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HagiaSophia
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — It’s not often a priest gets a ticket for saying Mass, but one Colorado Springs priest was threatened with one.
“I was right in the middle of Mass, at the Liturgy of the Word, and the cop is saying ‘if you continue on with this you’ll get a ticket.’ I didn’t know what to do,” said Father Bill Carmody, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Security, a Colorado Springs suburb. "I didn’t want to stop Mass, but I also didn’t want to break the law.
The problem: Father Carmody was offering Mass outside a Planned Parenthood facility Nov. 13, as he has every Saturday for 10 years, when he was threatened with a ticket
The law in question was a prohibition of open containers of alcohol in public. Father Carmody had his altar wine there, ready to be consecrated. The officer let him finish, but warned him not to say Mass there again.
That incident sparked a mostly pro-life city council to look for ways to allow Father Carmody to continue celebrating Mass outside the abortion business without having to scrap an ordinance intended to ensure order and peace.
“We may in fact have to adjust our ordinance to exempt sacramental wine,” Mayor Lionel Rivera, a pro-life Republican and Catholic, told the Register. “We have the city attorney investigating our options, but I’m pretty sure that under state and federal law Father Carmody has some right to serve Communion in public. And, it may turn out that our ordinance is a violation of state and federal laws that protect the free practice of religion.”
Mayor Rivera said the City Council is so vocally pro-life that the city-owned Memorial Hospital voluntarily stopped offering elective abortions after the last election.
As the city attorney examines options, Father Carmody is abiding by the ordinance and offering adoration of the Blessed Sacrament across the street from the abortion site instead of Mass.
ncregister.com/current/0109lead2.htm
“I was right in the middle of Mass, at the Liturgy of the Word, and the cop is saying ‘if you continue on with this you’ll get a ticket.’ I didn’t know what to do,” said Father Bill Carmody, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Security, a Colorado Springs suburb. "I didn’t want to stop Mass, but I also didn’t want to break the law.
The problem: Father Carmody was offering Mass outside a Planned Parenthood facility Nov. 13, as he has every Saturday for 10 years, when he was threatened with a ticket
The law in question was a prohibition of open containers of alcohol in public. Father Carmody had his altar wine there, ready to be consecrated. The officer let him finish, but warned him not to say Mass there again.
That incident sparked a mostly pro-life city council to look for ways to allow Father Carmody to continue celebrating Mass outside the abortion business without having to scrap an ordinance intended to ensure order and peace.
“We may in fact have to adjust our ordinance to exempt sacramental wine,” Mayor Lionel Rivera, a pro-life Republican and Catholic, told the Register. “We have the city attorney investigating our options, but I’m pretty sure that under state and federal law Father Carmody has some right to serve Communion in public. And, it may turn out that our ordinance is a violation of state and federal laws that protect the free practice of religion.”
Mayor Rivera said the City Council is so vocally pro-life that the city-owned Memorial Hospital voluntarily stopped offering elective abortions after the last election.
As the city attorney examines options, Father Carmody is abiding by the ordinance and offering adoration of the Blessed Sacrament across the street from the abortion site instead of Mass.
ncregister.com/current/0109lead2.htm
