James Martin, SJ Responds to the Nashville Statement

[Luke6_37]

I just read it: “Everybody knows that same-sex marriage and homosexual acts are contrary to Catholic moral teaching.”

Well then I would ask, does everyone know that contraception is contrary to Catholic moral teaching?

Don’t forget masterbation! That’s on the list too, but for some reason it always gets left out.

 

[Luke6_37]

Nothing wrong with that; in fact, I don’t disagree with any of Fr. Martin’s 7 tweets.

But see my comments here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=14890402#post14890402

I read the article you linked to in your post by Brother Andre. He does a great job explaining why upon a careful reading one will see that the Nashville statement is not Catholic, but represents a view of human sexuality that is itself disordered. My take from it is that he sees it as an illustration of the pot calling the kettle black.

I think James Martin’s and Brother Andre’s responses are both good, because they serve different purposes for different audiences. James Martin is preaching the true Gospel in its most basic form for a general audience so as to parry the stroke against it by Protestant distortions. Brother Andre is writing as a warning to the faithful.

Thanks for sending me the link!

 

[Luke6_37]

My point is that James Martin avoids answering valid questions, very similar to what you are doing. What happens after that is typically one deciding for themselves what is and isn’t a sin, while claiming that their behavior is between “them and Christ,” when in reality, Christ has been removed from the equation entirely, and one is worshiping and obeying only himself/herself. I assure you, I am speaking from bitter personal experience.

No one (correct me if I’m wrong) has encountered James Martin and then proceeded to tell everyone “come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” Because that isn’t what he does. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman as a beloved child of God, telling her (very tenderly) that she had sinned. James Martin speaks to his hearers as beloved children of the devil, seductively telling them that they can figure out for themselves what is and isn’t a sin. This is not what Jesus commissioned the apostles to do.

I am sorry for whatever sorrow you experienced, but this is about an initial engagement with a loving God, which is only the first step in transforming our sinful nature. Try to have more faith in the power of the Gospel, which should always be presented as good news, and not condemnation.

 

[James248]

I am sorry for whatever sorrow you experienced, but this is about an initial engagement with a loving God, which is only the first step in transforming our sinful nature. Try to have more faith in the power of the Gospel, which should always be presented as good news, and not condemnation.

We’d be more effective in preaching the Gospel if we urged people to repent. We won’t win anyone over if we don’t tell it like it is.

 

[otjm]

However accurate it may be.

If the priest has SSA, not only is he not alone; but he has a Church which has had and currently has other priests with SSA and will likely have in the future.

SSA is not a sin. Sexual relations outside marriage is. If he has SSA and is not sexually active, then what is the point in the discussion of this, other than as a means of character assassination?

And if he has violated chastity, then any discussion of it here is merely gossip - which is sinful on the part of those who carry it on.

And unless he has publicly stated that he has done so, all one knows is gossip, as it constitutes pure hearsay.

 

[otjm]

An Evangelical theologian responds to Fr. James Martin S.J.

I think Dr. Gagnon overstates his case.

 

[otjm]

My point is that James Martin avoids answering valid questions, very similar to what you are doing. What happens after that is typically one deciding for themselves what is and isn’t a sin, while claiming that their behavior is between “them and Christ,” when in reality, Christ has been removed from the equation entirely, and one is worshiping and obeying only himself/herself. I assure you, I am speaking from bitter personal experience.

No one (correct me if I’m wrong) has encountered James Martin and then proceeded to tell everyone “come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” Because that isn’t what he does. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman as a beloved child of God, telling her (very tenderly) that she had sinned. James Martin speaks to his hearers as beloved children of the devil, seductively telling them that they can figure out for themselves what is and isn’t a sin. This is not what Jesus commissioned the apostles to do.

Perhaps you have read other writings of Father Martin, SJ. I have not read the whole thread, and perhaps I missed it.

But you are reading with preconceived ideas as to what he supposedly should have said, instead of taking at face value what he says.

