The Problem of Gay Priests

[00:00:02] Father James Martin recently argued that gay men should be ordained priests in spite of explicit Vatican guidelines against the practice. What are the problems of ordaining even celibate men with same sex attraction as priests? That's what we're going to talk about today on Christ Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons. [00:00:31] Foreign. [00:00:36] Talk about the priest who probably needs no introduction to my audience. He's the priest who is truly a wolf in shepherd's clothing. [00:00:45] He is the priest who loves to skirt the line of church teaching or to undermine it without explicitly and openly rejecting it so that he can stay in good standing. [00:00:57] I am of course talking about Father James Martin who I believe is one of the most destructive forces in the Catholic Church in America today. [00:01:06] He is very influential. We know this. He has had Vatican appointments under Pope Francis and I believe he still is part of the communications congregation wherever it's called in the Vatican, even under Pope Leo. [00:01:19] And of course, what Father James Martin is most known for is his advocacy for homosexuality. [00:01:25] And I know he would say that how I just word that isn't exactly what he's doing, but we all know that's what he's doing. He's advocating for homosexuality, for normalizing homosexuality, for making it so that Catholics don't believe homosexual activity is sinful. [00:01:41] And that's basically, it seems to be his life's mission. I actually remember Father James Martin when he first kind of came to fame. This was back, I want to say almost 20 years ago when he was a guest, a regular guest on Stephen Colbert Show. Now this is Stephen Colbert, the Stephen Colbert show which came before his run on Late Night when he took over Letterman show. I can't remember, I think it's just called Late Night. [00:02:02] And so this is when Stephen Colbert was funny and he, he acted like a conservative commentator, but he did it in such a way that conservatives actually thought he was funny. I think even leftists thought he's funny and he would have Father James Martin on to ask him questions, be kind of like an expert priest. [00:02:21] And so that's, that's somewhat how Father James Martin became pretty well known. Was, was that so recently though? And so like I said, Father James Martin, he's been doing destructive work in the church for a long time, regardless whether or not Bishop Baron calls him a WINAM guide. [00:02:38] People who know know what I'm referring to there. He recently just had an article though where he argued that celibate gay men should be ordained. Let me pull it up here real quick on the screen. [00:02:51] Where is it There it is. [00:02:54] Okay, so should celibate gay me. Gay men be ordained priests? Let me pull up. I didn't. There it is. [00:03:02] And first, I just want to take exception. It's at his outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic ministry. It's so, like, exclusive of them not to include the plus. I mean, come on. It's an LGBTQ plus. You don't know what you're missing out there, guys. [00:03:20] Anyway, I want to start by just saying the big problem with just the word gay to describe somebody. [00:03:29] I mean, he talks about gay men, and it's an I. It's an identifier as people who identify as gay. And what, What. What it's doing is it's identifying a person, fundamentally identifying them with a disorder. [00:03:43] It would be like somebody going around and they're. The way they identify themselves is like, I'm an alcoholic. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't say sometimes you're an alcoholic in certain situations, but if that is your core identity, that's, you know, I'm a. I'm an alcoholic man or something like that, there's something wrong with you. [00:04:01] Likewise, if you go around saying, I'm a gay man or I'm a gay woman or whatever, then there's something wrong with that. That is a disordered way of looking at yourself. And it's definitely not a Catholic way. [00:04:16] No Catholic should call somebody else a gay man or a gay woman. Now, I know sometimes I might even say it. I might even say it during this podcast. Somebody's gay or something like that. The point is, though, we shouldn't use that terminology as an identifying mark the way that somebody like Father James Martin does. But that being said, basically, though, in his article, he. Let me see if I can maybe get this a little bit easier to see. [00:04:43] There we go. Zoom in. Let me. [00:04:47] Here we go. Okay. So basically, he talks about, should we. Should gay men, celibate gay men be accepted to seminaries or be ordained priest? [00:05:00] And he said a new paper raises this question again. And he talks about this paper, and, you know, I'm not too concerned about the, The, The. The findings of it, but what he does, he says, let me go down here. Let me find the important part here. [00:05:17] He says, however, in the last few proposals, where the top of a topic of homosexuality comes up referred to as same sex attraction, or ssa. In other words, the paper is actually referring to it properly. That's probably the. That's the proper way to refer to it. The fact that somebody has same sex attraction, not that they are A homosexual or a gay person. [00:05:36] But Father Martin doesn't like that, though, because he wants to identify people by their. [00:05:42] Specifically by their. Their disorder. [00:05:45] The paper makes claims that may strike anyone who has known celibate gay priests as surprising. [00:05:51] As an aside, the authors don't explain why they avoid using the common term homosexual or homosexuality. Well, if you understood Catholicism, Father, if you understood how actually same sex attraction, you would not need it