The Synod 2021-24 is, apparently, constructing Fr. James Martin’s bridge.
The authors of the Instrumentum Laboris (IL) for this fall’s Vatican gathering have embedded — rather disingenuously — an acronym that derives from and embraces the sexual revolution: LGBTQ+. Although it claims to serve as a “prophetic witness to a fragmented and polarized world,” the synod collaborates with the prevailing culture.
Because “LGBTQ+ Catholics” are, we are told, among those who do not “feel” accepted or included in the Church, the synod “will create spaces” where “LGBTQ+ people” and others “who feel hurt by the Church” no longer “feel” invisible and unwelcome.
LGBTQ+ refers to the “limitless sexual orientations and gender identities used by members of our community,” as the political advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign, explains. Incompatible with reason and faith, the acronym signifies the culture’s belief that persons — like gods — have complete dominion over their own bodies and sexual faculties.
Accustomed as we are to the separation of Americans into identity groups, that a synod of the Catholic Church refers to baptized human beings in this manner is a big deal.
A designation without any limiting principle seeds the synodal path with the instability and self-indulgence of a culture in the invasive grip of queer and gender theories. No one chooses LGBTQ+ to modify Catholics unless ulterior motives are afoot – and they are.
The radical inclusion of LGBTQ+ in Church discourse
“Respect,” says Fr. Martin in Building a Bridge, “means calling a group what it asks to be called.” The collective voice heard by Fr. Martin originates in politics and “what it asks to be called” is, as Carl Trueman explains, fundamentally incoherent.
To differentiate Catholics by sexual desire and gender identity intentionally positions these features as integral to our nature as persons created in the image and likeness of God. This queering of the imago Dei aims, over time, to “enlarge” the boundaries of Church discourse, “making room” in the Catholic tent for the types of nuance that have destabilized norms since Eden.
The IL itself points in this direction when it calls for a “renewal of language” used by the Church so that the “richness” of its tradition becomes more “accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time, rather than an obstacle that keeps them at a distance.”
As is all too common today, assertions – in this case, about Catholic tradition and teaching – are treated as facts. In the synod (as in the culture) feelings, rather than virtues, are authoritative. When a radically inclusive prelate declares that “the Catholic community contains structures and cultures of exclusion that alienate all too many from the church or make their journey in the Catholic faith tremendously burdensome,” he cedes sovereignty to sentiments. [italics mine]
Is the Church actually oppressive for “all too many,” or are “all too many” wanting the Church to accommodate personal behaviors in which they freely choose to engage?
I am a child of God who has been baptized a Catholic. That I am a man sexually attracted to other men neither detracts from nor adds to the truth to which the Church must always bear witness. To allege that Church discourse is an “obstacle” keeping me at a distance or that its doctrines make my faith journey “tremendously burdensome” is to mimic a culture that nurtures weakness.
As Christians, we are called to live, however imperfectly, truly radical lives: to deny the self, pick up the cross, and follow Jesus Christ. As Catholics, we need priests who lovingly and confidently illuminate the Word and thus strengthen our resolve, which the world all too artfully undermines.
I am not a victim, nor a pawn for Catholic priests who want a different church.
Is the next step normalizing disorder?
LGBTQ+ epitomizes objective disorder, its Q+ a constant of confusion into which a church thus incorporating it falls.
Accordingly, each time the synod refers to our “brothers and sisters,” it fails to add “and other siblings in Christ,” a “compassionate” expansion of the community of the baptized — already used by radically inclusive theologian, Fr. Dan Horan, OFM – that acknowledges our non-binary, genderqueer, and pangender Catholics.
The synod’s eagerness to promote the baptismal dignity of women collides with its desire for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ+ people, some of whom believe they are women despite their “sex assigned at birth,” a mendacious phrasing integrated by definition into the acronym modifying Catholics.
Consideration of “women’s inclusion in the diaconate” now encompasses trans women – biological males who identify as women. The priesthood must open itself to biological females who identify as male – trans men.
To do otherwise denies the baptismal dignity of LGBTQ+ Catholics.
A radically inclusive Church can never clearly say what a man or a woman is lest it offend, and will most certainly feel compelled to revamp discourse that “marginalizes” homosexual activity.
Such a Church, like the culture, requires sensitivity readers. The language of sections 2357-59 of the Catechism is, I am assured, harmful and a disservice to those of us who are gay. We are perceived as men without chests, too overwhelmed by our desires to grasp rationally the truth that same-sex inclination is “objectively disordered” and homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”
Any changes in Church discourse here will lead to revisions elsewhere. The subsequent section 2360, for example, concerns the “Love of Husband and Wife,” which declares — exclusively and without apology— that “sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman.”
As the gnostic queer theology espoused and currently taught in a few Catholic institutions takes root, our conception of “ordered” will broaden. Sodomy will be discerned within the totality of God’s design.
Indeed, the Catholic tradition that “all sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin” becomes unreasonable in a radically inclusive Church because it “disproportionately” focuses the Christian moral life on sexual activity. Making chastity – self-mastery – more “accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time” hardly seems necessary.
The past decade of queer transformations within mainstream Protestant churches provides clear proof that no church embracing the culture remains the same. The worldwide Anglican communion has passed the breaking point. From transgender clergy to non-binary bishops, in a radically inclusive church, the center cannot hold.
What about the real world?
We are six decades into a sexual revolution that has devastated the institutions of marriage and family. The synodal path not only steers clear of the readily apparent social and cultural wreckage but avoids truth — including the prophetic Humanae Vitae — in its embrace of objective disorder.
