A Roman Catholic parish in Chicago went ahead with the burning of a rainbow gay pride flag, despite warnings from the city's archdiocese.

In a Resurrection Parish church bulletin posted earlier this month, the Rev. Paul Kalchik vowed to burn the flag as a sacrilege, according to NBC News.

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The burning of the flag, which Kalchick wrote was ”unfortunately hanging in our sanctuary,” was originally scheduled for Sept. 29.

The flag was originally hung in the church in 1991, but was later taken down and put into storage, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. Kalchik was ordained as pastor of the church in 2007.

After learning of the planned burning, the Archdiocese of Chicago instructed Kalchik to cancel it. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese told LGBTQ outlet The Windy City Times on Sept. 11 that the pastor “has agreed not to move forward with these activities."

But Kalchick and a number of parishioners conducted the flag burning anyway in a private ceremony last week.

Kalchick told NBC News that the flag, which had the image of the cross intertwined with a rainbow, was a “profane” depiction of the cross and a “sacrilege.”

“We did so in a private way, a quiet way, so as not to bring the ire of the gay community down upon this parish,” Kalchick said. “It’s our full right to destroy it, and we did so privately because the archdiocese was breathing on our back.”

He indicated that the group complied with the archdiocese’s instructions not to burn the flag in front of the church.

“We took matters into our own hands and said a prayer of exorcism over this thing," Kalchik said. "It was cut into seven pieces, so it was burned over stages in the same fire pit that we used for the Easter vigil mass.”

Kalchik says he was sexually abused by a neighbor and by a priest when he was a teenager, and blames homosexuality for the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. He has butted heads over the subject with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, and told the Sun-Times that the archdiocese threatened him with “canonical penalties” over the flag burning.

The archdiocese spokeswoman told NBC News that the Archdiocese of Chicago was “unaware” that the flag burning occurred.

DignityUSA, a pro-LGBTQ Catholic group, has decried the burning, telling NBC News that rainbow flags in churches help foster a community of “welcome and affirmation,” and burning the flag is “disrespectful and destructive.”

“Those involved in this desecration are violating the core values of the Catholic faith,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA. “They are hijacking the parish to further an extremist agenda, and damaging the community in doing so."