to be explained. That is the proper way to explain it. [00:06:07] And then basically, though, he t. He mentions that, and I'm gonna get to this document in a minute, how the Vatican actually does have a document that says homosexual men should not be admitted to seminaries, ordained priests. [00:06:19] But what. And then. Let me go. I'm trying to find what the part. [00:06:26] Let me find it here. Oh, he talks about, he spoke to Pope Francis about it. He loves to mention how he's. He was buddies with Pope Francis and things like that. [00:06:36] And then I, I can't find it. Okay, never mind. As far as what I was trying to find him say, the point is, is that we're talking about gay men who are priests becoming priests. And before we really talk about, should we ordain men who identify as gay who had same sex attraction, whether or not we were doing them, let's address the elephant in the room is, what about current priests? [00:07:00] Priests who are currently ordained, currently practicing, but have same sex attraction. [00:07:05] Now, I don't think anybody should be scandalized or shocked to hear that there are men with same sex attraction who are currently priests in good standing. I don't think that should shock anybody to hear that. [00:07:21] Now he mentions, I mean, there's estimates ranging as high as 70% of priests today have same sex attraction. As many as 70? I don't think it's that high. [00:07:36] I think it's possible it might have been that high at one time, but I would not surprise me, it would not be shocking to me if you told me 50% of priests have same sex attraction. [00:07:51] It might be lower. It might be 40, 30. I don't think it's as low as, like under 30%. [00:07:57] My guess is it's, it's, it's higher than 30%. Now, I admit this is a guess. I'm not claiming this is a scientific survey I did or anything like that. [00:08:07] I'm just saying from anecdotal evidence, from what I see, what I hear, what I read, and I, you know, I hear some things and things like I would, I would, I would say it's at least 30% and maybe as high as 60 to 70%. [00:08:20] But we don't know. We don't know. We, we do know there is a sizable portion of gay men, men with same sex attraction in the priesthood today. Now here's the thing though. [00:08:32] The church has always actually been against ordaining men with homosexual tendencies Ra with same sex attraction to the priesthood. This is not, this is something that's traditionally always been true. I'm not saying it. In fact, I'm saying that most times Catholics haven't. Seminaries haven't really enforced it greatly, but the reality is it's true. [00:08:56] However, the most recent document, this is still enforced today. A lot of people think it's no longer enforced today. But in 2005, the Vatican actually released a document. [00:09:07] Let me find it here, I'll pull that one up as well. [00:09:12] And it is, Let me. Where is it? Oh, there we go. [00:09:22] Okay, so it. The criteria for. Here we go. The criteria for discernment of vocations with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to the seminary and to Holy Orders. That's basically what. And this was in 2005, Congregation of Catholic Education. [00:09:43] And the key point of this is it talks about, it breaks down the difference between homosexual tendencies, homosexual acts, which I'll talk about here in a second, but actually I'll talk about right now. It says from the time of the Second Vatican Council until today, various documents of the Magisterium, especially the Catechism of the Catholic Church, have confirmed the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. Obviously seen before second Vatican Council. The Catechism distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendency. This is important regarding acts. It teaches that sacred Scripture presents them as grave sins. The tradition has constantly considered them as intrinsically immoral and contrary to natural law. Consequently, under no circumstance can they be approved. This is important. [00:10:31] Homosexual acts are always in every single time, grave sins. [00:10:36] So when Father James Martin talks about homosexuality, he likes to avoid discussion of homosexual acts. [00:10:44] In fact, he purposely avoids it because he, he cannot without saying church considers sense. Because remember, here's the important. [00:10:54] They're Martin trying to lie. He's trying he can to undermine the Church. Teach explicitly because he knows explicitly said the grand is over. [00:11:12] If he says homosexual acts are not sinful, the Catechism is wrong. The Church has always been wrong on this. We need to change its teaching. [00:11:21] Then the gravy trains over. For Father James Martin. The, the, the market for his books dries up. He can't get speaking engagements at diocese. He can't continue an outreach in a truly Catholic way. Even the Jesuits wouldn't allow him to explicitly state that as directly as I just did. If he did that, he, he knows he couldn't continue. He wouldn't be as effective actually in undermining church teaching if he actually denies it explicitly. So he doesn't. [00:11:51] What? He doesn't. He's never talks about homosexual acts. You'll notice this whenever he brings up homosexuality, talks about homosexuality. He never talks about homosexual acts. He never condemns them as being sinful. He just talks about, you know, homosexual tendencies and homosexuality as a way of being, so to speak. [00:12:13] Let me go on though real quick. This criteria. So then it says deep seated homosexual tendencies which are found in a number of men and women are also objectively disordered. And for those same people often constitute a trial. [00:12:27] Such persons must be, must be accepted. Respect and sensitivity, every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. That's