The triumph of the LGBTQ+ agenda has created a pied piper culture, enticingly packaged in rainbow colors, that informs children that husbands marry husbands, wives marry wives; that affirms the fantasies of kids claiming they were “assigned” the wrong sex; that demands girls share their formerly private spaces with boys; that compels lessons in sexual orientation and gender identity as early as kindergarten, and adds “queerness” wherever children can be reached.
How does a synod specifically promoting co-responsibility within the Church ignore the crucial social role of the mother and father, who together have society’s only essential co-responsible task: bringing forth new life, protecting their offspring, raising them as Christians?
High percentages of lay men and women have been involved in the synod. However, a reading of synodal documents indicates its lay participants have included few parents with recent first-hand experience changing diapers, bandaging cuts and scrapes, reading stories to sleepy heads, readying youngsters for school, and monitoring the culture’s efforts to bypass Mom and Dad through television, internet, and social media.
Instead, we “hear” the authorial expertise of universities, its academics perceiving the institutional church as a type of secular government, its laws and structures onerous, its catechetical discourse triggering.
Something is amiss. In the North American document, for example, Catholics are encouraged to “imitate Mary.” Why? Because, the authors tell us, Mary “continually said ‘yes’ to the invitation to contribute to the building up of the Kingdom of God.”
Left unstated is Mary’s indispensable contribution, her Yes to motherhood.
In that document — where the leadership role of women in the church is of paramount concern — the role of mother and wife in the domestic church is never mentioned. Nor is the role of father and husband. Likewise, in the Vatican’s Instrumentum Laboris.
Within these omissions resides the radical irrelevance of the synodal path in the third decade of the 21st century. Where is the Catholic Church, the defender of marriage and the family, at this moment of social and cultural collapse in the West?
In large part, that Church will be found in Africa, where some 20% of the current worldwide Catholic population resides, where churches are filled on Sundays, and where children are brought into the world male and female, as God has created them.
Africa’s synod chose to dispense with the Vatican-suggested theme — Isaiah’s Enlarge the Space of Your Tent — because of the tent’s association with the chaos of warfare, flight, and displacement. Instead, the Church in Africa selected as its theme The Family of God. “The family,” says their document, “is an important structure in the promotion of the synodal Church and demands pastoral care that focuses on marriage and family and their challenges in present-day Africa.”
At the invitation of Pope Francis, Fr. Martin is participating in this fall’s Vatican synod, along with the four American cardinals who contributed affirming blurbs to Building a Bridge.
I take heart that the synod will also be hearing many individual voices from Africa, where the family remains treasured, the gravity of its challenges appreciated, and the Catholic Church a sign of contradiction.
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All are welcome in Christ’s house, but – it’s HIS house and HE makes the rules.
All are welcome…to repent!
Amen! And for all of eternity!
Evil, in its arrogance, always oversteps. It ends up consuming itself.
That’s what we’re seeing in the Synod on Sin.
The mask is off. And the left’s writhing, leering, suppurating face of evil has become visible to all.
Perhaps at some point Catholics will actually stop voting for the evil one’s agenda of death.
I wish this was a Synod on Sin. Then at least there would be an idea that sin existed, and that it was worth synoodalizing about.
This, quite simply, is a Synod of Sin, Depravity and Destruction. Does no one among the synodalizers understand even the first rule of marketing? Offer something desirable that your target “clients” can’t get anywhere else. Instead, they’re offering mere imitations of what the world can provide in “genuine” form. Who would buy? It’s doomed to fail even on its own demerits.
We need to rid the Church of everyone, especially prelates, who promote the sin of homosexuality. The Church needs a serious purifying.
Well said!
Need purification from the top.
One can hope that the “Synod on [the back of] Synodality” will still amputate the subterfuges in what still could be, at least hypothetically, a real re-gathering of the flock…
Or, one might simply conclude that synodalism’s inflated balloon (a condom with bells, whistles and even “experts”!) is Aesop’s mountain in labor—from whence commeth a mouse!
Butt, since much of over-generously multitasking synodalism seems to be camouflage bubble-wrap around incongruous insertions anatomical, might we just hope–as this collage drags (double entendre intended) into late 2023 and then 2024–that the whole thing will simply fade into the sunset as “old news”–who cares!
And, still anatomically speaking, might efforts to keep “it” breathing be a lot like administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead horse? Perhaps team James Martin will demonstrate!
Or—more positively—and of synodalism’s mix of the “good, the bad, and the ugly”—can the adults in the room still salvage the front third from the back two thirds? Perhaps credible discernment and even common sense will yet include (inclusivity!) a useful role for the “throwaway culture!”
Truly (a good word?), all of us should be praying up to the end for a surprising conversion to a good outcome. These are historically evil times—and the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” Church is still more than a focus group, and our God-given home away from home.
Catholics have obviously learnt nothing from what has happened to the Lutherans and Anglicans who went down this same path. The more conservative Catholics in Africa and Asia will simply ignore or be forced break away from the church in the West. The pope is leading us into schism.
Try to see things from the perspective of a “LGBTQ+” person, a concrete individual person who does not know much theology but feels drawn to the faith. Your arguments are fine, but they are relatively abstract and miss the mark, and the mark is the individual gay man or woman or one who struggles with gender issues. You don’t have the language to deal with these people because you live in the land of arguments. They don’t need arguments. They need something else. I think these Cardinals get something that people here are missing.
