Vatican City, Mar 13, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- She begged and scrounged for food in the forest; she drank water from a stream with dead bodies in it; she wrapped grass on her feet in order to walk long distances in the hot sun in order to survive, facing starvation and malnourishment, all before the age of six.
Now, Mirreille Twayigira is a licensed medical doctor hoping not just to save lives, but to inspire young women worldwide – particularly those in her same situation – by showing them there’s hope, and that life is more than the tragedies they face.
While some might label her life “a tragic story” due to the suffering and loss she faced as a young child, Twayigira said others might choose to call it “a story of courage and perseverance.”
However, “I choose to call it a story of hope, a story of God…from ashes to beauty, (like) a beautiful stained glass window.”
Twayigira was among several speakers at the March 8 Voices of Faith women’s gathering in the Vatican, marking International Women’s Day.
First held in 2014, the VoF conference was established in response to Pope Francis’ call to “broaden the space within the Church for a more incisive feminine presence.”
Gathering women from around the world, this year’s VoF took place at the Vatican’s Casina Pio IV, headquarters of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, and featured testimonies of women from around the world, including Syria and Burundi, who shared their stories of perseverance, highlighting the importance of building peace in a world filled with conflict.
In her testimony, Twayigira noted that when war broke out between Tutsis and members of the Hutu majority the government, leading to mass killings of the Tutsi tribe, she was just three years-old.
Although she doesn’t remember much about the war itself when it started, she remembers the day she got the news that her father had been killed.
“I remember being told that my father had been killed, his body being brought home wrapped in this blue tent,” she said, noting that she was too young to fully understand what was happening on the day of his burial.
Before the war, “we were a big, happy family. Our house was next to our grandparent’s house, so my sister and I used to spend our days with uncles and aunts…so it was a beautiful and happy childhood,” she said.
After her father’s death, however, this changed dramatically.
“My family knew that it was no longer safe for us, so they had to pack and leave,” she said, explaining that at first, they fled to another district of Rwanda, thinking they would be safe.
However, after just a short time her younger sister, who was just one-year-old at the time, got sick and, because her family didn’t have access to medicine or proper nourishment due to the war, she passed away.
After her sister’s death – which marked the second time she had lost a sibling, since an older sister had died before Twayigira was born – the family fled through Burundi to a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“In the camp I was a very happy kid,” she said, “but this all ended when I encountered more loss.”
While in the camp, her mother fell ill and “one night she was gone.” However, Twayigira said that despite the tragic death of her mother, “life had to go move on,” so she and her grandparents continued to move forward.
But just two years later, in 1996, they had to leave because of war in the DRC, which is when “I began to experience a life that is unimaginable,” she said, recalling how she had her grandparents fled the camp with bullets flying over their heads, and took refuge in the forest.
“We only survived by begging for food,” she said. Her grandparents begged from locals in nearby villages, and at times were given moldy bread to eat. When begging wasn’t enough, “we even had to eat roots from the forest.”
“I remember sometimes we had to drink water from rivers with dead bodies floating in it,” she said, noting that their situation had become one of the “survival of the fittest.”
They had long distances to walk going from village to village and in search of another camp, many times walking on rough terrain. When the weather was too hot for their bare feet, they bunched up grass and tied it to their feet in order to be able to walk.
“We escaped death from so many things: from hunger, bullets, drowning, wild animals, you name it. No child should go through what I went through. In fact, nobody should go through what I went through,” she said.
Eventually the family made their way to another refugee camp, “but life would not be better there,” she said. While there were some soldiers protecting them, they would take young boys and train them to fight, and would take girls either as companions for the night or, at times, as wives.
Most of the boys leave refugee camps “with some sort of trauma,” she said, noting that when it came to the girls, some got pregnant, and others were made to be servants.
“The only reason I survived this is because I was very little,” Twayigira said. Due to the ongoing war, she and her grandparents traveled to nearby Angola before eventually ending up back in the DRC for a period of time.
However, with no improvement to the situation and no end to the war in sight, they again made their way to Angola for the second time. But when they arrived, “my grandma was very tired, and as for me, I was very malnourished.”
“You can imagine a big tummy and thin brown hair, and swollen cheeks and feet,” she said, describing herself as a young girl.
Twayigira recalled that her grandmother died shortly before they reached the refugee camp in Angola, and that had they not arrived when they did, “I was also almost gone.”
With just the two of them left, Twayigira explained that her grandfather eventually decided to travel to a different refugee camp in Zambia, because he heard they had a better school.
