In his first letter to the believers in Corinth, contained in sacred scripture, St. Paul issues a clear warning about the shifty, underhanded tactics of the Church's Enemy number one: Satan — a warning that many in our own day fail to heed. In 2 Corinthians 11:14, St. Paul tells the Corinthians that when Satan seeks to destroy the souls of the faithful, he does not twirl his moustache or poke you with a pitchfork. He is never that obvious.
He smiles and whispers sweet little epithets that sound an awful lot like mercy, compassion, and inclusion. Satan masters the art of taking what God calls abominable and baptizing it in a vocabulary of love that makes God’s prohibition of certain behaviors or lifestyles seem as though it could not possibly come from a morally upright and good Being.
In other words, Satan does not appear as the demon he is. As St. Paul writes, “he disguises himself as an angel of light.” Every movie villain ever created believes, in his own deluded way, that he is actually the good guy, the hero of the story. Adolf Hitler believed his vile racist ideology and sickening atrocities against the Jews — including genetic experimentation — served a justified purpose because he thought he was improving the human race. He viewed those who tried to stop him as enemies of progress. Sound familiar?
One of the clearest examples of this master level of deception by the Lord of the Flies — not the book, obviously — appears in the debate over sexuality and the push by many priests and bishops to reshape the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage to make it more “inclusive” of those within the LGBT community.
I am not saying that the church should withhold love from those who experience same-sex attraction. The church has consistently taught throughout its 2,000-year history that every human being possesses inherent dignity as an image-bearer of God. The real question today is whether Catholics and Christians can — or should — separate love from truth.
The bottom line is simple: you cannot claim to love someone — that is, to will their good — while withholding the truth. When Jesus came to earth, He did not offer mankind a buffet of spiritual options. He proclaimed that He, and He alone, is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” No one comes to the Father except through Him and His redemptive work. He bridges the gap. End of story.
If you love a person, you desire what is best for that person. What is best is union with Christ and obedience to His Word. Scripture, from beginning to end, condemns homosexual acts. If you choose to label as “compassion” the validation of someone living in open rebellion against Christ within a homosexual relationship — while ignoring what God reveals about such behavior — you do not love that person. You lead that person toward eternal separation from God.
The Catholic Catechism teaches that individuals who struggle with same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” adding that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358). In paragraph 2357, however, the Catechism calls homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered” because they close the sexual act to the gift of life and procreation.
The church calls us to show compassion to those in the LGBT community. True compassion, however, includes warning them about the dangers of living in rebellion against God’s created order. Satan, meanwhile, convinces priests, bishops, and Protestant pastors that speaking about these dangers — or calling people to obedience under God’s commandments — amounts to hatred, bigotry, and discrimination. Just as he did in Eden, he plants seeds of doubt: “Does refusing to affirm someone exactly as they are really reflect love? Surely God would not mean that.”
In Genesis, he asked Eve, “Did God really say?” He has never changed his strategy. Given his consistent method, we should not act surprised when he and his willing or unwitting servants present grave sin as empathy and compromise as compassion. Our proper response remains fidelity to sacred scripture, attentive listening to the wisdom of the church fathers, and trust in the consistent witness of sacred tradition.
Those like Fr. James Martin, who promotes LGBT ideology and urges the church to follow his lead, require correction from the faithful—especially from fellow priests and bishops. If he persists in leading souls into confusion and error, church authorities should remove his platform. Whether willingly or unwittingly, he allows the enemy to use him as an “angel of light” to sow confusion among God’s people. The church must confront such confusion with clarity and courage.
