Over at Crisis there is a piece by Rev. Mr. Jim Russell entitled
“A Final Word On Fr. Martin”
Alas, I fear that that is far too optimistic. Jesuit Homosexualist-activist Fr James Martin is sure to come up with something weird again soon. He can’t go too long without the spotlight, after all.
Let’s have a look at Russell’s offering, jumping into its midst. My emphases and comments:
[…]
After being asked hundreds upon hundreds of times by hundreds of different people, exactly why won’t Martin himself own the faith of the Church regarding homosexuality? All he does is pull a few puppet-strings each time the question comes up. Suddenly the Gospel he is supposed to believe down to the marrow of his bones, under the same obligation that St. Paul himself was when saying “woe to me if I do not preach,” is magically objectified into a mere “stance” or “prohibition” that the Church only “officially” teaches, and it’s just untouchable because it’s soooo far from the “stance” of the “LGBT community.” And, besides, it’s clear that “LGBT Catholics” have never “received” the teaching in the first place, Martin says. [That is a typical lib ploy: pit the “official” Church against the, say, “spirit-filled” church. Fishwrap writers use this trop all the time.]
If some of this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because the more Martin talks, the more he simply fades into the murky shadows of many who spoke similarly over the last fifty years. It was another Jesuit, the late Fr. Richard McCormick, who famously embraced the falsehood of a “double magisterium” (naturally the second “magisterium” comprised theologians like himself!) and who insisted that teachings “not received” were not even true teachings at all. The more Martin speaks, the more he disappears into McCormick. [Good reminder about McCormick. He exerted tremendous influence on countless clerics and academicians. How often have you, in your internet peregrinations, found some lib claiming that if an “official” teaching (usually about sex) isn’t “received” (accepted, believed) by people (I hesitate to say “the faithful”), then it doesn’t have to be accepted or obeyed. Thus a majority determines what might be the teaching right now. Of course who says which “majority” gets to decide is a little vague. This is also what lies at the black heart of Card. Kasper’s method. For example, the meaning of Christ’s teachings in Scripture can drift around over time, mean different things in different eras according to what Benedict warned of when he wrote for Card. Meisner’s funeral: the Zeitgeist. Thomas Stark put his finger on the bruise when he said that Kasper has replaced philosophy with politics. Read: Stark in Catholic World Report: German Idealism and Cardinal Kasper’s Theological Project. HERE I’m with Stark quoting Péguy: “Modernists are people who do not believe what they believe.” ]
Not only that, but Martin’s approach is also rooted squarely in the hero he’d like to canonize, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, who has famously admitted her strategy for achieving decades of dissent by doing the same thing—not owning her faith. Her self-labeled “creative circumvention” allowed her to “wiggle” around admitting her dissent by also framing true Church teaching as an objectified “stance.”
However, just as a train receding into the midnight horizon might occasionally throw a spark of illumination from its wheels, Martin’s retreat is not flawless. Recently, he forthrightly admitted his erroneous view that God creates LGBT people as LGBT people. Compare this to the Catechism’s clear assertion that homosexuality has a “largely unexplained” psychological genesis. [If God made them that way, then what they are inclined to do isn’t wrong. That’s the argument. Of course that’s crazy.]
This admission is really the crack in the dam that lets the floodwaters past. Virtually everything else that contradicts the Gospel regarding homosexuality arises from this singular flaw. If the entire spectrum of “LGBTQIA” is God’s handiwork, then we can jettison the whole “objectively disordered” kerfluffle and go with Martin’s self-recommended “differently ordered” instead. Then, same-sex sex acts and same-sex “marriage” and transgender surgeries become goods that we don’t have to reject. [Don’t have to? Nay, rather: can’t reject… must accept.] We can let “gay pride” into our sanctuaries, festooning them with rainbow flags. [Can? Nay, rather: must. They will never be satisfied with “can”.]
Make no mistake—Martin’s personal media puppet, which keeps his personal views behind the curtain of the fictional narrative of “created this way,” is nothing more than a Trojan horse. [Interesting mix of metaphors. Although… both are wood… both look like something that they are not…]
Thankfully, more astute minds than mine have seen just how unrealistically wooden the Martin puppet is; many faithful Catholic writers are taking on the myriad false assertions now incessantly repeated at every media opportunity and every presentation at parishes with faux-Catholic views on this issue. This is largely another reason why I believe the entertainment buzz of the Martin marionette’s performance is fading fast. Simply put, the stilted rhetoric and attached strings are leaving neither the Church nor the “LGBT community” feeling very satisfied.
Thus, Martin himself is creating new videos and print responses to the “critiques” he’s getting from both sides of the as-yet nonexistent bridge. Yet it’s all the same dodgy, scripted formula we’ve seen and heard before, attempts that are not passionately, single-mindedly focused on actually building that bridge, but instead are constructed so that, just as in Oz, we pay no attention whatever to the “man behind the curtain” as the spectacle before us plays out.
Am I being too harsh? Is it too much to ask that the creative artist behind the performance come out, and take a bow? I think not. [NB!] Literally, for goodness’ sake, own your faith, Fr. Martin. Stop attempting the impossible task of building a bridge in a bubble, via “creative circumvention.”
Instead, stake your claim. Are you with the Church and the Good News of its teaching on homosexuality, or not? Because, if you are, your stunt-double Pinocchio is doing a really terrible job of preaching that Gospel. If you are not, I’d suggest taking a good, long look at First Corinthians 9:16.
[..]
There’s more before and more after. It’s worth your time.
Fr. Z kudos to Rev. Mr. Russell.
Today is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. I hope you have some madeleines today, even though they don’t have much to do with her.
emmatag1126 on Thoughts about the collision of the Holy See and the SSPX. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Also, the Declaration said that we can be saved only through the Roman Catholic Church, which unfortunately leaves out my…”
