Is this why the SSPX exists, and why it consecrates bishops ? Yes, this sorry set of circumstances is what makes their attitudes understandable on a human level.
Report by the pro-deviancy group "New Ways Ministry", which is gleeful about it:
On June 13, 2026, two gay men in one of England’s leading pastoral outreaches to LGBTQ+ people gathered friends and family from far and wide to celebrate a “Mass of Thanksgiving for 50 Years of Friendship, Partnership, and Commitment in the Pursuit of Justice.”
Over 150 of us from all over the globe gathered at London’s Holy Apostles Church to share the day’s joy with Julian Filochowski and Martin Pendergast, who were instrumental in starting the Diocese of Westminster’s pastoral ministry with LGBTQ+ people. The ministry began in 1999, soon after a bomb went off at the Admiral Duncan gay bar in London that year which killed three people and an unborn child, and seriously injured 83 others
The principal celebrant at the Mass was Fr. Jim O’Keefe, a longtime friend, as principal celebrant. The concelebrants were Bishop John Crowley, emeritus of the Middlesbrough Diocese; Bishop John Rawsthorne, emeritus of the Hallam Diocese;and Canon Chris Vipers, a priest of Holy Apostles parish.
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, a pivotal figure at recent Rome Synods, and a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ ministry, gave the Homily, the text of which is reprinted below. (A video of the entire Mass can be found by clicking here.)
New Ways Ministry’s Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, co-founder, and Francis DeBernardo, executive director attended the joyful liturgical celebration. Sister Jeannine participated in a dialogue proclamation of the Gospel, the story of Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35), along with gay theologian James Alison, as well as friends Pat Jones and Anne Smith. A newly-commissioned Responsorial Psalm, Ps. 132 (133), “How good and pleasant it is when we live in unity! ”, was sung in the Mass, along with a stunning solo by a Zambian/Irish young woman who sung the Irish hymn, ‘Ag Críost an síol’ (The Seed is Christ’s).
Martin Pendergast is a retired social worker who worked primarily with people with HIV/AIDS in London during the height of the epidemic. Julian Filohowski is the former longtime director of CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), the official international aid agency of the Bishops of England and Wales. Julian was also co-president of the Romero Trust, a British NGO, which was instrumental in providing support for the process of canonization of St. Oscar Romero of San Salvador.
The couple met in 1976 at a conference focusing on Catholic outreach to gay and lesbian people. They celebrated similar Thanksgiving Masses for their 25th year milestone in 2001, their civil partnership in 2006, and their 40th anniversary in 2016.
London’s Tablet magazine reported on a controversy which had erupted at the 25th anniversary Mass–and how much has changed since then:
“The bishop preparing to preside at that service had been instructed to step down by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor in a dramatic phone call – 25 years later there is less of an inclination to panic when two gay Catholics who have been together for 50 years celebrate their enduring friendship with family and friends. The liturgy was spellbinding.”
The article commented on how inspirational it was to participate in this liturgy:
“After Communion, we heard the words of Aelred of Rievaulx – ‘Those who abide in friendship abide in God, and God in them’ – and then Martin Pendergast and Julian Filochowski renewed their commitment to ‘celebrate and value our bonds of friendship as gifts of God; to hold a concern not for ourselves only, but for those most in need, the powerless and the voiceless’.
At the reception in the church hall after Mass, Julian spoke for the couple’s gratitude for their friends and for the gift that the last 50 years have been:
“This has been an extraordinary, fabulous and unforgettable day,” Filochowski told the 163 ‘companions on our journey’ . . . . [including] friends who had flown in from Spain and Italy, the US, South Africa, Guyana and Taiwan. “We are glad to have survived and flourished and not to look back at the painful bits.”
Fr. O’Keefe leads the assembled clergy in blessing Martin Pendergast and Julian Filochowski at the conclusion of the Mass of Thanksgiving.
And the article also provided an epilogue to the controversy which threatened to derail the couple’s 25th anniversary Mass in 2001:
“Cardinal Cormac may have been troubled by his decision to meddle on that morning 25 years ago. A few months later at an official meeting in Rome, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – later to be Pope Benedict XVI – told him that the Holy See was disappointed at the ‘muted’ response of the English bishops to the celebration of a Mass of Thanksgiving for the friendship of two prominent gay Catholics. You should fire the director of Cafod, Cardinal Ratzinger told Cardinal Cormac. There was a pause. Then, more steely than he is sometimes given credit for, Cormac retorted, ‘Non posso e non lo farò’ (‘I can’t and I won’t’).”
