Posted on 10/14/2026 3:30:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
Three Catholic organizations are calling on the Archbishop of Milwaukee to stop a parish event featuring a female Lutheran pastor who will discuss ways the parish can be more supportive of homosexuality and transgender ideology.
“How can other faith traditions help us more fully welcome LGBTQ+ people in our Catholic community,” a Facebook post from St. Sebastian parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee asks.
The parish “welcome” group will host “Rev. Rachel Young Binter, a Lutheran minister and director of the Center for Clergy Renewal at Holy Wisdom Monastery” on Monday, October 19 for a discussion on this topic. Binter, the post reads, “will draw on more than 20 years of LGBTQ+ ministry to share insights and invite us to reflect on how we can strengthen our own welcome and accompaniment.”
The “Holy Wisdom Monastery” is not Catholic, but rather an ecumenical center that includes services run by a variety of “ministers,” including an ex-Catholic priest, Paul Knitter, who now promotes Buddhism. Binter is also a Reiki and yoga teacher, both Eastern religious practices condemned by the Catholic Church. The center is “inspired by Vatican Council II.”
LifeSiteNews reached out to both the St. Sebastian group and Binter to ask for further information about what will be discussed at the meeting and for their views on the Catholic Church’s teaching on human sexuality. Neither responded to emails sent in the past several days.
Sandra Peterson, the communications director for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, similarly did not respond to emails about any planned actions concerning the event and the “Holy Wisdom Monastery.”
However, three separate Catholic groups condemned the event and called on the archdiocese to step up and stop it.
Archbishop Jeffrey Grob “should act like a shepherd protect the flock from the wolves – the particular wolf in this case being the false teacher Rachel Binter,” Catholic Action League Executive Director CJ Doyle told LifeSiteNews via email.
“He should cancel the event,” Doyle said.
He also condemned Binter, saying: “Catholics have no need for instruction or advice from heretics who deny both the doctrines of the faith and the authority of the Church, especially those who, in matters of Christian morality, reject both divine and natural law."
Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, expressed similar sentiments.
“Our hope is that the archbishop will express true love of souls by shutting down all activities that smack of endorsement or support for LGBT activities or identities,” Hichborn told LifeSiteNews.
He said there are clear steps priests should take when it comes to Catholics who have same-sex attractions. The archbishop should encourage priests “to welcome sinners by instructing them in the faith, turning them away from sin, and introducing them to the sacraments.”
The director of TFP Student Action urged diocesan leaders to protect the mission of the Church.
“Every diocese has a mission: to teach, guide, and sanctify,” John Ritchie told LifeSiteNews.
“Church leaders have a duty to guide souls, not leave the faithful confused by ambiguous language about what the Church teaches.”
The approach to individuals with same-sex attractions should not include welcoming their disordered desires, but helping them understand the love God has for them and His plan for their life, including living chastely, Hichborn argued.
“It is important to handle sinners seeking reconciliation with God with the fullness of charity, which means helping them cast off their former sinful lives, rejecting any identification with sin or disorder, and living lives of virtue,” the Lepanto Institute leader told LifeSiteNews.
Hichborn also said:
The mission of the Church is the salvation of souls, taking particular care to bring sinners to repentance, penance, and reconciliation with everything the Church teaches. Groups like this are directed toward not the mere acceptance of a sinner seeking reconciliation, but the acceptance of sin and the identity with sin.
He cited St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, in which the saint references those who “were” homosexuals.
“In other words, having cast off their old sinful lives, they are no longer to be identified with such sins, and are now to be identified by membership in the Body of Christ,” Hichborn said.
Doyle, ofthe Catholic Action League, also said sacramental confession is an important part of truly “welcoming” Catholics with same-sex or transgender inclinations.
“Homosexuals are already welcome in the Church,” he said. “They are welcome, like the rest of us poor sinners, to the confessional, to repentance from sin, to interior conversion, and to the personal pursuit of holiness.”
“As a hospital for sinners, the Church must never make people comfortable in their sins, but must try to cure them of the moral or spiritual ailment which afflicts them,” he said.
TFP Student Action denounced the errors of ecumenism.
“Endless dialogue has produced only bitter fruit: a watered-down faith and salt without savor. Catholics should not be confused into thinking that all religious beliefs are interchangeable or equally true, because they aren’t,” Ritchie told LifeSiteNews.
“Our Lord founded His Church to teach the truth, not to accommodate every prevailing idea,” Ritchie said. “Loving someone does not mean affirming everything that person believes or desire.”
Catholic parishes do not belong to the individual members who have their own agenda.
Instead, Ritchie said, “Catholic parishes belong to God.”
Parishes have a specific mission which must always be remembered. “They are sacred places where people worship and pray, find spiritual guidance, and receive the grace to live according to God’s commandments,” Ritchie said.
“Only heretics or apostate Catholics attempt to twist and distort 2,000 years of Church teaching on marriage and human nature to conform to the godless spirit of the age.”
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“Our Lord founded His Church to teach the truth, not to accommodate every prevailing idea,” Ritchie said. “Loving someone does not mean affirming everything that person believes or desire.”
Catholic parishes do not belong to the individual members who have their own agenda.
Instead, Ritchie said, “Catholic parishes belong to God.”
Parishes have a specific mission which must always be remembered. “They are sacred places where people worship and pray, find spiritual guidance, and receive the grace to live according to God’s commandments,” Ritchie said.
“Only heretics or apostate Catholics attempt to twist and distort 2,000 years of Church teaching on marriage and human nature to conform to the godless spirit of the age.”
‘Only heretics or apostate Catholics attempt to twist and distort 2,000 years of Church teaching on marriage and human nature to conform to the godless spirit of the age’
That’s right.
We are so doomed! Why our ‘betters’ fall for all of this is beyond me.
Read your Bible and pray. ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ Soon!
Let me guess - short gray hair, glasses, leathery skin, possibly chubby and definitely a L (liberal or lesbian, take your pick).
RE: female pastor...
So the Church had better look past her.
There are Lutheran denominations that try to follow the Bible(Missouri, and Wisconsin Synods. Why meet with the fake one? (ELCA).
Creating a god and the word in THEIR own image-
(Paraphrasing Willie Sutton)
"Because that's where the heretics are."
“Let me guess - short gray hair, glasses, leathery skin, possibly chubby and definitely a L.”
No doubt ELCA. Not satisfied after having ruined their own church, which is withering on the vine, and has lost hundreds of congregations after allowing female and LGBTQ clergy..
Let the Catholics have her and the lot of them.
ISWYDT
I LIKE it!
Past her = Pastor
Well done!
My humble thanks.
Crisis? What crisis?
This is a prime example of making sinners comfortable with their sins. Seems Vat II is the source of this idea.
the church is not supposed to be welcoming of sinners and then encourage them to continue sinning, it is supposed to welcome them and then get them to stop sinning.
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