What It Means to Be “Welcome” In the Catholic Church, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Oct 15, 2024

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

In the last few days we have seen two instances of high-ranking Church leaders either refusing to speak clearly or deliberately speaking unclearly about the fundamental principles of Catholic faith and morals. Phil Lawler has already commented on the recent failure by Pope Francis to speak truth to transgender power. And our news team has reported the willful distortions of the Church’s position on homosexuality by Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe. In both cases, a false understanding of the Catholic Church’s teaching on these issues has been encouraged through either silence or distortion.

Pope Francis has frequently spoken against gender ideology and gender change, so it is only natural to wonder why he sometimes seems incapable of loving sinners (and we are all sinners) in the only way that it is truly possible to love them, which is to intensely desire and foster their conversion. Fr. Radcliffe even more obviously misses the mark when he seeks to explain away African Catholic opposition to homosexuality by claiming it is the product of “pressure from Evangelicals, with American money; from Russian Orthodox, with Russian money; and from Muslims, with money from the rich Gulf countries.” …

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