Catholic outreach to LGBT individuals must always include the truth about Catholic teaching and chastity, Cardinal Robert Sarah said in an article responding to Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin.
“The Catholic Church has been criticized by many, including some of its own followers, for its pastoral response to the LGBT community,” Cardinal Sarah wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Sept. 1.
The Guinean-born cardinal heads the Congregation for Divine Worship. He specifically named Father Martin, S.J., editor-at-large of the Jesuits’ America Magazine, as “one of the most outspoken critics of the Church’s message with regard to sexuality.”
Fr. Martin has become a media personality and has a significant presence on social media. He authored the 2017 book, “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.”
Fr. Martin’s book has its critics. They say the book avoids Church teaching on marriage, celibacy and chastity and shows an apparent reluctance to recognize Catholics who experience same-sex attraction and seek to follow Catholic teaching.
In his op-ed, Cardinal Sarah said the priest repeated “the common criticism that Catholics have been harshly critical of homosexuality while neglecting the importance of sexual integrity among all of its followers.”
The cardinal said Fr. Martin is correct to reject any double standard on the virtue of chastity “which, challenging as it may be, is part of the good news of Jesus Christ for all Christians.”
“For the unmarried – no matter their attractions – faithful chastity requires abstention from sex,” the cardinal said. While this may appear to be a high standard, Jesus’ wisdom and goodness would not require something that cannot be achieved.
“With God’s grace and our perseverance, chastity is not only possible, but it will also become the source for true freedom,” the cardinal continued. “Jesus calls us to this virtue because he has made our hearts for purity, just as he has made our minds for truth.”
Cardinal Sarah stressed the importance of both truth and love.
“To love someone as Christ loves us means to love that person in the truth,” he said. “Those who speak on behalf of the Church must be faithful to the unchanging teachings of Christ because only by living in harmony with God’s creative design do we find deep and lasting fulfillment.”
Cardinal Sarah summarized Catholic teaching on same-sex attraction: the person is good because he or she is a child of God. Homosexual attractions are not sinful if not willed or acted upon, even though they are not in harmony with human nature. However, homosexual actions are “gravely sinful and tremendously harmful to the well-being of those who partake in them.”
“People who identify as members of the LGBT community are owed this truth in charity, especially from clergy who speak on behalf of the Church about this complex and difficult topic,” the cardinal continued.
The cardinal recommended the book by American author Daniel Mattson titled “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay,” for which he wrote the foreword.
“It is my prayer that the world will finally heed the voices of Christians who experience same-sex attractions and who have discovered peace and joy by living the truth of the Gospel,” Cardinal Sarah said. “I have been blessed by my encounters with them, and their witness moves me deeply.”
Such Christians testify to “the power of grace” and the truth of Church teaching, he said. Some have been reconciled to Jesus Christ and the Church after living apart from the faith.
“Their lives are not easy or without sacrifice…but they have discovered the beauty of chastity and of chaste friendships,” he said, adding that these Christians deserve respect and attention for their ability to teach about “how to better welcome and accompany our brothers and sisters in authentic pastoral charity.”
Full story at LifeSiteNews.
In the near future this article will stand as a prologue to his first encyclical.
Good for you, Drewelow! Cardinal Sarah would make a great Pope, wouldn’t he??
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! Unless the incumbent fires him first.
He will doubtless be ignored by the GILBERT Gaystapo, as with the teaching of our Popes & Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – all of whom have contradicted ‘Father Martin’ and his ilk
The Harm done to the Church and its Adolescent Boys is beyond measure, and aside from the rich attorneys who love such ‘happy campers’, the Public Scandal of their wrongdoing only festers and feeds off the donations of the Faithful – who are sorely tired of being used to finance such Manifest Evil
Vatican cops bust drug-fueled gay orgy at home of cardinal’s aide
https://nypost.com/2017/07/05/vatican-cops-bust-drug-fueled-gay-orgy-at-cardinals-apartment/
The Holy Father is “enraged,” since the home, inhabited by Francesco Cardinal…
One of Fr. Martin’s arguments is that Church leaders ought to refer to us by the terms we use, no made up ones which are either awkward (Same sex attracted persons) or intended to insult us or make us angry (Sodomite)
I call myself a Catholic, not a “Popist,” a brunette, not a “brown haired person” and a lesbian, not a “person with homosexual attraction.” It’s just common sense to refer to peoples’ characteristics by the terms they themselves use.