Despite such a long journey and so much loss, her grandfather moved again for no other reason “than to give his granddaughter a better education,” Twayigira said. She recalled that her grandfather “really believed in me so much. He never once said, ‘she’s just a girl, let me not waste my time on her.’”
After spending a few years in Zambia, the pair decided to make yet one more move, this time heading to a camp in Malawi that had better living conditions and even better schools. They arrived in September 2000.
Twayigira immediately enrolled in school once she arrived, making several new friends and, for the first time since they had left, was happy to have adequate food and shelter.
Being able to do well in her classes “would give me joy. Because at least I got to make some people proud, and I was very happy,” she said. Twayigira was eventually selected to join a Jesuit-run school, with all fees paid for by the Jesuit Refugee Service.
When she finished school in 2007, Twayigira’s grandfather fell ill, passing away just a few days after.
“I cried uncontrollably, badly, but life had to go on, and although I was in so much pain with the loss of my loved ones, it did not stop me from working hard,” she said, “because I knew that my future, it was not certain, I did not know what my future had, but I knew that my hard work would pay off.”
In 2009 she studied for the national final exam in Malawi, and finished among the top 6 students in the country. At the awards ceremony, the Chinese embassy offered a number of full-ride scholarships to study in China for the top students.
Twayigira was one of the students selected and, despite being a refugee with no citizenship status or passport, was able to get her paperwork in order with the help of the Jesuits at her school, a Catholic radio station and even the Malawian parliament.
She then moved to China and studied the language for a year before officially beginning classes in Chinese. She has since graduated and is currently working as a medical intern in Malawi.
While there were many times she wanted to give up along the way, Twayigira said she persisted, because at a certain point she realized that “God spared my life” not to keep it for herself, but because “there are people that I was meant to serve.”
“Before I went to China, I used to think I was just this girl with a tragic past…but when I got to China I realized that I’ve got a story to tell; a story of God and his love, a story that can change somebody’s life.”
As a doctor, Twayigira said she feels she can give even more. But in addition to her medical duties, she also looks for opportunities to speak in schools to try and “raise hope among the youth, especially refugee youth.”
She said that in the future, she hopes to work more directly with refugees, “because I believe I have a lot to share, having gone through what they’ve gone through.”
“Now this is my story…but unfortunately for many, theirs is just in the tragedy part,” she said, explaining that many refugee children don’t even have access to adequate housing let alone higher education.
Even those who do get a good education don’t necessarily have the same opportunities, Twayigira said, so “their hopes are just crushed.”
In order to change the situation, she said war itself has to end: “why not end all this violence, and I’m not talking about people from other countries coming in to invade our own countries, I mean why wait for an outsider to come to stop hurting, and killing?”
“Is the money or power at the expense of their blood really worth it? I don’t think so,” she said, adding that the only way to really resolve conflict is with “forgiveness, mercy and love.”
“Is there such humanity in us, or have we become robots?” she asked. “What is happening to innocent kids is completely unfair, and it needs to stop and I believe it starts from within us: from love, forgiveness and mercy.”
People in situations similar to hers need to know “that they are loved by God and people around them. They need to know that they matter, that there is hope for them, that they have a purpose in life,” she said, noting that this stems not only from having the basic needs met, but above all from education.
In an interview with CNA after her talk, Twayigira stressed the importance of education, saying it’s “really the key to everything, because if not educated, many girls don’t even know their value.”
However, with a good education women learn that “okay, I’m not worthless and someone can’t just come and step on my foot. I am somebody,” she said, adding that a proper education helps women to step into decision making positions where they can change things.
“I believe that once a girl is educated, that means you’re actually educating the whole family. Because a woman, you raise your children, they’re with you all the time, you know that whatever they get is what you teach them,” she said.
“So if a woman is educated that means the whole family will get quality advice from their mothers. So educating a girl is actually educating the whole country.”
Twayigira said she was happy to be able to speak at the Vatican, since the event was streamed live. She voiced her hope that people can hear her story “and not just feel sorry for me, but also see ways they can help other people like me to get a better education or a safe place, or open their homes to refugees like me.”
She said she also hopes other young women and girls from around the world will be able to see and hear her story, and to know that “it’s all possible…I believe that I’m a pillar of hope for them.”
She said one of her hopes coming out of the conference is not only to encourage young women in her situation to have hope, but also that the people who have the power and resources to change things will see that they “can actually do something under-privileged people like I was.”
“Their actions can change somebody’s life for the better, never to be the same,” she said.
