By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Massimo Faggioli, a very “hip” young theologian and historian at Villanova University, has flown to the defense of his fellow social justice warrior Fr. James Martin, SJ, after he was unceremoniously dumped recently from several speaking engagements. He weaponizes language in his recent screed published by La Croix newspaper, claiming that obviously dangerous “cyber militias” are behind what he believes are the wrong-headed demands flooding social media and the flood of phone calls swamping receptionists calling for these cancellations.
Faggioli claims that what he calls “attacks” are merely personal in nature:
“Many people were shocked when the Theological College in Washington D.C., the national seminary of the Catholic University of America, recently canceled a lecture by Fr. James Martin, SJ.
“The popular Jesuit author was to speak on ideas he raised in his 2014 book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage. But the seminary disinvited him because of ‘increasing negative feedback from various social media sites’ related to the priest’s newest book on the Church and gay Catholics, Building a Bridge.
“The cancellation does not only concern Fr. Martin and the Church’s LGBT community. Actually, it should worry all Catholics. That is not only because this was the third time that the Jesuit was disinvited from giving a previously arranged lecture. More seriously, it was linked to a campaign of hatred and personal attacks against the priest.
“This sort of vitriol is profoundly changing the communion of the Catholic Church. And not just in its ethos, but also in the way it functions. It signals a new kind of censorship that uses verbal violence to intimidate individual Catholics, as well as institutions within the Church — institutions that exist (also) to protect the rights of Catholics.”
First, behavior aside, and some orthodox Catholics do behave badly sometimes we should admit, the concern here is not with Fr. Martin personally but with what he writes and says that is incompatible with the Catholic faith. To say otherwise is a mere distraction from the truth of the matter, which may or may not be sincere. God is the judge of this as of all things.
Fr. James Martin, SJ has done what many others have done before him: he writes many wonderful things that inspire and help others, but then mixes in with this statements that are perhaps inspired by the same motive but that in fact lead others to hell.
Telling a man both studying theology and engaging in sodomy, as he recently did, that he hopes the day will soon come when the man and his male paramour can exchange a kiss at Mass during the sign of peace is just one example of the many offenses Martin has committed against the Faith and against Christ. It is these violations of Catholic faith and morals as a supposed priest in good standing which is the grave scandal that good Catholics oppose and protest.
For Faggioli and others to label good Catholics as bad people means that he may indeed consider himself as fighting for some organization or group but it is not the Catholic Church for which he struggles. There is no option in the Catholic identity for relativizing what marriage means, what sexuality is within the holy design of the Creator and the necessity of one man and one woman to make a true marriage.
One cannot use the term “theology,” which means “God talk,” to describe anything opposed to God without ending up in oxymoronic nonsense. This is what Faggioli proposes to do by ignoring the real reasons that so many Catholics of good will have rushed in where our bishops have feared to tread.
It is an unfortunate fact that truth not only never makes a whole lot of money but can even get you crucified. See Jesus Christ 33 AD for more on this. The bishops perhaps fear alienating benefactors with deep pockets by naming a malefactor like Martin.
His latest book inspired by the image of a bridge has managed to become merely a means to cross the river Styx into Hades for the many whose following he has cultivated in by selling books and posing as the face of compassionate Catholicism. Martin trumpeted on Twitter recently that his book sales prove his theory that he is furthering a dialog blessed by no less than the Holy Spirit.
One need only refer to St. John Bosco’s vision of heretics throwing a hail of books at the Church in an attack along with other weapons of warfare as they batter her with their falsehoods in order to sink her. These books which attack Christ have historically been written by clergy as frequently as by anyone else.
No doubt Fr. Martin has written well on occasion of the saints. In order to make saints, though, he must build bridges to Christ, which is possible only with the truth by which each soul remains in Christ. His repeated attempts to relabel sodomy as something to be “revered” because one man takes physical care of another in various other non-sexual aspects of the relationship is defiant rejection of common sense as well as of faith. We have all been commanded to love our neighbor through both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Sodomy is a violation of these; all the other good works possible do not cancel out this sin by which two human beings cast each other into hell if unrepented.
It has always been the purpose of the Holy Office, now the CDF, to bring peace to the Church and serve the common good of souls by declaring books and ideas false in some cases. Souls are not served by the confusion currently reigning in the Church as a result of the vacuum left by the lack of vigorous and proactive leadership.
There is no Catholicism or compassion without Christ, and there is no Christ without truth. Fr. Martin has made known his effort to rework the text of Building Bridges and to publish an edited version of the current work. Let us hope that the next incarnation of his project will be authentically Catholic and reliable help for the Church’s divinely assigned mission of saving souls. If not, he is still up to his old tricks and remains the danger to souls he has consistently proved himself to be.
@MCITLFrAphorism
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