On Friday, April 23, a small group of Catholics sent an email to Msgr. Gregory Ace, Pastor of St. Padre Pio parish in Woodbridge, a suburb north of Toronto. The email was a courtesy to the Pastor to let him know that they would be gathering to pray the rosary, "against the Church
Lockdowns, offering up Prayers and Penances to the Blessed Mother, to intercede
on our behalf with Her Son, to bring an end to the 'Pandemic', which, as St
Charles Borromeo would say, our Sins and Depravity have brought upon us."
This was the third week that this group undertook this prayer. The first week, the attendance was at St. Clare of Assisi. The Pastor, Msgr. John Borean came out and blessed them, allegedly "inspired" by the Blessed Mother herself, only to then verbally berate the organizer in public. This was Holy Saturday morning and Borean came out wearing a moo-moo type of white vestment as if dressed for Mass. Mass, on Holy Saturday when there is no Mass. The only reason to address them in that "vestment" was as a clericalist prop.
The next week, the group attended at Immaculate Conception parish, also in Woodbridge and were greeted and blest, but something more sinister was in the offing at St. Padre Pio parish.
The letter to Msgr. Ace is as follows:
From:
Sent: April 23, 2021 8:33 AM
To: info
Subject: Public Rosary in front of St Padre Pio Parish, against the
Church Lockdowns
To Monsignor Gregory Ace, C.H.H. Pastor, St Padre Pio
Parish
Greetings
We wish to advise you that a number of Faithful
Catholics will conduct a Public Rosary and a Public recital of the Divine Mercy
Chaplet in front of St Padre Pio Parish on Saturday, April 24th at about
10:30am, calling down the intercession of the Blessed Mother to bring an end to
the Church Lockdowns and the 'Pandemic', while offering up Prayers, Penances
and Reparations for our Sins and for the Sins of our Nation...
You are more than welcome to come out and speak to us
and or give us a Blessing if you wish.
With regards...
Ad Iesum per Mariam
Pray... Fast... Penance...
God Bless
Monsignor Ace did not respond, but Neil MacCarthy, the spokesman for Cardinal Collins did!
---------- Forwarded message
---------
From: MacCarthy, Neil <neilm@archtoronto.org>
Date: Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 12:01 PM
Subject: RE: FW: Public Rosary in front of St Padre Pio Parish, against the
Church Lockdowns
To:
Good morning.
Msgr. Ace
has passed along your note to me. I have been liaising with the province and
municipality throughout the pandemic on the various restrictions in place. We
recognize that there are strong feeling on all sides of this issue but Cardinal
Collins has clearly asked all Catholics to follow the law at this time, despite
the frustrations we are all feeling about the restrictions in place.
To be
clear, permission has not been granted by the parish for this activity to take
place on parish property.
Further,
under the current restrictions in place, public gatherings outside of those
from the same family are not permitted. Religious services are limited to 10
people only and the archdiocese has provided guidelines for parishes to do so
in the appropriate setting.
We do not
want to have a situation where the neighbours or others will contact the police
or members of your group may be fined for gathering contrary to the stay at
home order restrictions that are currently in place.
For these
reasons, I would ask that this gathering be postponed to a time when larger
gatherings are once again permitted.
It would
be most unfortunate if such a gathering had a negative effect and in fact made
it more difficult for the church to reopen at greater capacity.
I trust
you can appreciate the serious situation that we are all currently in.
Neil MacCarthyDirector, Public Relations & Communications Archdiocese
of Toronto
neilm@archtoronto.org
Imagine, a diocesan lay bureaucrat dressing down a group of faithful Catholics in such a manner.
All of us should be comforted knowing that Neil MacCarthy is "liaising" on the matter of closing our churches and cancelling Mass. The same Neil that told a number of priests known to me that they were not to preach from the pulpit on the matter of GSA's (gay-straight alliances) in Catholic schools because he was "handling it." Oh, he handled that one really well.
My favourite sentence is this.
