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Published: September 3, 2010

"Master/slave lifestyle"

Most Holy Redeemer ex-parish council officer, friend of USF’s Fr. Donal Godfrey
keeps “slave,” leads workshops at sado-masochist conference

A prominent member of San Francisco’s Most Holy Redeemer parish will conduct two workshops at the “Master/slave Conference 2010” to be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Silver Springs, Maryland on September 3-6. Patrick Mulcahey is a past vice-president of Most Holy Redeemer’s pastoral council and has served as a eucharistic minister at Masses. Mr. Mulcahey’s prominence with the parish extends back at least to 2002. On April 29 of that year, Mr. Mulcahey, identified as pastoral council vice-president, was one of those interviewed in a New York Times article profiling the church: “At a largely Gay Church, A Test of Faith.”

The Master/Slave Conference 2010, where Mr. Mulcahey will lead the workshops is an annual production of Master Taino’s Training Academy. Their mission statement reads "To provide education and support through a variety of methods concerning the Master/slave lifestyle."

The workshop presenters biographical page has this to say about Mr. Mulcahey: “Patrick has been tying men up and doing unspeakable things to them for 35 years. He has presented on M/s, leather and BDSM [bondage discipline sado-masochism] topics in the Bay Area and currently serves as vice chairman and special events chair of the 15 Association, a men’s leather/BDSM club celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. He lives in San Francisco with his slave Patrick where he earns his living as a writer….”

The two workshops Mr. Mulcahey will lead are: Monogamy in M/s (M/s is short for “Master/slave”; the name of the “slave” is always given in lowercase), and Building your Collaring Ceremony. A collaring ceremony is a ritual where the slave receives a collar denoting submission to a master. The description of Mr. Mulcahey’s workshop seems a satanic inversion of marriage and baptism:

“Common elements of a collaring ceremony, and adapting them to your own commitments and religious/spiritual beliefs, with favored readings, including Scriptural ones. The role and obligations of those witnessing.”

The presence of a homosexual sadomasochistic subculture at Most Holy Redeemer has been well documented. From 2000 to 2008, which includes the period that Mulcahey served as pastoral council vice-president, the church hosted nearly annual events for sado-masochistic groups the Golden Gate Guards and the Inter-Club Fund. The presence of a “leatherman” on the pastoral council explains why these s/m groups chose Most Holy Redeemer—and why the events were allowed. In 2008, the archdiocese caused these events to be discontinued, following efforts on the part of San Francisco Catholics.

As recently as October 2007, Mulcahey was serving as a eucharistic minister at the church. As recently as March 27, 2010, photographs of Mr. Mulcahey with Most Holy Redeemer liturgy planner David Differding were published on a San Francisco sado-masochistic photojournalism website. The two men were attending the 16th anniversary of the Defenders, an organization that promotes “leather spirituality” and is affiliated with Dignity USA.

Mr. Mulcahey’s has a long-standing relationship with Father Donal Godfrey, SJ, executive director of university ministry at the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco. That relationship dates back at least to October, 2001.

In 2002, at USF’s New Jewish and Christians Approaches to Homosexuality symposium, Father Godfrey cited Most Holy Redeemer as an example, and quoted Mr. Mulcahey at length. In April 2003, at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Father Godfrey offered a preliminary version of his 2007 history of Most Holy Redeemer as partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Doctor of Ministry. When the history was published in 2007, under the title Gays and Grays: The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, the first person Father Godfrey chose to acknowledge and thank for his support was Patrick Mulcahey. Gays and Grays quotes Mulcahey numerous times.

On March 3, 2008, in the Australian online Jesuit publication EurekaStreet.com.au, Godfrey quoted Mulcahey again. On December 2, 2008, Books, Inc., located in San Francisco’s Castro District, hosted a discussion of Gays and Grays with Father Godfrey. The homosexualist publication, the Bay Area Reporter, published a blurb for the event: “Executive director of University Ministry at the University of San Francisco, and author of Gays and Grays: The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church discusses his book and the gay-inclusive parish; writer Patrick Mulcahey joins the discussion.”

It defies common sense to believe that Most Holy Redeemer pastor Father Steve Meriwether or Father Godfrey are unaware of Mr. Mulcahey’s predilections. As recently as May 5, 2010, Mulcahey’s Facebook homepage linked directly to Most Holy Redeemer’s. His Facebook “friends” pages include Father Meriwether, Father Godfrey, liturgy planner David Differding , other pastoral council members, interspersed among self-proclaimed “slaves” and “masters.” But the scandal emerging from Most Holy Redeemer seems not to concern the Archdiocese of San Francisco. In July the archdiocese reappointed Father Meriwether to a second six-year term at the parish.

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