A Chicago priest has burned a rainbow banner despite orders not to do so from the Archdiocese of Chicago.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Rev. Paul Kalchik, pastor at Resurrection Catholic Church, burned the banner, which featured a cross superimposed over a rainbow, outside the church on Friday. Seven parishioners joined Kalchik in a prayer of exorcism as he torched the banner in a portable fire pit.

In the church's September 2 bulletin, Kalchik announced that he planned to burn the flag on September 29 for “the feast of Saint Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.” A few days later, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that it had blocked Kalchik's plan, saying that he had agreed “not to move forward with these activities.”

In the same bulletin, Kalchik also stated: “We cannot let the current troubles keep us from our mission to go make more disciples for the Lord, nor should modern day distractions like global warming, LGBT 'rights' or even immigration issues ever take precedence over that mission.”

“That banner and what it stood for doesn't belong to the Archdiocese or Cardinal [Blase] Cupich,” Kalchik told the Sun-Times. “It belongs to the people of this parish who paid for it. What have we done wrong other than destroy a piece of propaganda that was used to put out a message other than what the church is about?”

Kalchik said that he burned several priestly vestments adorned with rainbow colors when he arrived in 2007. But the flag, which once hung in the church, remained in storage.

“The people of this parish have been pretty resilient and put up with a lot of B.S.,” Kalchik said, a reference to the church's previous outreach to the LGBT community. “And it was just by accident that this banner that was made to celebrate all things gay … did not get destroyed when I first got here.”

Kalchik went on to say that the Catholic Church's sex abuse crisis was a “gay thing.”

“I can't sit well with people like Cardinal Cupich, who minimizes all of this,” Kalchik said. “Excuse me, but almost all of the [abuse] cases are, with respect to priests, bishops and whatnot, taking and using other young men sexually. It's definitely a gay thing.”

“Scripture is crystal clear,” he said of gays in the church. “It's against God's law.”