[…]
Waiting to see who all of the new dicastery appointments will be and, of course, whether the James Martin role as an insider consultant has a shelf life or not (now going on eight years).
Waiting for the other shoe to drop on whether the homosexual lifestyle remains a category of its own seemingly exempt from the moral law. Oh, wait, we already have that other shoe! And it’s an encyclical rather than a press release. St. John Paul II said this about moral judgments as distinguished from autonomous “decisions”:
“A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid and general [!], and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [no longer a ‘moral judgment’] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions [!] contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [thou shalt not!]” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 56).
And, “This is the first time, in fact, that the MAGISTERIUM of the Church [caps added] has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this [‘moral’] teaching, and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment necessary in practical and cultural situations which are complex and even crucial” (n. 115).
And, “The Church is no way [!] the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” (n. 95).
It is true, as you suggest, that Veritatis Splendor reaffirmed the indispensable role of absolute norms against the relativising tendencies of “pastoral solutions.” Yet one reason this teaching is no longer grasped clearly by many Catholics is that the casuistry of classical moral theology has fallen into oblivion.
From the sixteenth century until the 1960s, seminarians were trained in the principles of casuistry that enabled them to apply moral absolutes in difficult cases. But under the influence of the so-called “new morality” — figures such as Joseph Fletcher and the Anglican Bishop John Robinson — this tradition was increasingly rejected. Their theories denied the existence of intrinsically evil acts at the concrete level, reducing evil to intention or attitude. Thus contraception, procured abortion, and similar acts could be justified as “lesser evils” in service of a greater good.
This intellectual shift meant that the principles of casuistry were no longer taught, leaving generations of clergy and laity ill-equipped to apply the absolutes reaffirmed by St. John Paul II. Hence, while many Catholics today will still assent in theory to the Church’s teaching on intrinsic evil, they often lack the formation necessary to understand how such absolutes operate in the domain of concrete acts.
You’re right in your descriptions of moral entropy, yet it does not require a doctoral degree in moral theology to understand the phoniness of consequentialism. Much could be clarified if just one time a pope said to the whole Catholic world, and non-Catholic world, in simple, direct language. We sin a lot, and we lie to ourselves that our sins can be interpreted as a positive good. Even a child eventually figures out that they are lying when they told mommy and daddy that they didn’t take candy from the candy jar.
Even stating a self=evident truth is avoided in today’s Church for fear of bruising egos, precious egos. But we were not created to try to outsmart God.
Pope Leo XIV has made it clear he is continuing Francis’ policy of allowing the blessing of homosexual “unions”. So the supreme leaders of today’s Catholic Church go against, indeed violate the teachings of Sacred Scripture and Christian thinkers on the matter of homosexual relations. The violation is double: blessing the homosexual relationship and blessing their “union” which insults the concept of marriage. See just a few of these teachings from Sacred Scripture and from great Catholic thinkers:
Romans 1:26-27
New International Version
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
AND SAINT AUGUSTINE
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
Francis publicly stated that priest could bless individuals in same-sex relationships but not same-sex couples, a dubious distinction maybe but in fact a real and legitimate one. He did not endorse blessing of same-sex couples or union. Slippery, I know, but a real distinction nonetheless.
So far, we have no facts or documents that show where Pope Leo XIV intends to go, only shadowy figures from the Francis era trying to bind his hands. Leo has so far been open yet prudent, avoiding the communication pitfalls in which Francis so often revelled. One may therefore expect an end to the misuse of private audiences, which in the past allowed guests to turn their encounters into a stage play for their own agendas. These manoeuvres shaped public opinion more than encyclicals, while the Press Office conveniently claimed it could neither confirm nor deny them. A reform of Vatican communication is urgently needed: only the Pope should speak for the Pope, and those who exploit his name should be sanctioned.
As for “acceptance,” the ambiguity is deliberate. The acceptance of persons with homosexual tendencies is indeed sacrosanct; but Father Martin seeks instead the promotion of homosexuality in the Church, the triumph of LGBTQ ideology, and the subversion of doctrine. Pope Leo XIV, we may trust, is not unaware of this.
Francis and now Leo allow blessing of homosexual couples, not just homosexual “individuals.” Even blessing unrepentant practicing individual homosexuals violates Holy Scripture. See above St. Paul; see above St. Augustine. See below for Francis allowing the blessing of homosexual couples:
“Pope Francis has granted his formal approval allowing Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples so long as they do not appear to endorse their marriage, marking the church’s most permissive decree yet on the issue of same-sex couples.
