Back in June, St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, permitted the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to hold on campus its 2024 Provincial Assembly, which included “Eucharistic” services inside St. Vincent Basilica.
Hundreds of Anglican clergy and laity from across the globe, including female “priests” and “deacons,” gathered at the school that is home to the oldest Benedictine monastery in the United States.
The event was held from June 25-28 and included liturgy, prayer, talks, and the election of their new “archbishop,” according to the assembly’s schedule of events.
Throughout the assembly, “Anglican Eucharists” were celebrated inside the student chapel, campus gymnasium, and, most glaringly, in St. Vincent Basilica.
Impressively clear photos from the June 26 “Eucharist” held in the basilica – which can be viewed by clicking here – show female Anglican “priests” processing into the church, carrying the Gospel, and celebrating the liturgy with their male counterparts.
The Catholic Church teaches that Anglicans and other “ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation” do not have valid holy orders because of broken apostolic succession, and therefore they do not confect a valid Eucharist.
While the ACNA extensively advertised the assembly, St. Vincent College and the Diocese of Greensburg did not mention it on their websites.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Greensburg told LifeSiteNews that Bishop Larry Kulick had nothing to do with the event.
LifeSiteNews also reached out to St. Vincent College for comment by phone and email, but they have not responded as of publication.
In other parts of the assembly, the female “Rev.” Sue Currie led the laity in “an invitation to pray with Jesus,” and the ACNA held a conclave to elect a new “archbishop,” Steve Wood, from the basilica crypt. Unlike his predecessor, Wood supports women’s “ordination.”
The ACNA is a splinter group that separated from the mainstream Anglican Communion in 2009 in protest of its tolerance of homosexual “marriage” and female “bishops.”
The ACNA, however, leaves the question of ordaining women as “priests” and “deacons” up to the discretion of each diocese.
This year’s assembly was not the first time the college allowed the ACNA to use its campus for the event.
The 2014 Provincial Assembly was also held at St. Vincent, and video from that year’s event shows female “priests” celebrating the “closing Eucharist.”
At that time, then-Archbishop Robert Duncan credited his friendship with then-Archabbot Douglas Nowicki for being allowed to use the campus for that year’s assembly. St. Vincent Basilica also appears on the heretical New Ways Ministry’s list of “LGBTQ-friendly” parishes.
The assembly occurred just months after Pope Francis allowed the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to say “Mass” at the Basilica of St. Bartholomew in Rome.
The Pontiff himself led an ecumenical Vespers service along with Welby that same month in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
In February, Francis also invited a female Anglican “bishop” to address him and the Council of Cardinals during their discussions on “the role of women in the Church,” sparking concern about the Pope’s possible intention to allow women to be “ordained” in the future.