at Most Holy Redeemer on Oct. 7. In his letter, Niederauer said he noticed “two strangely dressed persons” at the end of the communion line. He said he did not “recognize either of them as wearing mock religious garb.” Only later, he said, did he learn they were members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The archbishop’s letter of apology also included some harsh words for the group: “Someone who dresses in a mock religious habit to attend Mass does so to make a point. If people dress in a manner clearly intended to mock what we hold sacred, they place themselves in an objective situation in which it is not appropriate for them to receive Holy Communion, much less for a minister of the Church to give the Sacrament to them.” The statement concluded, “I must apologize.”

Most Holy Redeemer’s Oct. 14 parish bulletin carried a thank-you note from “Delta Goodhand,” a Perpetual Indulgence “sister,” in which he thanked the congregation for the welcome he felt at the archbishop’s Mass. “Afterwards, one of the parishioners offered us a blue ‘MHRC: An Inclusive Catholic Church’ pin that I was proud to wear through the Castro Fair. You are a wonderfully inclusive church!” wrote Goodhand.

Archdiocesan spokesman Maurice Healy told California Catholic Daily in an e-mail message yesterday that he became aware of the letter in the bulletin on the Most Holy Redeemer web site on Oct. 15. Healy said he “felt the letter was a mistake and counter to the Archbishop’s apology statement.”

The same day, Healy said, he called the parish, “and was told the parish council had received the letter and thought it would be a good idea to publish it.” On the afternoon of Oct. 15, he brought it to Niederauer’s attention, who, said Healy, “phoned the pastor, who agreed that the letter should be removed from the web site.”

Asked what the archbishop's reason was for requesting that the letter be removed, Healy said he did not know, but that as soon as Niederauer learned of the letter, he phoned the pastor.

The pastor, Father Stephen Merriwether, in an interview published by Catholic News Service, said the incident "has been blown way out of proportion.”

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who describe themselves as the “leading-edge order of queer nuns" and whose slogan is “go and sin some more,” issued their own statement about the controversy yesterday. The statement, written by “Sister Edith Myflesh, Current Abbess,” took aim not at the transvestite nuns taking communion in drag, but at those who recorded the event and the media outlets that reported it.

The statement said, in part: “These professional muckrakers then gave the photos to an anti-gay Fundamentalist Catholic Website which in turn sent them to right-wing media outlets who willfully distorted the facts for political gain.

“The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are appalled that some media outlets have unwittingly spread these distortions while others have intentionally taken advantage to fuel a mean-spirited and divisive political agenda.

“These forces have been critical of Most Holy Redeemer for their welcoming approach to the diverse community they serve and have frequently seen fit to attack the parishioners as part of a larger campaign against ‘San Francisco values.’

“Our hearts go out to the parishioners of Most Holy Redeemer and to the Archbishop who have been unfairly stigmatized by these disingenuous campaigns for doing nothing more than following the welcoming teachings of Christ and administering Communion in keeping with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.”

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