"It is most unfortunate this incident has clouded the fact the archbishop came to meet with his people and celebrate a beautiful and reverent Mass together -- and that is what really happened," said Father Stephen Meriwether, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Parish.

"This incident has been blown way out of proportion," he told Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper.

To David Differding, co-chair of the parish liturgy council and master of ceremonies at the Oct. 7 liturgy, the critics "can't get over the fact that God created gay people. That's my impression. They want to put up every roadblock they can."

Jesuit Father Donal Godfrey, one of the Mass concelebrants, said the way the two men were dressed was "disrespectful to religious sisters," but he said he felt "it probably wasn't their intention (to offend.) They knelt in all the right places. They stood in all the right places. Except for the way they were dressed, they weren't doing anything disrespectful."

"I thought it was disrespectful for somebody to go to another church with the intention of filming it," he added, "without asking the pastor permission to do that and, second, with the intention of using that in a hostile way, without having a conversation first with the pastor. On the face of it, they were out to get the archbishop."

Asked about reaction he had received, Archbishop Niederauer expressed concern about the impact of Web logs, or blogs.

"The blogosphere is a kind of dangerous, endless recess in a global schoolyard," he said, "where the bullies with the biggest bullhorns can shout whatever they want."