A major league baseball team's decision to honor an LGBT activist group that mocks Catholics shows the organization prioritizes LGBT groups more than religious ones, the president of a Catholic advocacy group said.
The Dodgers announced earlier this month they will give their "Community Hero Award" to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an activist group of "queer and trans nuns," before their June 16 match to celebrate LGBT pride month. Last week, the team uninvited the group following criticism from Catholics, including CatholicVote and Sen. Marco Rubio. However, this week the Dodgers released a statement apologizing to the Sisters and reinvited them to receive the award.
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"This is an anti-Catholic hate group of homosexual men that dress up as Catholic nuns and engage in blasphemous and sacrilegious activities such as blessing themselves with sex toys, pole dancing on a cross, and inverting the words of Christ saying ‘go and sin some more,’" Brian Burch, the president of CatholicVote, a conservative political advocacy group, told Fox News.
"This group engages in all sorts of sacrilegious and blasphemous activity. Their whole purpose, the identity of their organization, is to mock and to denigrate Catholics," Burch continued. "It's vulgar, grotesque, it's nothing that any major corporation, let alone a major league baseball team, should be celebrating or honoring."
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The group, formed on Easter Sunday in 1979, is known for members who attend left-wing protests dressed in mock nun outfits to advocate for LGBTQ issues. The Sisters claim that they "are not anti-Catholic" and that they are "regularly called upon to minister to the sick, the dying, and the mourning," according to their website.
The group also says on their website: "Go forth and sin some more!"
"The Dodgers are sending the message that Catholics don't matter to them, that they are more interested in satisfying the extreme elements of the LGBT movement and that Catholics can go pound sand," Burch told Fox News.
The CatholicVote president said it was "very shocking" that the team chose to award a group whose advocacy goals are not in line with those of their fan base.
Over 30% of adults living in the Los Angeles metro area identify as Catholic, according to Pew Research Center.
"The decision to honor a group that clearly mocks the Catholic faith and makes light of the sincere and holy vocations of our women religious who are an integral part of our Church is what has caused disappointment, concern, anger, and dismay from our Catholic community," Doris Benavides of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital.
But, despite criticism, the Dodgers are sticking with their original game plan.
"After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families," the organization wrote in a statement.
"In order to advance some kind of corporate agenda that they apparently have, that they're willing to celebrate and honor an organization whose very purpose is mockery and hate against the Catholic Church," Burch said.
This is just another example of a company politicizing something that should not be political, Burch told Fox News.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are "intended to cause shock and to mock the Catholic Church and it's really sad and unfortunate that a large Major League Baseball team has decided to honor this kind of organization," Burch added.
LGBT pride month is typically celebrated in June and is dedicated to the celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
To watch the full interview with the CatholicVote president, click here.
