✣ Jesuit author’s talks are cancelled amid backlash
What happened? Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has called for “Christian civility” after a heated debate over the Jesuit writer Fr James Martin. Fr Martin was disinvited from three lectures – two in America, one in London – because the organisers were concerned about a possible backlash. Fr Martin’s recent book Building A Bridge has been much debated. While Cardinal Kevin Farrell praised the work, Cardinal Robert Sarah argued that it downplayed the importance of chastity. What Catholic commentators said In the Washington Post, Fr Martin defended his book against its critics. It was, he said, “a call for respect on both sides”, and he had been surprised by the response. However, he said, “I am at peace with the book and with the mission to love and advocate for LGBT Catholics.” New York Times columnist Ross Douthat said that the bad-tempered debates within the Church were “the all-but-inevitable result of the Pope’s decisions to stir the Church’s tensions into civil war again, and then to fight for the liberal side using ambiguous statements and unofficial interventions rather than the explicit powers of his office.” Some Catholic institutions try to “pretend” there is no conflict, Douthat said. But “the only serious course is to invite serious argument and encourage respectful debate.” On Twitter, Fr Martin thanked Douthat for his article, but said: “This Church still sounds more like a series of propositions than an encounter with Jesus.” At The Catholic Thing, Robert Royal argued that this divided faith from reason, “as if the serious developments of Christian thought over centuries have usurped the centrality of the ‘encounter with Jesus’.” In First Things, Fr Paul Mankowski SJ said that the division between the Church and the LGBT community, lamented by Fr Martin, reflects real differences. “What percentage of those who claim membership in ‘the LGBT community’ also endorse the teachings of the Catechism”, such as that “Sacred Scripture ... presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity”? There are “a stalwart few, no doubt, but their number is tiny”.
