Pope Francis praises Father James Martin’s book on the resurrection of Lazarus

 

Father James Martin, SJ, and Pope Francis. / Credit: Kerry Weber via Wikipedia cc 4.0; Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2024 / 16:05 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has penned an introduction to the Italian version of a new book by Jesuit Father James Martin on the topic of Jesus’ healing of Lazarus, in which the pope wrote that Martin’s book serves as a reminder that “Jesus isn’t afraid of our death, or our sin.”

In the March 11 introduction, released by Vatican News, Pope Francis said Jesus’ raising from the dead of his friend Lazarus, which is recounted in the Gospel of John, shows that “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners — to any sinner, even the most brazen and undaunted.”

‘[Jesus] has one single preoccupation: that no one goes missing, that none are deprived of the possibility of feeling the loving embrace of his Father,” Pope Francis wrote.

Pope Francis has on several occasions received the controversial Jesuit priest in private audiences at the Vatican and has expressed support for Martin’s ministry to those identifying as LGBT, urging him to “continue this way.” Martin’s most recent book, released in the U.S. in September 2023, is titled “Come Forth: The Raising of Lazarus and the Promise of Jesus’ Greatest Miracle.”

Describing Martin as “the author of many other books that I know and appreciate,” Pope Francis said: “Father James has the perspective of a person who has fallen in love with the Word of God.”

“As I read the careful arguments and exegeses of the biblical scholars he cites, it made me wonder how often we manage to approach Scripture with the ‘hunger’ of a person who knows that that word really is the Word of God,” the pope wrote.

“The fact that God ‘speaks’ should give us a little jolt each and every day. The Bible truly is the nourishment we need to handle our lives. It’s the ‘love letter’ that God has sent — since long ago — to men and women living in every time and place.”

Engaging with the Bible daily, the pope wrote, helps “us grasp the extent to which Scripture is a living body, an open book, a vibrant witness to a God that is not dead and buried on the dusty shelves of history.”

The Christian faith, Francis wrote, is a comingling of “the divine and the human — never one without the other,” thanks to the incarnation of Jesus as a man. Jesus, who described himself as “the resurrection and the life,” made eternal life possible even for sinners.

“All of us, then, are Lazarus. Rooting himself firmly in the Ignatian tradition, Father Martin brings us directly into the story of this friend of Jesus. We’re his friends, too — ’dead’ as we sometimes are on account of our sins, our failings and infidelities, the despondency that discourages us and crushes our spirits. Jesus is hardly afraid to get close to us — even when we ‘reek’ like a dead body that’s been buried for three days,” the pope wrote.

“No, Jesus isn’t afraid of our death, or our sin. He waits just outside the closed door of our hearts, that door that only opens from within, that we lock with a double bolt whenever we think God could never forgive us.”

Pope Francis noted the insight that “our lives all point toward the infinite … We are made for eternity.”

“Of course, the dead rise, but how true it is to recall that we the living never die! Yes, death does come, not just for us, but for our families and those dear to us — for everyone, really. ​​We see so much death all around, unjust and painful death, death caused by war, by violence, by Cain’s abuse of power toward Abel. But we men and women are destined for eternity. All of us are,” he wrote.

Critics have over the years accused Martin of rejecting Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts, but he has insisted that he does not reject the teaching of the Church. Last winter, after the Vatican issued the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which opened the door for priests to pastorally bless same-sex couples, Martin said on social media: “Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.”

Pope Francis last year chose Martin to be one of the 364 bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople who voted in the Synod on Synodality in October 2023.


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17 Comments

  1. If I were to comment about Father Martin’s book and Bergoglio’s endorsement I’d be having to march myself off to Confession. Therefore, I’ll refrain.

    • Should you post a comment I cannot believe it would be anything other than a spiritual work of mercy. Some truths go down hard but who can exist long without the truth?

      • Pope Francis is not making sense in this area with homosexualism and the other area with James Martin. Truth remains absent. The FS. The misrepresenting of Benedict. The mocking of seminary faggotry. The telling the expelled one to “follow your vocation”. The “legalize homosexual civil union”.

        He could have any number of reasons for deliberately positioning those things.

        Yet here we are sustained by the Spirit of God contrary to your assertion. This is the Catholic experience, I say, as when a Christian is thrown into a cell without explanation or recourse and endures the effacement in the love of God.

        Your conceptions of belief and works are off. Maybe you’re like James Martin, you would just have them for simmering for their own sakes and your penchants’?

