Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C., is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university.(Image: Wikipedia)
CNA Staff, Aug 2, 2024 / 17:51 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis this week said he is “united in prayer” with those participating in a conference for Catholics who identify as LGBT taking place this weekend in Washington, D.C.
Father James Martin, a controversial Jesuit priest who founded the pro-LGBT group Outreach in 2022, reportedly asked Pope Francis if he would like to send a greeting to the group’s 2024 gathering, taking place Aug. 2–4 at Georgetown University. Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington is scheduled to celebrate Mass on Saturday at the event.
According to Vatican News, Pope Francis sent a brief response saying he was pleased by the fact that Gregory will be celebrating Mass for the 350 expected attendees at the conference.
The pope further said he is “united in prayer” with those participating in the conference and prayed that “Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin care for you.”
Pope Francis has on several occasions received Martin in private audiences at the Vatican and has expressed support for Martin’s ministry to those identifying as LGBT, urging him to “continue this way.” Critics have over the years accused Martin of rejecting Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts, but he has insisted that he does not reject the teaching of the Church.
The 2024 Outreach conference was organized for “LGBTQ laypeople, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students, and family members to build community, share best practices, and worship together,” its website says.
The gathering has among its sponsors America Media, Creighton University, and the dissenting Catholic group DignityUSA, which has in recent years hosted “blessing” events marking LGBT Pride Month.
The conference is scheduled to include panels on “LGBTQ Ministry in Parishes,” “Parenting LGTBQ Children,” and “Race, Intersectionality, and LGBTQ People” as well as a panel titled “Gifts of a Life of Chastity.”
The conference will also include a talk by a Catholic who identifies as transgender, Maxwell Kuzma, who has indicated an intention to “[celebrate] queer theology and trans joy” at the conference.
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Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan leads a Eucharistic procession inside a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium in Brooklyn, New York, on April 20, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno
New York City, N.Y., Apr 23, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
I’d never ridden the sub… […]
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the recitation of the Regina Caeli on May 7, 2023. / Vatican Media
CNA Staff, May 7, 2023 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday warned against the danger of living life without a sense of purpose or a destination to set our course by, reminding the faithful that Jesus is “our compass for reaching heaven,” our true home.
Speaking to pilgrims gathered on a sunny day in St. Peter’s Square to pray the Regina Caeli, the pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus consoles his disciples before his ascension, telling them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
“Jesus sees the disciples’ distress, their fear of being abandoned, just as it happens to us when we are forced to be separated from someone we care for. And so, he says: ‘I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am you may be also,” the pope said.
“Jesus uses the familiar image of home, the place of relationships and intimacy. In the Father’s house — he says to his friends, and to each one of us — there is space for you, you are welcome, you will always be received with the warmth of an embrace, and I am in Heaven to prepare a place for you!”
Pope Francis said that keeping in mind “where life is headed” is the way to get through the experiences of “fatigue, bewilderment, and even failure.”
When we lose sight of what makes “life worth living for,” he said, we “compress our life into the present,” the pope said. We merely seek maximum enjoyment and “end up living day by day, without purpose, without a goal.”
“Our homeland, instead, is in heaven; let us not forget the greatness and the beauty of our destination!” he urged.
Pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the recitation of the Regina Caeli on May 7, 2023. Vatican Media
But if we know the goal, we also have to know how to get there, the pope continued. When we face problems or when there is the “sensation that evil is stronger,” we ask, like Thomas, “What should I do?”
The pope responded: “Let us listen to Jesus’ answer: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ … He is the way and therefore faith in him is not a ‘package of ideas’ in which to believe, but rather a road to be traveled, a journey to undertake.”
“He is the way that leads to unfailing happiness,” the pope said, and imitating him is “the compass for reaching heaven: loving Jesus, the way, becoming signs of his love on earth.”
“Let us not be overwhelmed by the present,” the pope said. “Let us look up, to heaven, let us remember the goal, let us think that we are called to eternity, to the encounter with God.”
The pope then led the traditional Easter midday prayer, the Regina Caeli, in Latin.
After the prayer, the Holy Father noted two beatifications that happened on Saturday, one in Spain and one in Uruguay.
The first bishop of Uruguay, Bishop Jacinto Vera, was beatified in Montevideo. The bishop, who died in 1881, “witnessed to the gospel with powerful missionary ideals in the very difficult times of civil war,” the pope noted.