At the conclusion of the Mass, the couple received a blessing from all of the clergy members on the altar. The text of the blessing, adapted from one recently authorised by Belgian Bishops, read:
“Giving thanks that the Church offers blessing to those who seek it in spirit and in truth, we ask, O God of love, that your grace come down upon Julian and Martin as they mark the 50th anniversary of their relationship. May their love continue to be generous, ever attentive to the needs of others, and deepen all that unites them. May your peace be theirs and your joyful light shine through their lives, and the blessing of God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit come upon them and remain with them, now and forever, AMEN”
The couple requested no gifts, but asked those who want to mark the occasion to make a donation to CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development,in support of its work in Sudan.
***
Homily of Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, OP
Holy Apostles Church, London, UK
13 June 2026
After communion, we shall all commit ourselves to ‘celebrate and value our bonds of friendship as gifts of God.’ In your case, Julian and Martin, fifty years of friendship. Friendship is more than a warm emotion. We are each the fruit of the deep friendships of our lives. Every friendship brings into being some aspect of us that would never otherwise have existed. Friendship is a way in which God works creatively in each of us, forming us for love. St Irenaeus said that we are formed by the two hands of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. I would add that the Son is the friend and the Spirit is friendship. So every true, faithful, well-lived friendship is a sharing in the life of God.
Friendship is not introverted, eyeball to eyeball. It is expansive like God’s love. And so we shall then commit ourselves to ‘hold a concern not for ourselves only, but for those most in need, the powerless and the voiceless.’ Violence and war are rising everywhere. The great powers of the world are grabbing what they can, using their strength to make so-called deals for their enrichment. Pope Leo has said that in this new world disorder, the just war theory as we have known it no longer works.
Friendship is the only way forward. It reaches out to God’s peace, when, as Isaiah prophesied, ‘they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.’ (Isaiah 2.4). Every true friendship anticipates the final peace of God.
I believe, Julian and Martin, that your faithful friendship is grounded in a shared passion for peace and for the triumph of justice. This must be why you chose that marvellous text from Micah: ‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’
How are we to live in hope-filled expansive friendship? In the gospel, Jesus meets two of his disciples running away from Jerusalem. They had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel, but he seems to have failed. They are disillusioned, like so many people are today. As so often, they did not believe in the testimony of the women.
Jesus does not stand in their way and say ‘You are wrong’. He does not try to force them to open their eye. He asks a question. ‘What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?’ He walks with them, even though they are going in the wrong direction. He gives them the space to discover for themselves.
Friendship is transformative precisely because it gives space and lets the other be. Herbert McCabe wrote: ‘The power of God is pre-eminently the power to let things be. “Let there be light” …What gives us elbow room, what gives us space to grow and become ourselves, is the love that comes to us from another. Love is the space in which to expand, and it is always a gift…. To give love is to give the precious gift of nothing, space. To give love is to let be.*
Friendship does not gobble up the other person, extinguish their individuality. It treasures the other as they are and so lets them be more. It defies the rising tide of violence, which wipes out the other person or people, which unmakes God’s creation. It says ‘You will not exist.’
Jesus asks these disciples a question. What are you talking about? In fact the whole conversation is one question after another. It is true that he calls them Fools! But I am sure that all friends lose patience with each other at least sometimes, including you Julian and Martin!
C.S. Lewis believed that at the heart of friendship was the courage to share with others the questions that simmer in our hearts and minds. The deepest friendships are not founded on shared answers but in the vulnerability of shared questions which we will venture to explore together.
When I was in Ukraine in March for a couple of weeks, the brethren asked me to open up the toughest questions: How can we ever forgive these people who have invaded our country and murdered our young? We are not ready to live the answers yet, but let us dare to live the questions. How can there ever be peace in the Middle East? How can we ever overcome the crippling inequalities of our world? I bet that you, Martin and Julian, have dared to live with such questions and that too is part of your friendship.
Their eyes are opened when Jesus took the bread, broke it and gave it to them. This is the primal act of generous friendship. On the night before he died, he transformed betrayal into gift. It is this ultimate act of hope and forgiveness which opened their eyes. This is the Eucharist which we have shared too. May our eyes be opened too.
*Herbert McCabe, OP, God Matters. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000. Page 108.
[Source]
