The Pontifical Household announced that the Pope isn’t having a meeting with a ‘c’atholic pro-Gay group today after Mass to screen a video.
Vatican City, Mar 16, 2015 / 05:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Vatican official says there will be no papal endorsement for an LGBT activist video whose backers want it to reach Pope Francis.
Father Gil Martinez, C.S.P., a member of the development team for the video “LGBT Catholics: Owning our Faith,” intended to present the video to Pope Francis in a private audience after morning Mass on March 17, according to the website of the St. Philip Neri Parish and Northwest Paulist Center in the Portland, Ore.
The video contains the personal reflections from self-identified LGBT Catholics, several of whom reject Church teaching.
An official with the Holy See Press Office told CNA March 16 that the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household had not announced any public events for Pope Francis on March 17. This means that “no public or official meetings are scheduled.”
“The Pope can, however, meet whomever he wants, but this cannot mean in any sense an official endorsement, since every audience is intended to be kept private,” the official said. Such meetings are made public “only if some of the people involved speak out about it.”
Well, we can anticipate that someone just might speak out then. It happens quite a bit these days.
The press release for the video said it is dedicated to “achieving the full acceptance of LGBT persons in the Catholic Church.” It said that the video evokes “the need for change” and will “reach thousands, including Pope Francis, many bishops and other prominent Vatican clergy.”
The St. Philip Neri Parish website said that Fr. Mark-David Janus, C.S.P., would also present Cardinal Walter Kasper’s newest book from Paulist Press, “Pope Francis’ Revolution of Tenderness and Love.”
The “Owning our Faith” video is produced and directed by Michael Tomae, a parishioner of New York City’s St. Paul the Apostle Church. Fr. Martinez is pastor of the parish, which shares a mailing address with the “Owning our Faith” project. Tomae is part of the parish’s Out@StPaul LGBT ministry, which is promoting the video on its website.
The “Owning our Faith” video includes interviewees who reject Catholic teaching on sexual morality and marriage.
Matt Putorti, a lawyer from New York City, criticized Catholic teaching in the video, claiming that the Church is telling gay people that “they need to be celibate” and “cannot live fully.”
Putorti said it is “inherently” discriminatory to say, “You can be gay, but you can’t live that life.”
Interviewee Matt Vidal, a lawyer from New York City in a same-sex civil marriage, said that leaving the Church would mean that “it’s never going to change.”
“So we have to continue living here, being an example and encouraging other people to be that example because that’s what’s going to change the Church.”
Another interviewee, Matteo Williamson, co-chairs the transgender caucus of the dissenting Catholic group Dignity USA, which aims to change Catholic teaching on homosexuality.
The “Owning Our Faith” website recommends a list of parishes on the website of New Ways Ministry, another Catholic dissenting group. In 2011, the U.S. Catholic bishops reiterated that the organization is not allowed to identify as Catholic and said that it puts forward positions that do not conform to Catholic teaching.
‘c’atholic group, Dignity USA just invited the vile, pornographic, and decidedly undignified Dan Savage as a speaker. Why are these groups having non-meetings with Pope Francis to promote gay sex?
