Blogs
Featured Image

LifeSiteNews is facing increasing censorship. Click HERE to sign up to receive emails when we add to our video library.

February 5, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — It seems every day things are getting crazier, even though just yesterday you said to yourself, ‘It can’t get any more crazy than this.’

We’ve just learned that the Pope is going to address one of the most radical, pro-LGBT so-called “Catholic conferences” on the planet. Joe Biden, in a new interview, is once again boasting of his Catholicism and — believe it or not — “never missing Mass.”

In happier news, at least one bishop has told off his government for daring to lock down churches while leaving shopping centers and restaurants open. And, finally, the leftist swing in the Church has caused a number of usually closeted homosexuality-promoting bishops to out themselves publicly.

Before getting to all that, first things first. We’ve just learned that Pope Francis is set to  deliver an address at the opening ceremony of one of the most scandalous yearly so-called “Catholic” events in the United States, the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. 

This is the same event in Los Angeles that faithful Catholics have been picketing for decades since it scandalously promotes homosexuality and strange liturgical practices. It’s always headlined by the most dissenting priests and religious leaders around, and this year it’s no exception.

The virtual 4-day event, which runs from February 18-21, will include presentations from religious figures such as San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, who has insisted that Joe Biden be given Holy Communion. What’s more, this conference will also feature Jesuit priest Fr. Gregory Boyle, who openly promotes homosexual “marriage” and women priests.

It’s so sad that Pope Francis will be speaking at this virtual event and thus giving this heresypromoting conference his blessing. With all these things, we must continue to pray for Pope Francis’ conversion. 

If that’s not bad enough, Pope Francis just appointed homosexuality-promoting Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin to oversee a very troubling situation where a Catholic bishop was undermined by the Vatican under Pope Francis for standing up for Catholic values.

In June 2019, Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson cut ties with Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School after administrators at the school refused to follow his directive not to renew the contract of a male educator in a same-sex “marriage.” 

When the school refused to follow the policy, the archbishop decreed that the school “can no longer use the name Catholic and will no longer be identified or recognized as a Catholic institution by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.” But when the Jesuit school  appealed  to the Vatican, the Jesuit Pope, in what should have sent shock waves around the world, backed the school against the faithful archbishop, temporally  suspending  the archbishop’s decision. And the school still identifies itself as a “Catholic” school!

Now, Pope Francis has called on Cardinal Tobin to arbitrate. Tobin was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2017 while serving as archbishop of Indianapolis. Tobin has a long history of backing the normalization of homosexuality within the Catholic Church. Which way do you think Tobin is going to rule on this case? 

Let me just say, if you’re weary of the confusion, cowardice, and craziness coming from leaders in the Church, you don’t want to miss LifeSite’s latest interview with Fr. James Altman, whose words of clarity are so desperately needed right now. He sat down with LifeSite’s Danielle Zuccaro recently to give us his take on a number of controversial topics, including whether the Church should permit Joe Biden to receive Holy Communion. Watch below:

By the way, over 40,000 people have signed on to the LifeSite petition urging the U.S. bishops to refuse Holy Communion to pro-abortion Joe Biden. Be sure to sign on yourself and share it, too. You’ll find it at LifePetitions.com. Beyond that, give your own bishop a call or send him a letter or email. Meet with him personally if you have to in order to ask him to take action on this scandal in the Church. 

Biden’s so-called Catholicism seems to be in the news every day. The president, in his first White House interview along with his wife, told People magazine when asked if prayer helps him in his leadership: “I don't want to proselytize. My religion, for me, is a safe place. I never miss mass, because I can be alone.” He added, “For me, prayer gives me hope, and it centers me.” 

At least some U.S. bishops are not taking this ultimate confusion lying down.  

Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview that the bishops of the United States have an “obligation” to act when it comes to the country’s president identifying himself as a devout Catholic while working to expand abortion. 

“The fact that President Biden identifies himself as a devout Catholic, while working to preserve and expand legalized abortion, even using tax dollars to fund abortion, presents a unique challenge to the Bishops of the United States,” said Naumann, who also acts as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

He called on bishops and laity across the country to “pray and fast” for Joe Biden so that he will “cease attempting to confuse people about Catholic teaching by trampling on the sanctity of human life while presenting himself as a devout Catholic.” 

