On Religion

Pope Francis

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Pope Francis and a liberal U.S. cardinal spark more debates about doctrine, LGBTQ issues

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Pope Francis and a liberal U.S. cardinal spark more debates about doctrine, LGBTQ issues

When popes talk about sex, it tends to make headlines.

This was certainly true when Pope Francis told the Associated Press, "Being homosexual isn't a crime." He said the Catholic Church opposes criminalizing homosexuality and that, "We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are." The pope then noted that homosexual activity is "not a crime. Yes, but it's a sin."

The pope immediately responded to questions from Outreach.faith, a website serving LGBTQ Catholics. Francis explained: "I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. … This is to speak of 'the matter' of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin."

The timing was striking since the AP interview ran on January 25 – one day after the Jesuit magazine America published a controversial essay by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego, who Pope Francis selected as a cardinal last year.

"It is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. communities," concluded McElroy. "The church's primary witness in the face of this bigotry must be one of embrace rather than distance or condemnation. The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not."

The cardinal linked this "pastoral" approach to another hot-button issue – offering Holy Communion to Catholics divorced and remarried outside the church. Previously, he had claimed that the "Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare" by bishops attempting to withhold Communion from Catholic politicians who publicly promote abortion rights.

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Cardinal George Pell had no way to know that he was preaching his final sermon – ever

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Cardinal George Pell had no way to know that he was preaching his final sermon -- ever

Cardinal George Pell had no way to know, as he rose to preach during a spiritual retreat in southern Italy, that this was his last sermon – opening with the biblical cry, "Repent, because the Kingdom of God is near."

Catholics should stay focused on truths proclaimed during the reigns of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, he said, at the Shrine of St. Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo.

These popes "were missionaries of the truth. We don't build the truth. We don't have the ability to change the truth. We can only acknowledge the truth, and sometimes the truth isn't all that pretty. Sometimes the truth is disconcerting, difficult," said Pell, three days before his death on January 10, after routine hip surgery.

"These two Popes did not affirm that the teaching of Jesus was conditioned by the time, by the Roman Empire, by the pagans. They did not claim that the essential and central teaching should be updated, radically changed. They didn't say: 'We don't know what Jesus said because there were no tape recorders.' … As for them, and also for us, Jesus remains the way, the truth and the life."

On this day, the burly 6-foot-4 cardinal faced a gathering of Catholic charismatics, not an audience of Vatican power brokers. Nevertheless, this final sermon – translated from Italian by Inside the Vatican magazine – touched on themes in his recent writings that fueled raging debates about Pope Francis and the modernization of Catholic doctrines and worship.

In that sermon, Cardinal Pell offered only one nod to Pope Francis, while noting the potential for future popes from Africa, Asia and the Global South. "Today we have a Pope from South America – praiseworthy and good," he said.

But after Pell's death, Italian journalist Sandro Magister revealed that the Australian cardinal – using the pseudonym "Demos" – had written a fierce March memo circulated to members of the College of Cardinals focusing on issues that loom over the next conclave to select a pope.

The Francis pontificate has been "a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe," this memo claimed.

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2022 update: Catholic doctrines on sin, hell, repentance, grace and heaven have changed?

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2022 update: Catholic doctrines on sin, hell, repentance, grace and heaven have changed?

For centuries, Irish Catholics heard priests deliver sermons about sin, hell, repentance, grace and heaven.

Times have changed and an 80-year-old priest in County Kerry didn't get the memo.

"How will people know that God wants to forgive them if we don't tell them?", said Father Sean Sheehy, preaching as a substitute priest at St. Mary's Church, Listowel. "How will people who are lost, be found, if we – as God's people – don't call them and say, 'Look, God loves you. He has come to call sinners. But he wants you to have life, and to have it to the full'? …That's what he wants. He wants you to live life to the fullest."

The problem was that Sheehy's October 30 sermon stressed ancient Catholic doctrines on behaviors many modern Catholics refuse to call "sins."

This caused a media storm, including this Irish Times headline: "Fr Sheen Sheehy's Listowel sermon was an uncomfortable reminder of who we really were." Also, Kerry Bishop Ray Browne apologized, after 20-plus parishioners walked out of the rite, and barred Sheehy from saying Mass until the parish priest returns to the altar.

During his sermon, Sheehy fiercely condemned core doctrines of the Sexual Revolution, while defending Catholic teachings on marriage and sex.

"What is so sad today is you rarely hear about sin but it's rampant. It's rampant," he said. "We see it, for example, in the legislation of our governments. We see it in the promotion of abortion. We see it in the example of this lunatic approach of transgenderism. We see it, for example, in the promotion of sex between two men and two women.

"That is sinful, that is mortal sin and people don't seem to realize it. … And we need to listen to God about it – because if we don't, then there is no hope for those people."

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LGBTQ Catholic voices rising as Vatican's Synod on Synodality gains momentum

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LGBTQ Catholic voices rising as Vatican's Synod on Synodality gains momentum

The "Chain of Discipleship" image showed five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest's vestments and a person in a rainbow-letters "pride" shirt who is shouting, "We are the young people of the future and the future is now."