In Spain, Conchita Barrecheguren was beatified. Her full name was María de la Concepción del Perpetuo Socorro, but she was known as Conchita (the nickname for those named after the Immaculate Conception). The pope recalled how she “was bedridden for a long time and was able to face her illness with a lot of courage and strength.” She died in her early 20s, in 1927.
Members of the Meter Association, an organization that works to combat the abuse of minors, wave flags and a banner in St. Peter’s Square on May 7, 2023. Vatican Media
The pope also greeted a number of the faithful who were in the Square. Among those he welcome were members of the Meter Association who were dressed in bright yellow clothing and were accompanied by their founder, Father Fortunato di Noto. This association works to combat the abuse of minors. The pope noted that they were marking a remembrance day for victims. He encouraged them in their work and thanked them, reminding them that Jesus meets them in the young people they assist. I “accompany you with my prayers,” he said.
The pope also had a special hello for members of the Swiss Guard with their friends and family members, who participated in Saturday’s swearing-in ceremony.
There were 23 recruits sworn in on May 6, the tradition day of the initiation ceremony, which marks the anniversary of the sacrifice of 147 Swiss guards who died during the Sack of Rome in 1527 as they protected Pope Clement VII.
Finally, the pope noted the May 8 feast of Our Lady of Pompeii.
“In this sanctuary where we pray for peace, and especially in this month of May, we pray the rosary asking Our Blessed Mother for the gift of peace, especially for the people in Ukraine.”
He expressed his wish that leaders of countries “would listen to the desire of the people — who continue to suffer, and who desire and long for peace.”
The shrine in Pompeii — just a few minutes from the city that was famously destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. — is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary and was renovated in the late 1800s.
CNA Staff, Sep 28, 2020 / 07:08 pm (CNA).- Catholic schools received 80% of the 2020 National Blue Ribbon awards issued to private schools this year by the Department of Education. Of 50 private schools to win the award, 40 are Catholic.
This year, the Department of Education designated 367 schools–317 public and 50 non-public–as National Blue Ribbon Schools. The 40 Catholic schools honored were from 17 states and 21 dioceses.
The awards were announced on September 24.
“The National Blue Ribbon Schools award affirms the hard work of students, educators, families, and communities in creating safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging content,” says the Department of Education’s website for the award.
“The National Blue Ribbon Schools flag gracing a school’s building is a widely recognized symbol of exemplary teaching and learning. National Blue Ribbon Schools are an inspiration and a model for schools still striving for excellence,” says the site.
Schools can be designated as National Blue Ribbon winner once every five years.
For non-public schools to be recognized, their students must score in the top 15% nationally on standardized English and math tests.
Kelly Branaman, secretary for Catholic schools and superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Washington, told CNA that she was “appreciative” that non-public schools were recognized as well as public schools.
“This allows Catholic schools across the country to demonstrate their excellence on a national level,” she said to CNA on September 28.
Two schools in the Archdiocese of Washington were recognized as Blue Ribbon schools for this year.
“It is gratifying that the U.S. Department of Education recognizes what so many parents and teachers already know: that our Catholic schools provide a great education where academic excellence and our Catholic faith thrive,” said Branaman.
“We’re grateful for this honor, and it will serve to inspire us as we will continue to offer our students an outstanding education.”
Of course Francis would lend his blessing to anything that celebrates disorder and perversity. It just reinforces just how worthless Francis’ blessing is.
As has been said by so many others, a “blessing” which is associating God’s Good Name to that which is being blessed, is a blasphemy when it is attached either directly or by inference to acts that are intrinsically disordered and sinful. Do this, Francis, at risk of your own peril.
Stop playing silly mind/power games Holiness.
Anything to say about the Paris blasphemy?
The supposed focus of Catholic unity is divisive, seemingly by design.
But the Pope couldn’t say anything about the Olympics outrage or bother to meet brave Cardinal Zen while the Vatican continues to protect Rupnik. Shouts rather than speaks where they stand on issues, eh what?
The only thing that raises Bergoglio’s ire is faithful Catholics praising and adoring our Lord through the same Mass that’s been used for many centuries.
*That* simple fact shouts volumes about who Bergoglio is and what spirit he serves.
Why does the Holy Father or anyone else need to describe a human being by one aspect of their inclinations and behaviors.? We are all souls in need of salvation and some respects are all disordered as a consequence of the fall. We are called to live a chaste life no matter our desires and inclinations. Help people who have disordered inclinations. Yes. Defining them by these inclination, regardless of their self-definition. No.