Yes, but then there’s the added twist injected, for example, by Cardinal Hollerich, ringmaster of the upcoming “Synod on [the back of] Synodality”:
He was asked by a reporter: “How do you get around the Church’s teaching that [active] homosexuality is sin?” He replied: “I believe that this is false. But I also believe that here we are thinking further about the teaching. So, as the Pope has said in the past, this can lead to a change in teaching […] So I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct, what one formerly condemned was sodomy.” https://catholicherald.co.uk/cardinal-hollerich-church-teaching-on-gay-sex-is-false-and-can-be-changed/
(In partial response to alchemist Hollerich’s “science,” genome research finds no gay gene: https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html)
We can agree that what is needed is both clarity on what is objective sin, and concrete accompaniment (not deceptive accommodation) for the trying situation of everyone (!) beset by damaging histories, or predispositions (which in themselves are not sins), or temptations (also not sins), etc., including individual homosexuals.
P.S. On the heels of Hollerich, and not to be outdone, the still-green Cardinal McElroy in a new red hat then openly gloated in America magazine that the broad agenda is to revolutionize the Church itself. You just can’t get good help these days!
But the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, not Hollerich. Reading this forum you’d think man was in chart, not God. Where’s your faith.
Dear Thomas James: “But the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit . .”.
Classic example of temptation to disobey God (as in Matthew 4:3,6,9).
Rather: the guidance that The Holy Spirit constantly provides to our Church is in increasing our understanding of and allegiance to what The Holy Spirit gave to the Apostolic writers of The New Testament. Basic Catechetics: “God does not change!”
For example: “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit The Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Fornicators, idolators, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit The Kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
In dismissing this, with all respects, are not Pope Francis & his coterie, Hollerich, McElroy, Horan, James Martin, et al.; & those others, like you, dear Thomas James (who are busy promoting what The Holy Spirit has permanently banned) hazarding your eternal souls? Insensitivity to what God has plainly commanded indicates a fatal lack of spiritual maturity.
Not every spirit is The Holy Spirit.
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed.” Galatians 1:8. If that isn’t sufficient warning for PF et al., nothing will be.
Am praying for the day when our current Pope repents and issues an encyclical on the topic of: “THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE TO GOD.”
Ever shepherded by King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
Mr. James:
As the late Pope Benedict once said, the Holy Spirit is always speaking, but “the Church” (from Popes, to bishops and priests and laymen) isn’t always listening.
Faith is reserved to God alone, not to men, including Church hierarchs.
Yes, this is so true. The Church is not always listening. That’s the idea behind the Synod. To become a more listening Church. But most people on this forum don’t really think that’s necessary. All we need to do is keep pontificating on homosexuality and sin. But evangelization is more complex than that I’m afraid.
The affirmation that “… and the mark is the individual gay man or woman or one who struggles with gender issues,” is a declaration that totally misses the true mark. First, Jesus Christ, True Man and True God is the mark, the Absolute and Only Mark. For 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has been inviting and bringing homosexuals to freedom from that sin and the present and false “inclusion” is an act of historical revenge against that most loving and most merciful of inclusions coming from true repentance.
This is absolutely clear in Saint Paul’s words here where he says “And such were some of you (homosexuals, etc.)” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). If the next affirmation is true: “… that struggle with gender issues”, then, again as in for 2,000 years, the remedy in the Church’s spiritual hospital is the same: repentance, conversion and surrender to Jesus in a sin-free, holy life. There’s no greater mercy, charity and inclusion into God’s Kingdom than that. We do not need special or changed language, as special and changed language leaves the sick deeper in their sickness, keeping them as far away as possible from Jesus healing, motivated by Satan’s white hot vengeance against God and the humans he so loves, so much so that he became one of us: Supreme Divine Inclusion!!
Yes, of course. I’m not denying that. But Christ came for man, he died for us, not for ideas, concepts, arguments, ideologies, etc. he came for man. Human persons who are lost. The good news has to be proclaimed, but the good news is not the law. The good news is Christs victory over death, it is our justification. But the vocabulary and model on this forum is not that, but one of moralizing, sin, law, etc. pounding a gay man over the head with a moralizing sledgehammer is not going to do it. Christ first, grace first, covenant first, and law eventually follows. But here on this forum it is reversed. That doesn’t work. There’s very little proclamation of Christ and the good news on this forum. It’s all negative regarding bishops and cynicism rooted in fear. Christ is in charge. Have some faith and start breathing some fresh air. CWR is starting to smell like a public bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.
“CWR is starting to smell like a public bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.”
Right. Try again.
In John 6:66 Christ was willing to lose most of His followers over His teaching on the Eucharist.
Mr. James.
Truth is an idea.
And per Jesus: “I came that you might know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”
We are created, “in the image and likeness of God,” for this…
May God shepherd us in his Truth, and lead us to that place.
Chris: No. Truth is a Person: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Ideas don’t set us free. A Person does, namely Christ. St Paul makes it very clear that the law does not save. You need to read the entire letter to the Romans, but especially Romans 8ff. You’ve adopted in a very subtle way the heresy of Pelagianism—if you really believe that ideas save. Truth is a Person.
So-called “gay” and what-have-you “persons” are quite capable of rejecting the faith just as so-called “rigid” persons can. This generalized affirming of so-called “gay” and “rejected gay” brings its own sets of presumptions. Then generally “explaining” or “accusing” that their “not being accepted” relates with “ideas and concepts and thinking but not Jesus Christ” -is another set of presumptions.
Anyone can be interested in Christ; and then they’re moved by Him to the truths that come from Him.
People also turn away from Christ on either or both of TWO counts:
1. repulsed by His Person
2. repulsed by His truths.
According to the Gospel of John “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:1-5 RSVCE)
*
Christ is the Word, the Logos, the mind and the will of God made flesh. Logos is associated with reason and wisdom. In John 14 and 15 Christ links the love of Him with keeping His commandments.