The declaration, published Monday in a new document titled “Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” marks a major departure for the Vatican, which only two years ago had said God “cannot bless sin” in a controversial 2021 decision about same-sex couples. Monday’s document was approved by Pope Francis.
Still, the Vatican stressed that marriage remains exclusively between a man and a woman, and any priests granting a blessing to a same-sex couple must “avoid any form of confusion or scandal” that could suggest otherwise.”
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/18/1220077102/pope-francis-blessings-same-sex-couples
RELIGION
Pope Francis approves Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, but not for marriage
DECEMBER 18, 20232:09 PM ET
Bob M.,
The distinction is (as was designed to be) only in the eye of the beholder. The reality, though, is quite different:
“Likewise, if we recognize the biological abnormality (according to the natural law) and sinfulness (according to the Scriptures) of the homosexual intimate relationship – as it has been the teaching of the Church and of the Old Israel even before the creation of the New Israel – we can either name a sin aloud and then bless homosexuals so the blessing would aid them in repentance and in a battle with their sin. Or we can reconsider the teaching of the Church, find it to be mistaken, say it aloud and then bless homosexual relationships as being good in the eyes of God. As long as the Church accepts and teaches that homosexual sex is sinful, it cannot bless a homosexual couple. Likewise, the Church cannot teach that a marriage is only for a man and a woman and bless homosexual couples at the same time because those two actions are mutually exclusive, just as preaching against abortions and against the usage of the human fetal cells excludes “blessing” the abortion-tainted vaccine.
I am not going to address here the most common argument of the proponents of the blessings of homosexual couples in the Roman Catholic Church who manage to split their conscience to the point of truly believing that blessing a couple does not mean an approval of the very actions which make them a couple because “we are blessing them as persons”. It has been addressed already, by the fact that the Church has been imparting blessings on the all kinds of persons (including homosexual) for all its history hence there was no need of a document that states so – unless one had in a mind something else than blessing a person, in this case the blessing of a couple as a couple. “No, they are blessed as persons”. Here we go again.”
‘Abomination of Desolation’
http://orthodox-christian-icons.com/abomination-of-desolation.html
“Pope Leo XIV has made it clear he is continuing Francis’ policy of allowing the blessing of homosexual ‘unions’.”
How so and when?
Please see the report from Fr. Martin after his talk with the Pope:
“The message he received from Leo was “that if people were happy with Pope Francis’ approach to LGBTQ Catholics, they’re going to be happy with Pope Leo’s approach. And he asked me to continue what I’m doing, which was very encouraging,” Martin said. See complete report here:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/09/01/pope-leo-meets-with-catholic-lgbtq-group-in-signal-of-continuity-from-francis/
Of all the comments read so far, agree.
One word: Blasphemy!
I just binned the photo I had on display at home of ppLeoXIV; my Year of Hope just turned to Despair.
Catholic Dysphoria : claim to be Catholic but promote New World Order.
Mr. But: Perhaps you should try the SSPX. More to your liking?
Brother Jacques: Catholics, at the least, know that it is impossible for truth to change since we know all of it reflects the eternal mind of God. It is tragic that a marginalized population of Catholics, committed to a Catholic understanding of immutable truth, suffer continuous scorn, including your sarcastic response. In case you haven’t noticed, a manmade new world order would be the perfection of evil. Sad, that most Catholics work so hard to not understand the obvious.
The majority of the comments in this thread remind me why I left the church long ago to forge my own path with god and divinity and the universe. So busy judging others and scorning inclusion that they forget the glass houses sermon. I must say I was never happier free-er and more complete as a human being as I was the day I turned my back on the Catholic Church and mainstream Christianity.
And yet with thousands of websites to choose from you’re commenting here, Timmyg47.
And yet you are still here Timmy.
A small website debating current ecclesial affairs of Churchmen is perhaps not the best place to look for a reason to follow Christ and enter into communion with Him. We are disappointed by men, and should only put our faith in Christ.
Reading some ppBXVI, praying Rosary, trying a Latin Mass might reopen the path to communion and prove more worthwhile 😉
And yet you’re here! What are we to conclude about you?
What does judging intrinsic evil have to do with judging people? Nothing. On the other hand you perform judgments of people when you judge people guilty for assigning evilness to the status of an individual soul.
Shameless media wh$re trying to keep the lmnop lie alive…. Pope should not be meeting with him… He’s not worthy of such an event… Pray for Leo… And for Martin’s soul..
