A parish at the center of controversy surrounding Rachel Mastrogiacomo has denied that its pastor directed her to be removed from the stage before she was able to finish her prepared remarks at a conference it hosted last month.
“The allegation that Fr. McCarthy ordered Rachel’s speech be cut off is false. Fr. McCarthy gave no such order, nor did anyone representing the parish,” an email sent to Integrity Magazine on Friday, October 16 by the parish’s secretary said. “This will be the only statement Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Parish makes on this matter. Please direct all future inquiries to Restore Tradition.”
Integrity Magazine reached out to the Littleton, Colorado-based parish, which is operated by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, to obtain clarification as to who instructed the conference’s emcee to usher Mastrogiacomo off the stage before her allotted time had concluded. News of the cancelation caused a massive uproar on social media, with hundreds of Catholics expressing dismay.
In a social media post shared on Mastrogiacomo’s Facebook wall after the event, conference speaker Abby Johnson identified Fr. Matthew McCarthy, FSSP as having given the green light to remove Mastrogiacomo from the podium.
“What I do know to be true is that it was the priest of the church that asked for her to be removed from the stage. It was not the conference organizers. They were doing what the priest [Fr. McCarthy] asked them to,” Johnson alleged. “This would have been a much different scenario if the priest himself would have come out and made a statement instead of passing it off on the women who run the conference.”
Organizers of the Restore Tradition women’s conference removed Mastrogiacomo’s photo and video from the event’s website following the event. Soon after, Integrity and several prominent Catholic influencers reported on the cancelation. An email was sent to conference attendees on Friday, October 9, presumably by event organizer Jane Brennan. It explained that Mastrogiacomo’s photo and speech had been restored to the website and YouTube channel, though it did not explain why she was removed in the first place. “The decision to remove Rachel from the Restore Tradition website was made solely by Restore Tradition. It was not ordered by the Archdiocese of Denver or by the Pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Littleton, Colorado,” it said.
This Restore Tradition conference was held on September 25-26. Remnant Newspaper editor Michael Matt, podcaster Matt Gaspers, and Fr. Chad Ripperger were among those who spoke at the gathering. In his speech, Matt oddly referred to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a “feminist” while urging women at the event to “lead us back to sanity.” Days after the conference concluded, Gaspers simply advised Mastrogiacomo to offer up the pain and suffering she had experienced and move on.
The Dispatch
In the meantime, Mastrogiacomo received an outpouring of support from Catholics on social media. Hundreds of positive comments were left on her and other Facebook accounts. A woman named Carly Elaine, who claimed to be Brennan’s daughter, accused Mastrogiacomo of having “crossed the line” in her speech as she brought up “topics” that organizers “were not comfortable having discussed at this conference, and those boundaries were made clear to you. You chose to blatantly disregard that direction.”
But a phone call recording between Brennan and Mastrogiacomo revealed that Brennan did not provide a specific “list” of particular topics that were off-limits, other than asking her to not discuss the Society of St. Pius X, a request that Mastrogiacomo complied with. “You don’t have to provide me with the outline [of your speech] … I have full confidence that you can tell your story the way you want to tell it, and it’ll be fine,” Brennan said.
Mastrogiacomo later sent Brennan an email rejecting claims she violated conference rules. “To be clear, I never received a ‘list’ of topics from the archbishop that I was instructed to avoid. Did you tell people that I did? It also is not true that I ‘maliciously’ took the microphone intending to go ‘rogue.’ Those assertions create a false narrative about my conduct and motives, and they deserve to be corrected publicly and unequivocally,” she said.
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As of the publication of this article, Mastrogiacomo has not received a response from Brennan, nor has the Archdiocese of Denver, Denver Archbishop James Golka, Brennan, or Our Lady of Mount Carmel clarified who directed the event’s emcee to cut Mastrogiacomo’s speech short and what the reason or reasons for doing so were. Furthermore, there has not been a public explanation as to why Restore Tradition’s organizers removed Mastrogiacomo from the website and then restored her later on. Finally, no explain has been given as to which specific parts of Mastrogiacomo’ speech violated the conference’s rules, as Brennan’s daughter had alleged in her Facebook post.
For respectful comments only:
- Archdiocese of Denver, Archbishop Golka’s Executive Assistant, Flor Sandoval, (303) 715-3100, office.archbishop@archden.org
- Archdiocese of Denver, Archbishop Golka’s Priest Secretary, Rev. David M. Hall, vice.chancellor@archden.org
- Our Lady of Mt. Carmel FSSP Parish, 5612 S. Hickory St. Littleton, CO, 80120; (303) 703-8538, Secretary: secretary@olmcfssp.org
- Restore Tradition Women’s Conference website; Jane Brennan: authenticwoman5@gmail.com; (720) 354-6459.