Homosexuality is the total rejection, antithesis, inversion and opposition to reality and it is now in the open and showing everywhere. To radical homosexuals the infinitely delightful and amazing fragance of faith, obedience and union with God in pure holiness smells like the stench of death. The biggest mercy and inclusion is to call them to repentance before Christ. Then the real source of the stench will be gone.
Thomas James writes: “The good news has to be proclaimed, but the good news is not the law.”
But we have Jesus Himself teaching us in Matthew 5:17:
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil (sic) them.” (RSV)
So in a sense, the Good News, containing the words and teachings of Jesus, gives us not only the law, but its very fulfillment as well. Indeed, Jesus Himself showed great respect for the law, be it religious or secular (“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s.”) We see Jesus repeating four of the Ten Commandments to the young ruler in Mark 10:17-19. And, while it’s not the Gospel, it’s St. Paul writing to Timothy:
“Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…” (1Tim1:8-10, RSV)
Key section: “The law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient…”. He specifically calls out sodomites as being among those for whom the law must be laid down.
So…let’s not denigrate the central importance of the law, nor should we denigrate the sincere and thoughtful writing of those who invoke it as a corrective against the errors we see coming out of this synodal exercise.
Dear ‘LexCredendi’: your comment is so cogent, pro-Apostolic, readily comprehended, and helpful unto eternal life.
In a faithful Church, you’d be appointed as a close advisor of the Pope.
Ever following The Good Shepherd, who’s with us always; blessings from marty
Dear Lex: You have missed the point completely. No one is saying that the law has been abolished. The statement you quote was that “the good news is not the law”. The law does not save. Just read Romans. Christ saves. What I wrote above was that Christ is first, the good news of the resurrection, the good news of our salvation, new life in the Person of Christ, freedom from slavery, grace, etc., is first, and law follows after. Before my conversion, I had all sorts of vices, and telling me that this or that was sinful would not have done a thing for me. But after meeting a very joyful Catholic who witnessed to Christ, in whom Christ lived, a very charitable disciple, that is what did it for me, that’s what drew me in, not moralizing propositions dripping with cynicism, arrogance, fear and despair about the future of the Church. If, instead of this person, I was exposed to the people on this forum, I would not have been drawn to the Church. I would have stayed away. But I was drawn to Christ, and when that happened, when I finally entered into this world of grace, then all sorts of things followed. I was no longer comfortable using the Lord’s name in vain, for example, and although I struggled with certain other habits, I knew nonetheless that I wanted to overcome them, all out of gratitude to God for delivering me and giving me freedom. But we tend to forget this order and our Catholicism becomes heavily juridical. That kind of moralizing does not work. Pope Francis sees this very clearly. But the problem on this forum is that the people here give the worst possible spin on what this or that bishop or Cardinal said, just like you have done with my words, as if I was arguing that law does not matter.
People don’t listen here. They misinterpret, they fear, and they react. This is not healthy. Sure there are some bishops and Cardinals who have lost their way, who probably think a sexual relationship between two people of the same sex is fine, as long as there is love. But the majority of the bishops and Cardinals do not think that, nor does Francis. And the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Gosh, study the history of the Church for goodness sake. If we made it this far without destroying the faith of the Church, what makes you think that all will be lost within the next few years? The Church as a whole has a charism, and the magisterium is the organ of that charism, so worry not. Christ said the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church–although that seems to imply that it will try to do so. So, instead, proclaim the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection and all that it implies with respect to finding meaning in this world. A lot of good is happening with respect to this synod. Many people do feel the Church is beginning to listen to their concerns, and their concerns, from what I’ve read, have less to do with sexuality and more to do with the clericalism that is still among us. Most of you sound like a bunch of neurotic conspiracy theorists.
As for you, Dr. Martin James Rice, re: your comment “In a faithful Church, you’d be appointed as a close advisor of the Pope”, your obsequiousness is obnoxious.
As always, Lex, you’ve hit it out of the park!
Christ came as the fulfillment of the law. Christ never came to supercede God’s law – that would have been an affront to His Father.
I notice where “JP” is tippy-toeing around the issues but how Thomas James just walked right into a wall trying to look like nothing is crashing and it’s all joy. Why would I ever consider the nullification of Christ’s law as a) exciting, b) evangelical and c) converting of my heart?
Or be neutral on it. Repulsive it what it is.
Live chastely or die – applies to all men and women no matter what their sexual inclination
If the people who you are talking about are open to true Catholicism they are not going to be demanding accommodation to their temptations. In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the publican admitted to his sinfulness. He didn’t have a pride movement. Neither did the Good Thief on the Cross.
*
Unrepentant sinners can be very evangelical in promoting their sins. In today’s world the sinners have a far greater faith in their sins than many Catholics and clergy have in the true Catholic faith. The evangelical sinners are the ones who appear to be making converts.
Dear ‘GregB’ – a very perspicacious, accurate diagnosis.
Chief Physician, Jesus Christ, prescribes the remedy: see Revelation 3:2-6.
A loving response is to tell the truth, teach the truth if it is asked for, walk with the person who needs help if they want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and refer them to counseling and more spiritual guidance if you are not equipped to do it yourself. Lying to them and trying to turn the Lord’s words around to something else is at the peril of our own souls as well as theirs. Can we say that Jesus was lacking in compassion when the rich young man was given a choice to leave it all behind and follow Jesus? He asks the same of all who would follow Him and be saved.
Dear Maureen Nash: Amen Forever!
Amen Maureen Nash…Amen.