More of a reserved report from CNA than ABC7. The impression from both is affirmation of Pope Francis’ policy. The Vatican will expectedly say similar. Whether this policy leads to openness to the sacraments, if it already hasn’t encouraged that – or whether there will be a clear affirmation of change of manners and penance is the unanswered question. A question that deserves a clear response in favor of the latter.
Yes, the welcome elephant in the living room: Amoris Laetitia (Ch. 8), and then the kissing car[di]nal’s surprise Fiducia Supplicans which didn’t even pretend to be a creature of synodality (“synod-laity”!), and all at least seeming to elide on the broader problem of sacrilegious reception of the Eucharist (CCC 1374).
Communion sandwiched between the folksy Woodstock sign of peace and then social-hall donuts.
From all indications there appears reliance, by proponents of normalizing adult same sex relations, on leaving the question of access to the sacraments open to discussion, and as such affecting a form of gradualism.
It suggests placing the issue of the receiving the sacraments at the discretion of the LGBT community similar to what occurred in Malta. When hierarchy let it be known, apparently due to a plethora of assumed mitigating circumstances, that external judgment was impractical.
That would modify the conscientious judgment of what is an evil or a good offering a pastoral solution alluded to in your quote from Veritatis Splendor. Reception of the sacraments, then, would be left to the individual’s conscience. This, in the minds of hierarchy, washes their hands of responsibility for any infraction against the moral commandments.
Google search terms: when did handwashing as denial of responsibility begin
AI Overview: The phrase “washing one’s hands” as a symbol of disclaiming responsibility originated in the biblical story of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew.
Before this, ritual handwashing was a common practice in the ancient Near East, including in Jewish tradition, to symbolize innocence or ritual purity. Pontius Pilate’s act transformed this existing ritual into a potent, specific metaphor for denying accountability.
The donuts are usually preceded with end of mass announcements delivered while those from the end of the line of communicants still haven’t returned to their pews for their conversation with Jesus.
I’ve been reading a lot of James Alison lately, because I’ve renewed my acquaintance with René Girard. James strikes me as a theologian who gets alot right and then gets one thing catastrophically wrong. His “Knowing Jesus” is wonderful, as is Raising Able and the Joy of Being Wrong. SS attraction is nowhere in those three.
He seems to truly love Jesus and the Church.
I’m praying for him.
More on the saga of James Alison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Alison
Regardless of one’s desires, sexual acts that demean the inherent Dignity of any beloved son or beloved daughter, are not, and can never be, acts of authentic Love and are thus disordered. Love is not possessive, nor is it coercive, nor does it serve to manipulate for the sake of self- gratification. Love, which is always rightly ordered to the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the persons existing in a relationship of Love, is devoid of every form of lust.
Christ would never reorder persons according to sexual desire/orientation/inclination , which sexually objectifies the human person , and demeans the inherent Dignity of every human person, in order to justify the engaging in of demeaning acts of any nature, in direct violation of God’s Commandment regarding lust and the sin of adultery, because our Call to Holiness, in all our relationships, is a Call to authentic Love.
You cannot be following Jesus The Christ, if you do not desire to Abide In His Word; in all our relationships, our Call to Holiness is a Call to Love, according to The Word Of God, Who Is The Word Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Incarnate.
A more careful reading of the link shows a man, or whatever, who chose to humiliate both the Dominican Order and Catholic moral theology by claiming that he accepted ordination while not believing that homosexual activity is objectively disordered.
He claimed his ordination was invalid. A back-and-forth flap ensured. In his typically myopic way, a recent pope then bypassed the controversy and gave Alison ecclesial faculties to do whatever he wanted.
Which is why I provided the link and used the term “saga.” Gimme a break.
James Alison is just one of the many homosexual activists who completely took over and destroyed the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, which used to be the most wonderful international gathering pf Girardian scholars, where one could meet and converse with Catholic and Christian scholars from across the globe working on Girardian theory. Now, the Colloquium has been largely reduced to a bunch of people trying to see how they can claim victim status. It has become a parody of itself, and the very type of hollow institution Girard warned about.
I recall when Saint Pope John Paul II implemented the Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Specifically regarding the 3rd Luminous Mystery, which was “The proclamation of the Kingdom of God with the call to conversion.”
Any more, much more often than not, this mystery has been truncated to “The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God”, conversion becoming merely an optional afterthought if not dropped altogether.
This heresy, driven by the James Martin’s within the Church, that God is somehow forced to accept unrepentant souls, only serve to lead those souls toward perdition rather than salvation.
This man and those allied with him are altogether evil.
In such a battle for souls there is no middle ground nor can good ever come to compromise with evil.