Nothing he wrote in any way violated Catholic moral teaching. To the uninitiated and the naive, there is an undercurrent of hatred and revulsion of the LGBTQ community. Whether or not the Nashville statement supports that, states that, or strengthens that, it is a reality, and it appears he is responding to that very real discrimination.

As such, therre is no need for him to address all that you condemn him for not addressing; he is talking about one matter, and you are addressing a different one.

Could he have done better? That depends on what is being discussed; and given the fact that there is a backlash to LGBTQ that does not account for the fact they they, too, are children of God and that appears to be what he is stating, you do not make your point.

In my last three jobs I have worked directly with a number of homosexuals. I have seen the discrimination, so it is not like I am conjuring up something just to be argumentative. I have defended them and befriended them, not because I approve of their lifestyle, but because they are people - God’s children, just as much as some of the young people who are heterosexual, and with whom I have worked, And any number of them have been sexually active outside of marriage.

I don’t need to go around condemning their choices or warning them they are going to hell. And they also know pretty much down to the crossed t’s and dotted i’s where I come from about morality of sexual activities.

Father Martin can support LGBQT people as he has, by stating Church principals as he did, and without reiterating what most of them already know (and may have very skewed opinions of), and he does not fail as a priest. There is a time for everything; the fact that you think this is the time and the place does not make it so.

 

[otjm]

We’d be more effective in preaching the Gospel if we urged people to repent. We won’t win anyone over if we don’t tell it like it is.

From that statement you would appear to have a whole lot to learn about how to draw people to Christ.

I recently was working with a younger woman (in catechesis) who is in an irregular marriage.

She has had a history of people telling her how wrong she is and how she needs to repent.

I am the first person in that long line who actually got her to start the process of trying to address the matter through the tribunal.

And her comment to someone I work with that she was going to start, was that I was the most non-judgmental person who had ever talked to her.

Everyone else had urged her to repent and “told her like it is”.

We need a whole lot less urging to repent, and a whole lot more bringing people closer to Christ, and relying on the Holy Spirit to do the work, instead of us trying to do the Holy Spirit’s work.

 

[EIF5A]

Nothing he wrote in any way violated Catholic moral teaching.

He is not presenting the entirety of Catholic moral teaching: the call to repentance.

That’s like saying, “God loves adulterers” is in line with Catholic moral teaching because it is true - God does love all sinners.

He is presenting the “Love the sinner” but not “Hate the sin”.

The only take-home message is “The Catholic Church is unfair to LGBT people”.

I’m gay/SSA/LGBT/whatever you call it. If I were outside of the Catholic Church, reading his words would NOT want to make me aspire to chastity and repent of my sins. It would just reaffirm the secular belief that the Catholic Church is outdated and that one day, she would catch on to “modern psychology” and be “tolerant”.

If I have a tumor, I want an operation, despite the pain and suffering, not tylenol.

 

[Peter_J]

Thank you for saying that, EIF5A, but I would go further than that: someone needed to say what Br. Andre said about the Nashville Statement which Fr. Martin did not. For example, “There are two glaring omissions, which reveal at least two Achilles heels on the subjects of marriage, family, and human sexuality. … First, the statement says nothing of the sacramental nature of Matrimony. … Second, the teleology of marriage is not at all mentioned.”

He goes on to explain those, see catholicism.org/statement-nashville-statement.html

That is, of course, not to say that I disagree with anything that Fr. Martin said. However, the effect of his statement has certainly been troubling.

 

[1neophyte]

Read the first sentence in this article: americamagazine.org/issue/simply-loving

That first sentence is a blatant lie. Not “everybody knows” that. You underestimate the confusion that slinks through every communication medium we have. There are many who sincerely believe the Church is “changing,” and can quote “Who am I to judge?” much faster than they can quote any scripture, without making the slightest effort to understand the nuanced context of the quote.