You’re absolutely right, Russell. I wouldn’t want anyone characterizing or categorizing me by my foibles, imperfections, sins, physical appearance, etc. etc.
Fr. Martin identifies the people he serves as “queer,” which is a red flag that his vision of the human person and human sexuality is distorted. His Jesuit-sponsored Outreach website promotes all sorts of filth and degradation, including acceptance of sodomy, (aka “same-sex and marriage) and the misogynistic ideology behind transgenderism. I’m not sure why Pope Francis endorses it…
We read: “The 2024 Outreach conference was organized for “LGBTQ laypeople, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students, and family members to build community, share best practices, and worship together.”
And what might be some of the current “best practices”?
In 1985 anti-binary sexual behavior among gays was found to be “an average several dozen partners a year” and “some hundreds in a lifetime” with “tremendous promiscuity.” Practices much changed, certainly, since the scourge of AIDS….but, then, still this:
“In one recent study of gay male couples, 41.3% had open sexual agreements with some conditions or restrictions, and 10% had open sexual agreements with no restrictions on sex with outside partners. One-fifth of participants (21.9%) reported breaking their agreement in the preceding 12 months, and 13.2% of the sample reported having unprotected anal intercourse in the preceding three months with an outside partner of unknown or discordant HIV-status.”
Source: Neilands, Torsten B.; Chakravarty, Deepalika; Darbes, Lynae A.; Beougher, Sean C.; and Hoff, Colleen C. [2010], “Development and Validation of the Sexual Agreement Investment Scale,” Journal of Sex Research, 47: 1, 24 — 37, April 2009); Cited in: Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., “An Open Secret: The Truth About Gay Male Couples.” https://www.josephnicolosi.com/collection/2015/5/28/an-open-secret-the-truth-about-gay-male-couples)
Surely, Fr. James Martin, SJ and the aligned (?) 2024 synodal relator-general, Cardinal Hollerich, include such research in their “scientific and cultural foundations” for overturning moral theology, human sexual morality, and the traditional family.
You ask what might be some of the current best practices. I don’t want to know. I am not interested in the least. I AM curious to know about the worship these people plan. WHO will they worship? Perhaps Francis will being in a new PAPAmama and all will be free to dance about a table or altar channeling pagan Paris 2024.
I wonder how they may reconcile themselves to the God of Abraham, that same God who created man and woman, commanding them to be fruitful and to multiply. How do they understand the God of Life, Jesus born of Mary and of the Father God. How do they understand Christ as the Bridegroom joined to the Church as His Bride? How do they interpret Jesus’ words in scripture about lust, eunuchs, divorce, Sodom, and Paul’s words on who will inherit the Kingdom?
Then again, I’ll let Francis do the listening. I’ll read the Word.
The words “repent” and “chastity” will never pass the lips of the Pied Piper of Sodomy James Martin LGBTQSJWXYZ during this gabfest of the intrinsically disordered.
Something wicked this way comes. A line borrowed from a Francis X Maier doomsday prognostication rarely voiced by a staid Catholic apologist.
Maier darkly chides a Mickey Jagger song Sympathy for the Devil the theme the inversion of good and evil. Maier along with the many have noticed this markedly so for over a decade. Heads would have exploded several decades past if it were known that in the near future sodomy would be celebrated as a good, what is more, a moral good by the Catholic Church. If not formally nonetheless de facto.
Pope Francis affirms the perversion as acceptable practice by offering his blessing. What the world has come to embrace, once considered a severe insult, despicable perversion is now celebrated by the Church. Not the whole Church. The Church that lives in the shadows.
Of course Francis would lend his blessing to anything that celebrates disorder and perversity. It just reinforces just how worthless Francis’ blessing is.
As has been said by so many others, a “blessing” which is associating God’s Good Name to that which is being blessed, is a blasphemy when it is attached either directly or by inference to acts that are intrinsically disordered and sinful. Do this, Francis, at risk of your own peril.
Deacon, begs the question, “That which is loosed on earth will be loosed in Heaven?”
Stop playing silly mind/power games Holiness.
Anything to say about the Paris blasphemy?
The supposed focus of Catholic unity is divisive, seemingly by design.
Am I the only one getting nervous that Pope Francis may weigh in on the Olympic Opening Ceremonies?
