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Fr. James Martin in a March 7, 2018 America Magazine Youtube video titled ‘Spiritual Insights for LGBT Catholics.’ America Magazine / Youtube

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December 6, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin is promoting on social media a rosary with “rainbow” beads for one of the decades which are to be used, the rosary’s creators say, to pray for the “full acceptance” of homosexual couples.

The “Rosary of Modern Sorrows,” created by a so-called Catholic social justice group Contemplative Rebellion, “invites us into guided meditation on the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters in the U.S. and around the world,” the group’s website states. The group says it creates religious “pieces of jewelry” to “break down the barriers that separate faith, race, social status, and income inequality.”

The suggested prayer for the “rainbow” fifth decade states: “We pray for a welcoming of LGBTQ people by all churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues. We pray for LGBTQ couples, their children, and extended families. We Pray that they may be supported and loved, with full acceptance as people truly created in the image of God, a creation that God saw as ‘good', and who deserve to live every aspect of life to the fullest.”

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On Monday, Fr. Martin tweeted his endorsement of the rosary and its message. 

“Dear friends: No one asked me (or paid me) to share these, but I thought you'd like to see two new works of art: the Rosary of Modern Sorrow (which invites us to pray for various types of sufferings) and a new (Middle Eastern) Holy Family Christmas card,” he tweeted. 

The Catholic Church, following the words of Scripture and its constant, 2,000-year tradition, teaches that homosexual acts are gravely immoral, constituting a sin worthy of eternal punishment. 

“They are contrary to the natural law,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Under no circumstances can they be approved,” it adds. 

Michael Hichborn, founder and president of the Lepanto Institute, told LifeSiteNews that Fr. Martin was promoting “sacrilege.”

“What Fr. Martin is promoting on social media is nothing short of sacrilege.  This gross misuse of the Holy Rosary not only reduces its sublime mysteries to a series of cheap political points, but is designed specifically to pray for acceptance of one of the four sins that cry to Heaven for Vengeance,” he said,

“Sodom was swallowed by a raging inferno into the bowels of the earth because this particular sin is so offensive to God, and it is difficult to see how anyone who promotes it so heavily could escape a similar fate,” he added.

Fr. Martin’s record of pro-homosexual 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 homosexual men kissing each other during the sign of peace at Mass, says that a Catholic attending a same-sex “wedding” is like attending a Jewish wedding, and suggests that his critics are secretly homosexual themselves.

Fr. Martin says homosexual priests should “come out” about their sexual proclivities, but has publicly declined to say whether he himself is homosexual.

Last month at the U.S. Bishops’ Conference in Baltimore, Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland chastised his brother bishops for offering a platform to a certain traveling priest who speaks a pro-homosexual message. He did not spectifically name Fr. Martin. 

“There’s a priest that travels around now basically saying that he doesn’t [believe the doctrine of the Church],” he said, “and he seems to be very well promoted in various places.”

“Brothers, I think part of the fraternal correction, or the fraternal support, we offer each other is to say, 'Can that be presented in our diocese? That same-sex ‘marriage’ is just fine, and the Church will one day grow to understand that,'” the Bishop said to his brother bishops gathered for their General Assembly.

“It’s part of our deposit of faith that we believe homosexual activity is immoral,” he added. 

Fr. Martin and his homosexual activism was also criticized in an October edition of EWTN’s World Over. The Catholic Thing Editor-in-chief Robert Royal told host Raymond Arroyo that “committing acts of sodomy” are not part of “God’s creation.”

“It is a terrible problem for the Church, precisely because some of the leadership is pushing the line that Father James Martin has been pushing in his books and speeches, which is that God made you this way,” Murray said. “And the assertions made 'God made me a homosexual, God made me a bisexual, God made me a transgender person' – this is not true.”

Editor's note: Pete Baklinski contributed to this report. 

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