(LifeSiteNews) — A bishop appointed by Pope Francis in 2021 to lead the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, will offer an LGBT Mass later this month for an organization associated with heterodox Bishop John Stowe.
On August 28 at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph’s Church in Cold Spring, Kentucky, Bishop John Iffert will say Mass for a dissident Catholic “support group” named Catholics Embracing ALL God’s Children. The group participated in the Cincinnati Pride Parade in 2024.
The Mass has been announced in the St. Joseph’s bulletin as well as in the diocese’s newspaper. It is being marketed as an event where “all are welcome.”
Covington Bishop John Iffert will offer a pro-LGBT Mass on August 28 for the Bp. Stowe-endorsed ‘Fortunate Families’ group. 🌈
Iffert notably canceled Latin Mass priests Fr. Shannon Collins and Fr. Sean Kopczynski earlier this year. pic.twitter.com/OI0xyMKkea
— Stephen Kokx (@StephenKokx) August 19, 2024
Iffert gained notoriety earlier this year when he stripped Father Shannon Collins and Father Sean Kopczynski of their faculties to offer public Masses.
Collins and Kopczynski are founding members of the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, a public association of the faithful that was erected by Iffert’s predecessor, Roger Foys, in the Covington diocese in 2019, though the two had been in the diocese since 2011.
One of the churches Collins and Kopczynski had overseen was Our Lady of Lourdes, which operated as “quasi-parish” beginning in 2016. They had been granted permission to exclusively offer the Traditional Latin Mass by Foys, who was favorable to their mission.
Iffert canceled Collins and Kopczynski in January 2024 after they refused to concelebrate a Novus Ordo Mass with him and after they said they would not recant a sermon wherein Collins remarked that the Novus Ordo liturgy preserves “literally nothing of the (Latin Mass).”
The Diocese of Covington has issued a statement about the dismissal of Fr. Collins and Fr. Kopczysnki.
Bishop Iffert says Collins’ decision to not recant his view that the Novus Ordo preserves ‘literally nothing of the old [liturgy]’ ‘disqualifies’ him from public ministry. pic.twitter.com/MorEe9PEjU
— Stephen Kokx (@StephenKokx) January 18, 2024
During an appearance on Raymond Arroyo’s EWTN program The World Over, German Cardinal Gerhard Müller was asked for his thoughts on the situation.
Müller replied that some bishops “look to Rome and then say to the Holy Father, ‘I suppressed these people, and therefore I look for the reward of being promoted, being named archbishop, or cardinal.’ This (is the) childish behavior of some bishops.”
Catholics Embracing ALL God’s Children is overseen by Fortunate Families, a Lexington-based dissident organization founded in 2004. Stowe, the heterodox bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, serves as an ecclesial adviser for the group, and ultra-liberal Jesuit priest James Martin is listed as an honorary board member.
Stowe has spoken at Fortunate Families conferences in the past. In 2022, he appointed the organizations’ pro-LGBT executive director to attend the Synod on Synodality in Rome.
In recent months, Stowe has doubled down on referring to a 39-year-old woman who calls herself a man and lives as a “diocesan hermit” as “Brother Christian Matson.” Matson attended Martin’s LGBT-affirming Outreach conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Liberal Cardinal Wilton Gregory said Mass for the gathering, which was endorsed by Pope Francis.
In June, Stowe served as retreat director for the dissident Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. The group supports “women priests,” the normalization of homosexuality in the Church, pro-LGBT political policies, and numerous other positions at odds with immutable Catholic teaching.
After Iffert offers his sacrilegious Mass on August 28, there will be a reception in the basement of St. Joseph’s. The Diocese of Covington borders the Diocese of Lexington to the north.