The support group Courage IS made up of individuals who have struggled with their homosexuality and who find solace in a life consonant with the teachings of the Catholic Church. In Courage there is hope. In our Church currently too many irresponsible people are unclear about the Churchs teaching on this matter and this only create more confusion in the minds of those who are tormented by their homosexuality. Let’s not confuse compassion with mealy-mouthed notions that only equivocate.
Do we use the same language of accompanying to an accountant who steals from his clients to maintain a lifestyle, or a husband who constantly cheats on his wife to satisfy his urges?
Dear ‘Nick, exactly!
Mr. James:
In the sermon in the mount, Jesus said this: “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
That’s in Matthew’s Gospel, which ends with this commandment from Jesus, at his ascension: “All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and if the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you….”
None of us can gloss over, neglect or (as outright dismiss or refute, as do New Ways Ministry and James Martin and Eminence Hollerich et al) the duty to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about human life.
The fundamental purpose of an LGBT pride parade is to mock the Moral Law, that is, to mock the Catholic Church as the repository of Christian moral doctrine. The antics of men dressed as nuns makes the mockery explicit. The FBI spying on Catholics attached to the traditions of the Church further gives credibility to the allegation that Catholics are the object of a war of extinction but they do not know it. The choices in a war are either battle or martyrdom–not conversion to the side of the enemy.
Mr. George,
Catholics likely are a target for extinction.
I’m going to be annoying & repetitious: the way to avoid extinction is to marry, be open to having larger families, & raise our children properly in community with other believers.
What’s the fertility rate of SSA folk or the gender confused? That’s what makes a difference in the long run. A culture can’t survive without a future generation to carry it on. And that goes for people of faith as well.
Every TLM parish and SSPX chapel should start a new capital campaign and brace themselves for an even greater influx of refugees. The “Great Sorting” of Catholics between heretical parishes and faithful ones that began a few generations ago is about to shift into a higher gear.
I have to disagree with not calling someone what they ask to be called. What if I said “you’re not Dan” and started calling you Elmo? Your name would still be Dan, and my calling you Elmo would be disrespectful.
Dear Maria Alderson, there are few who would disagree with your comment.
However, it’s a totally different matter when someone who is a MALE asks to be referred to as a FEMALE. Acquiescence in such circumstances is cooperation in a deceit; and that’s a serious sin.
Take care. Always in the grace & mercy of Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
It seems we are headed toward 2 parallel churches, one the church of the world (and we know who the prince of the world is) and the Church of the other world ( the Kingdom of God: and we know who the King of that world is). We must choose who we are going to follow.
Dear James Connor,
Maybe our circumstances are not so exceptional as to cause a new reformation.
Maybe, the faithful Church has always existed within a larger, largely apostate church . . ?
Hidden treasure in a weedy, derelict field . . ? Pearl of great price amidst a malodourous, chaotic market-place . . ? Salt in a goulash . . ? Yeast in basin of dough . . ?
Perseverance is indispensable – see Luke 8:15; 1 Corinthians 13:7; Hebrews 11:27; James 1:12; 5:11; Revelation 2:3.
Please pray for me, James, as I do for you: the grace of perseverance in Christ.
Ever following The Good Shepherd; love & blessings from marty
The Theo-Drama is being synodaled away into the Ego-Drama.
I think the normalization of selfish destructive sinfulness is afoot. Will societies be unable to prosecute pedophilia and pederasty in the future? Will children be able to proclaim victim status in the future as their only hope? These are hard and unthinkable questions. Yet the way things are going? So much crime can be “acceptable” as not crime if criminal victim status increases more and more.
Come Holy Spirit! Please! Somewhere here the answer is Christ as Christ not redefined.
Speaking of unthinkable questions, if Synodaling wins a blessing for same-sex unions, what is the objective reason to deny a blessing for NAMBLA unions? Blessing the redeeming qualities of a polyamorous marriage is obvious. And why not celebrate sologamy? And who am I to judge marriage to a pet?
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/woman-married-dog-8-years-perfect-for-her-marriage-animal-wilhelmina-morgan-callaghan-northern-ireland-a7994626.html
Those orchestrating the Synod on behalf of the Pontiff Francis are openly displaying their intent to “de-capitate the Body of Christ,” as Fr. Robert Imbelli has described the “quite intentional apostasy.”
Fr. Imbelli has provided the evidence showing “the removal” of Christ, and the evidence is provided in the “Laborious Instrument” of the Synod bureaucrats.
In his article at First Things, Fr. Imbelli notes the the text if the “Laborious Instrument” quotes, twice, the opening sentence of Lumen Gentium, and twice deletes the two key words of that sentence (which 2 words they delete I bracket in the text below, to wit:
“the Church is [in Christ] like a sacrament or sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of all humanity.”
There they have witnessed in their very words, what they intentions exclude: Jesus Christ.
As Fr. Imbelli notes, their twice repeated citation omits “in Christ, and thus, can not be judged anything but a deliberate exclusion.
Imbelli’s essay link is below:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/07/what-henri-de-lubac-would-think-of-the-synod-on-synodality
As he said in 2020, they are intent on “decapitating the Body of Christ.”
Now, the formerly-shy-apostates are outright saying it themselves.
But, of course, “Jesus Christ” is deleted! This is the future Age of Aquarius! Or, is it really just another pseudo-intellectual and “backward” tradition?
Joachim de Fiore was a 13th-century abbot who divided human history into three ages: the Father or the Old Testament, the Son or Christ up until the 13th Century, and then the Age of the Holy Spirit! In the 13th century rather than our 21st…
How much of what passes for synodality now overstates the Holy Spirit, and seemingly (or worse) at the expense of the incarnate Second Person of the Triune One? And, since the mission is finally to carry Christ beyond the Church and into a world spinning out of control, then why do the Germans and others want, instead, to keep Christians in the kitchen–now as female priestesses, and as homilists, and as re-definers of innate natural law and especially binary/complementary/fecund human sexuality?
