Posted on 05/22/2026 4:31:13 PM PDT by ebb tide
Kentucky Bishop John Stowe inaugurated the new podcast of heretical LGBT group New Ways Ministry on Thursday and compared the group’s activities to Pentecost in blasphemous comments.
The bishop also compared the leaders and supporters of New Ways Ministry, which promotes homosexual “marriage” and “gender transitions,” to St. Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and other Catholic figures.
Stowe, who is known for his heterodoxy on homosexuality and gender, invoked Pentecost to push for “diversity” in the Church.
“I like to think of that driving wind of the Spirit’s presence blowing open the doors and windows of that closed house in which the community had been waiting,” he said.
“Isn’t this opening of windows and doors what the founding leaders and supporters of New Ways Ministry were doing as they embraced those wounded by rejection because of their sexual orientation?” he later asked.
The conventual Franciscan bishop, appointed by Pope Francis to lead the Diocese of Lexington in 2015, shockingly compared New Ways Ministry’s “embrace” of homosexual and gender-confused individuals to St. Paul’s inclusion of Gentile Christians in the Church.
“Isn’t this what Paul of Tarsus experienced when he saw no reason to exclude the Gentiles from this universal community? A latecomer in comparison to the Apostles, he challenged them to be more expansive and inclusive,” Stowe said.
St. Paul notably condemned homosexuality as “unnatural,” “shameless acts,” and “dishonorable passions,” in the Letter to the Romans (1:26–27). He also taught that unrepentant homosexuals “will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven” (1 Cor 6:9) and named sodomy alongside murder of one’s parents as a particularly serious sin (1 Tim 1:9).
Stowe’s praised New Ways Ministry’s “founding leaders” despite the fact that Pope St. John Paul II and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, censured them in 1999.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger declared New Ways Ministry’s founders Sr. Jeanne Grammick and Fr. Robert Nugent “permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons.”
“The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church,” the congregation said in a document approved by John Paul II.
It added that the two activists were “ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.”
In recent years, New Ways Ministry has published articles criticizing bans on “gender transitions” for children, defending the mutilating practice as “self-care,” and promoting “Transgender Day of Remembrance,” among other things.
Stowe, 60, has a lengthy record of scandalous pro-LGBT actions and statements, including issuing a “pride”-themed “prayer card” with an image of a crucifix and rainbow colors.
He also released a “pride month” video criticizing the Church for not being “as welcoming as it should be” and lamenting “white privilege.”
In 2021, he publicly endorsed Democrats’ “Equality Act,” which would make “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” protected classes in federal law.
The bill would likely allow “transgender” males to access women’s private spaces, force schools to let gender-confused athletes compete on opposite-sex sports teams, require medical professionals to commit “gender transition” procedures, compel employers to use transgender names and pronouns, and establish a national “right” to abortion, among other things.
The U.S. bishops’ conference has condemned the legislation, which would exempt itself from federal religious freedom protections.
Stowe later joined an online homosexual “blessing” event organized by the heterodox LGBT group “Dignity USA.” The event came in response to the Vatican’s 2021 pronouncement that the Church cannot bless homosexual relationships.
In 2024, he allowed a gender-confused woman to live as a “transgender” male “diocesan hermit” with the name “Christian,” in defiance of canon law and Catholic teaching. Stowe has referred to the woman with male pronouns.
That year, New Ways Ministry gave Stowe its “Bridge Building Award” for his pro-LGBT efforts, the same award that the group gave to LGBT activist priest Fr. James Martin. Stowe endorsed Martin’s infamous 2017 book Building a Bridge, which criticizes Church teaching on homosexuality as “needlessly cruel.”
Stowe is the ecclesial adviser for another heterodox LGBT activist group, “Fortunate Families,” and has spoken at its conferences.
The bishop has additionally allowed parishes to fly rainbow flags, with a spokesperson for the diocese saying that “making this kind of statement is a decision … up to each parish.” A parish in Stowe’s diocese also held a pro-LGBT prayer event apologizing for the Church’s opposition to homosexuality, titled “Service of Atonement and Apology to the LGBTQ+ Community.”
While indulging LGBT activists, Stowe banned celebrating Mass in the traditional ad orientem posture, in contradiction to Vatican norms, prohibited priests who rejected the abortion-tainted COVID shots from ministering to the sick, and ordered priests who refused the injections to reveal their status at the end of Mass.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual activity is mortally sinful and that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’”
The Church also condemns gender ideology and upholds the reality of the two sexes.
Stowe, a strong supporter of the late Pope Francis, also claimed in New Ways Ministry’s that Francis led the Church “toward a new Pentecost.”
“Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis made his embrace wide and inclusive. He worried about the Church becoming sick because of confinement in a stuffy atmosphere,” he said.
“He led us towards a new Pentecost, a new birth where, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we would speak new languages, reach out warmly to those the Church has ignored and break down barriers,” he continued, apparently referring to homosexuals and gender-confused people.
Pope Francis repeatedly contradicted Catholic teaching on sexuality and other issues, permitting homosexual “blessings” and endorsing homosexual civil union laws, which the Church teaches are “gravely unjust.”
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger declared New Ways Ministry’s founders Sr. Jeanne Grammick and Fr. Robert Nugent “permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons.”
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Pope Francis repeatedly contradicted Catholic teaching on sexuality and other issues, permitting homosexual “blessings” and endorsing homosexual civil union laws, which the Church teaches are “gravely unjust.”
Stowe is a frankenbishop. He was consecrated in 2015.
Stick a fork in it - the catholic church is done!
Both blasphemous and heretical in one statement.
Sad but true.
Sad but true! According to a friend of mine; the whole thing started with Vatican II.
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