NBC News Chicago reports:
In his first interview since he was forced out of his church following the burning of a rainbow pride flag, Father Paul Kalchik reveals that he’s been in hiding since the incident took place. Kalchik spoke to the conservative Catholic website Church Militant this week after he was removed from Resurrection Parish following the burning of the flag, which once hung in the church’s sanctuary.
In the interview, Kalchik told the website that he was initially told he would be sent to St. Luke’s Institute, a psychiatric center in Maryland that focuses on mental health care for priests. The pastor was told not to destroy the flag, but insists that he never received verbal instructions not to do so. “Cardinal (Blasé) Cupich doesn’t operate in a written format,” he said. “Nobody said to not destroy it.”
When describing the ceremony in which he burned the banner, Kalchik said, “Evil needs to be dealt” with and claims that after the news broke of what he did that he received death threats from “homosexualists from the north side of Chicago.”
Watch the video below and if Kalchik’s speech and mannerisms don’t explode your gaydar, you need a really need a tuneup.
This so called ‘pastor’ and ‘priest’ is neither in reality. His belief that he and the Church have been wronged by a church banner is sadly laughable. Instead, it is he who has done the harm, not only to Resurrection Parish, but to the local community as a whole. There is no excuse for creating this divisive act of hatred that labels the LBGTQ community as intrinsically evil. The banner simply celebrated that gay people are also part of the Church community – at least if you want to be – and did nothing more. Additionally, it was not the gay flag depicted, but a curved rainbow, with the cross. Just like burning the Quran or Bible is meant to stir hatred and create a media storm, so was this man’s defiant act against his superior’s direct orders to not burn the banner. Additionally, the far right-wing Catholic ‘news’ agency that made this video interview was clearly prompting the priest with what to say, and how to say it. At it’s best it is a gossip outlet, and at its worst it is a hate rag. (I imagine the SPLC has plenty on it.) There is no love or compassion or peace offered here, by either the priest or the anti-gay interviewer. Rather, they take delight in all that is malicious and disrupts community – it becomes us versus them. How much less Christ-like can anyone be?