something Father James Martin loves to emphasize that part. [00:12:38] They are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and to unite to the sacrifice of the cross difficulties they may encounter. So in other words, homosexual tendencies. Notice it does not say that homosexual tendencies are sinful in and of themselves. They're not a person who suffers from same sex attraction. [00:12:59] That in and of itself is not a sin. It's not something they. They have to confess. It's not a grave matter. They can receive communion, all that stuff. It's only if they act upon it. [00:13:11] However, remember what it says here, though. In addition, it says are also objectively disordered homosexual tendencies. While they're not in themselves sins, they are objectively disordered. [00:13:28] That's very important because then this 2005 document from the Vatican, whoops, pull up the wrong one. [00:13:36] It says in the light of such teaching, I. E. That homosexual tendencies are disordered. [00:13:42] This dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to Holy orders. Those who practice homosexuality present deep seated homosexual tendencies or support the so called gay culture. [00:14:07] What's interesting about this is that that last those three of those three things, that last one, Father James Martin obviously does. [00:14:15] By this standard, he should not, he should not, he should not be admitted to the seminary. If you were a seminarian, if he was an unordained man because he supports the so called gay culture. But notice those three different criteria that would disqualify from somebody being admitted to seminary or the Holy orders practice homosexuality Obviously, but also present deep seated homosexual tendencies. In other words, if you have, if you have same sex, if you suffer from same sex attraction, that means that you should not be ordained a priest. It's not just whether or not you're practicing. So when Father James Martin says he's advocating for celibate gay men, as he calls them to be ordained, he's going directly against that 2005 document, which by the way was never rescinded. Even under Pope Francis, on Pope Leo, whoever it was, never rescinded that document. That's still the law enforce. Now. The fact is that law is not enforced in many places. [00:15:19] Father Martin actually gives a few numbers himself. So I'm not sure how accurate they are, but they probably are relatively accurate that when asked bishops were asked how a candidate's dominant attraction of, to those of the same sex would impact their judgment of suitability for orders, 48% of bishops would consider it worrisome, but not by itself disqualifying, while 45% would consider alone disqualifying. What that means is almost half of bishops, when asked if somebody, if a candidate for the priesthood had an attraction to men of the same, you know, men of the same sex, would that be disqualifying? Almost half a bishop said no. Might be worrisome, but it would not be disqualifying. [00:16:09] And only 45%, yes, it would be disqualifying to do that. So that's a lot of places and we know this and there's a certain percentage that would openly admit they would be fine with celibate gay men being ordained priests. [00:16:24] So although the, the, the, the law on the books is that men with deep seated homosexual tendencies should not be ordained or even support the gay culture, should not be ordained priest, it happens. It's still happening. And there's been no, it's clear the Vatican's not doing anything to enforce this and hasn't for years at least. So, so we probably still have men who are being ordained who have same sex attraction. [00:16:50] Now again now, and a lot of, a lot of the debate on this about what does it mean? It revolves around what does it mean, deep seated homosexual tendencies. What does deep seated homosexual tendencies mean? [00:17:08] And this is where you get a little wiggle room for people like Father James Martin, snakes like Father James Martin to say, well, we're only talking about deep seated now. He doesn't really even do that. He just as kind of like any homosexual tendency. I don't care how deep seated is, it's fine. [00:17:20] But it allows some Bishops to be like, well that guy, it's not like he's ever acted on it, so it's not really deep seated, so it's okay. [00:17:30] Whereas somebody who lived maybe as a homosexual for years, that person is deep seated, so I wouldn't allow them. But somebody who just has admits an attraction to men but never acted on it, then that's okay. I think that some bishops would say that, I would argue that anybody, any man who has homosexual tendencies, deep seated or not, is disqualified from being a priest. [00:17:57] Now I say that, but I want to, I want to make something very clear. [00:18:03] A man can suffer from home same sex attraction and it is a suffering because obviously it's a disorder. It's not the way God created them. [00:18:15] And this is something that Father James Martin gets very wrong. He always implies and sometimes I think even states that God creates people homosexual, that God creates them homosexual. So therefore they can't, you know, help if God created, can't be wrong. [00:18:36] But this is a lie. God does not create anybody with same sex attraction. Nobody, not one person. [00:18:43] Now that being said, I'm not claiming that people just choose their sexual orientation like they choose their favorite flavor of ice cream. [00:18:53] Now I, I, I, I would say people who identify themselves as homosexual, I would say there's probably, there's probably a spectrum of those people. [00:19:04] Some they, they have same sex attraction that basically they just can't help because of abuse or trauma or something like that in their past. [00:19:14] And it just