Francis answers Fr. James Martin’s pro-LGBT questions

[Denise]

with ‘weaponized orthodoxy’
LifeSite </>Wed May 11, 2022 - 6:30 pm EDT

(LifeSiteNews <https://www.lifesitenews.com/>) — Did you see over the last few days that Pope Francis responded to several questions from the homosexuality-promoting Jesuit priest James Martin? Funny how he can find time to answer certain questions, or dubia, when they come from a heretical priest but not for four of the most faithful cardinals in the Church.

The Q&A between Francis and Martin is a great study in diabolic disorientation. It is a brilliant example of “weaponized orthodoxy.” So if you’ve ever wondered what that concept was all about, stay tuned. This is The John-Henry Westen Show.

<https://servedby.lifeserver.net/cl.php? ... 1f-LS.html>
Have you ever felt like Francis is trying to frighten us into abandoning orthodox Catholic doctrine?

Pope Francis recently replied to a letter from Father James Martin <https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope- ... st-a-sect/> and his new LGBT group Outreach. Martin posed “three common questions from the LGBTQ community.”

RELATED: Pope Francis addresses ‘LGBT Catholics’ via Fr. James Martin: A ‘selective’ Church is a ‘sect’ <https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope- ... st-a-sect/>
But let’s see how Francis’s answers contain truths and falsehoods mixed together that sow confusion with ambiguity much more so than plainly teaching error.

The questions

1. Martin asked: “What you say is the most important thing for LGBT people to know about God?”

Francis wrote that “God is Father and he does not disown any of his children.”

I’ll just mention in passing it’s difficult to reconcile what he is implying with Our Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Not everyone,” he said, “Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

He said that at the final judgment, many will claim to have been His followers and done miracles in his name: but unless they have done the will of His Father, He will say to them: “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.”

Moving on…

2. Martin asked: “What do you want LGBT people to know about the Church?”

Francis told them to read the Acts of the Apostles where they will find “the image of the living church.”

Is that the same book of the Bible where, in perhaps the first ever papal address, Saint Peter told his listeners: “Save yourselves from this perverse generation”?

Where Saint Peter told Simon Magus to do penance for his wickedness if he were to have any hope of forgiveness?

Where one of the three first commands imposed on Gentile Christians at the first ecumenical council was to abstain from fornication?

But the third answer really reveals some underhand tactics …

3. Martin asks Francis what the Pope would say to “an LGBT Catholic who has experienced rejection from the church.”

Francis writes:

I would have them recognize it not as “the rejection of the church,” but instead of “people in the church.” The church is a mother and calls together all her children.

Take for example the parable of those invited to the feast: “the just, the sinners, the rich and the poor, etc.” A “selective” church, one of “pure blood,” is not Holy Mother Church, but rather a sect.

There’s more here than meets the eye.

The tactics

The basic gist is that he is saying the Church is not composed solely of holy or morally good people, and affirming that homosexuals are also called and obliged to enter the Church.

But of course, this is true! We know this! Every Catholic should know this.

But it’s clear there are two prongs to this tactic: First, Francis is insinuating that we don’t know this, and that we think the Church is for the pure only. And second, he is insinuating homosexual persons are invited to join while not only continuing in their chosen lifestyle, but also while affirming its moral acceptability.

And here we have that modern phenomenon: weaponized orthodoxy – using true principles to advance modernism against the only people who actually care about those principles: faithful Catholics.

Look, we don’t need to go any further into the question of whether Christ and his Church call all men to salvation, and to living according to the natural moral law. We know this. We also know that all of us are flawed and fall into greater or lesser sins, more or less often.

Some Catholics, of course, may even fall into homosexual sins.

In his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, Pius XII reaffirms the settled and certain Catholic doctrine:

Nor must one imagine that the Body of the Church, just because it bears the name of Christ, is made up during the days of its earthly pilgrimage only of members conspicuous for their holiness. (No. 23)

Membership

But the idea that one can be a Catholic while affirming that homosexual acts are morally good is false. It is totally false. So to bring it home for you, the Catholic who falls into homosexual sin, knowing that it is wrong but being tempted severely falls but repents, is and remains a Catholic. However, even if it were that Father James Martin remained always celibate as his vows require, but believes that homosexual acts are not wrong, he is NOT a Catholic.