"It would be most unfortunate if someone cut the brake lines of your car." Oops, sorry about that Neil, It brings back memories of certain, you know, ...
The best. however, was the response to Neil:
From:
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 2:36 PM
To: MacCarthy, Neil
Subject: Re: FW: Public Rosary in front of St Padre Pio Parish, against
the Church Lockdowns
Hello Neil
Thank you for your email.
In fact, it's been 7 years
and counting, since I last emailed the Archdiocese regarding the illicit
Liturgical Dancing at St Padre Pio Parish and have yet to hear a response from
the Archdiocese on that. And yet, the turn around time for this email to St
Padre Pio Parish, regarding a public Rosary against the Church Lockdowns, was
less than four hours.
Thank you for your concerns.
As a result, we may or may not do our public Rosary at St Padre Pio
tomorrow. In fact, we may or may not end up taking our Public Rosary, imploring
the intercession of the Blessed Mother, to a different parish in the
Archdiocese tomorrow... To us, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is something
worth fighting for, as it was for the martyrs who preceded us...
Pray... Fast... Penance...
Ad Iseum per Mariam...
God Bless
Imagine that. No response about the liturgical dancers from seven years ago, even at the dedication of the church in the presence of Tom Collins himself as reported in the Catholic Register, but four hours for giving the courtesy of a public rosary.
|
Illicit "liturgical dance" in the presence of Tom Collins |
What did Father Ace get for his liturgical abuse? Monsignor!The swamp of the Archdiocese of Toronto is very deep indeed.
So what was the result last Saturday?
Hello Everyone...
As promised, providing you
with a breakdown as to what happened last Saturday at our Rosary Prayer
gathering at St Padre Pio Parish.
I arrived at the parking lot
of the park, across from St Padre Pio Parish just before 10:30am. There I met
one of the members of our group who told me that I had just missed the police
cruiser who had been parked at the entrance to the parking lot, facing the
Church across the street. That the police cruiser had been there for about Half
an hour before driving away. It is unlikely that it was a speed trap, because
the police car was just sitting there for half an hour before driving off,
right at the exact time where one would have expected that those who would be
coming to the Rosary Prayer Rally at St Padre Pio, would have been expected to
begin arriving... One can only assume that the York Region Police were advised
by the Archdiocese that an "Illegal gathering" was going to take
place in front of St Padre Pio Parish...
As a few more of us arrived,
one of the ladies from our group had initially gone over to St Padre Pio parish
before coming to join us in the Park, parking lot. She told us that she saw two
gentlemen, one of whom had a Knights of Columbus jacket on, at one of the
entrance/exits to the parking lot of St Padre Pio parish. She asked if this was
where the Rosary Rally was going to be held. They told her that there would be
no Rosary rally at St Padre Pio parish, that we should all obey the law and not
gather outside our homes, and that Cardinal Collins said we should stay at
home and that she should leave...
Just let that sink in for a
moment... Catholics... Presumably, members of the Knights of Columbus of St
Padre Pio Parish, allowing themselves to be used as Goons/Enforcers by the
Monsignor of the Parish, to PREVENT CATHOLICS FROM PRAYING THE
ROSARY IN PUBLIC, OUT IN FRONT OF A CHURCH!
I was inclined to go over and
have a talk with them, but one of the ladies of our group quite rightly
reminded us that we should do what we had gathered there to do, and that was to
pray the Rosary. And we did so in the Park... By the time we had ended and
dispersed, I drove across the street to the Church and no one was there. On top
of that, all the doors to the Church were also locked...
Interesting note... there
were about 16 to 20 guys playing soccer together in the park, and the police
cruiser that was there did not attempt to break up that "Illegal
gathering"... and yet they and, presumably, members of the Knights of
Columbus at the behest of the Monsignor, were prepared to PREVENT a
group of Faithful Catholics from gathering to pray the Rosary in front of a
Church, because that was an "Illegal Gathering"...
God Help from Leaders who are
more Wolves than Shepherds...
That's quite the legacy for Tom Collins.
Pour me another.