  2. Bergoglio is way, way wrong. Jesus isn’t resigned to sin. He doesn’t accept sin. He doesn’t surrender to sin.

    And, because He loves us — infinitely, ecstatically, insanely — Jesus doesn’t abandon us to sin.

    Because embracing sin is not “understanding,” or “walking with,” or “acceptance.”

    Accepting sin results only and always in death and misery, destruction and despair.

    And, trust me, I know what I’m talking about, being a sinner from way back.

  3. The article: “Pope Francis said Jesus’ raising from the dead of his friend Lazarus, which is recounted in the Gospel of John, shows that “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners — to any sinner, even the most brazen and undaunted.”

    It is risky to comment on something I have not read. I base my words on what is said in the article.

    The words of the Pope “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners” registered with me as being out of a place. The word “scared” is the key here as somewhat inappropriate in this contact, if accessed by a heart. It makes Our Lord small. Also, the very Incarnation was dropping into the thicket of human sinfulness permeated with the evil which caused Christ constant suffering. If He was not “afraid” of that – He was eager to save us then He cannot be “afraid” of the proximity of sinners.

    But well, supposedly the obvious fact that Christ did not see beneath Himself to deal sinners has to be stated. Would it not be appropriate then to pick up an example of yet unreformed sinners which are abundant in the Gospels like woman caught in adultery or tax collectors or others? In fact, Our Lord went around sinners (including Pharisees) non-stop!

    However, Lazarus is not an unreformed sinner. First, he was a disciple who later was to become the Bishop of the Church in Cyprus, according to Church tradition. We do not know whether Lasarus was a thick sinner before meeting Jesus or not. It is quite clear though that he and his sisters were disciples of Jesus and that Jesus used to stay in their house quite often; unlike a mere dining with sinners, it was a place of respite for Him. How Martha and Mary relate to Jesus also shows the depth of their discipleship. Them and Lasarus were definitely not dead because of sins. And so, Lasarus’s death and resurrection is a very poor illustration of “sins which make us dead”. Noteworthy, just like in “Jesus was not afraid” Our Lord was made somewhat small Lazarus also was made small here, for the need of an analogy. This is an important and prominent feature of homilies given for the sake of “a current agenda” which subtly twists the Church’s teaching. To match the agenda, a speaker has to reduce or twist the character from the Scriptures he uses to back his point.

    Second and very important, a poor empathy/understanding of human relationship/attachment is evident here. Gospels state that Our Lord loved Lasarus’s family dearly. When one loves someone, he is not “afraid” to approach him or his body after death. I am speaking here about a totally human reasoning which seems to be missing in the Pope’s and Fr Martin’s discourse. Speaking superhumanly, Our Lord went to resurrect Lasarus because he wanted to reveal to his disciples the power of God and strengthen them before His Passion. By definition, He could not be “scared” of his friend’s dead body because He loved him or of any body because He is the Creator of those bodies, God and Man together in one Person. Being Life Himself, He would be naturally repelled by death but not “afraid”.

    And so, both dead in body Lazarus and Jesus Who came to resurrect him for the same of showing the glory of the Kingdom appear to be a very bad paradigm for “spiritual death of sin which the Lord is not afraid of” the Pope was talking about. In fact, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus is the exact opposite of that. Lazarus is alive in spirit because of his discipleship and he is dead in body. An unrepentant sinner is dead in spirit and alive in body, just like the pharisees were. Pharisees then would be a far better example – and it is very evident that Our Lord could hardly be around them because not only they were dead, they were proud of their own deadness = unrepentance (very narcissistic), just like many of those in the modern world who reject Christ and His Words.

    It appears that an analogy “Lasarus – dead in sin” was caused not by contemplation of the Scriptures but by the need to back the agenda “You, faithful, must go to sinners (modern pharisees) and be with them as if they were not sinning, just like Our Lord went to dead Lazarus in the tomb”. I repeat, the problem is that Our Lord, the Truth and the Life, made Lasarus’ spirit permanently alive first when He met him via manifesting to him the Truth and then resurrected his body later. If we are to follow Our Lord here, we are to try to make sinners (modern Pharisees) alive via preaching/manifesting the truth to them – i.e. doing the exact opposite of what the Pope wants.

    Hence, I think it would be far better for Fr Martin and the Pope to draw on Our Lords’ dealing with Pharisees who refused to acknowledge the Truth when they beheld Him.

