News
Featured Image
Fr. James Martin.James Martin / Twitter

November 14, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-homosexual activist Fr. James Martin yesterday announced a 2020 “LGBTQ Catholic ministry gathering” at the Jesuit Fordham University that has a speakers’ roster so packed with dissidents that one critic called it a “direct challenge” to New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

Martin billed the June 18–20 “Outreach 2020” on Twitter as an event for Catholics “engaged in ministry with LGBT Catholics — in parishes, schools and other Catholic institutions.”

According to Martin, keynote speakers include Bishop John Stowe, OFM of Lexington, Kentucky; Sr. Jeannine Gramick, S.L. of New Ways Ministry; Father Bryan Massingale of Fordham; Siva Subburaman of Georgetown University; and Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., former master general of the Dominican Order.

Other speakers are Bishop Christopher Coyne of South Burlington; James Alison; Father Greg Greiten; Shelly Fitzgerald; Fr. William Hart McNichols; M. Shawn Copeland; Lisa Fullam; Gerard McGlone, S.J.; Sister Edith Prendergast, RSC; and “other ministers, theologians, writers and LGBT Catholics,” according to Martin.

Musician David Haas — who infamously wrote a hymn for “Pride” Month this year — “will provide the music for our liturgies.”

“The conference is being planned in conjunction with Fordham University’s Center for Religion and Culture, with America Magazine as its media sponsor,” noted Martin, who is an editor at large for America, and consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication.

Given those attending, Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, swiftly condemned the conference as “dissident activism, not ministry” and a “direct challenge” to New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for authentic Catholic ministry, with loving compassion and genuine dialogue that honestly seeks and embraces truth… listening attentively without denying our faith and magisterial teaching. That’s clearly NOT what this is. Not with these speakers,” Reilly tweeted.

LifeSiteNews contacted the Archdiocese of New York for a response from Cardinal Dolan, currently in Rome on his ad limina visit, but had received no response by deadline.

As for the “Outreach 2020” speakers, Gramick, of New Ways Ministry, whose open dissent dates back to the ’80s, was rebuked in 1997 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for “doctrinally unacceptable” positions on homosexuality and “has been ordered to not speak on behalf of the Catholic Church in the United States due to the grave error of her teaching,” Ohio archbishop Dennis Schnurr warned his archdiocese in 2018.  

New Ways Ministry is well known to be a dissident pro-LGBT group that has been formally condemned by both the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for opposing Church teaching, with its speakers repeatedly banned from speaking in Catholic dioceses.

Alison is an ex-Dominican priest who was expelled from the religious order because of his clear rejection of Church teaching on homosexuality, as Philip Lawler pointed out in October.  

Stowe’s homosexual advocacy includes, among other things, speaking at the dissident New Ways Ministry conference and issuing a “prayer” card in 2019 to commemorate the “celebration of Pride” that features on the front a San Damiano Cross with rainbow colors coming from it. On the back is a brief letter issued to those who celebrate “Pride,” which celebrates the homosexual lifestyle. 

Massingale openly challenged Milwaukee’s Archbishop Jerome Listecki by holding a NWM retreat for “gay” priests September 2018, despite the archbishop’s statement that the event “is not in line with Catholic Church teaching and is in no way connected to or endorsed by the archdiocese” and that NWM “is not a Catholic organization.”

English priest and author Radcliffe, whom Pope Francis appointed as consultor for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2015, was master of the Dominican Order from 1992 to 2001 and an outspoken proponent of homosexuality. He mused in 2013 that “gay sexuality” can can be “expressive of Christ’s self-gift.”

Regarding Outreach 2020, Martin tweeted, “Tentative panel topics include: Best Practices in Parishes; Best Practices in Schools; Employment in Catholic Institutions; Family Issues; Spirituality for LGBT Catholics; Theological Insights for LGBT Catholics; Race, Ethnicity and Intersectionality….Media Training for LGBT Ministry; and Transgender Issues; and LGBT Issues and Mental Health.”

It does not appear that representatives of Courage, the Church-approved apostolate that helps same-sex attracted Catholic live chastely, will be speaking at “Outreach 2020.”