The Pope’s Misdirection Plays

Observe his deeds, not his words.

The latest papal controversy touches on the pope’s meeting last year with James Martin, the leading proponent of LGBT causes in the Church. According to the Catholic News Agency, Pope Francis told a group of American bishops recently that he felt “used” by Martin:

During a private meeting with bishops from the southwestern United States, Pope Francis talked about his 2019 meeting with Fr. James Martin, SJ, and about pastoral care and assisted suicide.

The pope met Feb. 10 for more than two hours with bishops from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

Several bishops present at the meeting told CNA that in addition to discussions about his then-pending exhortation on the Amazon region, and on the challenges of transgenderism and gender ideology, Pope Francis discussed his Sept. 30 meeting with Martin, an American Jesuit who is well-known for speaking and writing about the Church’s ministry to people who identify themselves as LGBT.

“The Holy Father’s disposition was very clear, he was most displeased about the whole subject of Fr. Martin and how their encounter had been used. He was very expressive, both his words and his face — his anger was very clear, he felt he’d been used,” one bishop told CNA.

No sooner had this report appeared than the gay mafia within the Church moved into action. Archbishop John Wester, a protégé of the late John Quinn, who served as the gay mafia don of the West Coast during his tenure as archbishop of San Francisco, went to the National Catholic Reporter, an openly heretical newspaper, to complain about the Catholic News Agency account. “I am simply saying that my distinct recollection is that during our meeting the Pope never spoke of Father Martin or his ministry in a negative way.”

The clashing accounts gave rise to a heated Internet discussion about whose account was more authoritative. But the better question is: Who cares? This pope has a Peronista penchant for telling audiences what they want to hear, then proceeding with his liberal program anyways.

The fact is that he gave an exclusive meeting last year to James Martin, with photographer in tow, knowing full well that that would send a signal of papal approval about Martin’s LGBT ministry.

It is the faithful who should feel used by a pope who often says that “the meeting is the message.” This pope prizes the subversive value of meeting with dissidents. Both Martin and the pope play the same game: they use meetings and associations to undermine Church teaching. Martin has aligned himself with various organizations that reject Church teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts. He holds conferences with them, all the while claiming that he is not “challenging” Church teaching.

Read the rest at the American Spectator

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