Thank you for pointing this out, Mr. Rasavage! I had forgotten the connection of the Third Luminous Mystery with conversion, although I surely read _Rosarium Virginis Mariae_, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter on introducing the Luminous Mysteries, when it came out in 2002. The Transfiguration, the fourth Luminous Mystery, played an important role in my own conversion story, which is currently being published in _Catholic World Report_. After entering the Church in 1994, I studied Pope Saint John Paul II’s theology of the body and found that he affirmed and articulated the “anthropological truths” that had led me into the Church in the first place. His apostolic letter was promulgated on my birthday, so I experienced it as a birthday gift from my favorite pope!
Mr. Beaulieu above (7:41 p.m.) – “the folksy Woodstock sign of peace”. I hear you. For me, it’s an aggravating point in the Mass. I lived through that era. Not notable for featuring the peace of Christ.
François et Léon… Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Comment imaginer qu’une Eglise puisse devenir une anti-Eglise, alors que le mot d’apostasie semble impossible à prononcer?
https://larevuereformee.net/articlerr/n227/apostasie-vous-avez-dit-apostasie
We are losing the language. The word “homosexual” is a psychological term that describes a feature of the personality, same sex attracted. The terms LGBT… describe various sexual lifestyles constituting a political faction of “intersectionality.” None of these terms have a theological bearing until we see them as various manifestations of sodomy. So, let’s keep it theological and let’s ask a theological question of James Martin and Pope Leo; let’s ask the question that the late, great Paul Mankowski SJ, asked James Martin about bridge building:: Is sodomy a sin? is it a serious spiritual disorder in need of repentance? And let’s not forget that the greatest calamity to befall our Church in the last 100 years was the pederasty crisis— a crisis perpetrated by clergy who disproportionately had an inclination to sodomy, and by bishops who did not have the will to cull the ranks of their priests who were inclined to it.
Spot on.
One can know through both Faith and reason it is a sin because regardless of the actors or the actor’s desires, these sexual acts demean the inherent Dignity and Sanctity of all our beloved. The desire to engage in a demeaning sexual act of any nature does not change the nature of the demeaning act. All Demeaning sexual acts are devoid of Love.
Richard,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I particularly agree with the admonition in your last sentence because I’m afraid we are forgetting the “greatest calamity to befall our Church…” by our lack of distress and disgust when yet another diocesan bankruptcy settlement is announced. All because Church leaders granted seminary admission and later ordination—sometimes unknowingly but others times knowingly—to men committed to a gay lifestyle.
I pray that Pope Leo will the courage and wisdom to acknowledge this truth and at the same time to clean out the predatory pederasty of Vatican clerics.
Mr. Cross
Thank you for the most informative & intelligent comment.
It’s exhausting to read all the comments defending this issue.Its with relief I can finally say I am finished But the show will go on without me.Amazing how top brass questions WHY the pews are empty.
Stupid/bad optics. The man is a menace, a trouble-maker who seemingly never grew up. By the way, what exactly does he do for a living?
As the old saying goes – It is not what you say, it is what you do.
Personnel is policy.
If the Pontifex is a bridge, let it lead us the Christ, the Word of God. If Fr. Martin is “Building a Bridge”, let him not use the Pontifex to lead others away from Christ, the Word of God. Regardless, Christ has written His law on our hearts. There is no New Way ministry, only the Way. (John 14:6)
Love is not sin. Sodomy is a sin. Sodomy is not love. Jesus Christ died for our sins.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
The news from Rome, particularly in the words of Pope Leo concerning his esteemed predecessor, offers a subject for deep and sorrowful contemplation. His Holiness speaks of a “precious legacy” and calls upon the Sacred College to continue on the journey of openness and dialogue with the modern world. One must grant that these are the pronouncements of the Supreme Pontiff, and it is a pious duty to hear his words with due reverence. Yet, it is also permitted to the faithful, in their private conscience, to look upon the state of the Church and feel a profound anxiety.
The truth is a narrow path, and it is revealed to us not merely in the sentiment of the age, but in the historic and immutable deposit of faith handed down from the Apostles. When one hears of a “legacy” that seems to prize accommodation and welcome above the hard truths of Tradition, one cannot but feel a certain despondency. We had held out hope—a most fervent hope—that the See of Peter, in this turbulent age, might once again turn its gaze fully upon the ancient and unchangeable wellsprings of our Faith.