developed in them through no fault of their own. I would say there are some who participate in homosexual acts today almost out of a fad, a fashion, it's hip, it's cool, it's what young people do, it kind of gets attention. [00:19:29] And so I don't even think they necessarily have same sex attraction, but they act, they, they engage in homosexual acts almost as like a way to be cutting edge or whatever the case may be. [00:19:44] But the fact is, is like most people who have true same sex attraction, what has happened is they were not born with it, but it is part of who they are now because of things that happen in their past. I mean, I won't go into all the details, but especially for men, what has happened is something occurred to them early in their lifetime, usually before the onset of puberty that led them to have like an arrested development, meaning they weren't able to have a healthy development into a proper understanding of sexuality and things of that nature and that, that what happens is it leads them to be sexually attracted to the same sex. Often what happens Is like for example, they have a domineering mother or they're abused by a man or something like that. And they aren't able to form healthy friendships with people of the same sex. [00:20:47] And so what happens is they enter puberty that becomes sexualized, their, their desire for that attachment to other people. They're same sex, which is a very healthy thing when you're 10 years old, if you're 10 year old boy, it's very good to be, to want to be friends with other boys, to want to hang out with them, to be with them. In fact you, that's, that's the healthy thing. And if for some reason you can't do that, if something happens that you, you have a difficult time doing that, if as you get into puberty that can become sexualized and it's not something like the 10 year old or the 13 year old chooses to do, it's just something that happens because of, like I said, the traumas, the abuse, whatever the case may be. [00:21:27] And so it's a real suffering. [00:21:29] It's not a sin to have that, to have that tendency. It's a sin to act on it, but it's not a sin to have that tendency. In fact, I would say, and I know this from meeting people I used to be involved with a courage chapter. [00:21:44] Courage is the great apostolate that helps people, Catholics with same sex attraction live celibate lives, live live healthy saintly lives. [00:21:52] I would say some of the most saintly people I've ever met, and I mean this without exaggeration, are men and probably women. I just haven't met as many women like this men with same sex attraction who are living a celibate lifestyle and striving to live as the church asks them to live. [00:22:11] They're some of the most saintly people I've ever met because they have a heavy cross. They have a heavy cross and they've, and they've chosen to carry it and they've chosen to carry it in union with Christ. [00:22:27] I, I made a comment on, on X the other day that men with same sex attraction who suffer from same sex attraction can and have been, can and have become saints, but they shouldn't become priests. And one thing I want, this is kind of an aside, but one thing I noticed was there are some people who were like saying how dare you say saints? Any saint was, was a, had same sex attraction. And I thought that was odd. First of all, I think they misunderstood what I said. I said, I said lowercase S saint. I wasn't Meaning any specific canonized saint. I was just simply saying saint in the generic sense of like that person's a saint and when they die, they're going to heaven. [00:23:13] I'm not saying they're canonized. There's. Remember, there's millions of people who are saints who have been saints who are not canonized capital S saints. So I'm talking, I was talking about that. I don't have any knowledge specifically of a canonized saint who had same sex attraction. There might, but I'd be willing to bet there were some. [00:23:30] I don't think that seems scandalous. Say, in fact, I thought the people who were offended or upset that I said that there could be people with same sex attraction who are saints. Like, do you not understand, you either don't understand what it means to be a saint or you don't understand what it means to have same sex attraction. Because again, it's not a sin to have that attraction, it's a sin to act on. So if somebody doesn't act on it and they have this burden they've been given through no fault of their own, not by God, but through, like I said, abuse, trauma, wherever the case may be, then I. And they carry that burden. They carry that cross. Yeah, they're saints. Yeah, they're saints. Absolutely. [00:24:11] I would encourage everybody, by the way, look up the film, the documentary, Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Desire of the Everlasting Hills. [00:24:22] I think courage put it out, but now I can't remember if it was courage or not. And it's. It's a documentary on, and it tracks three people with same sex attraction and how they live, how they escaped living the homosexual lifestyle and they became two men and one woman and how they became living celibate lives. It's one of the most beautiful films you'll ever see and it really does help you. I got to know one of the men in the film and like I said, he's a saintly man that I highly respect. And he lived the gay lifestyle for many years and yet now I would consider him a saintly person. [00:24:58] So having same sex attraction does not preclude sanctity or heroic virtue. [00:25:04] But I would still argue in spite of that people, men with same sex attraction should not become priests because it's not a matter of. The problem is we too often this is the same argument you hear for people who say women should become priests. They look at priesthood