Rev. James Martin

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109 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard Apr 2025

Rev. James Martin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Interesting Times · Can the Catholic Church Quit the Culture Wars? · 24 Apr 2025 podcast

A lot of his critics said, oh, well, anything goes. It's just where we're going to listen to people. It's all about polls and opinions. But I think what they missed was that he really did trust the Holy Spirit active in the individual. So I think that, for me, encapsulates why people, I think, struggled with that. Because it is, you know, it's a challenge when you hear something like that.

We need to meet people where they are. We need to listen to them. We need to see where the Holy Spirit is active. But To your point, he didn't want to move the church so far that he would break it.

Yeah. I mean, you could say more broadly that concretely, you know, we were brought to a greater understanding of the importance of the human dignity of migrants and refugees, for example. I mean, there's no church teaching change in that. But to your point more specifically, for one thing, the catechism changed on the death penalty. It's now inadmissible. That's a small thing.

For another, early in his papacy, he said he wanted more, I remember this line, incisive roles created. for women in leadership positions, and now you have a woman who's the head of a Vatican dicastery or office. The governor of Vatican City is a woman, right? So I think there have been real changes, maybe not to the catechism, but changes in church practice.

For LGBTQ people, I think there's been significant changes. The ones that are perhaps the most kind of juridical would be the allowance of blessing of same-sex couples under certain circumstances, right? I mean, before that document came out, you couldn't do it. After the document came out, you could do it. So that's a change.

And then also something that's, I think, overlooked is his call for the decriminalization of homosexuality, right? Which I think in the West, people, you know, greeted with some shrugs, like, eh, big deal. But that's a big deal over in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe and Latin America, right?

So, yeah, I don't think he set out to change the catechism, but I think he changed the conversation. And in a sense, in addition to these kind of specific things, I think that's a kind of change in teaching, right? I mean, to change the conversation and to change the approach and the tone is a kind of change in teaching.

So I think, yeah, he disappointed conservatives, certainly in different aspects, and liberals, I think, who think he didn't go far enough. Yeah. But again, I came away from the Senate understanding anew, or maybe for the first time, the importance of church unity and what a difficult job he had.

I think the basis, as we would both agree, would be the creed, for example. I mean, you're not going to change any obvious dogma. You're not going to say suddenly that Jesus, guess what, Jesus didn't rise from the dead. You're not going to say that. Yeah.

So we should start there because I think a lot of Catholics feel that, oh my gosh, Pope Francis was changing everything or anything goes, which is, you know, not accurate. I do think that that's a limit. I do think that church unity is a value, right? I mean, you know, Christ said that they all may be one. I think that's a value for us.

So I think anything that goes against that needs to be looked at carefully. So it's a balance, Ross, I think, between, you know, what you might call prophecy and unity, right? I'll tell you a story. I would write to him fairly, not frequently, but a couple times a year. And I suggested that he do something. I forget what it was, to be honest, about LGBT stuff.

And he said, yeah, that's a good idea. He said, but if I do that, I thought this was an interesting choice of words, I will provoke a chain reaction. And he's right. So while I thought that he could have gone further, he would have, right? He would have provoked a chain reaction. And he saw that as a negative thing. And I came around to agree with him.

You know, that's not worth breaking the church over some of these things. So I think his approach was to open the discussion, which again, that's a change.

That's a great question. I'm not a theologian. I'm not a moral theologian. So I'll try my best to answer that.

I would say reverence for the other person. I would say sex and sexuality is something that is sacred. not using the other person, and the value of monogamous relationships. Well, I mean, Jesus doesn't teach much on marriage. He teaches a lot on divorce, right? His first miracle is at a wedding feast, so there's a positive outlook.

He's pro that marriage. He favored that one. He, of course, himself is celibate. He doesn't get married for a number of reasons. But I would say that's the distinctive Christian contribution today is which is reverencing the other person and not using the other person and seeing sexuality as sacred and deep and not something to be, you know, just kind of used in a relationship.

And I think that is different than a lot of liberal, secular understanding of sexuality. I mean, when people come to me in the confessional about that, that's one of my first questions, you know, are you reverencing the other person, right? How are you treating the other person?

So, and I think that's different because I think in today's what Pope Francis would call throwaway culture, that's not accepted by every liberal secular person, even a good person.

Absolutely. I think, yes. I mean, in terms of the sacrament of marriage. But I think what Pope Francis was trying to do... you know, was to remind ourselves that we're also dealing with individuals, right? And so we talk about, you know, we've talked about divorce, masturbation. I brought it up just for the record, sorry.

You know, it comes up in the, I don't know any man that comes to the confessional, at least in my experience, who does not confess that. So it's, you know, it's common. There's also a sense of, and homosexuality, right, in terms of all these topics.

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