But the Pope couldn’t say anything about the Olympics outrage or bother to meet brave Cardinal Zen while the Vatican continues to protect Rupnik. Shouts rather than speaks where they stand on issues, eh what?
The only thing that raises Bergoglio’s ire is faithful Catholics praising and adoring our Lord through the same Mass that’s been used for many centuries.
*That* simple fact shouts volumes about who Bergoglio is and what spirit he serves.
Inimicus Massae Latinae est procurator Satanae.
Why does the Holy Father or anyone else need to describe a human being by one aspect of their inclinations and behaviors.? We are all souls in need of salvation and some respects are all disordered as a consequence of the fall. We are called to live a chaste life no matter our desires and inclinations. Help people who have disordered inclinations. Yes. Defining them by these inclination, regardless of their self-definition. No.
You’re absolutely right, Russell. I wouldn’t want anyone characterizing or categorizing me by my foibles, imperfections, sins, physical appearance, etc. etc.
Fr. Martin identifies the people he serves as “queer,” which is a red flag that his vision of the human person and human sexuality is distorted. His Jesuit-sponsored Outreach website promotes all sorts of filth and degradation, including acceptance of sodomy, (aka “same-sex and marriage) and the misogynistic ideology behind transgenderism. I’m not sure why Pope Francis endorses it…
We read: “The 2024 Outreach conference was organized for “LGBTQ laypeople, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students, and family members to build community, share best practices, and worship together.”
And what might be some of the current “best practices”?
In 1985 anti-binary sexual behavior among gays was found to be “an average several dozen partners a year” and “some hundreds in a lifetime” with “tremendous promiscuity.” Practices much changed, certainly, since the scourge of AIDS….but, then, still this:
“In one recent study of gay male couples, 41.3% had open sexual agreements with some conditions or restrictions, and 10% had open sexual agreements with no restrictions on sex with outside partners. One-fifth of participants (21.9%) reported breaking their agreement in the preceding 12 months, and 13.2% of the sample reported having unprotected anal intercourse in the preceding three months with an outside partner of unknown or discordant HIV-status.”
Source: Neilands, Torsten B.; Chakravarty, Deepalika; Darbes, Lynae A.; Beougher, Sean C.; and Hoff, Colleen C. [2010], “Development and Validation of the Sexual Agreement Investment Scale,” Journal of Sex Research, 47: 1, 24 — 37, April 2009); Cited in: Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., “An Open Secret: The Truth About Gay Male Couples.” https://www.josephnicolosi.com/collection/2015/5/28/an-open-secret-the-truth-about-gay-male-couples)
Surely, Fr. James Martin, SJ and the aligned (?) 2024 synodal relator-general, Cardinal Hollerich, include such research in their “scientific and cultural foundations” for overturning moral theology, human sexual morality, and the traditional family.
You ask what might be some of the current best practices. I don’t want to know. I am not interested in the least. I AM curious to know about the worship these people plan. WHO will they worship? Perhaps Francis will being in a new PAPAmama and all will be free to dance about a table or altar channeling pagan Paris 2024.
I wonder how they may reconcile themselves to the God of Abraham, that same God who created man and woman, commanding them to be fruitful and to multiply. How do they understand the God of Life, Jesus born of Mary and of the Father God. How do they understand Christ as the Bridegroom joined to the Church as His Bride? How do they interpret Jesus’ words in scripture about lust, eunuchs, divorce, Sodom, and Paul’s words on who will inherit the Kingdom?
Then again, I’ll let Francis do the listening. I’ll read the Word.
The words “repent” and “chastity” will never pass the lips of the Pied Piper of Sodomy James Martin LGBTQSJWXYZ during this gabfest of the intrinsically disordered.
Something wicked this way comes. A line borrowed from a Francis X Maier doomsday prognostication rarely voiced by a staid Catholic apologist.
Maier darkly chides a Mickey Jagger song Sympathy for the Devil the theme the inversion of good and evil. Maier along with the many have noticed this markedly so for over a decade. Heads would have exploded several decades past if it were known that in the near future sodomy would be celebrated as a good, what is more, a moral good by the Catholic Church. If not formally nonetheless de facto.
Pope Francis affirms the perversion as acceptable practice by offering his blessing. What the world has come to embrace, once considered a severe insult, despicable perversion is now celebrated by the Church. Not the whole Church. The Church that lives in the shadows.