as functional as a job. Okay, can you do the, can you do, can you give a good sermon? Can you manage a Parish, you know, organize the books, be kind to people, things like that. If you can do all that, okay, you're qualified. No, that's not how it works. A priest is called to be a spiritual father. [00:25:43] A spiritual father. That is the, the primary duty of a priest is to be a spiritual father. That's why we call him Father. [00:25:51] And having same sex attraction mitigates against that. Their ability to be just like a woman can't be a spiritual father. Neither can a man with same sex attraction be a spiritual father because they have this trauma, this abuse in their past that just simply makes them incapable of it. [00:26:09] I'm not saying if a man with same sex attraction is a priest that he can't do his duties. Well, I think it is possible. I'm not saying that I don't think we should go on a jihad and try to find every man who has same sex attraction, who's a priest and get him out of the priesthood. I do think we should remove a lot of men who are flaunting it from the priesthood, like Father James Martin. [00:26:29] But certain disorders that people have do mitigate against the priesthood. Like for example, I don't think an alcoholic, somebody who's an alcoholic should be a priest primarily because they have to drink alcohol every day. [00:26:42] I mean, yes, it is the body of Christ, I mean the blood of Christ in the chalice, but it still has the accidents, so it still has alcoholic content. And so I don't think an alcoholic should be a priest. Even if the man could be a wonderful preacher or anything like that and just a great person and a saint, he shouldn't be a priest. [00:27:04] Likewise, a man with same sex attraction is simply not qualified to be a priest. [00:27:10] And the truth is, very few people are qualified to be priests for a number of reasons. [00:27:14] It's not just same sex attraction, but it is one of the disqualifying features. It's why the church has always said, don't ordain gay men. [00:27:22] Essentially, Father James Barton, his article, he says that seminary formation and formation in religious orders needs to include healthy psychosocial and psychosexual development. [00:27:36] He loves the buzzwords, that is we need emotionally mature priest. And then he argues that celibate gay men can be this. However, I'm sorry, but men with same sex attraction do not have healthy psychosocial and psychosexual development by definition because they have the disorder. Again, I'm not saying they can't be saints, but I am saying they don't have the, the ability to be truly spiritual fathers. And so they shouldn't be priests. [00:28:10] Now I also want to bring up an elephant in the room when it comes to talking about homosexual priests. [00:28:17] That is, you know, that we should not ignore. [00:28:22] And that is, Let me pull it up here on the screen for a second. [00:28:27] It is the John Jay Report and that is, let me see, where is. There it is. [00:28:34] This is the John Jay Report which is the. The nature and scope of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States, 1950-2002. A research study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal justice, the City University of New York, February 2004. [00:28:54] And it was tasked by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the usccb. Now for those who aren't familiar with the John Jay Report, basically what happened was after the 2002 breakout revelation of the, the massive sexual abuse scandal in the church and the COVID up, the USCCB actually, you know, to their credit, commissioned a study to look into the details of what happened. This is what they should have done. They did a lot of wrong things in response, but this is one good thing they did. Do an objective study and see what happened. Because when you just say the sexual abuse scandal, what does that mean? [00:29:31] Does that mean a bunch of priests who had mistresses like they did in the middle Ages and they, you know, they had kids and stuff like that? Are we talking about a bunch of priests who are molesting eight year old girls? [00:29:47] Are we talking about priests who are, you know, having sexual relationship with college students? I mean, what. We need to know details because only by knowing the details can you potentially address it. And the fact is the John Jay Report did disclose what the problem is, but then the bishops punted because it was too controversial. You know what they found? [00:30:06] 81%. 81% of the sex abuse victims were male. [00:30:13] 81%, they were mostly between the ages of 11 and 14, but many were between the ages of 15 and 17. [00:30:21] Now I'm going to get a little technical here, but I do think it matters. There is a difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. Pedophilia is by definition having a sexual attraction to somebody, a prepubescent person, somebody who has not yet reached puberty. So we're talking about somebody under the age of 12, something like that. [00:30:41] That obviously is a horrible disorder as well, even worse than homosexuality, but it's not the same thing as homosexuality. Homosexuality is a different disorder. And what, what the John Jay Report found is most of the sexual abuse of, of minors by priests was actually homosexuality, not pedophilia People love to talk about pedophilia. And it was there. I'm not trying to act like it wasn't all these pedophile priests. Pedophile priests. The fact is it was mostly homosexual priests, not pedophile pedophilia, not pedophile priests. [00:31:18] That was the sexual abuse. That, that was what was found. But what happened was after this was discovered and this came out, they buried it, they buried the report because they realized, okay, this is a bigger scale, we