The Church is completely clear on this: The Church is indeed selective when it comes to the profession of faith. As the Church teaches officially:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church:

– who have been baptized

– and profess the true faith,

– and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body,

– or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. (No. 22 of Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi)

Someone who doesn’t meet this description is not a Catholic. But did you hear anything there about moral goodness and pure blood there?

No, there’s nothing. Pope Francis already denied that idea as if we didn’t but we do!

A bit further on, Pius XII reaffirms this point:

Not every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy. (No. 23)

This isn’t just Pius XII’s teaching – he is just one of the most recent popes to affirm it.

It is just impossible for someone to be a Catholic, a member of the Church, while openly and knowingly departing from her teaching.

The Church does not only include those of pure life, but the Church does include only those who profess a pure faith.

Why is this important?

Well, it’s important that we accurately present the Church’s teaching about loving those with same-sex attraction – but it’s equally important that we present the Church’s teaching about the Church itself and who is a member, too.

In other words, we can sometimes be in a hurry to address the detail of the particular moral truth being attacked – which can sometimes leave questions of faith to one side.

Pope Francis is setting up a straw man. He is accusing us of a crass error against doctrine, and making it seem like insisting on the life-giving message of the Gospel is actually Pharisaism, sectarianism, and puritanism.

He’s trying to link an insistence on the natural moral law, with the error that the Church is composed only of the pure.

And all this to try to frighten us away from the truth about the natural law.

He does this with powerful weapons: orthodox points of theology, twisted out of shape.

He’s trying say that Catholic orthodoxy itself requires us to accept as Catholics those who deny the Catholic faith. Similarly, he is trying to make people of good will think that groups like LifeSiteNews are insisting on some impossible (and theologically wrong) standard for membership.

The idea he’s imputing to us is nearly heresy or “proximate to heresy,” according to theologians. He is accusing us of being near to heresy – and using this to try to frighten us into giving up Catholic teaching both on sexual morality and on the Church herself.

There we have it: weaponized orthodoxy.

No, friends. The Catholic Church is not composed only of good men and saints. But the Catholic Church is composed – exclusively – of Catholics: those who believe all that the Church teaches even though they may fall into sin.

[MarieT]

(LifeSiteNews <https://www.lifesitenews.com/>) — Did you see over the last few days that Pope Francis responded to several questions from the homosexuality-promoting Jesuit priest James Martin? Funny how he can find time to answer certain questions, or dubia, when they come from a heretical priest but not for four of the most faithful cardinals in the Church.

The Q&A between Francis and Martin is a great study in diabolic disorientation. It is a brilliant example of “weaponized orthodoxy.”

This article doesnt paint Pope Francis well. Not addressing the Dubia of the 4 cardinals (and numerous others that signed it) - choosing to ignore their concerns (Cardinal Burke - a Canon Lawyer - pointing out clearly what was wrong) makes one wonder "what is going on?"
This article leads into the notion that Pope Francis only addresses what is in line with his own agenda, where he wants the church to be...what he wants.

Have you ever felt like Francis is trying to frighten us into abandoning orthodox Catholic doctrine?

He certainly is leading the church "elsewhere" -- removal of the sacred liturgy of the Latin rite - was the most extraordinary act of all The use of the term "mercy" to allow items that the church would not even think of allowing is concerning to many clergy and people. People are holding their breaths as to what he next comes up with....

Francis certainly needs lots of prayers. While many may believe these changes are to "bring people back to the church" or 'modernise" the church, one cannot compromise the holy teachings or traditions by any means. It is the Lord that brings people back to the Church not compromising his teachings. Many mystics, saints and holy people attest to this in their writings. The initiation is always by God. The veil is lifted momentarily to give that glimpse and grace given at the appointed time