LA Dodgers condemned for honoring anti-Catholic transgender drag nuns: ‘Blasphemous’

The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team is facing accusations of anti-Catholic bigotry after the team announced it would honor a gay and transgender group that uses Catholic imagery in sexualized contexts.

The Dodgers and LA Pride announced earlier this month that the team would be marking “Pride Night” on June 16, 2023, and that the celebrations would include the presentation of the Community Hero Award to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a self-described “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns.”

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In a letter to Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) noted that the group has “mocked and degraded Christians, and especially Catholics, since its founding on Easter Sunday in 1979.” He also noted that the group’s motto is “go and sin some more,” which perverts the words of Jesus Christ, who said “go and sin no more.”

“The group’s ‘Easter’ ceremony features children’s programming followed by a drag show where adult performers dress in blasphemous imitation of Jesus and Mary,” the senator wrote to the MLB. “The group hosts pub crawls mocking the Stations of the Cross and even the Eucharist, the sacrament that unites more than one billion Catholics around the world.”

“Major League Baseball, as a private organization in a free country, can give awards to whatever groups it chooses, no matter how loathsome,” Rubio continued. “But baseball has always been tied to our nation’s values, at the heart of which is faith in God. It would be an outrage and a tragedy if the MLB, in pursuit of modern, secular, and indeed anti-religious ‘values,’ rebuked that faith and the millions of believing fans who cherish the sport.”

The Dodgers’ positive engagement of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence also drew harsh words from Catholic groups. In a Tuesday letter to the Dodgers, Brian Burch, the president of the Catholic political activist group CatholicVote, accused the Dodgers of normalizing anti-Catholic bigotry and urged the team to cancel the award.

“This award comes at a time when Catholics are under threat across the country to a degree not seen in decades,” Burch wrote. “In the past three years, there have been over 300 acts of violence and vandalism against Catholic churches in the United States, including nearly 50 in California alone. Through this award, the Dodgers are contributing to the climate of increasing hostility against Catholics.”

The Dodgers did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner that asked if the team had engaged with Catholic groups prior to announcing the honoree. The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles also did not respond to a request for comment.

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Burch told the Washington Examiner in a statement that he hoped that the Dodgers would revoke the award promptly, and he said, “No other religion would be treated this way.”

“All Americans, especially Catholics, should be deeply concerned that the Dodger’s feel comfortable platforming such a grotesque and blatantly anti-Catholic hate group at a time when Catholic Churches across our nation are already suffering a wave of violent attacks instigated by pro-abortion radicals,” he said. “If the Dodgers truly care about fighting bigotry and promoting inclusivity, they will retract their invite to this disgusting, offensive and dangerous hate group.”