think, because there's a lot of homosexual priests that didn't abuse minors, let me make that clear. [00:31:36] But a lot of this sexual abuse of minors was done by homosexual priests, not pedophile priests, but homosexual priests. And what are you going to do about that? [00:31:45] And they decide to punt. And frankly, I think it's because a certain percentage of the bishops are themselves homosexual. [00:31:54] Back in 2004 and maybe today, I'm sure there's still some. [00:31:58] And so you can't just say like it's easy to say get rid of the pedophile priest. Everybody's going to cheer and say, yes, anybody who's. Any man who is accused of pedophilia, who is convicted, you know, charged or not discharged, but shown to be a pedophile, obviously you remove him from the priesthood. [00:32:16] But the problem is then it's like, okay, a priest who has sexual relations with a 15 year old boy is a homosexual. And obviously we know that's abuse and it's awful. And that priest would be kicked out. But what about the, the priest who has a consensual homosexual relationship with a 20 year old young man? [00:32:39] Shouldn't that person, shouldn't that priest also get kicked out? I think we'd all, I think anybody watching this is probably, would say yes, obviously, absolutely. [00:32:46] But the bishops didn't do that. That's not what they were going after. They just want, they wanted to keep it very, very small segment of the problem that was politically expedient to go against and only stick to that and not go against all the problem. [00:33:02] And here's the reality, here's why they want to bring this up. [00:33:06] Because homosexual men are naturally attracted to young men. It is a well known fact in the homosexual world you talk to former homosexuals or even current homosexuals who are honest and they will tell you a predominant strain in the male homosexual lifestyle is teenagers, is attraction to teenagers. Again, not pedophilia, which is horrific, but attraction to teenagers. [00:33:39] It's normal. For make sure you're clear about what I'm saying here it's normal for homosexual men to be attracted to teenage boys, no matter what their age is. By normal I just mean regular. It's standard. It's obviously not normal. The whole thing is disordered. The whole thing is awful. [00:33:56] And so that's another reason that you should never admit homosexual men, men with same sex attraction into the priesthood because they're, that, that's part of the disorder. And obviously with altar boys and things like that, you just don't want to have them in these occasions where they could be close to young men and potentially abuse them. [00:34:20] And so that in and of itself is a good reason just to be like, you know, we just got to be safe and we're never going to. Even if you didn't have the other problems of not, you know, spiritual fatherhood, things like that, we're not going to let any men with same sex attraction into the priesthood simply because us high percentage of them are attracted to teenagers, are attracted to teenage boys. And so we need to prevent them all from being part of it. [00:34:46] And so ultimately we just need to stop ordaining any men who with same sex attraction to the priesthood. So sorry, Father James Martin, you're, you're absolutely wrong. As, as always. [00:34:59] I also though, want to mention, though briefly, the deeper problem with Father James Martin and what he does and that is the normalization of homosexuality. Now I try to keep this a family podcast and actually I should have said something at the beginning of the podcast and I, and I asked for your forgiveness from parents who might listen to my podcast sometimes with children beforehand in children in the past. And I didn't really warn you ahead of time. Hopefully you saw the subject matter, knew I might be talking about some stuff, but I can't even talk about my next subject because I want to keep it relatively family friendly, even for the adults out there. [00:35:35] But here's the reality. I will say it as euphemistically as I can. [00:35:41] The homosexual lifestyle, particularly for men, is incredibly destructive. It's destructive to your soul, it's destructive to your mind, and it's particularly destructive to your body. [00:35:55] It is a horrible lifestyle to engage in. It has been whitewashed, it has been glamorized by Hollywood, by the media, that it's this, I mean, it's literally been called gay. You know, it's this happy lifestyle. [00:36:09] Yet the fact is, is it's incredibly destructive. And men who escape from this lifestyle, they will tell you that, they will be honest with you and tell you how terrible it is. [00:36:23] And so the real evil that somebody Like Father James Martin is committing, that is, he's normalizing homosexual activity, homosexual acts, which the church says is always sinful, always a grave sin. He's normalizing it to make it like it's no big deal. By not talking about. By talking about homosexuality in this positive way all the time, never mentioning the acts, but just talking about is, you know, it's just love. Love is love. These men have a committed relationship, all this stuff. [00:36:52] What happens is it's like a little magic trick. It's like, look over here at the. At the. [00:36:59] At these men who just love each other all the while. I don't want you to see what's going on behind their closed doors. And trust me, you don't want to see what's going on behind their closed doors. It's disgusting. [00:37:10] The normal reaction of a man, a healthy man, to even thinking about homosexual acts between men is revulsion and disgust. It literally makes. [00:37:22] It makes you sick to your stomach to even have to consider it. [00:37:27] Yet what we've done is we've normalized it so much. [00:37:32] We've made. We've put a curtain