Fr. Z's Blog

He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

However, I suppose that the dicastery headed by non-Card. McCarrick’s former apprentice in Washington, Card. Farrell, deemed it opportune to have Martin there.

At Crisis David Prosen reacts both to homosexualist activist Jesuit James Martin’s talk at the World Meeting Of Families in Ireland, and also the fact of Martin’s talk.

Prosen, who writes and speaks on the topic of “same-sex attraction” from a different viewpoint than than of Jesuit Martin, offers his piece under the title:

What Fr. James Martin Should Have Said in Ireland

Right away he makes a great point.

Somehow, almost overnight, our culture decided that a “LGBT” identity is something that one is born with. There is no research proving this. As a matter of fact, the American Psychological Association website states, that although much research has been done, scientists have not reached a consensus on the causes. However, our culture speaks of people being born “gay or lesbian” as if it is common knowledge.

During an interview for his book, Fr. James Martin, SJ was asked what he would say to one who identifies as “LGBT” and is struggling with this. Martin stated, “God made you this way. You are wonderfully made just like Psalm 139 says you were knit together in your mother’s womb … this way. This is a part of your identity.”

[…]

Let’s hold up right there.

There are many good ideas in Prosen’s article, but let’s linger over this one.

It seems to me that Martin and others are engaged in spreading a colossal lie, a campaign of disinformation.

A gentle preamble.

When we talk about homosexuality, it is good to tread carefully.  Firstly, people have properly understood dignity as images of God and we must respect their dignity, even if we must, in charity, point out that homosexual inclinations are disordered and that homosexual acts are grave sins.  Next, there are people who love homosexuals as their children, siblings, friends.  They have dignity too.   I fear that, very often, when these issues come up, and we speak frankly about the reality of disorder and of sin, people who love those who are struggling with these things only hear us, the Church, the Church’s pastors and other members saying – wrongly – that we want them to turn on their loved ones.  Sometimes reason is less involved than emotions and they hear something quite different from what we are trying to say.

From this point of view, I will give Jesuit Martin a nod of agreement that we must treat homosexuals with dignity and be careful about how we treat them and their loved ones.  That doesn’t mean that we in any way condone homosexual acts or overt lifestyle or, God forbid, equate civilly recognized relationships as anything even close to marriage.  We refuse to call the inclinations normal and we will never call the acts anything other than sinful.  Our hope and our deeds and words ought to be directed, in Christian charity, to their true good, which means eternal salvation.   And, as I have written numerous times, I sincerely believe that people who struggle to be holy under the burden of these inclinations will have a tremendous reward in heaven.

That’s the preamble.  Now the tough love.  Sometimes charity, which aims at the good of the other, demands sterner stuff.

I fear for the souls of those who push for the normalization of homosexual behavior, especially through the innuendo that God made them that way.

God, who cannot create disorder, permits disorders for the sake of the souls of those who have them and for, ultimately and mysterious, His Greater Glory.

A Jesuit should know that.  I think he does know that.  Hence, my fear.

Above, Prosen wrote that,

“Somehow, almost overnight, our culture decided that a “LGBT” identity is something that one is born with.”

Review what Jesuit homosexualist activist Martin has said and written in the past.  Review what he said at the World Meeting.   Note, in the latest presentation in Ireland, how thickly he laid it on.

In response to Prosen’s implicit question, here is what is going on.

It seems to me that people really do know that homosexual behavior is sinful and that there is something not right about the desire to engage in it.  We know that, deep down.  But, over time, we hear certain voices – not without a measure of eloquence and always salted through with highly emotional anecdotes about cruelty, which serve to shut down reason – that homosexuals don’t have a choice, that they are just that way, that God made them that way, that for them that is their normal.

It is a lie, wrapped in a deceptive package, that calls forth from good people a hesitation.  then the master of the art of deception strikes.

That’s what the serpent did, too.

Think about the deception by the serpent in the Garden which caused our First Parents to sin.

The serpent told a huge and unbelievable lie, both huge and unbelievable because it concerned God.   In the case of homosexuality, the lie concerned the image of God in us.  But the serpent told it big.  Told it with conviction.

