Some Are Lovin'

I don't understand why Fr James Martin SJ cannot accept being disinvited to speaking engagements with the same graciousness, understanding and humility as His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke, who is often considered 'too hot to handle' and finds himself for some reason being told that a venue or Diocese is not prepared to host him, yes him, a Cardinal no less, who has no problem with being called and treated as a Successor of the Apostles. I hear that he is most gracious when his speaking engagements are pulled for no apparent reason and with little in the way of justification.

I do feel sorry in a way for Fr James Martin because clearly there is nobody to shepherd him and reign him in so that he does not set himself up for such public disappointment and the attending histrionics that follow being regarded as somewhat scandalous to the faithful. Does he not have a superior somewhere? Wherever you are, you could really help this Jesuit priest!

If I produced business cards, bought a karaoke machine and started performing songs in parish halls around the country, to a handful of people I have no doubt, I can just imagine a few disinvitations. Incidentally, if I do come to your parish hall as a one-man band, do bring your pets too, as I recall a brief musical career playing in a pub literally to one man and his dog. But I digress. If such a venture were undertaken (hypothetical, you understand!), it would be completely understandable, no, expected, to be told 'Thank you, but no thank you.' Songs detrimental to the carefully cultivated image of the Holy Father might be considered a little too racy for some Diocesan bishops and their clergy.

Nice to know that if I were told a polite, 'No, sorry!' that I could then exclaim to all and sundry that I am 'just like Jesus' because 'I have been rejected'! Do you see what Fr James Martin just did there in the above tweet? He took the Gospel reading of today and made it entirely about what or rather who do you surmise?

That's right...the gay agenda ('Love wins') and most importantly of all, of course - even more important than the gay agenda - none other than himself, thus exemplifying the narcissism rampant among those who support the LGBT ideology, who deny that homosexuality retains any feature that could be defined as in any way a 'disorder', or condition of any kind, but who then parade the common accidents of the condition (a heightened sense of self-regard to the point of contempt for others) publicly, for all to see. Yes, many people understand Fr James Martin because they know in their weakness that without the grace and mercy of the Lord, without fidelity to His teachings, they are Fr James Martin.

I guess that if Fr James Martin SJ were not a priest, he would be as much a self-regarding, assiduous self-publicist as Milo, but he would not have the vital vehicle that has launched him into the spotlight which is the Priesthood. He may even have a book to sell, but he would not be able to garner as much support as he has, nor the credibility or patronage he has among Catholic communities without the Priesthood and the authority that confers upon those who profess at Ordination to be the Lord's sacred ministers. He only has the Priesthood to thank for his immense following. The Priesthood is for Fr James Martin. Fr James Martin is not for the Priesthood!



Clericalism, much? Fr James Martin S.J thinks there is no problem - nor any controversy - in pushing a thinly-veiled heterodox agenda, overtly political in tone, explicitly endorsing the LGBT propaganda, one that often runs contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, upon the faithful. But hey, I guess he is taking his cue there from none other than Pope Francis, whose ambiguity serves to let off the leash a variety of mongrel-gospels to run freely across the playing grounds in the Church, its adherents yapping and nipping at the heels of anyone who happens to be in the field at the time.

May the 'Father of all confessions' bless us all this Sunday. He is, after all, the Father of all our confessions, the Father of all Catholic penitents, of those who confess our faults humbly to the Lord, who in return lavishes grace upon grace upon us. Let us rejoice in the forgiveness and grace bestowed upon the faithful in the Sacrament of Penance that the Holy Father was clearly alluding to! Perhaps Stephen Walford could use this as an example of the divine protection this Pope has from speaking error, because if you just look at it on paper and misconstrue it slightly then...

Don't worry, I'm not buying a karaoke machine...not just yet!