over it, a rainbow curtain over it that it's not a big deal. And so the reason this is so awful is because men and women. I'm trying to act. I'm not trying to act like homosexuality between women is okay. I just. It's the men that we're talking about here because we're talking about priesthood and things like that, but these men are. Are falling into this destructive, horrible lifestyle that will destroy their bodies and destroy their souls for eternity. [00:38:04] And priests like Father James Martin, who are in good standing in the church, which is a scandal to this day, they basically encourage them to continue that lifestyle. They are. They are seeing men going straight to hell and they are cheering them on and saying. Giving them a pat on the back and saying it's all great. [00:38:26] That is a scandal that cries to heaven for vengeance, along with the sin that cries to heaven for vengeance, which is sodomy, which. That's another word we don't like to say. We don't say sodomy anymore because that's too disgusting sounding. Because it is disgusting. [00:38:40] So we should say sodomy more often. They're sodomites. I mean, that's. That's what men who engage in homosexual acts are, sodomites. And we should use that term. We shouldn't be afraid to use that term. [00:38:51] And so if you support in any way, shape or form the gay lifestyle, which is what Father James Martin doing, you are Basically endorsing evil and a horrible life for its practitioners and that there's no other way to put it. [00:39:05] And so too many church leaders basically ignore this issue. They don't talk about it or they're even indulgent in it in the sense that they, they allow priests to, to be like Father James Martin and things like that. [00:39:19] I would argue that homosexuality in the priesthood and the endorsement of it in the hierarchy is one of the most severe crises in the church today because it really is an undermining of the entire mission of the church. If we can't even speak out against a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance, as the Bible says, if we can't even speak out against that, we have no moral authority to speak out against anything. And that's what's happened is nobody listens to our moral authority because we've, we've given up, we, we've punted on this most important issue. [00:39:54] Now this is all very depressing if you think, when you think about it, and I know that I do want to say this, I do think it is getting better. [00:40:04] I do think it is getting better. I do think fewer priests, fewer men are being ordained who have same sex attraction. I think the percentages, price spiked in the 1980s. They, they grew significantly in the 70s, they probably spiked in the 80s, if everybody remembers the book Goodbye Good Men by Michael Rose, written I think in the late 90s. He talked about the pink palaces, the, the homosexuality that was rampant in the seminaries. I have a, I have a good friend who went to a seminary and he just had to leave because it was so rampantly homosexual and he wasn't. And so he was like, I'm out of here. [00:40:41] And that's, that's a vocation. The church might have lost because of that, because he never became a priest. [00:40:46] And so, and I, and I know other men who never said that explicitly, but I think that might have been one of the reasons they left the seminary. I don't think it's like that today. From all the discussions I have with men I trust who are seminarians or recent grad, you know, recently ordained, I don't think it's like it was back in the 70s, the 80s, even the 90s. I think after the, I do think after the 2002 scandal, things did get better. [00:41:10] But I'm not naive. [00:41:13] I do think there's still men who get ordained today, you know, this year, who have same sex attraction and it's even known that they have same sex attraction and they still get Ordained. I'm not naive, I know that. But I do think it's getting better. I think if you look at the percentage, like I said, maybe it's anywhere from 30 to 70%. It wouldn't surprise me if you pulled like 60s priests in their 60s, if maybe it's 60, 70% of them are same sex attraction. Whereas if you pulled priests in their 30s and 40s, it's more like maybe 10% or something like that. Again, I'm not, this isn't scientific numbers, I'm guessing, but that would not surprise me. I think that's probably, that's probably the more accurate than anything else. So I do think we have reason to hope that even it was Pope Francis being so weird about homosexuality where he would say, you know, not so much faggotry in the church and yet he also promoted people who are obviously homosexual or promote homosexuality in his ranks. You know, that was always very odd. [00:42:10] But at the same time, I think even with that we don't see, I don't think we have as many same sex attractive men becoming priests as we did in maybe 50, 50, 40 years ago. [00:42:22] Okay, let me wrap it up there. Let me get to the live chat. Appreciate as always everybody who joins the live chat. I saw it was hopping today, as always, I appreciate that. Okay. Phoenix XP says if they think of themselves as gay, they don't even believe what the church teaches about the human person, then throw that person into a pit of temptation. Great idea. Yeah, exactly. Phoenix, if you, if you're a man who calls himself gay, you are automatically disqualified from being a priest. I mean, in my mind, because you, you have such a fundamentally disordered view of the human person, just like Phoenix said. So absolutely. [00:42:56] And, and Father James Martin should be disqualified. [00:43:00] Surf dude says Pope Francis even said when visiting a seminary that when it comes to seminarian that are potentially gay, if in doubt, best not to let them enter. Yeah, like I said, Francis was