Pro-LGBT priest James Martin puts young people at risk of ‘damnation’: Pro-life leader

May 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Young men and women being misled by pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Father James Martin are at risk of “stepping into a life that will only lead to heartache, sometimes disease, sometimes death, [and] even damnation,” according to international pro-life leader Austin Ruse.

Ruse, the President of the Center for Family and Human Rights (CFAM), spoke to LifeSiteNews about how Martin uses his “pulpit” to mislead people “about the teachings of the Church” on sexual morality.

“It’s shocking to me that more bishops and priests and theologians have not challenged him in the public square,” said Ruse. “It’s kind of crushing that they haven’t.”

Ruse's concern about the Jesuit's teaching is backed by doctor of the Church St. Peter Damian who called homosexuality a “vice” that “opens up hell and closes the door of paradise.”

“This vice [of same-sex activity] is the death of bodies, the destruction of souls, pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the intellect, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, introduces the diabolical inciter of lust, throws into confusion, and removes the truth completely from the deceived mind,” he wrote in his 11th century Book of Gomorrah. 

“It prepares snares for the one who walks, and for him who falls into the pit, it obstructs the escape. It opens up hell and closes the door of paradise,” he added.

Fr. Martin in his June 2017 book titled Building a Bridge urged Catholics who identify as “gay” to begin “conversations” with their bishops with what appears to be the intention of moving the Church in the direction of normalizing homosexuality as part of God’s creation. 

Ruse noted one recent positive development with respect to Martin in that he seems to have been “put under a lot of pressure” to write a column for America magazine reciting Church teaching on homosexuality.

In that column, “he recites Church teaching quite well, but then you compare that to the things that he has said publicly,” such as he looks forward to when “married” gay men will be able to kiss during Mass.

“Now, is that within Church teaching, to celebrate gay ‘marriage’ and that they should be kissing at the sign of peace? I don’t think so,” said Ruse. The major discrepancy between Martin’s one column and his many past actions and writings led Ruse to write an article titled James Martin S.J. vs James Martin S.J.

In it, Ruse outlines the various “slippery” ways in which Martin has been publicly at odds with Church teaching. Ruse told LifeSiteNews that Martin’s response to the article was to quote paragraph 115 from the Pope’s new exhortation Gaudete et Exultate, which addresses “verbal violence.”

Apparently, “you commit verbal violence if you question James Martin about Church teaching,” he said.

Ruse, whose group lobbies the United Nations for pro-life and pro-family policies, has publicly sparred with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in addition to the pro-homosexual Jesuit. The SPLC, known for equating pro-life Christians with neo-Nazis, has repeatedly tried to smear CFAM. CFAM has weathered those attacks and remains a well-respected non-governmental organization (NGO) at the UN.