When asked about how he deals with the problem of pro-abortion politicians who claim to be Catholic presenting themselves for Holy Communion, the archbishop said that if dialoguing with them produces no fruit, he requests that they not present themselves to receive. 

“If even after an extended dialogue a Catholic in public life persists in scandalous actions, I have found it necessary to request that they not present themselves to receive Holy Communion, for their own spiritual welfare and for the protection of many others from moral confusion,” he said. 

And there are other courageous bishops willing to speak truth to power as well.

Peruvian Archbishop Javier Del Río Alba slammed his government for forcing churches to shut down while shopping malls are allowed to stay open. “They have ordered the total closure of temples and centers of worship in almost all of Peru,” he said, “while in the same places banks, shopping centers and even restaurants are allowed to operate, with a capacity that can reach up to 50 percent.” 

The archbishop reiterated the importance of in-person attendance at the sacraments, saying it is “highly worrying that our leaders do not recognize this vital need of the majority of Peruvians and even give it less importance than merely recreational encounters.” 

Remember, it is a universal principal that the government cannot dictate religious practice. In an  open letter  published in May 2020, Catholic clergy led by former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and three Cardinals, Gerhard Müller, Joseph Zen, and Janis Pujats, reminded politicians around the world that “the state has no right to interfere, for any reason, whatsoever, in the sovereignty of the church.” They added that “as pastors we firmly assert the right to decide autonomously on the celebration of Mass and the Sacraments, just as we claim absolute autonomy in matters falling within our immediate jurisdiction, such as liturgical norms and ways of administering Communion and the Sacraments.” 

And, finally, let me get to our top 10 list of anti-family bishops. One of the best things about the papacy of Pope Francis has been the rediscovered honesty of some of the dissident bishops in the Church. Under the papacies of John Paul II or Benedict XVI, many prelates hid their heterodox views. But under Pope Francis, they feel free to show their true colors or one might say come out of the closet.   

  •  Cardinal  Blase Cupich, Archdiocese of Chicago, IL

Cardinal Blase Cupich has  praised  the pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin and has  removed a priest  in his archdiocese from his parish in  apparent  retaliation for his decision to burn a “rainbow pride flag” previously used by the parish to promote the homosexual agenda.  When he was still an archbishop, I asked him in a press scrum if he believed homosexual couples could receive Holy Communion and he replied in the affirmative.

  • Cardinal  Wilton Gregory , Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

Cardinal  Wilton Gregory has  permitted the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Atlanta, GA) to act as a center for LGBT events, including LGBT  potluck s and socials. The group has also participated in the  city’s Pride Parade. Gregory has personally invited  pro-homosexual Fr. James Martin to speak in his archdiocese  and  has  designated  a  pro-gay priest  who heads a homosexual-affirming parish as the “Spiritual Director for Victims” of sex abuse for the Atlanta archdiocese.  

  • Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archdiocese of Newark, NJ  

Cardinal Tobin has endorsed  pro-LGBT celebrity priest Fr. James Martin, has called the Church’s teachings on homosexuality “ unfortunate” and hurtfuland he has welcomed homosexuals  to the Cathedral Basilica in Newark as a part of an LGBT pilgrimage where Catholics “married to same-sex spouses” were invited to participate in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  

  • Archbishop John C. Wester, Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM  

Last year, Archbishop Wester  spoke at  a conference on Catholic LGBTQ pastoral ministry that included  dissident nun Sr. Jeannine Gramick, S.L., of New Ways Ministry, a pro-LGBT group condemned by the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops . He has also expressed his appreciation for people  in  LGBTQ ministry.    

  • Auxiliary Bishop John P. Dolan, Diocese of San Diego, CA  

Bishop Dolan has been  pastor of an extremely  pro-LGBT  Catholic  parish, and has, in  the past, along with “married” homosexual partners, celebrated a special Mass for  “Families of the LGBT Community.”   

  • Bishop Robert McElroy, Diocese of San Diego, CA  

Bishop McElroy  has said that labeling homosexual acts as “intrinsically  disordered,” as the Catechism describes them, is “very destructive language  that I think we should not use pastorally.” He’s also praised a parish  that advertises Masses with the LGBT rainbow flag. He also has allowed of a young adult ministry led by an openly homosexual man.  