The disintegrating world invades the sanctuary…so is it all just false sociology? Like Joachim, an early founder of modern sociology, August Comte, also trisected human history, as into the religious and theological, then the metaphysical, and then the rational-scientific or what he called “positivism”…
Positivism. Truth is what scientism anoints and what we say it is. Sounds a bit like Cardinal Hollerich who signals thusly: :
“I believe that this [the teaching that homosexual actions are objectively sinful] is false. But I also believe that here we are thinking further about the teaching […] this can lead to a change in teaching […] I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation [!] of this teaching is no longer correct [….].”
Not the synodal Holy Ghost? Butt, instead, the ghost of Joachim de Fiore and August Comte? Both of them quite dead.
It is reported today that the Diocese of Syracuse reached a $100 million settlement of the sex abuse claims against it. Unfortunately, we seem to have become desensitized to this moral and financial scandal, the root cause of which was the admission to seminaries and later ordination of men living an active gay lifestyle.
I have this suspicion that the solution of the Lavender Mafia to this scandal is to use the Synod to make consensual gay sex OK for all, including of course clergy members, at all times under all circumstances.
Dear ‘Tom in Florida’.
That’s the best explanation for the wrong spiritual energy today’s apostates are manifesting. Clerical self-interest always opens the gate to deceptive spirits.
But it’s not new: as was true nearly 2 millennia ago when Saint Paul penned 1 Corinthians 6:9. About 1 millennium ago, Saint Peter Damien is seen to be battling the same subversive spirits.
Those who stand for The Apostolic Witness are in excellent company!
Ever in the love of Christ Jesus; blessings from marty
The reality here is that the LGBTQ+ community in todays secular society looking to normalize their immoral sexual activity by any means they can to include the Catholic Church. The Church will stand to its truth by accepting the sinner, (as we all are) to repentance for our sins and to go and sin no more.
Synodality just allows the issues of today to be discussed but in no way changes the Catechism of the Catholic Church but the Church needs to understand the issues in todays world to enable it to truly evangelize the sinners.
“Synodality just allows the issues of today to be discussed but in no way changes the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Magari! Think this if it gives you comfort, but Amoris Laetitia is going to be rolled out. What are you going to say after all manner of sins are tolerated: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AT75/athene-panic
I take the Synod guests of Pope Francis like Fr. James Martin at his word. https://www.ncregister.com/features/father-james-martin-proposes-an-alternate-catechism
Homosexuality is a sexual neurosis Its sufferers need a priest or psychologist.
See the life of Sinead O’Connor.( Mundabor.wordpress.com)
All this argument is very distressing for an ordinary Catholic – like me. How I wish I could not engage and just go on being an ordinary Catholic; but each one of us lives in a family, community, neighborhood where we must face the issues of the day in the actual people that we meet as we go about the business of living in society. This is really challenging and so I read, and think, and pray continually.
Yes, Maureen, I sympathize.
But don’t be fooled. God’s commandments are not arbitrary.
The sins He proscribes are not selected simply as a means to test us.
They are all selfish, destructive, toxic acts that bring us death, misery and regret. I see this quite clearly now in my dotage.
God does love us — not only radically and inclusively, but infinitely. And because He loves us, He cannot approve of us doing things that lead to our destruction, or the destruction of others, or of our families.
Same sex attraction is a disorder — probably developmental. But even if it is congenital, it’s still a disorder — like clubfoot or sickle cell anemia or cleft palate. And so it ought to be treated, as those other disorders are.
Encouraging — indeed, celebrating — such a disorder would be cruel and would make the Church responsible for the pain and suffering that would inevitably result. And that could not be of God.
As I have stated before in this space, this synod is an effort by the evil one to undermine the Church and deceive Christ’s people.
Those in the hierarchy who are attempting to engineer this evil are serving the unholy spirit. Beware of them.
Dear ‘brineyman’, if this is the acuity of vision, passion to obey Christ, and wisdom concerning God’s perfectly good purposes, blazing coherently in such as you ‘in your dotage’, then, PLEASE LORD gives us more Catholics ‘in their dotage’!
Thanks for the excellent comment. Ever in the love of Jesus; blessings from marty
Well said, indeed, brineyman!
brineyman,
I believe same sex attraction is a disorder also. And while a cleft palate or clubfoot is a birth defect, sickle cell anemia is an inherited mutation that enables those carrying the trait to have better resistance to malaria. So it does serve a beneficial purpose to those who have only one copy of the recessive gene. Those who inherit sickle cell from both parents are less fortunate.
As a revert Catholic, who returned four years ago, and for whom the faith finally clicked two years ago–I find the gay question insulting, as it pre-supposes a need to “walk with” one type of sin that other sinners may not get. I co-habitate with a girl–I think there are a lot of complexities in the situation, we started when she was a vague protestant and I was an academic pagan who still thought of the church–but since kids werent on the cards, marriage wasn’t really important, and co-habitated post college. I also pushed how marriage wasn’t important. The history is imperfect. But i recognize its not perfect, I never expected the church to conform to me. Confessors have deftly and gently helped me. But that is the point: i returned with baggage, and we work through it
I lacked the audacity to demand blanket, groveling acceptance. But as it seems all of this has nothing to do with helping imperfect people, it occurs to me my sin has the tragedy of being unfashionably straight.
Those were very honest comments Wall St Revert. I hope you and your girlfriend do what’s best and most pleasing to Our Lord.
