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June 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – On the eve of a heretical LGBT conference hosted by a Jesuit university, Pope Francis sent Father James Martin, SJ – the loudest voice for the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism within the Catholic Church today – a handwritten note praising his fellow Jesuit’s controversial pro-LGBT “ministry,” saying it “reflects the closeness of God” and is in the “style of God.”
Martin shared the Pope’s handwritten letter, dated June 21, on Sunday via Twitter, after the controversial Outreach 2021 L.G.B.T. webinar conference at Jesuit-run Fordham University had concluded.
The Pope’s note was written in response to a communication that Martin had sent Francis earlier, informing him of the upcoming LGBT conference organized by renegade New Ways Ministry (NWM), which has been denounced as non-Catholic initiative by the U.S. bishops and whose leaders defied the Vatican’s order to cease their affiliation with NWM decades ago.
Speakers at the online conference included Martin, Bishop John Stowe, O.F.M., Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, Fordham’s self-declared “gay” priest Fr. Bryan N. Massingale, and representatives of dissident pro-gay group Fortunate Families.
Addressing Fr. Martin’s LGBT initiative and his involvement in the June 26 conference, Pope Francis wrote:
Regarding your P.S. [about the Outreach LGBT Ministry Conference], I want to thank you for your pastoral zeal and your ability to be close to people, with that closeness that Jesus had and that reflects the closeness of God. Our Heavenly Father approaches with love every one of his children, each and everyone. His heart is open to each and everyone. He is Father. God’s “style” has three aspects: closeness, compassion and tenderness. This is how he draws closer to each one of us.
Thinking about your pastoral work, I see that you are continuously looking to imitate this style of God. You are a priest for all men and women, just as God is the Father for all men and women. I pray for you to continue in this way, being close, compassionate and with great tenderness.
And I pray for your faithful, your “parishioners,” and anyone whom the Lord places in your care, so that you protect them, and make them grow in the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Pope signed his name simply, Francisco.
And may the Holy Father’s warm message encourage and inspire all those in the church who minister to LGBTQ Catholics and, moreover, remind LGBTQ people everywhere in the world of God’s “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) June 27, 2021
“Francis scores a triple: defends a great pastor from his detractors, tells LGBT people that God is close to them, and teaches Gospel truths absent from March CDF letter contra same-sex blessings,” suggested Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh in a Tweet.
In what will become known as the “Nephew Socks Letter”, Francis scores a triple: defends a great pastor from his detractors, tells LGBT people that God is close to them, and teaches Gospel truths absent from March CDF letter contra same-sex blessings. https://t.co/695RXqJVgY
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) June 27, 2021
The Washington Post said that the Pope’s “letter amounted to an affectionate affirmation of Martin’s ministry.” Jesuit-mouthpiece America Magazine said, “Pope Francis has again encouraged the ministry of James Martin, S.J., to L.G.B.T. persons.”
In 2019, Pope Francis raised eyebrows when he met privately with Martin. At the time America Magazine interpreted the meeting as a “highly significant public statement of support and encouragement” for the American Jesuit. Martin himself saw it as “a sign of the Holy Father’s care for L.G.B.T. people.”
Martin’s controversial heretical activism
“Fr. Martin’s ministry has become increasingly controversial because of his incremental departure from Catholic doctrine,” noted Alejandro Bermudez, writing for Catholic News Service (CNS).
On June 2, Martin issued a two-minute video statement telling Catholics, “It’s especially important for churches to celebrate pride.”
Martin promoted a serious lie in his short presentation, asserting that Catholics should convey to young people who announce that they are LGBTQ that “you know that God wants them to accept who they are.” God does not create people gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, pansexual or anything other than males or females created for complementary monogamous relationships, bound together in Holy Matrimony.
“The heretical and perverted pro-‘LGBTQ-etc’ conference promoted by the fellow traveler James Martin SJ and his other perverted friends at the Jesuit Fordham University, in New York City, took place yesterday,” declared Rorate Caeli.
“All you need to know about the state of the Church today under the Jesuit Regime is that Martin’s fellow Jesuit Francis sent him one of his longest handwritten letters ever congratulating him for this celebration of all that is evil and perverted in the world today, under the guise of “love” and under the most sacred name of the Lord Jesus Christ himself,” continued the brief report.
“Just as the word love is abused to reflect counter-natural relationships, the name of Him who is Love, Jesus, is abused to promote sin and sinful lifestyles,” the Rorate Caeli report concluded.
Martin has long sought to undermine clergy and laity who continue to embrace the Church’s wisdom and best pastoral practices regarding same-sex attraction, asserting at the 2018 World Meeting of Families that “most L.G.B.T. Catholics have been deeply wounded by the church.”
The Jesuit used his platform at the Vatican-run gathering of Catholics to brazenly lobby for the Church to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism, going as far as urging the pastors to invite self-identifying LGBT individuals to distribute Holy Communion.
Martin’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 and suggesting that the Church is full of “homophobia” and “marginalizes” the same-sex attracted.
He supports 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 homosexual themselves. Despite urging homosexual priests to “come out,” Martin has publicly declined to say what his “sexuality” is.
At a meeting in the nation’s capital earlier last year, Martin addressed 150 Catholic college and university presidents, urging them to promote “inclusion” on their campuses by promoting “LGBT-affirming liturgies,” permitting students to choose their own pronouns, and holding “Lavender Graduations.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those with same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358).
The Catechism also teaches: “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).
When it comes to same-sex relationships, the Catechism makes distinctions between the person, the inclination, and the act. It labels sexual activity between people of the same sex, and the inclination to commit them, disordered. It does not, however, label any person disordered. Feeling attracted to people of the same sex is not a sin in and of itself, the Catechism teaches, but acting on it would be.