The term “homosexual” covers almost everything rather well. It’s accurate, objective, and avoids disguising the matter at hand. Those are all reasons why homosexuals have tried to replace that term with any obfuscating euphemism they can get the public to go along with: gay, lesbian, LGBT, queer, etc. Anyone who proposes using a less accurate term has an agenda that use of the proper, accurate term impedes. Fr. Martin has stated that the Church should change the Catechism’s language, yet homosexuals do not have to change their language? Gee, how inconsistent. His agenda is so obvious. He should come out of the closet already.
Well…better to be called a homosexual than Michael McD’s term GILBERT :-)
What is GILBERT?
It’s poster Michael McDermott’s pet name for gay people. See his post above.
All that means C&H is that you and rest of the LGBT mob want to control the language which a main strategy of the Left. Control the language, control the narrative and eventual control reality Cdl. Sarah is wise to this, as am I. “It’s just common sense to refer to peoples’ characteristics by the terms they themselves use.” Nonsense if a person refers to himself as to being a goat, should I have to agree with him. This is same argument with “transgendered” crowd,, your “rights” end when I have to deny truth and reality. Yes…
Isn’t that exactly what the church is doing? Trying to control language?
Terminology changes everytime a sensitive melting snowflake deems it trendy… boils down to a flavor of the month for “them”…… Im sick and tired of it… if they cant make up their mind, Im sticking to the last term I used…. Done Deal!
It was important that Cdl Sarah used LGBT in his piece. I thought that showed an attempt to take the onramp to the bridge.
Finally, Thank you Cdl. Sarah, may you be the man on Chair of St. Peter .. and soon
Que Sarah, Sarah.
YES!! And SOON!!!
Amen! Amen!
I suggest people read the full piece on line. It is much better than stated in this article with just excerpts. God bless Cardinal Sarah for his clear, concise, orthodox Catholic statements. He writes with compassion, yet with firmness.
I agree with you Anne T.
Cardinal Sarah did not give approval to homosexual acts nor to so-called same-sex marriage. My using the term LGBT does not imply such either. I just use it for lack of a shorter term. Let us make that clear. Such behavior is harmful to the body, children and society and should in no way be approved.
I thought I had read the whole piece on line, but I did not. What I had read before was an article on The Catholic World Report website called “In rare WSJ op ed, Cardinal Sarah says Fr. Martin’s LGBT outreach falls short”. That particular article contains many more excellent excerpts from the article in the Washington Post.
With expected passage of SB 219 by Frisco’s own Folsom Street public sodomite punishment perv = Senator Weiner (D-SF), We’ll need a New Prison Ministry for those sentenced to Jail Time (1 year, either concurrently or consecutive – for each offense?) by the Pronoun Police
The Pretense that Jailing those who fail to pander to the Tranny Scam is about ‘tolerance’ makes as much sense as claiming Homosex radicals Acting Out Misandry (Hatred of Men & Boys, Masculinity & Normal Heterosexuality) are born that way
Rather, gratification of a Fetish fed by Controlling others Against their Will –
Forcing the Un-Good to parrot perverted propaganda, is such a thrill for the Gaystapo Harpies they will doubtless expand the pogrom throughout post…
Peoples: His Eminence had to deal with folks like Martin partly because of the manner with which some people unacceptably and erroneously use the term “intrinsically disordered” which is a philosophical and theological term that the Church uses in judgment of the homosexual inclination–which means that it is not ordered to, not inclined to the goods of marriage. Now, there is NOTHING wrong with the Church’s use of this term. But there have been folks–and some of them have even found their way into the commentariat of this here blog—who have erroneously used “intrinsic disorder” as a psychological and even a psychiatric diagnosis. This is WRONG! This is not the sense in which the Church uses the term. Therefore, good folks…
like His Eminence have had to fight this unnecessarily “battle” fomented in part by the erroneous and false use of this term. God bless Sarah.
