Of the roughly one dozen “Liturgies” that will be celebrated at the 2019 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (LA REC), the presiders at these themed masses include Archbishop Jose Gomez and Bishop Kevin Van. In addition, Bishop John Stowe will celebrate a mass for “Sanctification of Human Labor.” Stowe has been a vocal supporter of the pro-gay marriage Catholic advocacy group Fortunate Families. Music at this mass will be proved by Meredith Augustin who is the contact person for the pro-gay LGBT ministry at St. Francis of Assisi in New York City; the Parish belongs to the Franciscan Friars of the Holy Name Province. In 2018, a member of Fortunate Families introduced James Martin at the LA REC. Another mass will be offered by Fordham professor Bryan Massingale. An outspoken proponent of gay and transgender inclusion in the Catholic Church, during the 2018 LA REC, Massingale, when addressing the Church’s teachings on transgenderism, claimed that Catholicism is in a “period of discernment.” Finally, Daniel Horan, another pro-gay activist priest, will offer a mass “in the Franciscan Tradition” on March 22, 2019.

The Franciscan Friars of the Holy Name Province also operate gay-affirmative ministries at St. Patrick – St. Anthony Church in Hartford, Connecticut, at the St. Anthony Shrine in Boston, and at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Raleigh. Recently, The LGBT Book Club at St. Patrick – St. Anthony Church promoted a book about “Discovering the Queer Christ.” One of the most high-profile Holy Name Friars is Daniel Horan. Following the 2015 Obergefell decision, Horan wrote:

My reaction has been solidarity for a population of people who have indeed been “afflicted” and whose experience for so long, millennia perhaps, has been more “grief and anxiety” than “joy and hope.” But today, at least in the United States, things appear to be changing…As a Christian, the “joys and hopes” of the LGBT women and men who have cried out for the recognition of their human dignity and value, these are the “joys and hopes” of me today.

In 2006, following his official “affiliation” with the Holy Name Province, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick maintained strong ties with the Province. In addition to being the main celebrant at several Holy Name ordinations, including Horan’s, in 2009 McCarrick “agreed to serve as an informal advisor to the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Directorate of Holy Name Province;” in 2013, McCarrick gave an address at the Holy Name parish in Raleigh entitled: “We Are All Equal in the Love of God;” in 2014, the Holy Name Province instituted the Cardinal McCarrick Award.

Who is Daniel Horan?

Daniel P. Horan, OFM is a Franciscan friar of Holy Name Province. He is also an assistant professor of systematic theology and spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Horan writes for the National Catholic Reporter.

The Holy Name Province, along with the Jesuits, and the Paulist Fathers, is one of the most pro-gay affirmative Catholic religious orders of men in the United States.

Horan also has a history of supporting leftist causes, including the militantly pro-abortion 2017 Women’s March in Washington DC. He Tweeted:

If you think the #catholic clergy have no business supporting #WomensMarch, then you don’t understand basic Catholic Social Teaching!

Yet, he curiously had a problem with the annual March for Life, also in Washington DC. In a 2013 article, “Why I do not support the (so-called) March for Life,” printed in the National Catholic Reporter, Horan wrote:

It is never, never as simple as “good” versus “bad,” “pro-life” versus “pro-death,” and so on.

He continued:

Perhaps I would be more sympathetic to the movement to parade through the streets of Washington, DC, in protest of a forty-year-old Supreme Court decision if I was more convinced of the sincerity of the protesters to do what it is they claim they want, which, if they are truly Christians, demands so very much more of them than getting on a bus for a two-day road trip each January.

Lastly, he ridiculed the event because, in his opinion, it does not draw enough equivalence (the so-called “seamless garment”) between other social ills and abortion:

…in the Catholic tradition that claims to be “pro-life” – person or event – must also include those other important issues of life and dignity, issues that most of these marchers would otherwise prefer to forget: war, poverty, torture, capital punishment, economic inequality, and the like.

The Women’s March certainly attempted to draw attention to those issues mentioned by Horan, but they officially supported “safe, legal, affordable abortion” while rejecting the official participation of Pro-Life women’s groups.

In 2013, following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Horan praised the ruling as an advancement for the “civil rights” of the LGBT community. Horan also criticized the USSB reaction which called the decision “tragic.” He wrote:

…the decisions on Wednesday were absolutely not tragic. That anyone would say that — and this quote has circulated widely in subsequent days — strikes me as quite appalling. Wednesday’s decisions, as best I can tell, affect no one for the worse. They do not threaten different-sex marriages. They do not ruin the foundations of our society. They do not do anything but provide another step to guarantee that all human beings have the right to be treated like other human beings in the United States. We’ve come as a society to recognize, oftentimes too slowly, the need for these legal protections with regard to sex, race, and now sexual orientation — all things inherent to a person and outside one’s control…Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes reiterates the need the church has to recognize the legitimate role of governments to protect the rights of all people regardless of this inherent characteristics of their personhood.

In a 2003 statement from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is clearly stated:

…all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions.

In addition, while Horan seems to take issue with those who might criticize or mock so-called LGBT Catholics:

I stand with and for all #LGBTQ women & men. Shameful: Hatred against stirred up by sad, pseudo-catholic, ‘orthodoxy police’ trolls.

At the same time, he doesn’t shy away from mocking those Catholics who might be perceived as more traditional:

Remember that time at the Last Supper when the disciples all knelt down at the upper room’s altar rail and received bread from Jesus on the tongue? Yeah, me neither.