Archbishop of Westminster halts gay masses

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LONDON, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Great Britain's archbishop of Westminster, who opposes a government bill on same-sex marriage, said a London church's masses for gay Catholics would be ended.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said the masses at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Soho were out of line with the church's main teaching on sexuality, the BBC reported Wednesday.

"The moral teaching of the church is that the proper use of our sexual faculty is within a marriage, between a man and a woman, open to the procreation and nurturing of new human life," Nichols said.

Nichols added, "As I stated in March 2012, this means that many types of sexual activity, including same-sex sexual activity, are not consistent with the teaching of the church."

Ruth Hunt, a Catholic and the director of public affairs of London's Stonewall gay rights charity, said: "Given what's happened over Christmas, where there were vitriolic and mean messages from the pulpit about same-sex marriage, there has never been a more important time to provide a safe space for gay Catholics to pray."

Nichols previously said the government's gay marriage bill is "undemocratic" and a "shambles."