Joanne of Arc's blog

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) — Photo: Promotional poster on Facebook (we have removed the communication details)

*The following article is not a promotion, rather a news article.

Conferences for “LGBTQ Catholics” were held for 6 weeks at a Catholic parish in the West-Island of Montreal.

A Montreal area parish located in the Pierrefonds borough held a conference for “LGBTQ Catholics” for 6 consecutive Monday evenings from October 24th to November 28th. The conferences were announced through their newsletter and organized by Cathie Macaulay, a parishioner and responsible for PHC: Pastoral Home Care at the diocese of Montreal.

According to an exchange with madam Macaulay, the program is built upon the book “Building A Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity” by Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest.

In her YouTube video promoting the conferences, found on St-Luke's YouTube channel, Cathie Macaulay called the conferences an “adult faith formation program” and affirmed that “the focus of this program is how to build a bridge between the LGBTQ community and the Catholic church”.

She added: “The discussion group will explore how we can live relationships with LGBTQ Catholics with people in our family, workplace, community and people in our Parish with respect, compassion and sensitivity as we are asked to do in the Catechism of the Catholic Church”

She concluded by saying that: “Questions about sexual identity and gender identity abound in our culture” and “We can all learn more about one another and by listening more to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters”.

Cathie Macaulay can be seen promoting the conferences at St Luke’s parish on the parish YouTube channel under "unlisted":

According to Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, Fr. James Martin wants to create “a bridge between the Institutional church and the LGBTQ catholic community” using the virtues of respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

In his YouTube series, He affirms that the people who “really love you will accept you as who you are” and the notion that nobody chooses to “be born that way” [LGBTQ]. He adds “it’s like being born left-handed or right-handed”.

His approach can be seen in his promotional videos for Building The Bridge on YouTube: Spiritual Insights for LGBTQ Catholics

The Catechism of the Catholic Church in section 2357 teaches the following: “Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”

The Catechism also teaches in sections 2357-2359 “Homosexuals persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection”.

It is important to know that there is another national Church-approved support group for help in deliverance from the homosexual lifestyle called Courage. It encourages people who experience same sex attraction to live a chaste lifestyle. They also have a new five-part ministeries about the transgender movement hosted by Mary Hasson that is sponsored by EWTN.

However, according to an anonymous source, St Luke’s parish is comfortable promoting Fr. Martin’s approach despite the division in the church upon this topic, because “Pope Francis himself is encouraging it.”

Ephesians 5:11 "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."-J