Fr. James Martin Wants You to Believe the Debate Is All Over

It seems the purpose of Fr. James Martin’s recent charm offensive with orthodox Church people and outlets is to lull some of the faithful into a kind of complacency or an acceptance of defeat about homosexuality in the Church. It’s over, folks. The “LGBTQs” have won. Those icky hateful Catholics and conservatives have lost. Time to move on. Time for unity!

This came across abundantly in Fr. Martin’s interview with two Gen-Z Catholics on the First Things podcast “Secred Third Thing.” Host Virginia Aabram said people were “getting past the point of hashing it out.” She also said her generation is bored with the debate about the meaning of Vatican II, what has been the most important Church event in our age, and one that we will continue to debate for another century or more.

Her co-host Germán Diaz said homosexuality is “no longer a left-wing or a right-wing issue; it’s just reality.” He seems to have concluded that because Trump has gays all around him. See, the debate is over. Now Diaz and Aabram probably did not need Fr. Martin to convince them that the battle is over. They drew these conclusions on their own. I do not intend to be rough on Aabram and Diaz, and I have no doubt they believe what they believe.

But it should be clear that Fr. James Martin does not believe the debate is over, and he is quite content that these young people and others believe it is. What Fr. Martin believes is that the battle is far from over, that the battle won’t be over until married gays can kiss at the sign of peace, as he said on a public stage at Villanova University in 2017. He will not be content until the Church no longer teaches that homosexuality is disordered but rather “differently ordered.” Not bad at all, practically the same, just different. He does not believe the debate is over until we understand that the LGBTQ identity springs from their innermost being created by God because God does not make junk.

As annoying as all this is, we must still be grateful that Fr. Martin deigned to participate in these anodyne conversations, precisely because it gives the faithful another opportunity to examine Fr. James Martin’s thoughts and intentions. He and his outreach to LGBTQs had faded a bit into the background. But with this new charm offensive, he has come roaring back.

Note that Outreach, the group he founded and promotes, just issued the most remarkable and offensive Confiteor. This is part of a series “that explores praying with the Mass from an LGBTQ perspective.” This first piece in the series was written by a lesbian who advocates for women priests. She is also lesbian-married. For a whole lot of reasons, she is not content with this:

“I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do… therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

Instead, she wants:

“I confess to our Loving God and to you, my siblings, That I have fallen short in my prejudiced thoughts and my biased judgements in my careless words and my degrading self-talk in what I have done to cooperate with injustice and in what I have failed to do to resist it; Through my fear, through my complacency, through my worst errors. Therefore I ask all my spiritual ancestors, queer saints, and you, the human family, to pray with me, that together we might build a better tomorrow. Amen.”

This is what Fr. James Martin and the Jesuit America Magazine are, in their own words, celebrating and elevating.

Which brings us to the question of “unity.” We are all now supposed to be getting on the unity bandwagon, although we are not entirely sure what that means. They will likely say unity around the truth of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. But they don’t really mean that, because if they did, they would also favor Truth, the thing with a capital T.

It cannot be the Truth that women, like this Outreach author, can be married to another woman. It cannot be the Truth that married gay men ought to kiss at the sign of peace, or that sodomy is merely “differently ordered.”

“Unity” is quite a bit like “civility.” Civility was always aimed at the lay faithful as a weapon. Shut up if you disagree with “progressives.” If you disagree with “progressives,” well then you are being “uncivil.” Unity works the same way. Do you really believe what the Church teaches on human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular? If so, you are against “unity,” and you are probably “uncivil,” too!

All of this chummy talk with Fr. James Martin is profoundly harmful unless these conservative interlocutors actually engage Fr. Martin in what he really believes. So far, none of them have been willing.