weird about this. [00:43:11] The speculation is that Francis promoted a lot of gay priests and bishops and cardinals because he knew he had something on them, that he could control them, that they were, they could, they would do what he told him to do because he had something on them. And I think that's plausible, I think it's possible. But I think he himself, I think he himself was disgusted by homosexuality. [00:43:37] I think he thought it was a horrible thing. You know, his views on sin and everything are very, were very odd. But I do think he thought, I think he was disgusted personally by homosexuality. But he could use it to his Advantage. [00:43:51] Okay. Surf dude also says I read 40 of cardinals in the book. In the closet. In the other vacuum. Yeah, it's possible. [00:43:57] I don't think any number that you give unless it was 100, because I know there's many men who are priests who are not homosexual. I have homosexual tendencies. [00:44:06] I would not be that scandalized by any number. Up to 70%. [00:44:11] I think if you get above 70, I'd start to doubt a. Doubt it. [00:44:15] Anna Kate says living chastely with SSA is heroically virtuous. I would not be surprised if many are in heaven. I agree completely, Anna Kate. Like I said, I have met people with same sex attraction. Who. [00:44:27] I mean, they're so saintly because why? They have a bigger cross than most of us. They have. We all have our crosses. We all have our crosses, but for a lot of people, a lot of us, we have crosses that when we fail to carry them, they're not necessarily grave sins and they're also not necessarily publicly known. [00:44:51] And. And they're not such a significant thing. And. But a man with same sex attraction, a woman, same sex attraction, that's a heavy cross. And so if you carry it, you know, with the Lord, obviously you. With the Lord, it's a beautiful thing. [00:45:04] It's. It's just like the way God always acts, isn't it? It's like a beautiful. It's actually more beautiful in a way because it's a. It's a greater cross. He takes this evil, this disorder in the world. It is an evil, any disorder is. [00:45:19] And through his grace he can turn into this great good. [00:45:23] Okay, TP says gay priests are one thing, but gay bishops are an even worse problem. Yes, absolutely. The higher up you go, the worse it is. [00:45:30] You know, a gay bishop is obviously horrible because he's a spiritual father to priests. So the priests were called to be spiritual fathers. Their spiritual father is defective. That's never a good thing. [00:45:42] The good fight. Tony says only men who would make good husbands fathers should be priests. You know, that's a great point. I didn't say that and I'm glad you brought that up. [00:45:50] If you are not. If you're not qualified to be a good husband and father, you're not qualified to be a good priest. The actual qualifications in a lot of ways are the same because it means you are spiritually mature, you are emotionally healthy. [00:46:06] A man who can be a good father and husband can be a good priest. Now there's a calling involved. And so, for example, if you're not called to it you shouldn't become a priest. And likewise, there's a calling to marriage, but it's the default call for most men. So, yeah, absolutely. It's the same type of qualifications in a lot of ways. [00:46:27] Okay. Rob says, finally caught your live show. Eric, hey, thanks for joining us. Sincerely, most devoted listener. Lithuania. Lithuania for the win. Thank you very much, Rob. I don't have no idea what time it is right now in Lithuania, but I just want to say I really appreciate you tuning in live and I'm. I'm glad to know I have a devoted listener in Lithuania. I did not know that. So, Rob, God bless you. I'd appreciate your prayers and I'll, I'll pray for you. So thank you. [00:46:54] TP. That's why the Vatican only talks about climate change, death penalty, immigration. You know, the idea that, you know, because they ignore the homosexuality in the priesthood in, in, in the church. But yeah, I, I just, it's definitely true that that too, it's being ignored. I mean, honestly, in a healthy church, if a Father James Martin published that article, he did that I showed that celibate gay men should be ordained at priesthood. He should be disciplined just for publishing that article, Just for publishing that article. He should be disciplined now, obviously, for all the things he should, he has done. He should be defrocked, he should be laicized. He shouldn't be allowed to be a priest anymore. But that being said, we're not in that world. So we need to pray that happens. [00:47:42] Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up there. I appreciate everybody again who joined in the live chat in the live podcast, keep, you know, every Tuesday, although I do want to announce that next Tuesday we will not have live chat. So two weeks from today will be our next live chat. I think I'll have another podcast before then, but not a live one. I'm not going to be around next Tuesday. [00:47:59] But anyway, keep praying. Pray for those who are. Who are struggling with same sexual attraction and trying to live celibate lives. Even priests who are doing that because they're already ordained, pray for them as well. [00:48:13] Pray for the crosses they bear. Pray for all good priests, all priests that they might live out their vocation well. And pray for Father James Martin. Pray for Father James Martin that he would, I mean, honestly, convert. Convert to Catholicism, to the fullness of the faith. I mean, we need to pray for enemies. And there's no question Father James Martin is an enemy of the church, enemy of all good Catholics. So we need to pray for him for his conversion as well. Okay. Everybody until next time. God love you. And remember the poor.