This art from the Philadelphia Catholic Higher Education Synod rocked Catholic social media – especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.

Catholics at the local, regional and national levels are sending the Vatican input about the church's future. A North Carolina parish submitted testimony from "Matthew (not his real name)," who had been recognized as his Catholic high school's most popular teacher. While "hiding his homosexuality," he married "his partner elsewhere."

"They decide to foster, love and adopt young children internationally," said this report. "Matthew's greatest sadness is that he has to hide his sexuality in order to keep his job in a church institution and that he does not feel welcome in the Catholic Church precisely because of his sexuality which he considers God-given, and this despite his attempt to love the poor and destitute through his pro-life decision to adopt."

Case studies of this kind recently led Belgian bishops to approve a document – "On Pastoral Closeness to Homosexual People" (.pdf here) – containing a rite for priests blessing same-sex couples. The bishops appointed a gay layman as inter-diocesan coordinator for LGBTQ care in a land in which 3.6% of baptized Catholics attend Mass on an average Sunday.

Meanwhile, it's important that a Vatican working document includes the term LGBTQ and even LGBTQIA in discussions of topics once considered forbidden, said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights network pushed aside during the Pope St. John Paul II era.

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Father's Day Mass in Pride month: Gay dads celebrate the faith of their Catholic parish

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Father's Day Mass in Pride month: Gay dads celebrate the faith of their Catholic parish

Landon Duyka and Alex Shingleton had almost given up on Catholicism.

Then they found Old St. Patrick's Church in Chicago, where their family was welcomed because the parish practices what its clergy call "radical inclusivity." This year, the two husbands created an online buzz when, after a decade in these pews, they shared the pulpit during a symbolic Sunday Mass.

“Chicago is celebrating Pride and, of course, today is Father's Day and, conveniently, we tick both of those boxes," said Duyka. "In all honesty, if you had told us as young boys who wasted countless hours of our lives in church trying to 'pray the gay away' that we someday would be standing in front of all of you in our Catholic church talking about our family on Father's Day, we would never have believed you."

At this historic parish, their adopted daughters are thriving. The youngest was baptized with no complications, unlike the "secret ceremony" for their first daughter at a previous church. In 2016, the Old St. Pat's altar featured – for a month – photos of victims from Orlando's Pulse nightclub massacre. Parishioners shook their hands during the Sign of the Peace. There was no need to worry about sermons opposing gay marriage or seeing conversion-therapy pamphlets.

The Father's Day "reflection" by Duyka and Singleton filled the homily slot in the Mass, following the Gospel reading. There was no homily, even though Canon law requires a "priest of deacon" to deliver one during Sunday Masses with a congregation.

The details of this Pride-season Mass inspired online debates since it occurred in the powerful Archdiocese of Chicago, led by Cardinal Blase Cupich.

Pope Francis recently named Cupich to the Vatican's Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Chicago cardinal has been a fierce defender of the pope's Traditionis Custodes ("Guardians of the Tradition") document limiting use of the Tridentine Latin Mass. With its authority, Cupich has also restricted other worship traditions favored by Catholic conservatives, such as priests celebrating Mass "ad orientem," as opposed to the modern "versus populum" stance in which, when at the altar, they face their congregations.

On LGBTQ issues, Cupich made news with his response to a 2021 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith text forbidding blessings for same-sex couples.

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Pope elevates outspoken bishop on left: What was the message to U.S. bishops?

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Pope elevates outspoken bishop on left: What was the message to U.S. bishops?

Two years before long-standing rumors about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick leapt into headlines worldwide, America's most outspoken activist on clergy sexual abuse met with his local bishop – San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy.

"It was clear to me during our last meeting in your office, although cordial, that you had no interest in any further personal contact," wrote the late Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine priest who then worked for the Seton Psychiatric Institute in Baltimore. While church officials asked him to report to McElroy, "your office made it clear that you have no time in your schedule either now or 'in the foreseeable future' to have the meeting that they suggested."

Sipe's 2016 letter to the San Diego bishop was later posted online and is frequently cited as an example of a bishop ignoring warnings about the now defrocked McCarrick, who often boasted about his clout as a Vatican kingmaker. Now it will receive more attention because Pope Francis has named McElroy to the Sacred College of Cardinals. This promotes the San Diego bishop over several prominent archbishops – including Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, who leads America's largest Catholic archdiocese and is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In his hand-delivered report, Sipe told McElroy that his ongoing research indicated that 6% of American priests were guilty of sex with minors. Meanwhile, a "systemic" trend was clear: "At any one time no more than 50% of priests are practicing celibacy."

As for the powerful McCarrick, Sipe noted: "I have interviewed twelve seminarians and priests who attest to propositions, harassment, or sex with McCarrick, who has stated, 'I do not like to sleep alone.' "

Debates about McElroy's elevation have focused on other divisive issues in Catholic life, although decades of sexual-abuse crimes loom in the background. He has, for example, supported the ordination of women to the diaconate, allowing them to preach, perform weddings and serve – one step from the priesthood – at Catholic altars.

McElroy has openly clashed with American bishops anxious to address "Eucharistic coherence" as prominent Catholics, especially President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, support – with words and deeds – abortion and LGBTQ rights.