The more telling part of the article in your link is the final paragraph, where none of Martin’s three-step “process” calls anyone to repent of anything. He seems to want a world where his introduction is flipped; he wants “everyone to know” that we are to treat all with respect, sensitivity, and compassion, but where the truth of the sinfulness of homosexual acts is obscured.

If these conclusions were incorrect, it would be SO easy for him to clarify his position. But his lack of clarity is problematic, to say the least.

 

[James248]

From that statement you would appear to have a whole lot to learn about how to draw people to Christ.

I recently was working with a younger woman (in catechesis) who is in an irregular marriage.

She has had a history of people telling her how wrong she is and how she needs to repent.

I am the first person in that long line who actually got her to start the process of trying to address the matter through the tribunal.

And her comment to someone I work with that she was going to start, was that I was the ****most non-judgmental person who had ever talked to her.

Everyone else had urged her to repent and “told her like it is”.

We need a whole lot less urging to repent, and a whole lot more bringing people closer to Christ, and relying on the Holy Spirit to do the work, instead of us trying to do the Holy Spirit’s work.

The Baptist would disagree with you:
Luke 3
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

 

[JimG]

An anecdote from Jason Scott Jones:

"This week I had two old friends drop me. One’s female, one’s male, and each lives with same-sex attraction. I’d never been preachy with them. I’d answered their questions honestly, when they asked me what I believe. And we respected each other.

That’s a lot harder now.

Why? Because Father James Martin, S.J., advisor to Pope Francis, is claiming that Catholics can and should approve of same-sex relationships. Now neither of these friends wants to speak to me. They think I have the option of accepting their sexual lifestyles, but I’m just willfully refusing. Out of a mindless nostalgia for old social norms."

Source

 

[otjm]

He is not presenting the entirety of Catholic moral teaching: the call to repentance.

Why do you presume that his comments were intended to be a full explication of Catholic moral theology?

That’s like saying, “God loves adulterers” is in line with Catholic moral teaching because it is true - God does love all sinners.

He is presenting the “Love the sinner” but not “Hate the sin”.

The only take-home message is “The Catholic Church is unfair to LGBT people”.

No, that is not the only message, or even any message. He was responding to a specific issue - the hatred and discrimination the LGBTQ community gets. You want it to be a full blown conversation and it was not meant to be.

I’m gay/SSA/LGBT/whatever you call it. If I were outside of the Catholic Church, reading his words would NOT want to make me aspire to chastity and repent of my sins. It would just reaffirm the secular belief that the Catholic Church is outdated and that one day, she would catch on to “modern psychology” and be “tolerant”.

If I have a tumor, I want an operation, despite the pain and suffering, not tylenol.

You are taking this to where you want it to be. He was not conversing with you, but you are attempting to bend it to yourself. Reading his words was not meant to make you aspire to anything; it was to counter the aspirations of those who demean.

 

[Peter_J]

Why do you presume that his comments were intended to be a full explication of Catholic moral theology?

No, that is not the only message, or even any message.

I don’t have any special insight into EIF’s thinking, but I would guess that he meant to say:
The only take-home message is “The Nashville Statement is unfair to LGBT people”.

But in any case, like I told someone else, I’m just glad that Brother Andre stepped forward and said what Fr. Martin did not.

 

[otjm]

I don’t have any special insight into EIF’s thinking, but I would guess that he meant to say:
The only take-home message is “The Nashville Statement is unfair to LGBT people”.

But in any case, like I told someone else, I’m just glad that Brother Andre stepped forward and said what Fr. Martin did not.

While I was educated in part by Jesuits before they became the source of so much controversy, I do not bother to find their magazine. Nor am I trying to be a promoter of Father Martin.

Having said that, the world of near instant communications and the ensuing chaos would take someone blind and deaf to fail to see the chasm we now have in political discussions; while the topic at hand has to do with moral theology, it also is deeply buried in the political realm.

