WASHINGTON D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The pro-LGBT conference led by Father James Martin, S.J., which yesterday received public support from Pope Francis, is notable for its speakers who have a record of heterodoxy in the area of Catholic sexual ethics.
From August 2 through 4, over 300 “LGBTQ Catholics and their allies” will gather at Georgetown University for the annual Outreach conference. Outreach, founded in 2022 by Martin, is an organization which aims to become a global resource center “where church leaders, both clergy and lay, can encounter the LGBTQ faithful, in their ‘joys and hopes’ and ‘griefs and anxieties’ as well as engage in respectful dialogue.”
Just yesterday, Outreach published a letter sent by Pope Francis to Martin, in which the Pope expressed his spiritual closeness to all the participants.
READ: Pope Francis tells pro-LGBT conference: ‘I will be spiritually with all of you’
The weekend event features two Masses – led by Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., and Martin respectively – keynote speeches, and a number of panel discussions.
A list of panel events provided by Outreach include:
- LGBTQ Ministry in Parishes
- Telling LGBTQ Catholic Stories
- The Bible and Homosexuality
- LGBTQ Ministry in Higher Education
- Transgender Catholics and the Church
- Race, Intersectionality and LGBTQ People
- Parenting LGTBQ Children
- Catholic LGBTQ Women and the Church
- Gifts of a Life of Chastity
- Outreach Outlook from Rome
- “Preach” Roundtable Discussion
“I hope that L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics, their friends and families, and those who minister alongside them will leave Outreach 2024 with a renewed sense that not only are they welcome in the church, but that the church needs their gifts, talents and witness,” said Michael J. O’Loughlin, Outreach’s openly homosexual executive director.
However, especially notable are some of the keynote speakers listed for Martin’s event. Aside from Martin and Gregory – whose respective positions on matters relating to Catholic morality are already well documented – the speakers includes ex-Jesuit Father William Hart McNichols and Jewish Biblical professor Amy-Jill Levine.
Fr. McNichols: gay iconographer
The 75-year-old McNichols is an openly same-sex attracted priest, who spent 35 years in the Jesuits before being approved to leave the Society of Jesus in 2002. McNichols has spent much of his priestly life as an LGBT activist, gaining notoriety due to his work among individuals with AIDS in New York in the 1980s.
McNichols was ordained in 1979, and declared himself openly “gay” in the 1980s. Alongside his LGBT activism and his ministry to AIDS patients, McNichols has established himself as an iconographer.
“God gave me this vocation as a very little boy, before I knew I was gay,” McNichols has said of his life as a priest. After leaving the Jesuits he has remained a priest with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
His website contains images of his wide-ranging portfolio, including his notorious work from 1989 “The Stations of the Cross of a Person With AIDS.”
Another work of his from that decade was his 1986 work “AIDS Crucifixion.” In this image Christ is portrayed wearing underwear briefs, with the sign atop the cross, reading: “AIDS, homosexual, faggot, pervert, Sodomite.”
In the “AIDS Crucifixion,” Mary Magdalene is portrayed in a low-cut, sleeveless dress, while St. John in skinny jeans and a hoody comforts Our Lady.
Also in 1989, McNichols penned a chapter for the pro-homosexual activist book, Homosexuality in the Priesthood and the Religious Life, which was compiled by Sister Jeannine Gramick. Gramick, the co-founder of pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, has a long history of dissenting from Catholic teaching on homosexuality and abortion and was officially censured by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1999, but has ignored the order. She has most recently received support from Pope Francis, though the Vatican censure against her has not been formally revoked.
McNichols has already been a lauded guest at prior conferences organized by Fr. Martin, such as in 2019, and has been described by Martin as “my dear friend.”
His work has also been displayed as part of the 2020 L.A. Religious Education Congress.
At Outreach 2024 McNichols will be giving an unspecified keynote address.
Dr. Levine: Scripture does not condemn practice of homosexuality
The 68-year-old Levine is widely welcomed in the academic sphere as a Biblical professor and expert. She serves, among other roles, as the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.
Levine has previously described herself as a “Yankee Jewish feminist,” adding that she does not conform to orthodox Jewish norms.
She has explicitly stated that she is “not a believer in Jesus” as God, though acknowledges His real existence and calls Him a “fabulous teacher.”
Despite this, she was announced in 2019 as being on the editorial board of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly magazine, Women, Church, World. Levine has also made history by becoming the “first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute.”
Having been received in private audience by Pope Francis three times, she has also received an essay from him for her book The Pharisees.
In a lengthy essay published on Outreach’s website in 2022, Levine argued against using certain Scriptural passages as evidence to condemn homosexual actions, though she admitted that other passages from Leviticus and St. Paul could be said to condemn homosexual acts.
“The account of the punishment wrought upon Sodom and Gomorrah, has nothing to do with consensual sexual relations; the sins of Sodom are inhospitality, threat, and finally, attempted rape,” she wrote.
But even though she appeared to admit that St. Paul does clearly condemn homosexuality, she then argued that even clear passages on the topic from the apostle are not to be understood as condemnations. Writing about Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Levine opined that St. Paul could not be understood as condemning “consenting” acts of homosexuality.
Acknowledging that some Bible passages do “speak against same-sex sexual activity,” Levine argues for a middle ground: she uses passages from Genesis 2 to argue, “If it is not good for human beings to be alone, why would we condemn queer people to lives of singleness and celibacy?”
Catholic teaching on homosexuality
The Catholic Church’s moral teachings note that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear that homosexual activity can never be approved, and repeats that “[h]omosexual persons are called to chastity.”
The Vatican’s doctrinal office issued its 1986 document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons,” in which it noted that while a homosexual inclination is not a sin in itself, it is nevertheless “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
The document stipulates that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
“We wish to make it clear that departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral,” wrote the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church’s position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.”
The CDF added that “special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.”
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