Fr. James Martin

  • Thread starter Thread starter Polak
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Polak said:
Yes, context is very important. Have you listened to the audio clip? The gay man talks about going to church with his partner. He talks about not feeling comfortable kissing him there. He also talks about whether in future he will be able to kiss his partner in church in front of their children .
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I didn’t listen to the clip; my satellite Internet is too wonky to view videos without multiple interruptions, so I apologize if my comments may seem off a little.

I think the gay coupe with children belong in church, just like the rest of we sinners, and I believe that they should be able to show the same level of affection to each other as anyone else in church.

In telling the man that he wishes this, he is not telling him to sin. He is recognizing that he accepts their choice. As my spiritual director said about my own LGBQT child, “acceptance” does not equal “approval”, but it does equal respect for the person’s choices and their (adult in the case of my child) ability to forge their own path, make their own mistakes and celebrate their own joys and defeats. He’s basically saying, he wants them to feel comfortable in Church, Christ’s own bride and instrument to assist our conversion. Telling the man he wishes he could show his affection to his partner and children is not saying he hopes the man will be able to commit sin in the future. He says he wants the man to feel comfortable in the Church and the church. There is no sin in brief affectionate kisses, embraces, etc. Even between men and in many cultures it happens even between heterosexual men. I remember once in Brazil, I was visiting a paper mill as a consultant and the superintendent showed me the machine he was responsible for. It was a real antique. But it was in impeccable condition and I told him that if I didn’t know paper machines, I would have sworn it was a brand-new machine. He gave me a great big bear hug I’ll never forget!!!
Polak said:
You miss the point. It really isn’t about judging the sin, it’s about the fact that a Catholic priest is advocating for it. He tells the gay man he hopes he will be able to kiss his soon to be husband in church in future. Why are you ignoring this?
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I am not missing the point. I am saying that he is not advocating sin, because a brief sign of affection is not a sin!
Polak said:
Btw, I don’t know what Catholic church this man in the audio clip goes to, but I don’t see people kissing each other, even on the cheek, during the sign of the peace where I go.
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It is very common where I am!
 
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OraLabora said:
In telling the man that he wishes this, he is not telling him to sin. He is recognizing that he accepts their choice.
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If somebody tells a priest that they have stolen something and they feel guilty or uncomfortable about it, the priest might not condemn them, because he doesn’t want to frighten them away. What I wouldn’t expect him to say is ‘well you know, hopefully in future you will be able to steal without this feeling of guilt’.
OraLabora said:
As my spiritual director said about my own LGBQT child, “acceptance” does not equal “approval”
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I didn’t know you had an LGBT child. I suppose this makes you see it differently.
OraLabora said:
I am not missing the point. I am saying that he is not advocating sin, because a brief sign of affection is not a sin!
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You keep talking about the ‘sign of affection’. You conveniently avoid the part where Fr. Martin says he hopes he will be able to kiss his ‘soon to be husband’. I feel like I have to keep repeating this over and over because it keeps getting ‘overlooked’. Gay marriage is sinful and is against Church teaching. Why would Fr. Martin say this? A priest cannot ‘recognise and accept’ this choice, because it is sinful. This is absolutely not okay for Fr. Martin to say.
 
Polak said:
You keep talking about the ‘sign of affection’. You conveniently avoid the part where Fr. Martin says he hopes he will be able to kiss his ‘soon to be husband’. I feel like I have to keep repeating this over and over because it keeps getting ‘overlooked’. Gay marriage is sinful and is against Church teaching. Why would Fr. Martin say this? A priest cannot ‘recognise and accept’ this choice, because it is sinful. This is absolutely not okay for Fr. Martin to say.
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The place for the sacrament of reconciliation is in the confessional, not the pew. If you can’t get the faithful into the pew, you will never get them into the confessional. He is simply saying, “welcome”, even if you sinned. Because we all have.
Polak said:
Fr. Martin says LGBT people have more faith than straight people (is that a proven fact?)
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I can’t say if it is a proven fact but I know a couple of gay Catholics, and believe me it does take an awful lot of courage for them to show up in church given the prevailing attitudes. Whether courage = greater faith I cannot say, but they certainly must really want to live their faith to come to church.
 
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OraLabora said:
If you can’t get the faithful into the pew, you will never get them into the confessional. He is simply saying, “welcome”, even if you sinned. Because we all have.
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So you think a good method of getting them in the pew is by telling them their sins are fine and that you hope for them to be able to sin more in future?


