I am usually eager to read anything penned by Anthony Esolen. But when I saw the title of Esolen’s newest offering at Crisis, I put everything aside:
“Open Your Eyes Father Martin”
Father James G. Martin, S.J., is either a cruel or a foolish man. It does not seem to be the first. But if it is not that, it must be the second, because that alone can explain how a Catholic priest can live in the midst of massive and unprecedented family breakdown, and the chaos, loneliness, and alienation consequent upon it, and still wave the banner for the latest innovation in sexual confusion.
He is good at telling stories. Let me tell a few.
[… Hereafter rather hard reading occurs…]
It is a longish piece, and … grim.
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” Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” How wise was Alexander Pope. But, on the other hand, Mr. Esolen’s piece has great impact partly because it is so clearly written but largely because of the specific examples. It struck me again as I read it that sin needs a human face (to borrow from Blake) in order for virtue to make its case. The “Silent No More” campaign is a wonderful example of this. The destroyers of culture are light years ahead of us in the use of specific cases to manipulate society into embracing vice under the rubric of compassion.
Grim it is. As is the silence of hundreds of American bishops in regard to Martin, save the few who coddle him and/or peddle his agenda. As are the increasing cries from the Vatican for “dynamism’ and ‘development of doctrine’.
Hang on tight to your Rosary.
A good read! I was expecting it to be factual but it was still compelling nonetheless. The last paragraph I found striking:
“Father Martin says he is no theologian, but you don’t need theology to see the ruin. I beg him to open his eyes. The single pragmatic question that should guide our course of action is simply this. What customs, and the laws that promote and protect them, give boys and girls the best chance to grow up with a married mother and father committed to one another for life, and to learn the feelings and ways that are natural and normal for their sex, so that they will be attracted and attractive each to the other, and determined to have lifelong marriages of their own in turn? Answer that question first, and then we can figure out what to do for those who fall afoul of nature or the moral law or both. That would be mercy indeed, and not indifference (or complicity) with a grin.”
On the side, I’m utterly convinced that something’s rotten with Father Martin, after months of letting his ‘gaffes’ slide in the hopes that he’s simply impulsive and misguided. It turns out that he is misguided in the sense that he is a true believer. He is certainly in need of our prayers
[He certainly is. And now that you have used such strong language about Fr. Martin in public, it is your deep responsibility now to pray for him in a special way and to do penance and offer mortifications for him. His turning about will be a great source of grace for many when it happens.]
“how a Catholic priest can live in the midst of massive and unprecedented family breakdown, and the chaos, loneliness, and alienation consequent upon it, and still wave the banner for the latest innovation in sexual confusion.”
A question that might well be asked of others of rather higher rank in the Church than Fr. Martin, ones whose obligation to defend the faith is perhaps even greater than his.
@ Father Z.
“it is your deep responsibility now to pray for him in a special way and to do penance and offer mortifications for him. His turning about will be a great source of grace for many when it happens.”
That is a really excellent point. I know we shouldn’t lose sight of the need to prayer for Father Martin for his own good, but the thought of a person as prominent as he has become openly and earnestly embracing his faith instead of constantly hedging and hinting as he has been and the effect that could have on others really resonates with me far more easily.
Great article by Esolen. How few nowadays speak of the damage wrought by the sexual revolution.
Lately I’ve started praying this chaplet of the Precious Blood for priests, remembering Fr Martin in particular:
http://vultuschristi.org/index.php/2017/07/by-thy-precious-blood-o-jesus/
This is hard to read. Not least because it resonates with my own experience.
I wish I had had a strong and faithful priest tell me to repent and mend my ways when I was young and falling into sexual sin. Would have saved a good deal of heartache and backsliding. I have still not purged the effects.
Ouch.
Our culture needs this kind of bravery.
To say these truths is to face embarrassment and ridicule, even though his case is made water tight and undeniable.
That should be read by everyone.
our bishops here in the Philippines are going full blast on this.
In Filipino culture, there is an expression: “walang hiya”: acting without shame. Second wives, girlfriends, bribery, and corruption are common, but are done quietly because…shame.
So according to our bishops, we should let them act openly and not feel ashamed of their sins?
We already have lots of people joining local protestant churches. I suspect this will not help the church.
@Father Z
“He certainly is. And now that you have used such strong language about Fr. Martin in public, it is your deep responsibility now to pray for him in a special way and to do penance and offer mortifications for him. His turning about will be a great source of grace for many when it happens.”
I keep in my daily prayer intentions, especially when I do the Rosary. The problem is getting others to go about praying for him since a huge number of folks I know are fans and at the best unaware of all this. I’ve been confronted once and have been called out a “condemner.” Sincerely, I fear for him, that he might end up like an ex-Jesuit expelled from the Society named John J. McNeill who pretty much stood for what Fr. Martin’s doing now. If he does realize all this and shifts to orthodoxy, he’d really be a blessing for a lot. At his current state though, not so much…
@tiodeong
Dude, since when? All I’m hearing now from them is about the Drug War going on here. Although I can say that they’re still mostly stuck in the 1970s.
But I agree; I lost some relatives to the evangelicals. Catechism is poorly done in a lot of places here.
Thanks Fr Z for linking to this, I would have missed it otherwise.
It will come in handy helping some close family members who should know better from being indifferent to sodomy.