  4. Yes, “none are deprived of the possibility of feeling the loving embrace of his Father…” But, on the one hand and on Calvary Christ promised paradise to one robber (actually an insurrectionist), but not to the other. So, why is that?…

    Well, clearly, Jesus Christ hadn’t read the new book (all genuflect, a book!) by guru James Martin! Problem solved!

  5. Anna above – Thanks for your patient analysis of what is wrong with Pope Francis’ reading of the story of Lazarus.

  6. Even when we reek of death after three days, that is the death of sin as made clear by Fr Martin and Pope Francis that is proffered as analogous to Lazarus being raised from the grave by Christ, a miracle to demonstrate his divinity. What the drift of the book says, as analyzed by Francis, is the suggestion that whatever our sins [our door to reconciliation locked with a double bolt] Christ will save us.
    That then is what dead Lazarus encourages us to believe, that whatever the sin, even an unrepentant death will not prevent Christ from absolving us. This is consistent in context of a favorite Francis religious homoerotic artifact, a naked Christ carrying a naked Judas over his shoulder. There aren’t many, perhaps any clergy who accommodate homosexuality who hold belief in Christ’s judgment and the prospect of eternal punishment [that’s usually consistent with condoning, or remaining silent on contraception and abortion]. It would be wonderful if we could rest assured that we’ll all be saved. Reality, what’s revealed by Christ and conveyed by the Apostles assures us that’s a false hope.

  7. As a postscript to my initial comment, “false hope” regards salvation for all has varied perspectives, one being that we may hope that all from this given point all will be saved. Some say that’s what von Balthasar, Bishop Barron, including my own perspective on the theological virtue of hope. Then there’s the looming questing of the dead prior to that given point in time. Here the Church in its wisdom offers no judgment, although as many point the words of Christ regarding Judas ‘better he had not been born’. Then there’s the possibility, for some at least, that prayer and intercession after the fact [of death] may possess real value regarding judgment, that based on the timeless dimension in which God is, who is pure act, a reality beyond our complete comprehension.
    Is Pope Francis referring to a form of judgment beyond the limits of time? Or is he saying that whatever our sins, God’s mercy is greater than ourselves? Judgment requires an either or decision to be definitive as judgment. We do know that Angels were condemned and remain so. Fr Martin’s book, insofar as its commentary by Francis does not deny that judgment can be favorably affected by post death intercession – after all Judas Maccabeus ordered his troops pray for the fallen, all of whom wore condemnable talismans. However neither Martin nor Francis speak of intercessory prayer. They paint a picture of a dead Lazarus as one who died in his sins, reeking of the stench of sin that doesn’t prevent an all merciful God from forgiveness. This is the anomaly that would interpret the crucifixion as a universal act of salvation regardless of whether we repent of our sins. A prescription to do as we wish, the justice due to the effect of sin removed.

  8. First it’s several private meetings at the Vatican, then public endorsement of his book. What’s Francis’ end game with Martin here? Is the pope preparing the way for promoting this homosexualist priest to a higher office in the church? What’s the agenda here?

  9. Who would read anything from either of these gents…
    Jesuits are doing themselves in…poor things need pity (& prayer)

  10. That there is something of Christian value in a homosexual “relationship” so long as it is acknowledged “it is not marriage”, is a spurious non-correlation on more than one level.

    First it remains homosexual, it does not derive a “relationship” of Christian or natural merit.

    Second, it does not address the a priori issues or precedent problems, that apart from the question of marriage and irrespective of such a question, the homosexualism is abhorrent both in itself and to society in general. Which is where the real matter lies.

    The “resolving of the question of marriage” is a total irrelevance, not just “non-resolving”; yet that also sets up serious prejudice against true teaching and method (pedagogy) while impugning the sincerity of the protagonist.

    And it doesn’t matter who does the acknowledging of the non-marriage aspect of the “relationship” or of the “relationship”.

    Philosophy is taught in seminary to help the priesthood guard itself. It isn’t taught because it is “something Catholic and traditional how to remain in a lag” and “to restrain acting on difficulties by holding them inside complexity”.

    Some of what we are hearing about being accommodating of everyone, can come under the heading “Rogerian”. See in the WIKIPEDIA link. Whatever the merits might be in Rogerianism, many things can conform to Christian charity but Christian charity is not limited by them nor is it defined and determined by them.

    “Even the non-believers can be Rogerian” -it doesn’t just so equate with Christianity or find an equivalence.

    The priest is called to let homosexuals know they must separate.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause

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