May He bless you both.
As a fellow Wall St. Revert, glad you are in the fight brother! Never give up. Allow me share a few of my repentance ashes…
Yes, we have experienced the “audacious” who will likely receive “acceptance” after synodal “groveling.” But even if a priest did offer you a hetero hall pass to violate God’s Commandments, would you really be better off if you hit the bid? Sure, you could say you are gay about it (heterosexually speaking;). Yet we know that being pastorally enabled leads to eternal bankruptcy.
Trust Christ to do the heavy lifting and continue to seek His healing grace in Confession. God’s Peace to you and your girl.
“Do not yoke yourselves in a mismatch with unbelievers. After all, what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common, or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What accord is there between Christ and Belial, what common lot between believer and unbeliever? Tell me what agreement there is between the temple of God and idols. You are the temple of the living God, just as God has said:
“I will dwell with them and walk among them.
I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
Therefore, ‘Come out from among them
and separate yourselves from them,’
says the Lord;
‘and touch nothing unclean.
I will welcome you and be a father to you
and you will be my sons and daughters,’
says the Lord Almighty.”
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and in the fear of God strive to fulfill our consecration perfectly.”
Redemption won by Jesus Christ involves the whole man including right ideas and good law and intellect (and prayer) illumined in grace; and the communion in worship within the invisible experience for the sake of the Body of Christ and the individual.
Christ didn’t reduce it to an assembly on the hill with a miracle of foods which wouldn’t be the meaning of the passage “Cast your bread upon the waters”. The source and the summit was to be the Eucharist. What is often described in its place is a reversed reading of what actually occurred, rendered in positivist statements, looking like they proceed from a true inspiration, that is counter-inspirational.
There are many movements that fell out from the Church that persisted in corporal works of mercy. Still, then, something was wrong nonetheless. On the other hand there are many stories of the unconverted who did favours for Popes or the Church but remained unbaptised to the end. You can’t define everyone or faith just on that.
CWR can sometime be like a ransacked wreck room but generally it is a beautiful hospitable living room where they serve the tasty and the dainty and nutritious with flair and a bit of spectacle. And then they put the wreck room back in order with the help of their guests. And oddballs who never knew how to use the bathrom properly get a lesson in charity when CWR does the clean-up for them and shows them how that’s done and they way they like things to be clean and fragrant.
Bless the Lord.
“Do not yoke yourselves in a mismatch with unbelievers. After all, what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common, or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What accord is there between Christ and Beliar, what common lot between believer and unbeliever? Tell me what agreement there is between the temple of God and idols?” –2 Corinthians 6:14
The so-called ‘artwork’ for the Synod is (choose one)
1) Bad
2) Amateurish
3) Sophomorish
4) All of the above
An important question here is this: Must every one of the baptized whose pathways in life are bound up with some objective disorder be excluded from the ecclesial community and the communion in holy things until such time as they recover themselves sufficiently? And if so what is the definition of sufficient recovery?
During this Pontificate we have been given a broad answer to these questions: Some degree of inclusion is rendered possible before rectifying irregularity on the basis of a reduced culpability due to mitigating circumstances and also a personalized (internal forum) pastoral accompaniment which seeks to avoid scandal and eventually lead the irregular one to ever fairer pastures of conformity to the law in due time. The watchword is the law of gradualness without admitting gradualness in the law.
See Amoris Laetitia Chapter 8 for further discussion on these points.
https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf
Thank you for your consideration
Timothy your post might appear reasonable in the wake of some extreme goings on in the CWR comboxes recently. One fellow was strewing ashes everywhere like a confetti.
This is an old issue that Amoris went at without clarity and as if it never had clarity before or didn’t have instances of clarity or clarity was withheld.
What you are posing is a regeneration of the problem, restated by you. Not good enough.
Pope Francis in his “Apostolic Letter” seems to have given the Jansenists a privileged place in the synodal synod and a renewal, by heralding Pascal as always accompanying us. In the Letter he did not warn of the continuing modern presence of Jansenism and its updatings; nor did he detail the problems in Pascal including 1. Pascal as an apologist and 2. Jansenists riding on the back of Pascalite apologetics.
Quite separately and more broadly, the synodal synod rounds out on issues coming out of a narrow or very specialized outlook that some people have been living during the past 60 years, hankering for recognition and uniqueness. Things that would have had the backing of Jansenists and Pascalites during the time.
Whatever the merits there if any, in fact the synodal synod can’t come to terms with other things that matter in the Church, since a) the synodal synod is not how they are addressed and b) the right approach would not subject them to Jansenism and Pascal and new things to do with Pascal they have yet to reveal.
Running on with things as they are is making it impossible for lower rungs in the hierarchy and conflating the laity and celebration of sacraments with or into heresies.
Let me try this again : This article underscores for me what I see as a big divide between Pope Francis and his detractors: When someone has some internal narrative (with behavioral consequences) or life situation which conflicts with God’s law what should the response of the Church be? Should it be exclusion until they get their act together or a prudent inclusion and pastoral accompaniment in order so that they might, little by little, get their act more and more together?
Amoris Laetitia gives us the principles whereby we can choose the latter pastoral and disciplinary approach without denying the laws of God and doctrines of the Church. This I believe, is an important key to understanding this Pontificate and the controversies.
Thank you for your consideration
You haven’t addressed the points I raised, neither their consequences; you only clarify what you “meant” and it too is not clear.
Let’s add the imprecision set up by “JP”, if someone says, we’re all sinners no-one may lay down anything definite. This too is not faith but Amoris fails to address it. I don’t know how old “JP” is but this has been developing since the ‘70’s in parishes and homes. I survey that it has a following in the lodge where it finds easy acceptance.
