This is not wrong, and it is not an ad hominem. In my post #13, I reposted a response there that I gave earlier on this topic where I was critiquing the arguments given against Bishop Paprocki’s statements. Among those arguments I criticized where those made by Fr. Martin and New Ways Ministry. You then mentioned you didn’t bring up New Ways Ministry. I tried to clarify the context in which I was bringing up New Ways Ministry. Both attacked the bishop’s decree, and I simply made a factual statement that Fr. Martin supports and promotes the work that New Ways does.
Fr, Martin often promotes New Ways on his social media accounts, and just recently received the group’s “Bridge Building Award” earlier this year. At the award ceremony, executive director Frank DeBernardo
said this about Fr. Martin:
Well, at New Ways Ministry, we often speak of the “James Martin Effect.” When he posts something [from] New Ways Ministry social media on his social media outlets, the number of views our material receives is usually about twenty times higher than usual. Being mentioned by Fr. Martin is better than being mentioned by the New York Times or CNN.
You said earlier you don’t agree with them, so I imagine you wouldn’t share New Ways’ posts on your social media accounts. However, you contend Fr. Martin also doesn’t support their work, yet he often promotes the organization on his social media accounts. That shows clear support of a group that, as our bishops have told us, does not “provide an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice.”
Fr. Martin has commented on this as well. In a recent podcast posted on
America Magazine’s website, Fr. Martin was asked who he might canonize a saint if he was given the chance. He didn’t mention New Jersey native Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich. He didn’t mention Fr. Augustus Tolton of Chicago, or any other person who was faithful and obedient to the Church while giving a heroic, Christian witness. No. Instead, this was his answer:
Oh, this is great… I’m going to canonize Sr. Jeannine Gramick, who was the co-founder of New Ways Ministry, and let me tell you, you may be too young to remember all this but, you know in the 80s, they were really under a microscope, and then in the 90s, Cardinal George in Chicago said they couldn’t call themselves Catholic. It was really severe, and, you know, she persisted…. here’s this woman who has really struggled, and has really fought, and has really advocated, at great cost, you know, within her own church. And, so, yeah… I’d put her up for canonization, and at least, servant of God, or beatification.
That’s the same woman who has openly defied the Church on everything from women priests to contraception, and she has been censured by the Holy See since 1999, when the CDF declared that “For [several] reasons, Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.”
Sorry you’re not convinced that Fr. Martin’s critique of the bishop’s pastoral decree is wrongheaded in nearly every way. You haven’t convinced me either that Fr. Martin is right; again, you’re missing something because Bishop Paprocki isn’t being inconsistent in any way. A woman who has a child out of wedlock isn’t attempting marriage. A person with same sex attraction who goes to the state to get a marriage license is. If that’s not making a mockery out of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, I don’t know what is. Scandal is a big deal.
Trent Horn calls out Fr. Martin, and his erroneous analysis of Bishop Paprocki’s decree, out on this, emphases mine:
The problem with Fr. Martin’s response is that it fails to make a distinction between gravely evil, public displays of sin that can cause scandal, and other types of sin against which the faithful struggle.
Take, for example, his claim that someone like Bishop Paprocki should also deny funerals for people “who are not loving, not forgiving and not merciful.” According to James 3:2, “we all make many mistakes,” so we should expect the deceased at Christian funerals to have failed at times to be loving or merciful. But** there is a difference between being a sinner and being a cause for scandal.** A person’s “failure to love” would only involve the latter if it was exceptionally grave, publicly known, and unrepented ([like] mafia bosses…). To equate any failure to love or forgive with remaining in a disordered, publicly recognized sexual union reveals an ignorance of the Church’s teachings on the gravity of sin (cf. CCC 1854).
What about failing to care for the poor, the environment, or prisoners? These failures to act only become gravely sinful under certain conditions, such as by causing serious harm. They are not like specific actions, such as murder or sexual activity outside of marriage, that are always wrong and can become mortal sins if a person who knows they are gravely wrong freely chooses to commit them anyway. Likewise, the conditions for these sins to become objects of scandal are also fairly rare…
A same-sex union, on the other hand, is a matter of public record and it would be known if someone remained in such a union until death. Unless a pastor made it known that the deceased had vowed to remain chaste and repented of his behavior, a funeral for such a person would be a cause for scandal.