I hasten to add that per the CDF’s 1986 Letter To Bishops, not only the homosexual inclination, but also the action, is “intrinsically disordered.”
Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.:
“It should be clear to people that the Catholic Church has taught from the beginning that homosexual acts are intrinsically immoral, against God’s plan, against the natural law and are serious sins, and that, therefore, a tendency to indulge in those acts, or desire for them, is an objective psychological disorder.”
gravey, your quote just proves my point that there are indeed folks out there who have used the term “intrinsically disordered” erroneously!
Let’s see, whom should one believe? Fr. Fessio, renowned Catholic philosopher and theological scholar, PhD. from University of Regensburg, student of Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, and founder and editor of Ignatius Press; or jon, demagogue, homosexualist, and combox troll.
Right. gravey, you believe the Magisterium which interprets Scripture and Tradition; this means believing the Catechism–a product of the Magisterium– which has called fornication, lust, masturbation, lying, calumny and other sins as intrinsically disordered! Are you going to say that all of the Catholics who are guilty of these sins have a “psychological disorder”?
Gravey… The problem is that, with all his theological creds, Fr. Fessio is issuing a psychological opinion.
Jon, i’ve disagreed with you before. But this time, my hat’s off to you!! You have–trenchantly–hit it right on the button. Fr. Martin’s remarks on the term “intrinsically disordered” are, at best, disingenuous if not outright deceptive and intended to debase the Church’s teaching re same-sex attraction and activity. Fr’s Jesuit training included mucho philosophy. He well knows that the term he finds so offensive (delicate soul that he is) was used solely in its philosophical sense—and NEVER in a psychiatric or psychological one—in Church teaching. To make things clearer, some examples of “intrinsically disordered” tendency and acts, as the Church meant it: trying to read a newspaper with your ear or trying to listen…
Good point, Anonymous. I would add that anyone with a strong proclivity to attempt reading a newspaper with his ear or who desired to continue to attempt reading with his ear or who was convinced reading with his ear was a proper way to read would have a mental disorder. The act is intrinsically disordered, the desire to perform an intrinsically disordered act once is a mental lapse, and the abiding desire to perform an intrinsically disordered act is a mental disorder. As gravey says above, the tendency or desire for intrinsically disordered acts is objectively a psychological disorder.
Anonymous’ final sentence there is flat WRONG! First he tries to to curry favor with me by heaping compliments and then he slips in that final sentence which almost seeks to mitigate the seriousness of the sin of homosexuality. WRONG! The Church teaches that every sinful inclination is disordered, not just homosexuality. It is not as benign as “reading a newspaper with your ear.” In fact, Catechism 1755 teaches that FORNICATION (a sin between opposite genders) is a disorder! Catechism 2351 teaches that LUST (no distinction whether for the same-, or opposite-sex) is disordered. Catechism 1753 teaches that LYING and CALUMNY are intrinsically disordered! Catechism 2352 judges that masturbation (regardless of what gender is the…
mental focus of the sinner) is disordered! So, please Anonymous, you stand corrected.
I hasten to amend my use of the phrase “the sin of homosexuality” into the “sin of homosexual acts.”
jon conflates moral disorder and intrinsic disorder, which is why he misunderstands Anonymous’ point. Not all intrinsically disordered acts are gravely morally disordered; trying to read with your ear is such an example. Anonymous wasn’t trying to say homosexual acts are as morally benign as trying to read with your ear; his point was that in intrinsically disordered acts the means are not at all proportionate to the end.
PRECISELY. and thanks. you said it better than I.
The problem with “intrinsically disordered” is that while Church documents define it as a philosophical rather than psychological term and that it describes desire and acts NOT persons, from a quick reading, or in a few cases, deliberate misinterpetation, it’s understood that the Church teaching is that LGBT *People* are disordered.
