gather me in

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Feb 04, 2008

A Californian, perhaps unsurprisingly, takes the congregationalist heresy to its logical conclusion.

The Rev. Paul Breton founded St. Aelred's Catholic Church in 1989 -- Breton was ordained in the liberal Orthodox Catholic Church of America -- to minister to gays and lesbians and their family members and friends. In 2004, after health problems made it difficult for him to continue leading the San Bernardino congregation, he shut the church down.

Now Breton, who is gay, usually worships in a chapel that he built in a storage shed behind his San Bernardino mobile home.

"The place where we worship isn't important," Breton said as he stood on the concrete floor before a plain, white-painted wooden box that he had converted into a tabernacle to hold Communion wafers and holy oil for blessings. "It's what we put into it."

If the Reverend Breton were to depart from his Church, how would he know?