(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Cardinal Gerhard Müller have said that Jesuit Father James Martin is not eligible for the office of cardinal due to his promotion of the homosexual agenda.
Schneider and Müller made the comments during two exclusive interviews with LifeSiteNews correspondent Jim Hale.
Recent online rumors claimed Pope Francis was considering making Martin a cardinal.
Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described Martin as “absolutely incompetent and unqualified to be a cardinal or a representative of the Holy Roman Church.”
“He accuses me of not being obedient or conform to the current Pope, but I don’t need his [opinion]; I’ve written books on the papacy,” said Müller. “He is only promoting his homosexualist agenda [which is] in contradiction with the word of God.”
Schneider shared the cardinal’s sentiment.
“We cannot promote persons who are [constantly] undermining the truth with ambiguous actions and words, like Father Martin who is promoting sin in the Church,” he said.
Schneider noted that acts of sodomy are “against the will of God, against nature, and against reason.”
“People who practice this can never be happy because their reason and their nature are telling them that this is against the order that God created,” he said. “They can only suppress the voice of their conscience and of their nature.”
The auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, who is known worldwide as one of the most prominent defenders of Catholic orthodoxy and liturgy, accused Martin of promoting sinful homosexual relations.
“He’s encouraging so-called homosexual relationships,” Schneider said, before describing this as dangerous and irresponsible.
“Homosexual couples are in a continuous danger of sin, because they are publicly demonstrating that they are engaging in a union based on a sexual attraction against their nature, and therefore they are damaging themselves and putting themselves in the occasion of sin,” he said.
“It is irresponsible for a priest to encourage them.”
Martin is the greatest force for the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in the Catholic Church today, and has a long history of pro-LGBT advocacy.
After Martin accepted an award from the dissident pro-gay group New Ways Ministry, he published a book on how the Church should be more accepting of the homosexual lifestyle. The book was inspired by his talk. Four U.S. Catholic bishops have endorsed it.
The Jesuit’s record of pro-gay activism is lengthy and ranges from his many speeches and media appearances promoting homosexuality to his retweeting of a complaint that priests can’t “bless” gay unions to suggesting that the Church is full of “homophobia” and “marginalizes” the same-sex attracted.
He supports gay men kissing each other during the sign of peace at Mass, says a Catholic attending a same-sex “wedding” is like attending a Jewish wedding, and suggests that his critics are secretly gay themselves.
In February 2017, Martin tweeted his support for transgender bathrooms. “It doesn’t hurt anybody” for boys to be allowed in girls’ bathrooms and vice versa, he claimed.
Martin says homosexual priests should “come out” about their sexual proclivities but has publicly declined to say whether he himself is gay.
At the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland, Martin said active homosexuals “should be invited into parish ministries,” specifically mentioning them becoming “eucharistic ministers” in order to make them feel welcome and accepted in the Catholic Church.
Though Martin’s support for homosexual unions has earned him criticism and condemnations from prominent members of the clergy including Cardinal Raymond Burke, he has nonetheless been supported by Pope Francis. The pontiff recently sent a letter to Martin, encouraging him in his so-called ministry to LGBT-identifying Catholics.
LifeSite’s Hale then asked Schneider to comment on the transgender movement and alluded to new U.S. laws requiring employer to acknowledge somebody’s chosen gender.
“This is a revolt of pride against the order created by God in his wisdom,” explained Schneider. “It will destroy human beings, because what is against nature and against the Will of God is destructive for us.”
Hale and Schneider agreed that such laws are “against reason.”
In conclusion, Schneider called homosexual sins “the height of insanity” as they are, according to him, a manifestation of sinful human pride and are “against nature and against the order that God established.”