Cardinal Sarah reminds me of another WONDERFUL Cardinal of the Church….Cardinal Arinze.
This last time I was praying for him to become Pope! Now, I believe he is too old :(
Everyone, please pray for Cardinal Sarah and all the REAL DEAL Bishops and Cardinals in the Church, i.e. Cardinal Burke!!!
‘ if a person refers to himself as to being a goat, should I have to agree with him/’
Yes – so long as it is a ‘tolerant’ goat; you must do so or face Jail Time for Thought Crime – at least in ‘Weiner World’ (as soon as the CA Legislature expands on the Pronoun Police Pogrom)
Also – you are requited to agree with ‘anonymous’ (Paid?) Trolls who push the Gaystapo Agenda – BAMN
By Any Means Necessary
Or Men (XY) and Women (XX) could just Scroll Past the Troll
As a Roman Catholic priest who has been upbraided for speaking God’s truth on human sexuality, I give thanks for the Nashville Statement. It is correct. Fr. Martin and church leaders who support him on homosexuality are wrong. Many of our priests and bishops suffer same sex attraction and do what they can to avoid conversion offered by Jesus Christ to all who come to Him. They use the church to affirm their iniquities and sins. They give Him part of their lives, but not this part. Our Catholic church documents say that the fullness of faith subsists in the Catholic church and that elements of truth exist in non Catholic Christians. Yet it is the non Catholic Christians in this statement who are speaking the fullness of truth and…
Fr. Rich,
I too have known priests and seminarians who believed that some of the vast array of sexual sins could not be conquered and, thus, must be either venial sins or not sins at all. I’ve come to realize in my own life that ANY sin can be conquered by God’s grace. As such, I now consider such clerics to be spiritually dangerous.
What I’ve found is that we must do the “advance work” to show God that we’re serious (e.g. pray, fast, spend time before God learning about yourself, and “become as wise as serpents” in regard to sin). Most of all, when the grace actually comes, run with it as far as it will go: don’t pour it out!!!
Fr. Pereozich, can I just ask you, that when you say that Fr. Martin is wrong, what EXACTLY is he wrong about? It seems to me that he has told the LGBT community that they need to listen to Church teaching, and he has said to the Church that they need to abide by the doctrines that demand respect for LGBT people, and that perhaps the words used in English to speak about gay people and gay activities don’t convey the true content of the doctrines of the Church in a way that can be heard by LGBT people.
“Listen” to Church doctrine? How about adhering to Catholic doctrine and forming their consciences in accord with it? That’s what Fr. Martin does not urge homosexuals to do. YFC, your post is replete with the sort of word-games that Fr. Martin uses himself: “perhaps the words used in English to speak about gay people and gay activities don’t convey the true content of the doctrines of the Church in a way that can be heard by LGBT people.” The doctrines are abundantly clear; many homosexuals don’t want to hear them nor adhere to them because they reject what Catholic faith entails.
Go read what jon wrote, if you want to know the truth, he summarized it pretty well.
No need for laying disingenuous traps for Fr. P: after all by know you should know even the inclination, spiritually speaking, is disordered. It’s your life (psuche), its your soul in the balance.
YFC,
James Martin needs you to be a slave like him to homosexual desire, acts, and identity so that he can feel good about his own choice to hold onto homosexuality rather than giving it over to Jesus.
I desire that you be free in Christ to have your identity as a man oriented toward the other as God has created you to be (CCC 2332f).
Martin invents language to hold you in slavery to homosexuality.
I proclaim to you the truth of the Jesus and His church so that you will not only listen to it, but accept it completely to transform your life.
Martin brings you to his “no god”.
I bring you to Jesus, the Living God.
Martin needs you for his agenda.
I want for you your sexual peace and wholeness in God.
Could you please tell me your source for the information that Fr. Martin identifies as a homosexual.
If it walks like a duck and quaks like a duck it aint a chicken, dahhhhh.
Joe, I have not found anywhere that Fr. Martin identifies as gay. He refers to LGBT people at “them.”
