Spiritual Munchausen by Proxy

James Martin, SJ 'knows EXACTLY what he is doing, and it’s not about anyone’s everlasting life. He’s obfuscated many a teaching of Christ to make that clear to me. It is all about his attention-seeking self'.

From One Mad Mom

I’m super tired of the supposed “spiritual fathers” and their acolytes (and yes, I mean that to sound like those who follow serial killers) who want attention so badly and who don’t care about the spiritual death of another as long as they get that attention. It’s pretty evil.

You may not know what “Munchausen by Proxy” is. We’ve had a few cases of this hit our area in the past, so I’m more familiar than I care to be. It’s sad.  It’s a psychological syndrome where a caregiver either fakes or causes the illness of those in their care to gain attention. It’s usually a parent who does it to their child. It’s evil and sad, and almost every time I see a James Martin, SJ post I think of it. Today, it just so happened to be one of his cheerleaders that brought it to mind.

Good old Christopher Lamb made this giddy little tweet about his hero: https://twitter.com/OneMadMomBlog/status/1592296696708726785

Pope Francis on @JamesMartinSJ

“A man who has values, a communicator who also knows how to teach you the way to communicate with God.” Francis also recommends his book “To Learn to Pray”. [Significant given the attacks Fr Martin has faced due to his ministry to LGBT Catholics]

My reply to extolling anything James Martin, SJ, promoted is summed up by my tweet in reply:

James Martin, SJ is the parent who would repeatedly let a child touch a hot stove so he could soothe the child and declare himself a wonderful parent for doing so.

I’m not ever sure I’ve thought “He’s just trying to lead souls to Christ” or that “He just doesn’t understand,” but I think I’ve always given him a little more credit than that. I think he knows EXACTLY what he is doing, and it’s not about anyone’s everlasting life. He’s obfuscated many a teaching of Christ to make that clear to me. It is all about his attention seeking self.

He simply can’t speak the truth that God loves the sinner and want to give His mercy to all of us. He has to make people as comfortable as possible with their sin. He doesn’t invite them to pick up their crosses. Instead, he invites people to chuck them as quickly as possible and condemns anyone trying to teach people the hard lessons of Christ and get them to recognize their sin and throw themselves on God’s beautiful mercy. He just spouts whataboutisms and it makes people feel OK with their sin because, after all, we are all sinners.

As I’ve said before, we should give kudos to any priest who pricks our consciences, who tells us that the proverbial stove is indeed hot and that we will get hurt, and we will be possibly scarred for life if we touch it. That’s what a loving parent does. A loving parent doesn’t make their children sicker and sicker so they can get attention or try to garner the role as a savior. And, yes, when pointing people to the Divine Physician, it should be done with love. It definitely shouldn’t be done by repeatedly telling the sick soul that one group or another hates them and driving a wedge between them, because it might just not be so. Martin repeatedly does that. The idea that most of us don’t have someone in our lives who suffers with same-sex attraction is ridiculous. The idea that those of us who believe homosexual acts go against the teaching of Christ aren’t running around telling people to “Be gone, Satan!” We’re saying “Come! Struggle with us! Your sin might be different than mine, but we can all struggle together!”

So, what makes James Martin, SJ obfuscate and seek to divide as he does? I can only guess, but none of the answers look good. I’ll throw out this challenge. If you are a person who was engaging in homosexual acts (we’re not talking about the canard of the Church saying homosexuality itself is a sin, I’m talking you embraced the lifestyle and the acts) and who decided you should stop engaging in homosexual acts, and firmly resolved to avoid that near occasion of sin, because of James Martin, SJ’s bridge building expertise, let me know. That doesn’t even mean that you don’t fall off the sin wagon. It just means you fully embrace the teachings of the Church, and realize they are there for the protection of your soul even if you fall short in thought or deed as most of us do. Fr. Martin loves to talk about his long-time friend who has been happily in a homosexual “marriage” for years. Seems like the bridge only goes one way and the wrong way at that. You’d think he’d worry about his friend’s eternal soul but he just peddles that everything is fine because of his very broken notion of Primacy of Conscience which allows anyone to do anything (except vote Republican) as long they think it’s fine.

Most people I know who are same-sex attracted and left that lifestyle behind did so by embracing the teachings of the Church. They joined us in the confession line and firmly resolved to sin no more! Stop listening to the attention seekers and start embracing God’s mercy. I’ll be right there with you.