“Laybelline” the MC

Syphillis Diller the Judge

On Saturday, April 14, San Francisco’s infamous Most Holy Redeemer Church hosted the Third Annual Miss Castro Country Club Pageant. The pageant is a drag show. The Castro Country Club describes itself as a “clean & sober gathering place for all people and a home for the queer recovery community.”

The pageant was advertised in a number of homosexualist media outlets. The event MC was a transvestite who uses the name “Laybelline,” and one of the judges, another transvestite, uses the name “Syphillis Diller.” The competitors used similar names. At least one video of one of the performers is already up on YouTube. 

Most Holy Redeemer has frequently made national news for their scandalous hosting of pro-homosexual events. Drag shows are nothing new: in 2011 the parish hosted the Switch Hitters Ball, and in 2007, the parish hosted the Desperate Divas drag contest, just one week before the unfortunate visit of Archbishop George Niederauer, when he gave communion to two members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

More recently, the parish extended an invitation to renegade Episcopal Bishop Otis Charles to speak at one of their 2011 Advent Vespers services. On November 22, 2011, CalCatholic reported on the planned event. We reported that in 2004 Charles left his wife of 42 years, and “married” another man—an action that caused the Episcopal Church to sever ties with him. We followed up with a report on two other scheduled Most Holy Redeemer Advent Vespers speakers: the Revs. Jane Spahr and Roland Stringfellow. Both are openly homosexual supporters of same-sex “marriage.”

Following CalCatholic’s exposure of the events, Archbishop Niederauer forced the parish to withdraw the invitations. Whether or not CalCatholic’s stories played a part, it is a fact that Father Steve Meriwether, the pastor of Most Holy Redeemer, has not celebrated a single Sunday mass at the parish in 2012, according to parish bulletins. All 2012 Sunday Masses have been celebrated by visiting priests, frequently by Monsignor James Tarantino, the Vicar for Administration for the dioceses, who has a solid reputation.

Whether this represents a sanction against Meriwether, who was reappointed to a second six-year term at the parish in 2010, or whether he is just taking time off is an open question.

On Palm Sunday and the Palm Sunday vigil all the masses at the parish were celebrated by the well-known homosexual activist Jesuit, Father Donal Godfrey. Godfrey has also been the celebrant at a number of other Sunday and vigil Masses at the church in 2012.

On All Saints Day 2011, Godfrey was invited to celebrate Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral for the students of Sacred Heart High School.

Another 2012 guest celebrant at Most Holy Redeemer has been Father Joe Klecha. Father Klecha has celebrated liturgies for DignitySF at the Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. The Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church serves as DignitySF’s “parish” because the archdiocese of San Francisco does not allow DignitySF to meet on Catholic property.