“Let me try this again: This article underscores for me what I see as a big divide between Pope Francis and his detractors. When someone has some internal narrative (with behavioral consequences) or life situation which conflicts with God’s law what should the response of the Church be?”
The question is framed incorrectly. It should be: “When someone has some internal narrative (with behavioral consequences) or life situation which conflicts with God’s law, what should the response of THAT PERSON be TO HIS SITUATION?”
And Christ’s answer was, is now, and always shall be: “Repent, go to confession, sin no more, and avoid the occasion which gave rise to the sin.”
Period.
For a Catholic, there is no other option.
Framing the matter as “pastoral and disciplinary” is false. The matter is doctrinal, as it touches on the very meaning of the sacraments, and what is posited above most certainly denies the law of God.
Taking out the euphemistic language of the post, and reframing the matter to distill it to its essence, we come to this: Does the Catholic Church allow a subset of its members who are not sacramentally married (and, thus, not married at all)… I repeat, who are NOT sacramentally married (and, thus, not married at all)… to engage in sexual acts and receive the sacraments without a) confessing their behaviour, b) ceasing the activity, and c) withdrawing from the occasion which caused the behaviour in the first place?
The answer was, is now, and always shall be NO.
Where does Christ teach that unmarried people can engage in sexual activity, of any nature?
What the above post insinuates is that the Catholic Church can allow people who it does not consider married to engage in sexual activity and still receive the sacraments.
Non possumus. Never.
The Church excludes no one; we exclude ourselves when we enter upon a life of sin.
Dear ‘DJR’, an excellent response to the obdurate blindness of dear ‘Timothy’ and to the mischievous doctrines of the false pastors he cites.
It may well be that some same-sex attraction is genetic or epigenetic or socially conditioned. Nevertheless, those in the anti-Apostolic sexual activity ‘community’ have made a choice, that their flesh inclinations trump the unequivocal Apostolic witness to God’s good will for human sexuality.
No right-minded person condemns anyone for inclinations they had no choice over. Otherwise, we’d be constantly condemning all of us for the legion of sinful inclinations that we humans are plagued by in this world.
What IS condemned is any refusal to acknowledge God’s right to proscribe their sexual sins. If they do admit God’s authority over them, they will need to show sincerity by genuine repentance and decision to avoid the occasions of sin. Without all of that, it is a sacrilege for them to seek to be part of the community who share The Sacred Body & Precious Blood of our Lord & God, Jesus Christ.
Those who teach otherwise, Pope & others, share in a damnable sacrilege.
Priests and parishioners will normally befriend and listen to sinners (baptized or not baptized). They will never, under pain of deadly sin, invite them to share in our Eucharists until they have: 1) accepted good Apostolic council; 2) accepted that God is to be obeyed, at whatever cost; 3) repented of their past errors; 4) resolved to avoid the occasions of sin including, if necessary, finding a new peer group, changing what movies & media they watch, etc.
Good parishes have strong support groups for all who leave their sin life and seek to be obedient children of God, in Christ. That’s the true ‘sinners’ hospital’ function of our Catholic communities. NOT sacrilegiously welcoming unrepentant deniers of God’s authority into Eucharistic communion.
It also has to be said that the devil is super keen to degrade the meaning of The Sacred Body & Precious Blood of our Lord & God, Jesus Christ, for that was what ended Satan’s unchallenged rule of evil, sin, & death on this planet.
Those who teach incorporation of unrepentant sinners in Holy Eucharist are behaving as servants of evil, sin, & death and, as such, will inevitably reap the devil’s dreadful fate.
Let every true Catholic say: “And that, too, is Good News!”
Keep praying everyone. In the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty
Excellent,response, DJR.
And Timothy, if you’re reading, you should know that even Bing Chat gives the answer you don’t want to hear. Curiously, the S/HE/ITBOT understands and uses language just like yours. Ain’t that somethun’!?!
“According to the Bible, when someone has an internal narrative or life situation that conflicts with God’s law, the Church’s response should be to help the individual resolve conflicts God’s way.
This involves submitting to God, resisting the devil, and repenting of all sin1.
James 4:7-10 teaches that to resolve conflicts, one must submit to God unconditionally, draw near to God, and humble oneself before God1.
The Church can provide guidance and support to help the individual follow these principles and find peace in their relationship with God. Ultimately, resolving conflicts with others begins with getting right with God1.
Is there anything else you would like to know? 😊
1. bible.org
2. bible.org
Timothy: You wrote “When someone has some internal narrative (with behavioral consequences) or life situation which conflicts with God’s law what should the response of the Church be?”
ANSWER: Always respond with the Truth as revealed by God in the Scriptures, the Tradition of the Church and the perennial Teaching of the Church. Repond in charity. But don’t confuse charity with heaping more lies upon a person to make them feel good.
When I read about radical inclusion it looks like the progressives are trying to claim the right to impose a prenuptial agreement on God and the Church as a condition of membership. An open marriage as it were. Spiritual swinging.
Hi, dear ‘GregB’. Shock, horror – you’re not saying our current pope and his revisionist, anti-Apostolic apparatchiks are ‘spiritual swingers’ . . ? These are very strange times, so maybe that’s an apt descriptor. Ever in Christ; blessings from marty
Neither Timothy nor DJR address the points I raise.
In addition “internal narrative” has been used in the past to super-impose alternative narrative like the staged changes in definitions of homosexuality by the American Psychological Association. A is at fault for his internal narrative but B was never really at fault. Quite false and in so many respects without conjunction.