WESTBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) – The pastor of a Roman Catholic church was temporarily pulled from the pulpit after he refused to support a petition drive against gay marriage by the state’s bishops.

The Rev. George Lange of St. Luke the Evangelist church in Westborough was replaced last weekend by Worcester Bishop Robert McManus, who led the Saturday evening Mass and the Sunday morning Mass.

The move came after Lange and his associate pastor, the Rev. Stephen Labaire, posted an item in the Sept. 11 church bulletin stating their opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The state’s four Catholic bishops are leading a signature drive to get the amendment on a ballot in the 2008 election.

The bulletin item read: “The priests of this parish do not feel that they can support this amendment. They do not see any value to it and they see it as an attack upon certain people in our parish, namely those who are gay.”

Worcester Diocese spokesman Raymond Delisle said Lange and Labaire would keep their jobs at St. Luke’s and no further disciplinary action was planned against the two priests.

“It was only one weekend,” he said. “Everything should be back to the normal schedule.”

Delisle said the bishop’s intention was not to rebuke the priests, but to explain the church’s position on gay marriage.

But parishioner Cindy Hodgdon said her church leaders’ “hands were slapped very publicly.”

“Bishop McManus told us that Father George made a mistake’ and should not have done that,”‘ she said.

“Everybody was stunned,” said parishioner Rob Wilson. “It was a rather stunning homily.”

Messages left at the church for Lange and Lebaire were not immediately returned.

Delisle said Lange is on a previously scheduled vacation and would not be present at this weekend’s masses, when petitions are scheduled to be distributed.