Faithful Catholics who disrupted ‘LGBT Mass’ at World Youth Day could face one year in jail

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Faithful Catholics who disrupted ‘LGBT Mass’ at World Youth Day could face one year in jail
‘I just want people to fight for Christ,’ Rafael da Silva, who organized the protest, told LifeSiteNews.



Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation
Wikimedia Commons

Aug 16, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — A group of Catholics who protested an “LGBT Mass” during World Youth Day in Lisbon are facing up to one year in jail for their actions.

Twelve traditional Catholics held a reparation prayer in the Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation on August 3 in protest of a heterodox “LGBT Mass” taking place in the Catholic church. Police removed the group, and its members now face up to one year in prison for disrupting an act of worship.

Rafael da Silva, the protest organizer, confirmed to LifeSiteNews that he and his 11 companions are being criminally charged for their actions.

“We are facing a criminal investigation,” da Silva told LifeSiteNews. “We are being accused of disrupting a cult action.”

He said that they were unaware that their protest would constitute a crime.

Da Silva stated that some media reports wrongly claimed that the group “invaded” the church during the Mass. However, his group had already been inside the Church for a while before the service started. He recalled that when Fr. James Alison, an openly homosexual priest, entered the church, they “started praying the Rosary in Latin.”

Da Silva told LifeSiteNews that the police and the Portuguese secret service are now tracking their “phone, messages, and activities.” However, he currently does not believe that they will be put in jail. He instead thinks that the police are just trying to scare people to “stop the movement from expanding” and that they will end up with a fine at most.

Da Silva said that he and the other 11 Catholics involved in the protest are not too bothered by the criminal charges at the moment and that they are just “living life normally.”

The “LGBT Mass” held on August 3 was part of the series of heterodox events at World Youth Day organized by the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics and a local Portuguese LGBT group. 

Fr. Alison, one of the “celebrants” at the event, has lobbied the Vatican for many years to be relieved of his clerical celibacy, arguing that he joined the priesthood based on a false acceptance of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

The prominently pro-homosexual priest received a letter from the Congregation for Clergy around 2010 in which he was informed of his eventual laicization after refusing to cooperate in previous attempts to laicize him.

Angered by this decision, he wrote to Pope Francis, requesting to ignore the Congregation’s decision. Francis subsequently called Alison, appearing to give his approval to the homosexual priest, saying, “I want you to walk with deep interior freedom, following the Spirit of Jesus. And I give you the power of the keys. Do you understand? I give you the power of the keys.”

READ: Openly gay priest claims Pope Francis affirmed his homosexuality in private phone call


Pro-LGBT priests ‘do not represent the Catholic faith’

When asked about his motivation to organize the protest, da Silva said, “I think they just crossed a line” by celebrating a “blasphemous Mass.”

Da Silva recalled that he was filled with “holy wrath” when he heard about the plans for the heterodox Mass in the news and that he felt like it was his “duty as a Catholic to do something.”

He told LifeSiteNews that the Catholics who attended the “LGBT Mass” “are not enemies; they are being used by the enemies to push an agenda that is anti-Christ.”

While he did not blame the attendees of the heterodox event, da Silva scolded the priests who celebrated the “LGBT Mass,” stating that “they hate Jesus Christ, they hate the Catholic Church.” 

“They do not represent Jesus Christ; they do not represent the Catholic faith,” he continued. 

Da Silva said his message to the self-proclaimed Catholics who are promoting heterodoxy and organizing events like this “LGBT Mass” is: “We’re coming, we are the faithful, and just like in the Arian crisis, we will restore the faith, and we will get our churches back because people deserve the truth, people deserve Catholicism, not this catastrophic new religion founded in Vatican II.” 

“They forgot about real sins; they forgot about the ten commandments. They are killing souls every single day,” he stated.

“Just like the 12 apostles of Christ, we were there for some reason,” da Silva told LifeSiteNews when discussing the group of 12 Catholics who prayed loudly during the “LGBT Mass.” “God knows what he has in store for us.” 

Da Silva said that he and his friends did not expect that they would receive so much media attention for their protest.

“We don’t want to be famous; we never thought that the media would cover us in such a way; we never thought this would have this big of backlash, to be quite honest.” 

Rather than achieving fame, his goal is to “go to heaven,” Silva said. “I just want people to fight for Christ,” he stated.

Da Silva started the “Restore Portugal by Prayer” movement in June, together with his wife, for which they “go to places” in Portugal to “pray for a specific cause.” 

He told LifeSiteNews that the best way that people can support him and his companions is by offering up prayers for them.