More US bishops publicly out themselves as pro-LGBT

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May 18, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Fourteen U.S. Catholic bishops, one of them a cardinal, have added their names to 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.”

The bishops are joined by almost 150 religious orders, schools, parishes, and organizations — all Catholic — who support the statement. For Catholics striving to be faithful to the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church, the list warns them about which clergy, parishes, and schools see no problem with the normalization of homosexuality within the Catholic Church.

LifeSiteNews reported Jan. 25 that seven bishops along with Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin had originally signed a statement in partnership with the pro-homosexual advocacy group Tyler Clementi Foundation in support of young people who identify as LGBT.

“As Catholic Bishops in the United States, we join with the Tyler Clementi Foundation in standing up for at-risk LGBT youth in our country,” stated the bishops.

The statement insinuates that God created same-sex attraction in people and that such attraction is healthy and normal.

“Most of all, know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side,” the statement reads.

The statement was originally signed in January by the following prelates:

• Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archdiocese of Newark, NJ

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

• Bishop Robert McElroy, Diocese of San Diego, CA

• Bishop Edward Weisenburger, Diocese of Tucson, Arizona

• Bishop John Stowe, Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky

• Bishop Steven Biegler, Archdiocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming

• Bishop Thomas Gumbleton (retired), Diocese of Detroit, MI

• Bishop Denis Madden (retired), Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland

News names added since then are the following bishops:

• Bishop John P. Dolan, auxiliary in Diocese of San Diego

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

• Bishop Ricardo Ramirez (retired), Emeritus of Las Cruces, New Mexico

• Bishop Anthony B. Taylor, Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas

• Bishop Alberto Rojas, Diocese of San Bernardino, California

• Bishop Oscar A. Solis, Diocese of Salt Lake City, Utah

The Tyler Clementi Foundation bears the name of an 18-year-old man who committed suicide in 2010 after his roommate at university filmed him engaging in homosexual acts with another student and then released the footage to the public. “Without Tyler’s knowledge, his roommate secretly pointed his computer’s camera at Tyler’s bed, left the room, and invited other students online to watch Tyler in a most private, intimate act with another man,” states the foundation’s website about the event.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (CCC 2357).

The Catholic Church furthermore teaches that same-sex attraction is also “objectively disordered” since God created sexual attraction for the purpose of drawing a man and a woman together to become husband and wife in marriage. The Catholic Church holds that God does not make anyone “gay.”

In a 2019 Declaration of Catholic Truths, Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, together with several other bishops, made clear the Catholic position when it comes to people who are inclined to members of the same sex.

“Hence, the opinion is contrary to natural law and Divine Revelation that says that, as God the Creator has given to some humans a natural disposition to feel sexual desire for persons of the opposite sex, so also He has given to others a natural disposition to feel sexual desire for persons of the same sex, and that God intends that the latter disposition be acted on in some circumstances,” they stated.

Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin, who campaigns for the normalization of homosexuality within the Catholic Church and is the editor-at-large for Jesuit-run America Magazine, called the growing list of signatures “good news” in a May 14 tweet.

While some clergy within the Catholic Church, especially in Germany with the bishops’ “Synodal Path,” are calling for an overthrow of the Church’s sexual moral teaching, the Vatican recently pushed back against such calls by clarifying in March that the Church cannot bless homosexual couples since God “does not and cannot bless sin.”