The Slippery Tales of Fr. James Martin S.J.

Fr. James Martin, S.J., wants you to believe that homosexuals hear “relentless” thundering from the pulpit against homosexuality. And this relentless thundering keeps homosexuals away from the Church.

In a recent interview with JD Flynn at The Pillar, Martin offers several anecdotes along these lines, that homosexuals hear relentless condemnation from the pulpit. Does this claim strike you as even remotely true? The Crisis audience is fairly conservative, probably attending conservative parishes, so if anyone has heard this kind of relentless anti-gay thundering from the pulpit, you have. But I know you haven’t. You are probably laughing out loud. You probably have hardly ever heard a squeak about homosexuality from the pulpit. You are probably saying, “I wish!”

In the Pillar interview, Martin tells two stories along these lines, what Mark Twain would call “stretchers” and I would call, well, lies.

In story one, a young homosexually inclined man goes to Mass and hears “some really hateful things about LGBTQ people from the pulpit in [his] parish” and he stops going to Mass.

His mother prays, and eventually the young man decides to return with her on Easter Sunday. He and his mother enter the church that day holding hands, and it is a beautiful moment, but then what do they hear from the pulpit? A sermon about the “evils of same-sex marriage.” The young man walks out, presumably never to return. Martin says he told this story to Pope Francis, who exclaimed, “On Easter?”

The other story that is simply not possible is about a young woman in college who decides to come out as homosexual to the campus minister. When she tells this to the campus minister, the campus minister supposedly says, according to Martin, “I’m very sorry to hear that. I have prayed that I would never have to meet someone like you.” This is laugh-out-loud preposterous. This never happened.

The “tell” in both of these stories from Martin is that he introduces the first by saying it is “totally true,” and the second by admitting “you probably won’t believe this.” Uh-huh, totally true.

Do any of you believe these stories are remotely true, especially the second one? It very well could be that the young man in story number one heard something about homosexuality at church, and it is at least remotely possible that during the national debate about gay marriage, a priest said something about gay marriage. But “the evils” of gay marriage at Easter? Come on, Father, don’t be so gullible, and don’t assume we are.

And then Fr. Martin tells the story of the famous photograph of him blessing two homosexuals holding hands while a reporter and a photographer from the New York Times just happened to be there in his living room.

Martin insists the whole thing was utterly spontaneous and that it didn’t even occur to him that the New York Times might run a story about it and run the photograph. Does this sound even remotely true to anyone? Fiducia Supplicans comes out, Martin’s gay pal Jason messages immediately and says, can I come by with my “husband” for a blessing? Sure, Martin says, knowing full well the New York Times would be there. And golly, then the blessing appears in the New York Times!

He also claims that before that document he couldn’t bless couples, and after it he could. Of course, this is false. Before Fiducia Supplicans, any two, three, four, or ten people could approach a Catholic priest on the street and say, “Hey, Father, can we have your blessing?”

“Certainly. I bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Done, walk on. The priests I know are well and truly moved and touched by this kind of piety among the faithful. They did not need a document to do this.

One could go on and on about Father Martin’s dissembling. He quite famously said on stage one day that he looked forward to when married gay men could kiss at the sign of peace. Flynn pressed him on that, and his response was that he’d “probably say it differently today.” Flynn should have pushed him here: “But do you look forward to that day when married gays can kiss at the sign of peace?”

The rapport between Church insiders Flynn and Martin was quite cozy, even charming. They’re clearly close acquaintances, seeing each other at Vatican events and all that insider stuff. JD is to be commended for pushing back at several points, particularly on how “accompaniment can become accommodation.”

On accommodation, the slippery Jesuit turned the tables on JD and started talking about how we are obsessed with the personal moral lives of homosexuals and not our neighbors who are contracepting. Aren’t we accommodating contraceptors? I would point out that our contracepting neighbors do not have a contraception month where government and corporations praise contraception and contraceptors. The contraceptors are not marching nearly naked down Main Street; neither are they dancing provocatively in front of schoolchildren.

One of the hot topics about Fr. James Martin is whether he accepts church teaching on homosexuality. He says that he does, but of course he is lying or dissembling. He has said on record that “disordered” could be changed to “differently ordered.” That shows he does not accept the teaching. And he believes that while everyone knows the teaching, the teaching isn’t really a teaching until the laity accept it. He says it has not been accepted, most especially by the “LGBTQ community.” So, when he says he accepts the teaching, what exactly does he mean?

It is clear Martin is currently working the starboard side of the church, what with an appearance on the First Things podcast, this interview with JD Flynn at The Pillar, and, truly sadly, carrying the monstrance down Broadway for the annual Napa Institute Eucharistic procession. Did you notice how handy the photographer was so that Martin could post that photograph on social media within hours?

Martin is a kind of poison in the body of the Church; even sipping slowly can kill.