There is something diabolically persuasive about big lies.   It is as if, when people hear them, they think that, “No one would say something that bad … unless… well… could it be true?  It is so outrageous that no reasonable person would ask us reasonable people to accept it.  Maybe… it could be true!  I mean, there are strange things in the world, right?”

And then they hear the lie over and over and over.

They think, “I thought that was crazy before.  But they keep saying it.  Someone should have debunked it by now, but they keep on saying it.   And this guy seems to be a reasonable person.  Besides, look at all those sad people up there with him who are so sincere.”

Eve knew that God said that they should not touch the fruit of the tree, lest they die.  The serpent, on the other hand, lied, saying, “You shall not die”.  Then Eve did the fatal double-take and looked at the fruit again… and we know that, in general, what we look at long enough, we start to want.  She accepted the colossal lie and then let reason fall away.  Moreover, the serpent focused on Eve alone, not on Adam or Adam and Eve together.  Adam was negligent in guarding Eve from the nahash, the serpent.  But had the serpent gone for him first it wouldn’t have worked because Adam would have recognized the attack and would have fought.  Instead, the serpent went for the softer victim.  The enemy focused on one victim at a time and one “enemy” at a time, God.  And, in saying that Eve would not die, implied that God was a liar: the biggest lie of all.

The telegraphic conversation of Genesis 3 reveals the subtlety of the craft of lying well and sowing disinformation.

This is, I think, at the core of David Prosen’s implicit question.

We are dealing with experts in the art of disinformation.  Moreover, because it concerns something so important, the image of God in us, the lie is colossal.   Therefore, it’s scale is, diabolically, convincing.  We are asked, in the lie, to deny the reality we know deep down.

Time after time, if Martin is asked to clarify something, he doesn’t clarify.  He doubles down.  Ask about the gifts that homosexuals bring to the Church.  Do they bring them as people, because all people can bring gifts?  Or is there something special in their homosexuality that is a gift?  That’s what he is implying.  What would that be?  “Hey!  If they bring gifts that only they can bring, then we would be less without them, right?”  Moreover, he relentlessly labels those who stick to the Church’s teaching, her faithful pastors, as homophobes, not conceding any good will.  Furthermore, he blames them for the tears of the people he talks about plaintively in his touching anecdotes.  Then he brings in the colossal lie and repeats it and repeats it and repeats it until people start to let it penetrate past their reason.   They hesitate and cave.

Then move as soon as possible to the next talk, the next engagement, the next outrageous presentation.  Never let people forget your message.  Never admit you are wrong.  Don’t concede that your critics have any good in them and blame them for the ills you are quick to talk about.  And repeat… repeat… repeat….   And if a big controversy comes up?  Great!  More opportunities to get the machine fired up.

Besides, his message is really about sex.  An easy sell.

For more about the technique of disinformation and how it has been used to undermine the Church, try the invaluable Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism by Ronald Rychlak and Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa. US HERE – UK – HERE

The techniques are Jesuitical.

UPDATE:

Meanwhile, at the National Sodomitical Reporter (aka Fishwrap), in their constant effort to abet the normalization of disorder and sin, has a breathy personal account from Ireland.  Lesbian discipline of Sr. Margaret “Masturbation” Farley and regular Fishwrap writer Jamie Manson takes pride in the presence of homosexuals hanging out at the World Meeting for Families.  Follow the logic in this…

If the organizers of the World Meeting of Families had any hope of playing down LGBTQ issues in the church, those aspirations were quickly and ably dashed by LGBTQ Catholic activists and their allies in Dublin this week. … [But wait!] … As was widely reported, all pro-LGBT groups that applied for a booth in the World Meeting of Families’ exhibit hall were rejected. Most were not even given the dignity of being told they were rejected. They simply did not get a response from the Congress’ organizers.

I guess the organizers weren’t that hopeless.

Also, Fishwrap has recycled Rosica’s attempt to link all the abuse to clericalism.  Shameless.