A few items caught my eye…
First, I’ve been reading the explanations of what Francis really meant to say when he explicitly complained that in Italian seminaries there was excessive “faggotry” and that “fags/queers” (checche) shouldn’t be in seminary, even those who are “semi inclinati”.
For those of you who read Italian, here is a shot of a newspaper page today. The article at the bottom quotes bishops doing cartwheels to explain what Francis really meant. Right click and open in a new tab for larger.
It’s predictable, but still clever. One guy blames his brother bishop for telling what had been said. Another, he’s from South America and doesn’t know what words mean. Another, he’s just worried about the happiness of future priests. About checche in seminaries, to which Francis has in the past said “no”: “Non c’è un ‘no’ a priori…. There is no a priori ‘no'”. So, it all depends on what “no” means. Ask 60 Minutes. Another guy, it was a confidential conversation and personal observations were mixed with general considerations. Whatever that means. Another, we ought to pay attention to what he does not only what he says. I remind everyone that speaking is doing something too. Another, he simply used “un linguaggio più scherzoso… a playful tone”. Yeah, he was just kidding around. The same fellow offered this as well: “One part of the Church is, instead, convinced that there exist sinners and non-sinners.” The issue here is not whether anyone out there is or isn’t a sinner. That’s been answered already. The issue is a particular kind of sin and inclination toward that sin. However, I am mindful of old descriptions of the characteristics a man should have when considering entering the seminary. One of them was/is: Can you live for extended periods of time in the state of grace? So, I guess sin might matter.
At Jesuit run Amerika there is a piece that reassumes much of this in English.
Then there are the usual suspects.
At Fishwrap we find Michael Sean Winters (aka Madame Defarge) went to the zoo and found the most exotic of excuses.
The fact that the pope may have used a vulgar Italian word, frociaggine — translated as “queerness” in most media accounts but I suspect “campiness” is closer to what was meant — when discussing the subject suggests he might have had in mind precisely such a situation.
This elicited gales of laughter from my Italian friends. No: frociaggine is “faggotry”. That’s what Francis was talking about, not only a penchant for show tunes, sibilants, and pink high top sneakers (as one guy had in our day in St. Paul).
He goes on to tie this gaffe control with spaghetti against the wall: into how the Church treats women and how we have to listen to the Holy Spirit and get into the “synodal (walking together) process”.
As the many negative reactions to Fiducia Supplicans demonstrated, the church has not reached any kind of consensus on issues related to ministry to gay men and women. Here is where the promise of synodality emerges. It aims to attune everyone in the church to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, to relativize what I want or you want with what God wants. Discerning God’s will is something the church must do together. The whole must judge the parts.
You knew that Jesuit homosexualist James Martin would have to pipe up. I was sent a piece from Breitbart with his quotes.
“In my 25 years as a priest and almost 40 as a Jesuit, I’ve known hundreds of holy, faithful and celibate gay priests,” Father Martin wrote on X. “They’ve been my superiors, my teachers, my confessors, my mentors, my spiritual directors and my friends.”
The Jesuit order, in fact, is known to have a remarkably high percentage of homosexual members, making it unsurprising that Father Martin has had gay priests as superiors, confessors, mentors, teachers, and spiritual directors.
According to the estimates of one of Martin’s Jesuit brothers, some 50 percent of the members of the Jesuit order are homosexual.
“Roughly half of the Society under the age of fifty shuffles on the borderline between declared and undeclared gayness,” wrote Jesuit Father Paul Shaughnessy in a 2002 essay in the Weekly Standard, titled, “Are the Jesuits Catholic?”
In his piece, Father Shaughnessy added that “the majority of Jesuit formatores, Jesuits in charge of training, are homosexual as well.”
For Catholics, Father Martin continued, gay priests have “celebrated Masses for you, baptized your children, heard your confessions, visited you in hospitals, presided at your weddings and buried your parents.”
“The church would be immeasurably poorer without them,” he concluded.
How wonderful the Jesuits are! However, this begs us to ask: If they are so great this way, how much greater would they be if they were all straight?
A high concentration of homosexual men in a religious order.
What could go wrong ?
Just a few blocks from my Traditional Parish in Portland OR, there stands a large golden statue of Joan of Arc prominently displayed in the middle of a turn-a- bout. Made of bronze, it is a copy of Emmanuel Fremiet’s equestrian statue. Joan is sitting on her horse, her right hand holding a high banner, her left hand gripping the reins, a long sword at her left hip.
Like my own beloved Franciscan Order, the Jesuits have come under attack from the influences of those with political agendas which are contrary to Church teaching and which distract them from their holy mission.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the Jesuit Order was splendidly, courageously, faithfully Catholic. We have only to look at the examples of St. Ignatius, the North American Martyrs, Blessed Miguel Pro, Fr. Willie Doyle, and so many others.
Pope Francis is not perfect by any means, and I think there is a lot of good in him. Every time he is quoted saying something outrageous that angers me, a week or two later he says something that makes me proud of him – such as his comment against gay adoptions, “Children deserve both a mother and a father.” I have the perhaps mistaken impression that he is being advised by those with unfaithful agendas, and that he is being purposefully distracted from his true mission – to evangelize the world for Jesus and the Church, and to lead the souls for which he is responsible.
All the more reason for us to pray for him and for other Jesuits (and Franciscans) who have authentic priestly vocations, and who want to faithfully serve God and His Church.
I almost expected the Jesuit homosexualist James Martin excerpt to conclude with, “and even Pope Francis is gay!” But, alas, not this time. The Jesuit homosexualist James Martin was content to point out that Pope Francis’s own religious order has plenty of faggotry to go around.
And people wonder where the men in the pews have gone!! Pray for Dads, pray for boys who are under such attack. Pray for Priests and support the good guys, it’s harsh out there.
I feel like Fr. Martin is trying in his article to make Catholics who oppose his gay agenda complicit in it by saying we get sacraments and pastoral needs met by a gay priests. Sort of like telling me I should be for illegal immigration because the guy bagging my groceries is illegal. I’m not happy about either.
It’s odd Fr. Martin knows hundreds of faithful, celibate priests, yet being faithful & celibate is not the message I hear him giving to homosexual Catholics & non-Catholics.
In 2003, the pastor at our parish (now deceased) was a Jesuit who entered the order a few years after WWII where he commanded a small boat in the Navy (something like PT 109). Anyway, not long after the Feast of the Epiphany this pastor read a letter that the order was turning our parish over to the diocese. Why? Lack of vocations. Father mentioned that in this particular province of 200 members, 100 were 70 or older. This pastor seemed to be “old school” and could be a grumpy old man at times too – I respected him and I could tell he was disappointed that his order was dying.
In my younger days I would sometimes serve Mass with a Jesuit who I believe was assigned to either the Jesuit high school or the diocesan seminary (both were at least an hour drive from the parish my brother and I attended in our younger days). This Jesuit would fill in every third or fourth weekend and I believe he was a friend of the parochial vicar(s). Several years later I found out that this Jesuit had left the order and was incardinated into another diocese in our state. I heard quite a few Jesuits did the same, in part due to internal issues with the order.
No one ever had to explain what Benedict XVI or Saint John Paul II really meant. What they meant was always clear and they never resorted to vulgarity.