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Pope Francis acknowledges conference for ‘LGBT Catholics’

Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C., is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university.(Image: Wikipedia)

CNA Staff, Aug 2, 2024 / 17:51 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis this week said he is “united in prayer” with those participating in a conference for Catholics who identify as LGBT taking place this weekend in Washington, D.C.

Father James Martin, a controversial Jesuit priest who founded the pro-LGBT group Outreach in 2022, reportedly asked Pope Francis if he would like to send a greeting to the group’s 2024 gathering, taking place Aug. 2–4 at Georgetown University. Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington is scheduled to celebrate Mass on Saturday at the event.

According to Vatican News, Pope Francis sent a brief response saying he was pleased by the fact that Gregory will be celebrating Mass for the 350 expected attendees at the conference.

The pope further said he is “united in prayer” with those participating in the conference and prayed that “Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin care for you.”

Pope Francis has on several occasions received Martin 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.” 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.

The 2024 Outreach conference was organized for “LGBTQ laypeople, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students, and family members to build community, share best practices, and worship together,” its website says.

The gathering has among its sponsors America Media, Creighton University, and the dissenting Catholic group DignityUSA, which has in recent years hosted “blessing” events marking LGBT Pride Month.

The conference is scheduled to include panels on “LGBTQ Ministry in Parishes,” “Parenting LGTBQ Children,” and “Race, Intersectionality, and LGBTQ People” as well as a panel titled “Gifts of a Life of Chastity.”

The conference will also include a talk by a Catholic who identifies as transgender, Maxwell Kuzma, who has indicated an intention to “[celebrate] queer theology and trans joy” at the conference.


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14 Comments

  1. Of course Francis would lend his blessing to anything that celebrates disorder and perversity. It just reinforces just how worthless Francis’ blessing is.

    As has been said by so many others, a “blessing” which is associating God’s Good Name to that which is being blessed, is a blasphemy when it is attached either directly or by inference to acts that are intrinsically disordered and sinful. Do this, Francis, at risk of your own peril.

  2. Stop playing silly mind/power games Holiness.
    Anything to say about the Paris blasphemy?
    The supposed focus of Catholic unity is divisive, seemingly by design.

  3. But the Pope couldn’t say anything about the Olympics outrage or bother to meet brave Cardinal Zen while the Vatican continues to protect Rupnik. Shouts rather than speaks where they stand on issues, eh what?

    • The only thing that raises Bergoglio’s ire is faithful Catholics praising and adoring our Lord through the same Mass that’s been used for many centuries.

      *That* simple fact shouts volumes about who Bergoglio is and what spirit he serves.

  4. Why does the Holy Father or anyone else need to describe a human being by one aspect of their inclinations and behaviors.? We are all souls in need of salvation and some respects are all disordered as a consequence of the fall. We are called to live a chaste life no matter our desires and inclinations. Help people who have disordered inclinations. Yes. Defining them by these inclination, regardless of their self-definition. No.

    • You’re absolutely right, Russell. I wouldn’t want anyone characterizing or categorizing me by my foibles, imperfections, sins, physical appearance, etc. etc.

  5. Fr. Martin identifies the people he serves as “queer,” which is a red flag that his vision of the human person and human sexuality is distorted. His Jesuit-sponsored Outreach website promotes all sorts of filth and degradation, including acceptance of sodomy, (aka “same-sex and marriage) and the misogynistic ideology behind transgenderism. I’m not sure why Pope Francis endorses it…

  6. We read: “The 2024 Outreach conference was organized for “LGBTQ laypeople, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students, and family members to build community, share best practices, and worship together.”

    And what might be some of the current “best practices”?

    In 1985 anti-binary sexual behavior among gays was found to be “an average several dozen partners a year” and “some hundreds in a lifetime” with “tremendous promiscuity.” Practices much changed, certainly, since the scourge of AIDS….but, then, still this:
    “In one recent study of gay male couples, 41.3% had open sexual agreements with some conditions or restrictions, and 10% had open sexual agreements with no restrictions on sex with outside partners. One-fifth of participants (21.9%) reported breaking their agreement in the preceding 12 months, and 13.2% of the sample reported having unprotected anal intercourse in the preceding three months with an outside partner of unknown or discordant HIV-status.”

    Source: Neilands, Torsten B.; Chakravarty, Deepalika; Darbes, Lynae A.; Beougher, Sean C.; and Hoff, Colleen C. [2010], “Development and Validation of the Sexual Agreement Investment Scale,” Journal of Sex Research, 47: 1, 24 — 37, April 2009); Cited in: Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., “An Open Secret: The Truth About Gay Male Couples.” https://www.josephnicolosi.com/collection/2015/5/28/an-open-secret-the-truth-about-gay-male-couples)

    Surely, Fr. James Martin, SJ and the aligned (?) 2024 synodal relator-general, Cardinal Hollerich, include such research in their “scientific and cultural foundations” for overturning moral theology, human sexual morality, and the traditional family.

    • You ask what might be some of the current best practices. I don’t want to know. I am not interested in the least. I AM curious to know about the worship these people plan. WHO will they worship? Perhaps Francis will being in a new PAPAmama and all will be free to dance about a table or altar channeling pagan Paris 2024.

      I wonder how they may reconcile themselves to the God of Abraham, that same God who created man and woman, commanding them to be fruitful and to multiply. How do they understand the God of Life, Jesus born of Mary and of the Father God. How do they understand Christ as the Bridegroom joined to the Church as His Bride? How do they interpret Jesus’ words in scripture about lust, eunuchs, divorce, Sodom, and Paul’s words on who will inherit the Kingdom?

      Then again, I’ll let Francis do the listening. I’ll read the Word.

  7. The words “repent” and “chastity” will never pass the lips of the Pied Piper of Sodomy James Martin LGBTQSJWXYZ during this gabfest of the intrinsically disordered.

  8. Something wicked this way comes. A line borrowed from a Francis X Maier doomsday prognostication rarely voiced by a staid Catholic apologist.
    Maier darkly chides a Mickey Jagger song Sympathy for the Devil the theme the inversion of good and evil. Maier along with the many have noticed this markedly so for over a decade. Heads would have exploded several decades past if it were known that in the near future sodomy would be celebrated as a good, what is more, a moral good by the Catholic Church. If not formally nonetheless de facto.
    Pope Francis affirms the perversion as acceptable practice by offering his blessing. What the world has come to embrace, once considered a severe insult, despicable perversion is now celebrated by the Church. Not the whole Church. The Church that lives in the shadows.

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