St. Dorothy’s Catholic Community to hold Stonewall Riot memorial mass in Orlando's Mills 50 neighborhood

By Annabelle Sikes on Tue, Jun 25, 2019 at 6:16 pm

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St. Dorothy’s Catholic Community to hold Stonewall Riot memorial mass in Orlando's Mills 50 neighborhood

Photo via PBS

St. Dorothy’s Catholic Community will hold a Stonewall Riot memorial mass on Sunday, June 30, at St. Matthew's Tavern in honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1969 New York City Stonewall riots.

The Stonewall riots signaled the end of a community's marginalized era and served as the bedrock event that sparked the LGBTQ movement worldwide, says Father James Profirio-Bond, a pastor at St. Dorothy Catholic Church.

"The LGBTQ community needs to know its history of the brave men, women and drag queens who began the fight, have fought for the freedom and liberty of the community and also those who sacrificed their lives along the way as 'martyrs' for the community," Profirio-Bond says.

The memorial will begin at 10:30 a.m. It'll be followed by a Sunday mass at noon.

Two key musical pieces in the LGBTQ choral movement – “Everything Possible” by Rev. Fred Small and “Michael’s Letter to Mama” by David Maddox – will be played from a recording by the Boston Gay Men's Chorus, of which Profirio-Bond was previously a member.