In the light of all these considerations, solidly probable opinion can be invoked in favor of permitting a homosexual freedom of conscience and free access to the sacraments of reconciliation and the eucharist. . . .

Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought

By now you’ve heard that the pope is getting ready to install 21 new cardinals and that people are worried about these appointments. They should be. One prime suspect is the bishop of San Diego, Robert McElroy. The new cardinal’s recent interview with America Magazine is a pack of lies. Take a look at this excerpt:

Bishop McElroy cited . . . his own efforts to support the pope’s vision for a more synodal church, one that is characterized by “a more pastoral orientation rather than a strict doctrinal orientation within the life of the church,” as he put it. Bishop McElroy said he and the pope share a view that the church should focus on “more inclusion” and “outreach to people who have been alienated from the church in the past.”

America

Pastoral, Synodal Inclusion????

The big lies in that excerpt come down to three loaded dog whistles for progressive Christians:

• “pastoral”
• “synodal”
• “inclusion”

“Inclusion” Is The Goal

I think we should start with McElroy’s comment on “inclusion.” And let’s use some common sense here. How could the Church be any more inclusive than it already is? Every church I have ever attended, with one possible exception, always resembled a model United Nations. There’s an obvious reason for that. The Catholic Church is represented all around the world. It is a truly universal Church, which is what “Catholic” actually means. Parish picnics have introduced me to food from all over the world. And masses at my parishes have been conducted in many languages, including Spanish, Tagalog, and Igbo. One parish even had a mass conducted all in sign language for the deaf. It’s a fact that the Catholic Church has been preached to every continent of the earth. The only way it could be more inclusive is if it started baptizing the penguins of Antarctica.

The History of Inclusion

So, again, I ask how the Church could ever be more inclusive than it already is? The answer to that question is found in my book, Confronting the Pope of Suspicion. As I show in the book, inclusion was a popular idea in twentieth-century progressive theology. And inclusion meant gay inclusion—in the sacraments, in everything. In my book, I cite the condemned theology textbook Human Sexuality often. Here is what it said about gay inclusion:

Christian homosexuals have the same needs and rights to the sacraments as heterosexuals. . . . In the light of all these considerations, solidly probable opinion can be invoked in favor of permitting a homosexual freedom of conscience and free access to the sacraments of reconciliation and the eucharist. . . . Given the limits of our knowledge . . . confessors must keep in mind that they have no right to impose unproven views . . . on others.

Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought, p. 216

Inclusion Is the Gay Equality Heresy of the Seventies

For those of you that do not follow my writing, the above excerpt may be confusing. So, for the benefit of the uninitiated, let me provide some background. The argument of Human Sexuality was that science, and more specifically, Freudian psychology, had undermined and replaced Church doctrine on sexual morality. That’s a heresy, and you can see how it gets applied by the heretics in the quote above—to the confessional: “Don’t go telling gays they are sinners because that’s ignorant and unscientific.”

1970s Theology Is the Rosetta Stone for Decoding Pope Francis & Allies

It was my book’s thesis that 1970s heretical, sexual liberation theology was the key to understanding Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis, and his allies. I’ve been a lone voice on this score, but Bishop McElroy is just one of the many recent examples to prove my point. For when the bishop speaks of inclusion, he means gay inclusion, as Prof. Larry Chap indicated in a recent article for Catholic World Report:

McElroy is on record stating that the language of the Catechism on homosexual acts being “gravely disordered” should be changed to something more “inclusive” and he is clearly sympathetic to the project of Fr. James Martin.

CWR: “Pope Francis, Bishop McElroy, and Amoris Laetitia”

McElroy says his views on greater inclusiveness for gays and other alienated groups were the key to his red hat appointment. And it’s a great theory. For Francis promoted inclusion in Amoris Laetitia, in the now infamous paragraph 305, note 351. Here’s what I said in Confronting the Pope:

Universal Inclusion

In chapter eight of [Amoris Laetitia] with regard to those who do not follow the Church’s teachings on sexual morality, Francis tells us that “the logic of integration is the key to their pastoral care” (par. 299).  He even goes so far as to suggest that those in mortal sin may be admitted to communion (par. 305, note 351). 

Confronting the Pope of Suspicion, p. 53

The notorious footnote was incomprehensibly interpreted narrowly to refer only to divorced and remarried couples. (I’ll have more on this pathetic example of journalistic incompetence in a later post.) As far as I know, my book was the first and only source to correct the error: Note 351 was always about gays. I knew this because I had researched the progressive theology of the 1970s when inclusion was always discussed as a gay rights issue. Since its publication, my book has been vindicated multiple times. Here are a couple of important instances:

Gay Inclusion Litmus Test

• The pope’s pick to head the John Paul Institute is Philippe Bordeyne. In a recent publication, he called for inclusion of unrepentant, active gays to the Eucharist.
• Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the archbishop of Luxembourg, has stated that Church teaching on homosexuality is wrong and that the teaching needs to change. He added that it was none other than the pope’s words that would bring about this doctrinal change. Was he referring to Amoris Laetitia? Probably. The German bishops have stated publicly that Amoris justifies a doctrinal reversal on homosexuality. And, for the record, Hollerich is the man Pope Francis personally selected to lead the global synod.

“Pastoral, Not Doctrinal”—The Big Lie

Thus, McElroy put his finger on the key to promotion under Pope Francis; it’s all about inclusion. And we can see from the statements of those promoted by Francis that, by “inclusion,” they mean exactly what the progressive theologians of the 70s meant. “Inclusion” has always meant gay inclusion and gay equality: on this view, homosexuality is not disordered or sinful, but is actually healthy and natural because “science says so.” Furthermore, these closest allies of Francis attribute these heretical views to the pope himself, and, more specifically, to Amoris Laetitia. Their recent statements confirm my book’s thesis that there is only one way to read Amoris Laetitia—as a revival of the heretical, gay-affirming moral theology of the mid-twentieth century. The refusal of Catholic legacy media to pay attention to my book is responsible for their awful misreadings of the text. (I will deal with this in an upcoming post.)

One example of their reading incomprehension is in buying the big lie that Amoris Laetitia makes no doctrinal changes, only “pastoral.” That’s the lie that McElroy is peddling in his interview. But the more honest honchos have come out and admitted that Francis means to implement doctrinal change on homosexuality. This is exactly what the German synod is promoting. It is a terrible heresy. And it is an existential crisis for Christianity, which I will discuss in my next post.