Cath Cauc: The bully and hate mongering Catholic priests are raging because they are losing

James Martin, S.J. has had a conference cancelled at a parish. It has been moved to a private venue. Below the picture below of a recent Tweet, is his comment on the matter on his Facebook page.

He refers to those who oppose his dissent from the faith being promoted in our parishes as "hate mongers and bullies."

Full disclosure: I do not hate anyone suffering from same-sex attraction. I have three friends, all who formerly engaged in same-sex behaviour and have all overcome it. One is married to a woman. The other two are celibate and chaste faithful men. I have never engaged in hate-mongering or bullying of anyone, let alone those suffering from this awful sin. I do hate homosexualism as a political movement and I hate it as a sin as I hate those sins of my own. I hate how it has transformed our culture and the political force it has become undermining our families. I hate how sodomites have infiltrated the Holy Church and undermined the faith.

Our little Jimmy, just like another rageful priest we all know clearly is the hater and the bully. It seems that these rageful men think that Catholics should just shut up and pay, pray and obey. Yet, did the Second Vatican Council which these men promote continually give to the laity the encouragement to evangelise and speak the faith or does that not apply when it opposes what the

The reality is, they are on the run. They hate bloggers, they think we are visceral and devils and cesspools of hate. Yet, it is because of what we do that they have been outed and forced to be held accountable in the public square. These men are the evil ones, they are the ones who are visceral and devils and cesspools of hate and vitriol. They are scared you know, this is why they are filled with rage. We're on them like white on rice and we are not stopping. We have them by their short hairs and we are not letting go.

It is only a matter of time. it will not end well for James Martin and the others. Not in this life, or the next, if they do not repent and do public penance and reparation for their scandal.

Dear friends: I'm sorry to say that another lecture has been cancelled, or in this case moved, thanks to pressure from a far-right website named "Tradition, Family and Property."

As in the past, I wasn't going to publicize the cancellation out of respect for the organizers, but now that it's been written about on the "Church Militant" website, in order to correct the record, for the sake of transparency and so that you might know what is going on in our church, I thought I should tell you what happened. But before I go farther, I want to say that the parish was a victim in this episode as well, and I hold no grudge against anyone on the parish staff, or in the deanery or diocese, who were all under great stress.

Many months ago, perhaps in early 2017, I was invited by the lay council of the deanery (a juridical, geographic, grouping of parishes) in the Diocese of Metuchen, NJ, to give a Lenten lecture. It was scheduled for February 15 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, where I had previously spoken in 2014. An ad was placed this week in the Diocese of Metuchen's newspaper, "The Catholic Spirit."

A few days ago, I learned that a far-right website called "Tradition, Family and Property" had initiated an online petition to pressure the pastor (a kind and generous priest who had hosted me in 2014) to cancel the talk at his parish: "Please Urge Our Lady of Lourdes Parish to Cancel presentation by Pro-Homosexual Priest--Who Gives Scandal." It was similar to the petitions of personal vilification circulated by Church Militant, another far-right online site that traffics in hate and is similarly obsessed with homosexuality. Here is the petition: http://www.tfp.org/act/take-action-archive-page/

Shortly afterwards, I received an email from a woman on the lay council of the deanery who told me, with sadness, that the parish felt forced to move the talk elsewhere, out of fear of protests. When asked, another parish declined to welcome the talk, also out of fear of protests. The chancery suggested to Our Lady of Lourdes that the talk continue, but with a different speaker. In the end, the deanery decided to move the lecture off church grounds entirely, to a local conference center. Then they contacted me and told me of their decision.

As I said, I see the parish, the deanery and the diocese are all victims of this campaign of personal vilification and online bullying.

But we are left with an important question: What does the church do in the face of hate-mongering and online bullying?

First, caving into bullying is never the right thing to do. It only emboldens the bullies. It also gives the People of God the impression that the judgment of local pastors and lay leaders (who approved the original lecture) is superseded by the angry calls from often anonymous hate-mongers, usually from outside of the diocese.

Second, pastors need to remember that allowing lectures to continue, even controversial ones (which this one was assuredly not) may mean a handful of protesters (usually praying the rosary, with a few signs). Cancelling lectures, on the other hand, means a great deal more negative publicity for the parish and the diocese, and a hornet's nest of feelings stirred up among the majority of the faithful.

Third, bishops need to be invited to see the danger of online hate groups (which traffic in lies and innuendos) taking precedence over the traditional role of the local ordinaries and religious superiors of speakers, in terms of determining who is a person "in good standing." Traditionally, if a priest or religious is invited to speak on a topic, the local ordinary sometimes asks the speaker for a letter from his or her superior saying that the speaker is a priest or religious "in good standing." This rightly comes from the appropriate church authorities, who know the background of the person in question. But that is not what is happening any longer. Now, the conclusions of random groups of haters are superseding the authority of superiors who are not only better able to determine, but actually charged with determining, who is "in good standing." And for the record, I am indeed a "priest in good standing" in my religious order.

Fourth, we need to admit how much of these online petitions are driven by pure hatred and, more often, virulent homophobia. All one has to do is spend five seconds on these websites to see what motivates them: hate. And if the church starts allowing groups that use doctrine as a cover for hatred to replace true church authority, we will end up with a church run by hate.

Finally, we need to understand how much of this is driven by abject fear. Most times when a lecture is cancelled it is not because the organizing institution has a problem with the speaker or the topic (because if they did, they wouldn't have invited the speaker to begin with), but because they fear protests. Fear has a (sic - Ed.) insidious way of overtaking reason. As St. Paul says, perfect love drives out fear. But perfect fear drives out love. We cannot let fear win.

So it's finally time for bishops, priests and lay leaders finally to stand up to the hate-mongering of online groups with no standing whatsoever in the church, who seek to substitute their spurious authority for legitimate church authority, and who seek to run the church by fear and hatred.

Otherwise, what are we doing as a church?

I hope to see people at the newly scheduled talk, on Feb. 15, at the Razberry Banquet and Conference Center in French Town, NJ., which will still be sponsored by the deanery. It will be a larger venue than Our Lady of Lourdes. I'm very much looking forward to it: I'm also at total peace.

The subject of the Lenten reflection, by the way, will be the original subject: "Jesus Christ: Fully Human, Fully Divine."

NJ Constitution: own conscience and free speak:

3. No person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; nor under any pretense whatever be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his faith and judgment; nor shall any person be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and voluntarily engaged to perform.

6. Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. In all prosecutions or indictments for libel, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury; and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous is true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall h

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Fr. James Martin, SJ