Perhaps Fr. Richard P. has heard some gossip or even has personal knowledge of Fr. Martin but he did not answer the question on his source. Accusing a Catholic priest of not just identifying as homosexual, but of being a slave to homosexual desires and acts is contrary to Catholic teaching. It is calumny if not true; detraction if true. Both sins.
Anonymous,
I’m not familiar with Fr. Martin or his work, and so I can’t speak directly about him.
However, I spent several years in a Catholic seminary many years ago. Based on that experience, I noticed a high correlation between those seminarians that had persistent trouble with Church moral teaching and those who I eventually learned were practicing homosexuals. The fallout from the child molestation crisis only reinforced my observations (ref: Archbishop Weakland).
There’s a reason for this, of course. A free man is not envious of the slave: But the slave, who will never be free, is envious of those who are able to set themselves free.
“Cardinal Sarah’s op-ed inaccurately states that my book is critical of church teaching, which it is not. Nor am I,” Father Martin said. From Fr. Martin’s response to the WSJ op-ed.
YFC,
I concur with Fr. Rich. I’ve also already sensed from your on-line posts that you have the spiritual capacity for this.
If you think I might be of some help navigating a seemingly intransigent sin, let me know and we’ll arrange for a conversation in another forum.
In more enlightened times, Martin would be skating on very thin ice, and Sarah wouldn’t have to walk on egg shells.
As Merlin complained to young Arthur, “These are evil times, the ‘Dark Ages’ indeed, my boy! ” (Once and Future King, TH White)
Why I Signed The Nashville Statement Affirming Christianity’s Stance On Sex
The statement proclaims traditional Christian teaching on sex and marriage. Homosexual practice?
Still not okay. Sex-changes as an answer to gender dysphoria? No.
Hunter Baker https://thefederalist.com/2017/09/01/signed-nashville-statement-affirming-christianitys-stance-sex/
Many Californians have been placed on the “Lavender Libera’ Gaystapo Stalkers targeting list for supporting Proposition 8, which still follows the un-good like a homosex harpy shrieking ‘Ism-Obia” SEE
The Price of Prop 8
https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/the-price-prop-8
Abstract: Supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry. Arguments for same-sex marriage are based fundamentally on the idea that limiting marriage to the union of husband and wife is a form of bigotry, irrational…
“Vandals also hit houses of worship. Perpetrators used orange paint to vandalize a statue of the Virgin Mary outside one church.[21] Offices at the Cornerstone Church in Fresno were egged.[22] Swastikas and other graffiti were scrawled on the walls of the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco [23] In San Luis Obispo, the Assembly of God Church was egged and toilet-papered, and a Mormon church had an adhesive poured onto a doormat and keypad.[24] Signs supporting Prop 8 were twisted into a swastika at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Riverside.[25] Someone used a heavy object wrapped with a Yes on 8 sign to smash the window of a pastor’s office at Messiah Lutheran Church in Downey.[26]
Queer Theories and Theologies
Mike Adams https://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2010/02/08/queer-theories-and-theologies-n1388238
Some years ago, a man asked for my opinion on why his good friend, an atheist, had decided to go to Yale Divinity School I told him that the Enemy could do more harm trying to destroy an institution from within than from without
And so it is with the so-called GLBT (Gilbert) movement The Gilbert has equal rights. He is not fighting for anythin
. He is only seeking to destroy anyone or anything that will not validate him
That is why only 4% of gays who live in states giving them a “right” to get married actually do get married They do not seek to enjoy marriage. They seek to destroy marriage All…
Calling homosexual acts intrinsically disordered is a very nice way of saying what the Holy Bible actually states is an abomination. Turn to loving and merciful God before it is too late. Jesus Christ King of Kings Lord of Lords True God and True Man is coming in the not too distant future like a thief in the night. Repent and convert. Pray America Pray!
Cardinal Sarah is prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Perhaps, he should leave reviews of Father Martin’s books to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is clearly operating out of his area of expertise.