It seems, however, that Providence has willed for the Church to continue on this present course, a course that, to our human sight, appears to stray from that direct and certain path. It is a time of trial, perhaps, where our patience and our trust in the divine governance of the Church are to be tested to their utmost. We must pray that this path, however circuitous it may appear, will not lead to a lasting error, but is a temporary wandering before the Church is guided back to the radiant clarity of its eternal truth.
“Providence “ has nothing to do with it; it is a sin to accommodate an occasion of sin , and not desire Salvation for one’s beloved. It is evil to not desire Salvation for one’s beloved .
Hard truths? I would say, “bright truths”! The chaste single life is a beauty and a joy, and it will surely attract many who struggle with same-sex desires. As a heterosexual woman who wanted to marry and never met an earthly husband, I feel a certain solidarity with them. Many are gifted and sensitive souls. To desire marriage and be unable to enter it is a deep hurt, but, as I wrote in an article that was published in _Aleteia_ last year, the single life has a romance all its own. Perhaps married people might even, on occasion, be jealous!
https://aleteia.org/2024/08/29/3-freedoms-that-spring-from-the-romance-of-singlehood/
If the pope decided to schedule a meeting with James Martin, SCH, it should have been for the purpose of calling him to repentance under the threat of being disciplined and laicized. To validate, support, and encourage this deceptive “ministry” is both deeply inappropriate and quite disgusting, to be frank.
Thank you for excellent comment. After surviving francis confusing pontificate, I was praying for a return to authentic orthodoxy, unapologic truth & clarity of Catholic teachings,only to run into more questions, which may or may not turn out to be legit. Praying Pope Leo will correct Martin’s ongoing promotion & embrace of sinful behaviors asap.
Do we know why the meaning was held or what was discussed? Is it any of our business?
When “Fr.” Martin, public heretic and cause of scandal, so enthusiastically trumpets the meeting as a kind if public endorsement of his perverted cause, it is most definitely “our business.” That the meeting would even be made public is scandal enough.
Of course it’s our business. Why wouldn’t it be? Why are you defending the pope’s support of a gay priest? What message does that send?
indeed, that is the only purpose for Leo to call for a mtg with James Martin. Alll we have to go by at this point is James Martins’ side of the story, and He’s not someone I would trust in such maters.
I, for one, am someone who is fed up with the entire Catholic Church pivoting around James Martin. It’s the proverbial tail wagging the dog.
I’m very tired of James Martin, SJ. I’m very tired of popes who dance to his tune. This cannot be right.
We keep seeing article headlines, Pope Leo does this, Pope Leo does that etc. I’m waiting to read, Pope Leo Takes a Jump into the Lake! It was a hot day late in the afternoon at Castel Gandolfo …
A moment for wet humor relief. Anastasiya Osipova in Critical Inquiry described wet humor [as contrasted to dry humor] as a form of laughter through tears.
Deeply disturbing and disappointing. Nevertheless we remember that it was only last week Pope Leo met with Cardinal Burke. May we assume that he is simply getting the lay of the land from the perspective of the Chair of Saint Peter? I hope so.
We will know soon enough.
Until then we need pray for the Holy Father who is in jeopardy of ruining souls.
“Nevertheless we remember that it was only last week Pope Leo met with Cardinal Burke.”
Yes, and he has met and will meet with other figures – conservative and those like priest Martin. Some kind of crabs (I forgot the name) collect various items they can find under water and place on their shells. Those items are often clashing with each other but still provide the owner of the shell with a perfect camouflage. I speculate it is the clash which creates a perfection of invisibility. It is nearly impossible to see who is there.
“Decorator Crabs”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decorator_crab
Burke happens to be a Cardinal. Martin is merely a Jesuit.
I will assume that Pope Leo met with Cardinal Burke so that he could correct his brethren. We will know his intentions soon🙏✝️💕🌹
Thank you for pointing this out, Mr. Rasavage! I had forgotten the connection of the Third Luminous Mystery with conversion, although I surely read _Rosarium Virginis Mariae_, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter on introducing the Luminous Mysteries, when it came out in 2002. The Transfiguration, the fourth Luminous Mystery, played an important role in my own conversion story, which is currently being published in _Catholic World Report_. After entering the Church in 1994, I studied Pope Saint John Paul II’s theology of the body and found that he affirmed and articulated the “anthropological truths” that had led me into the Church in the first place. His apostolic letter was promulgated on my birthday, so I experienced it as a birthday gift from my favorite pope!