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'Guard the sacrament'? Nancy Pelosi's bishop steps into the 'McCarrick doctrine' wars

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'Guard the sacrament'? Nancy Pelosi's bishop steps into the 'McCarrick doctrine' wars

After fierce closed-door debates about President Joe Biden and Holy Communion, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops managed to release a muted document last fall that did little to please activists on either side of the church's wars about abortion and politicians in pews.

But one passage in "The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church" turned into a ticking clock in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, setting the stage for the current clash between Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone and a member of his flock – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"It is the special responsibility of the diocesan bishop to work to remedy situations that involve public actions at variance with the visible communion of the Church and the moral law," noted the bishops. "Indeed, he must guard the integrity of the sacrament, the visible communion of the Church, and the salvation of souls."

Cordileone's diocese includes the 12th Congressional District of California. After six private attempts to reach Pelosi, he released a May 20 statement telling her that "you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance."

The archbishop built his case with quotes from Pope Francis, Pope St. John Paul II and the now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, as well as Canon law stating that Catholics who "obstinately persist in manifest grave sin" are "not to be admitted to Holy Communion."

The speaker's words and actions, he added, suggest she isn't worrying about papal authority. Pelosi, the mother of five children, recently told the Seattle Times that the "personal nature of this is so appalling, and I say that as a devout Catholic. They say to me, 'Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the pope.' Yes, I do. Are you stupid?"

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Father Joseph Ratzinger's 1969 vision of the future and Germany's emerging reality

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Father Joseph Ratzinger's 1969 vision of the future and Germany's emerging reality

The 1960s were turbulent times and, in Europe, Catholics faced storms of radical change that left many weary or even cynical.

In 1969, one of Germany's rising theologians – a liberal priest at Vatican II who then became a conservative – was asked what he saw in the future.

"What St. Augustine said is still true – man is an abyss; what will rise out of these depths, no one can see in advance," said Father Joseph Ratzinger, on German radio. "Whoever believes that the church is not only determined by the abyss that is man, but reaches down into the greater, infinite abyss that is God, will be the first to hesitate with his predictions."

Ratzinger's words grew in importance in 1977 when he became Archbishop of Munich and quickly became a cardinal. Then Pope John Paul II made him prefect of the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where his orthodoxy led liberals to call him "God's Rottweiler." In 2005, he became Pope Benedict XVI.

Catholics continue to ponder his 1969 words: "From the crisis of today the church of tomorrow will emerge – a church that has lost much. … As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members."

The future pope predicted a "crystallization" process creating a "more spiritual church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the left as with the right. … It will make her poor and cause her to become the church of the meek."

The retired pope celebrated his 95th birthday on April 16th – Holy Saturday. During an earlier meeting with Jesuits, Pope Francis called his predecessor "a prophet" and cited Benedict's predictions of a "poorer" and "more spiritual" church..

“Let us prepare ourselves to be a smaller church," said Pope Francis, in remarks published in a Jesuit journal. "This is one of his most profound intuitions."

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Say what? Cardinal with strong Pope Francis ties says Catholic LGBTQ stance is wrong

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Say what? Cardinal with strong Pope Francis ties says Catholic LGBTQ stance is wrong

It isn't every day that a prince of the Roman Catholic Church, and a strategic Jesuit ally of the pope, openly rejects centuries of Christian teachings that clash with core doctrines of the Sexual Revolution.

"The Church's positions on homosexual relationships as sinful are wrong," said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, in a recent interview with KDA, a German Catholic news agency. "I believe that the sociological and scientific foundation of this doctrine is no longer correct. It is time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching, and the way in which Pope Francis has spoken of homosexuality could lead to a change in doctrine. …

"In our archdiocese, in Luxembourg, no one is fired for being homosexual, or divorced and remarried. I can't toss them out, they would become unemployed, and how can such a thing be Christian? As for homosexual priests, there are many of these, and it would be good if they could talk about this with their bishop without his condemning them."

The latest unorthodox proclamations by Cardinal Hollerich commanded attention because he leads the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, as well as being the pope's choice as "relator general" for the October 2023 global Synod of Bishops, helping shape its work to weigh the church's future.

"This Cardinal seems to be claiming a private revelation which is contrary to scripture & the Catechism of the Catholic Church," tweeted Bishop Joseph Strickland, an outspoken conservative who is Bishop of Tyler, Texas. "Any private revelation that contradicts public revelation must be condemned."

However, the recent "Synodal Way" meetings of German Catholic leaders voted to approve draft texts that affirmed some of Cardinal Hollerich's beliefs, including overwhelming approval for a document entitled "Blessing celebrations for couples who love each other." Support was just as strong for a "Magisterial reassessment of homosexuality" text stating that official church teachings on chastity and homosexuality "should be revised."

The Catechism states that persons experiencing same-sex attraction "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." However, citing scripture and church tradition, it also teaches that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and thus "contrary to the natural law. …Under no circumstances can they be approved."

The crucial question: Was Cardinal Hollerich attempting to steer Pope Francis toward change or airing views he already knew had support inside the Vatican?