I don’t tweet, nor do I look for others’ bits of wit, wisdom, and stupidity in that medium. Fr. Martin tweeted in a matter that covers both politics and theology, and those who expect him to give an exposition of moral theology when, I strongly suspect, the tweet had more to do with politics, are going to be disappointed.

Perhaps he soft-peddles the moral issue. Taking what I see as a tweet more directed to the political side does not, in my estimation, prove his moral stance.

And the fact that numerous people are being sucked into the political maelstrom only shows me their inability to think critically.

To which I would add: I have been involved with RCIA and Catholics Returning Home for the better part of a 25 year span. One thing I have found is that those with serious moral issues know they are serious moral issues. The demand that we preach morality seems to presume those suffering a serious moral crises have no clue. My experience is to the contrary.

 

[EIF5A]

Why do you presume that his comments were intended to be a full explication of Catholic moral theology?

There’s not a hint of repentance in his statement. Or conversion of the soul towards God. Or beginning a journey to find God and leaving behind a sinful past. It’s all about feelings.

No, that is not the only message, or even any message. He was responding to a specific issue - the hatred and discrimination the LGBTQ community gets. You want it to be a full blown conversation and it was not meant to be.

What hatred and discrimination does the LGBTQ community get from Catholics/Christians in terms of doctrine or theology? Fr. Martin’s tweets and statements have to be taken in context of his rise to social media influence. Does he ever talk about repentance? Does he ever talk about chastity as a noble goal?

You are taking this to where you want it to be. He was not conversing with you, but you are attempting to bend it to yourself. Reading his words was not meant to make you aspire to anything; it was to counter the aspirations of those who demean.

Who is he responding to? Who are these people that “demean”?

I take this personally because there are well-meaning (LGBTQ) people out there who think living in homosexual behavior is not serious and that the Church will somehow “wake up” to modern times.

What purpose does his statement serve other than rehashing the prejudiced idea that Christians are bigoted towards LGBTQ?

Again, who is “demeaning” to the LGBTQ that Fr. Martin had to step up to defend them?

Who are these perpetrators?

 

[Peter_J]

While I was educated in part by Jesuits before they became the source of so much controversy, I do not bother to find their magazine. Nor am I trying to be a promoter of Father Martin.

Having said that, the world of near instant communications and the ensuing chaos would take someone blind and deaf to fail to see the chasm we now have in political discussions; while the topic at hand has to do with moral theology, it also is deeply buried in the political realm.

I don’t tweet, nor do I look for others’ bits of wit, wisdom, and stupidity in that medium. Fr. Martin tweeted in a matter that covers both politics and theology, and those who expect him to give an exposition of moral theology when, I strongly suspect, the tweet had more to do with politics, are going to be disappointed.

Perhaps he soft-peddles the moral issue. Taking what I see as a tweet more directed to the political side does not, in my estimation, prove his moral stance.

And the fact that numerous people are being sucked into the political maelstrom only shows me their inability to think critically.

To which I would add: I have been involved with RCIA and Catholics Returning Home for the better part of a 25 year span. One thing I have found is that those with serious moral issues know they are serious moral issues. The demand that we preach morality seems to presume those suffering a serious moral crises have no clue. My experience is to the contrary.

Well I would say that we preach morality along with everything else that we preach. But in any case, the Nashville Statement is clearly meant as a laying-out of sexual morality, and it is in light of that fact that I take Br. Andre point about “two glaring omissions” in it. (“There are two glaring omissions, which reveal at least two Achilles heels on the subjects of marriage, family, and human sexuality. … First, the statement says nothing of the sacramental nature of Matrimony. … Second, the teleology of marriage is not at all mentioned.”)

There’s also Why I Won’t Sign the Nashville Statement. The author of that article is Evangelical not Catholic, so not surprisingly he didn’t talk about those “two glaring omissions” … but see his comments on in vitro fertilization and “wrongdoing within marriage itself”. A pretty Catholic-sounding, if I might put it that way, commentary on the Nashville Statement – more so that quite a lot of the comments I’ve been reading from Catholics!