  • Bishop John Stowe, Diocese of Lexington, KY  

Bishop John Stowe  has promoted homosexuality in the church and last year spoke at  a conference  on Catholic LGBTQ pastoral ministry. He’s also previously attended a pro-LGBT conference  stating that morality is about ‘dignity’ not ‘rules,’ even though the group  organizing  the conference has been condemned by the Vatican and the US  Bishops conference.

  • Bishop Steven Biegler, Archdiocese of Cheyenne, WY  

Bishop Steven Biegler has, alongside a cardinal and 10 bishops, teamed up with a pro-homosexual advocacy group to release a statement  affirming youths who identify as LGBT,  stating,  ”God is on your side.” Moreover, he downplayed the fact that the majority of victims of clerical sexual crimes against minors in the Catholic Church have been teenage boys. 

  • Bishop Edward Weisenburger, Diocese of Tucson, AZ

Bishop Edward Weisenburger has just signed a statement in partnership with a pro-homosexual advocacy group in support of young people who identify as LGBT, telling them that  “God is on your side.”

  • Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, Diocese of Jackson,  MS 

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz has, alongside Cardinal Joseph Tobin and 10 bishops, teamed up with a pro-homosexual advocacy group to release their statement affirming youths who identify as LGBT,  stating, “God is on your side.” Bishop Kopacz is also suspected of covering up for fraudulent priests and for punishing whistleblower priests.   

  • Cardinal Kevin Farrell, former bishop of Dallas, TX

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was a U.S. bishop for 30 years, deserves an honorary mention on this list, even though he was moved to the Vatican in 2016 by Pope Francis and made a cardinal. He was one of a few high-ranking prelates  to publicly praise pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin’s book

Knowing this list is actually good news. We can avoid these bishops and we can guard our children, our families, and our friends from their false teaching. But most importantly, we can pray for their conversion. Remember, these men are very much like Joe Biden, and perhaps like some of your own friends and family. They are all, very probably, nice and likeable people. They all believe they are practicing Catholics. It’s just that they believe something very different from what the Church has always taught about homosexuality. 

Homosexuality is an intrinsically disordered sexual drive. Just like the temptation to any sin, these drives are to be fought against, and giving in to them brings us to sin. The inclination or temptation is not, in itself, a sin. When we give in to the temptation is when we sin, which can deprive us of eternal life. Just like it’s a sin for a married man to give in to temptations to be intimate with a woman who is not his wife, or even as Our Lord Himself said, to look at another woman with lust, so, too, do those men and women who give in to the temptations of lustful desires towards people of the same sex harm themselves and those they involve in their behaviors. 

The Church’s stance on this is one of love. Love for God first, and love of neighbor and self. It is not love to offend God, nor to harm your neighbor or yourself. Same-sex sexual behavior harms the body, mind, and soul. To really show love, to really care for those with same-sex attractions is to tell them with kindness and honesty that giving in to such temptations is deadly, and with God’s grace those temptations can be overcome. It is a struggle, to be sure, just like it’s a struggle to remain pure in this world that is so steeped in sexual temptation. But just remember that Our Lady warned in 1917 that more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than for any other sin.

So, let us pray for these bishops, let us offer up our prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for their conversion and for our own purity of heart, mind, and soul. Let us remember to make the First Five Saturdays devotion, as Our Lady asked us to do. And, by promoting true devotion to Our Lady in this world, Her Immaculate Heart will triumph as She brings Jesus Christ once again to a fallen world and into the stables of our hearts

The John-Henry Westen Show is available by video on the show’s YouTube channel and right here on my LifeSite blog.

It is also available in audio format on platforms such as SpotifySoundcloud, and ACast. We are awaiting approval for iTunes and Google Play as well. To subscribe to the audio version on various channels, visit the ACast webpage here.

We’ve created a special email list for the show so that we can notify you every week when we post a new episode. Please sign up now by clicking here. You can also subscribe to the YouTube channel, and you’ll be notified by YouTube when there is new content.

You can send me feedback, or ideas for show topics by emailing [email protected].

 

By clicking subscribe, you are agreeing to receive emails about The John-Henry Westen Show and related emails from LifeSiteNews.

Featured Image

John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.