Here’s a short clip I recently found from an online interview with a gay man, Dan Mattson, who used to live with his boyfriend but is now in the Catholic faith and wrote a book on his experience. He himself says that he doesn’t feel the Jesuit priest is being completely honest with gay people when he talks to the the way he does and that if he went to him as a gay Catholic, he’d feel like he was being pandered to and played. In other words, he wouldn’t be getting the truth, that he so desperately craves.

I don’t believe Fr. Martin is trying to first draw gay people into the Church and then help them change their ways. If that was the case, he wouldn’t tell a gay man he hopes he will be able to kiss his ‘future husband’ in a church. He wouldn’t say the Bible might be wrong on homosexuality because it was written a long time ago and the meaning of homosexuality wasn’t fully understood then. I think what he’s actually trying to do is slowly work to change the Church’s teaching to favour gay people, rather than getting gay people to slowly adhere to Church teaching.
OraLabora said:
I can’t say if it is a proven fact but I know a couple of gay Catholics, and believe me it does take an awful lot of courage for them to show up in church given the prevailing attitudes.
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That would suggest LGBT people have more courage than heterosexual people (at least when entering a church), not more faith as you yourself have said.
 
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I didn’t word myself well. I meant you said it showed they had courage but not necessarily greater faith. I was basically making the point that it didn’t prove they had more faith and then noticed you stated more or less the same thing.
 
Polak said:
That would suggest LGBT people have more courage than heterosexual people (at least when entering a church), not more faith as you yourself have said.
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They wouldn’t go if there wasn’t a powerful reason.
 
FiveLinden to me (Cathoholic) . . .
I don’t want to derail the thread but would be happy to discuss the witness issue as ‘proof’. For example I find it remarkable that Matthew, Mark and Luke never say that Jesus is God in any sort of direct way. And do we have any direct testimony from people who knew Jesus? Please think about starting a thread!
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Done.
 
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Well one side has their Father Martin and the other has their Father Z.

I try to stay in the middle.
 
Ah the middle way. But as Cardinal Newman found, when one of the extremes is actually found to be the truth, the middle way no longer is ‘middle’ and would be wrong.
 
stpurl said:
Ah the middle way. But as Cardinal Newman found, when one of the extremes is actually found to be the truth, the middle way no longer is ‘middle’ and would be wrong.
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I refer to the middle as following the Pope and the words of the majority of Bishops- those without the “fan” base that some suffer from.

I like Bishop Barron and his measured and stable message very much.
 
I like Bishop Barron as well. I also like Father Z very much, and there are things about Father Martin I like too.

But in the end, individual liking of a person or a message does not matter so much as the truth of the message itself.
 
stpurl said:
I like Bishop Barron as well. I also like Father Z very much, and there are things about Father Martin I like too.

But in the end, individual liking of a person or a message does not matter so much as the truth of the message itself.
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Father Martin and Father Z, I feel, taint their message with explicit appeals to a given political group.

Someone like Bishop Barron doesn’t do this.
 
everyone is responsible for educating themselves or they risk being taken in by snake oil salesmen.
 
If we follow the logic of the argument of Fr Martin. Some people are not bound to Church teaching on chastity (the LGBT) because the teaching has not been received by the People of God.

It was the same argument used by “realistic” theologian who dissen against Humanae Vitae. The teaching against contraception had not been received by the faithfull. So it is not authoritative.
 
Anyway those were three examples. Is that enough or do people want more?

How about the fact that when asked who he would have canonised, he said Sister Jeannine Gramick who founded the New Ways Ministry Look her up on wikipedia to see why that’s a problem.

As I have said, the argument that Fr. James Martin is just trying to prevent the Church from turning gay people away (something it doesn’t do anyway), encourage conversation with them and be inviting to them, is a false one. He questions Church teaching on the issue of gays and as per my example in this thread, even suggest the Bible could be wrong when it states homosexual acts are wrong.

I don’t know how any Catholic is able to look past that. At times I think it’s being ignored on purpose.
 
The problem is not Fr. Martin. The problem is the Church (or rather her hierarchy) raising LGBQT issues to a class of sin higher than any other sin: that is what’s discriminatory. That is why we need more Fr. Martins.

I would think that the Church hierarchy should keep a low profile on sexual issues for a while, until the very necessary housecleaning is done to rid the hierarchy and clergy of the abusers and enablers.
 
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Anicette said:
It was the same argument used by “realistic” theologian who dissen against Humanae Vitae . The teaching against contraception had not been received by the faithfull. So it is not authoritative.
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Is the teaching against contraception infallible?
 
OraLabora said:
The problem is the Church (or rather her hierarchy) raising LGBQT issues to a class of sin higher than any other sin: that is what’s discriminatory.
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Is the Bible discriminatory when it uses the word abomination to describe some sins?
 
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