Merciless

‘God does not command what is impossible, but in commanding, He exhorts you to do all you can, to ask for what you cannot do, and helps you to be able to do it.’

—St. Augustine

‘Since homosexual orientation is part of the human person as created by God, it is to be judged ethically no differently from heterosexual orientation . . . Same-sex sexuality—even when expressed through sexual acts—is therefore not a sin that separates one from God.’ —Synod 2024

One of the biggest threats to the Catholic Church is bigwigs who conform pastoral care to the ‘needs’ of people rather than call them up to transformation in Jesus through a loving community.

In addressing 500 LGBTQ-identified Catholics at Father James Martin’s annual conference, Cardinal Robert McElroy extolled Pope Francis, who taught us, ‘not to apply already formed principles’ but to mold pastoral care ‘to the concrete situations people find themselves in.’

People here mean the divorced and remarried, those who want sex outside marriage, and mostly, those who want to identify on the rainbow spectrum. ‘Who are we to judge? Redefine mercy as giving winsome people what they want. Stop getting stuck on sex.’

So will be the legacy of Pope Francis’ appointees like Cardinal McElroy. And possibly Cardinal Cupich, who defined Francis’ slippery slope, aka ‘synodality’, as ‘the Church learning to dance . . . listening to the divine melody, honoring each participant’s unique steps.’

Sounds like dirty dancing to me. God came down in Jesus to lift us from our native dishonor, not to confirm what’s hobbling us.

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I’m only grateful I learned to dance from the melody of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Aware of the down-drag of same-sex desires, I longed for something better, someone truer. Teachings that emphasized encounter with Jesus as the foundation for loving others in a way that is faithful (sex sealing a lifetime union) and fruitful (open to life) raised me from the dead. No rigid imposition of doctrine here—Jesus and friends just woke up what was most true and gave me courage to reach for it.

Tragic that in 2017 Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia to revamp the St. John Paul II Institute of Marriage and Family in Rome. In a bold interview last month, Paglia declared how he shifted from a rigorous morality to ‘a new humanistic sensibility’ that casts fresh vision of what it means to be human and explores pastoral approaches culled from individual experience. Creatures, dazzling in their possibilities, surpass the Creator.

Larry Chapp describes Paglia’s transition of the Institute better: ‘A postmodern wrecking ball designed to demolish the Church’s moral norms and replace them with a mishmash of therapeutic bromides.’

Monsignor Livio Melina presided over John Paul’s Institute for years prior to its shifts. He decries how Paglia and Co. closes ‘the narrow path through a patient healing and educational process within community.’ A path obscured but not destroyed!

Melina urges us, the Church, ‘to be merciful’ by ‘not watering down the fullness of life she proposes and adapt to the world’s standards, but rather to proclaim the goodness of grace, which enables us to live up to our divine vocation despite our frailties and weaknesses.’

On the other hand, McElroy and Paglia and Father Martin mock mercy. In shifting boundaries to accommodate the fallen, they secure us in disorder, not the Blood and Water that cancel sin and make all things new. McElroy’s sermon for Martin’s gang says it all. He extols the splendor of mercy, then proceeds to persuade 500 sexually confused Christians as to why they don’t need it. Merciless.

Let’s give wounded ones what they need. We won’t rest till we realize what is best for ourselves and others. God has placed in us His plan, never-changing, and pours out His mercy to realize that fullness.

Once a month, DSM staff will be lifting up parents and any LGBTQ+-identified children in prayer. Please email Abbey at afoard@desertstream.org to be included in our monthly prayer.