@ Oscar: Much criticism of Fiducia supplicans reveals a lack of philosophical clarity. Sin is never a substance in itself; it presupposes a subject who is good as a creature of God, just as illness presupposes the living patient who still retains health. In the same way, even a sinful relationship presupposes two human persons, created by God and capable of conversion. To treat sin as if it were a “thing” in itself that contaminates the subjects is a kind of Manichean error — one that ends by despising the creature and, ultimately, the Creator. As Augustine reminded us, “those sins which are against nature… are in all times and places to be detested and punished” (Conf. III.8) — yet always with the presupposition of the enduring goodness of the human subject.
This is why Pope Francis, as Cardinal Fernández has explained, insists that what is blessed is the positive element in a relationship, while the sin it contains remains condemned. The blessing is not an approval of immorality but a pastoral invocation of grace, offered in hope that those involved may begin a journey of penance and conversion.
The deeper issue lies in a voluntarist tendency to reduce Christian ethics to “pastoral practice,” as if each individual could decide for himself what the moral law means in his circumstances. Such thinking, traceable to Rahner and beyond, dissolves the universality of natural law and makes Christianity no longer a truth to be contemplated but only an action to be improvised. Yet the Church is not merely pastoral activism; she is also Mary at the feet of Christ, listening to the Word that precedes and guides every action.
Seen in this light, Fiducia supplicans does not alter traditional doctrine. Extra-marital sexual acts remain gravely unlawful. But the Church, as a merciful mother, may invoke God’s blessing upon sinners, not to endorse sin, but to strengthen them in the arduous journey of repentance and liberation.
Yes Paolo. Although Fiducia Supplicans does not require that sinning couples manifest any sign of repentance. Without that sign it’s an endorsement.
If I understand correctly, you argue that grace must be sufficient for us heterosexuals to sustain us in chastity; why should it not be sufficient also for homosexuals? I fully agree with this principle, provided we remember that grace never forces but calls for free cooperation.
What does concern me is that Cardinal Fernández’s presentation risks giving an impression of pastoral asymmetry: great emphasis on mercy, but at times less clarity on the indispensable call to conversion. He himself speaks of the need for penance and change of life, yet his language remains very general.
That said, I believe these two documents point to a truth we cannot neglect: systematic access to the means of grace, even through simple blessings, is meant to sustain all sinners in the arduous path of conversion. If taken seriously, such a path should gradually free people from whatever binds them — whether homosexual practice, cohabitation, adultery, or any other irregular condition.
A blessing and their accompaniment on these bases can help such couples in the arduous but necessary journey of progressive liberation from sin. I too will stop here, and reiterate, as a layperson, my full obedience to the Magisterium of the Church, my “mother and teacher.”
Although grace does not force us to cooperate, which responsive cooperation must be free, there is no evidence that the active homosexual is in any manner freely cooperating or disposed to cooperating. Active sin speaks to rejection.
The presence of grace requires cooperation, otherwise it is freely refused. In the confessional I cannot fulfill my function as a priest to forgive or withhold absolution if I were to follow your formula of cooperation. Similarly if I were to simply bless such a penitent I would be endorsing his sin.
The blessing is a stamp of approval for all intents and purposes, and it is dishonest of you to argue otherwise. When James Martin blessed a couple in New York City, he was not separating love from sin. He was blessing a union that clearly and explicitly violates God’s designed order. People who are deliberately sinning against God don’t need a blessing, they need to repent.
I’m reading THE HOUR OF TESTING by Fr. Donald Haggerty
Spiritual Depth and Insight in a time of Ecclesial Uncertainty
A priest of deep prayer and holiness. His credentials are impeccable! His thesis is that the Roman Catholic church may be heading into a time of crucifixion akin to that of our Saviour. The issue of aberrant sexuality is handled masterfully.
“Journey of progressive liberation” –
1. Where is this coming from
2. What is its trajectory and its other targets beyond what we’ve seen so far
3. Why does it suppose -insist- the Church is ignorant of what it is for 2000 years.
It indicates presumption for the patron and despair for his charge. And vice versa. But the Lord said beware of blind leading blind, as they are bound to fall.
The … Lord … said … that.
I also am seeing problems with the word “couple” for 2 people bound by sin. Is some kind of “official non-cynicism” intended? Is it a facet/affirmation of being “non-judgmental”?
“Don’t be judgmental” – an injunction that a) is NOT non-self-contradicting and b) is DIS-empowering, as a) we are supposed to judge between right and wrong first of all for our own sakes in order to be decisive and truly kind; and b) we are supposed to judge between right and wrong beyond what we can command in ourselves, in order to be prudent and just etc. and truly kind for our own sakes and for others’ sakes.