Death Penalty Change Used to Push Change for LGBT Teaching

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DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - After news broke Thursday that Pope Francis was changing the Catechism to make the death penalty "inadmissable," pro-homosexual dissidents are using the controversy to argue that Church teaching on homosexuality can change, too.

When the decision was announced to add to the Catechism a condemnation of the death penalty, secular media ran wild with headlines saying the Pope was reversing Church teaching. This led to "Catholic" pro-gay groups using the opportunity to argue that Church teaching on homosexuality can also change. For instance, Francis DeBernardo of dissident New Ways Ministry wrote on Friday:

It's important for Catholic advocates for LGBT equality to take note of this change because for decades Catholic opponents of LGBT equality argued that it is impossible to change church teaching. They often pointed to the fact that condemnations of same-sex relationships were inscribed in the Catechism, and so were not open for discussion or change. Yet, the teaching on the death penalty is in the Catechism, too, and, in fact, to make this change in teaching, it was the text of the Catechism that Francis changed.

DeBernardo notes that some claim it's not a change in teaching, and replies, "So, the change is not a contradiction, even though it is the opposite of what came before it? Hmmmm."

Another dissident pro-gay group, Fortunate Families, celebrated the Catechism change, saying on Facebook Thursday, "'The church cannot change its teaching!' That is what so many say about other topics, for example regarding LGBTQ persons. But, doctrine develops. Today's news is a sterling example."

Fortunate Families was implying that, since Church teaching on the death penalty is supposedly changing, the Church can also change its teachings on sodomy.

Writing in his blog on Friday, traditional Catholic priest Fr. John Zulhsdorf alluded to the idea, circulating among Catholics online, that the catechism scandal, though bad, is distracting from the gay priest sex abuse scandal: "Meanwhile, we seem to be pushing outrage about McCarrick out of the news cycle."

Some faithful Catholics have gone so far as to argue that pro-homosexual clergy at the Vatican might have orchestrated the Catechism controversy as an intentional distraction from the gay clerical sex abuse scandal, coming to light now with the Catholic MeToo movement.

Polish priest Fr. Dariusz Oko wrote a scathing exposé in 2012 titled "With the Pope Against the Homoheresy," in which he detailed the extent of the homosexual infiltration of the clergy. In an interview with Michael Voris in December 2016, Fr. Oko said, "Just like in the military, in the police, in the art world, once a person with homosexual tendencies gets into power, usually their subordinates are also homosexuals, therefore they start creating a pyramid, and the same thing is happening in the Church with these bishops who knowingly nominate people with the same tendencies."

But, Fr. Oko says, the homosexual problem is not limited to dioceses. It reaches as high as sections of the Vatican: "It's not precise statistics, but from the evidence that we have and from witnesses who worked in the Vatican, we can say it could be around 30-50 percent of the Vatican."

He explained that one of the reasons this happens is because dioceses ship gay and predatory priests off to Rome to keep them away from children: "[A] lot of these homosexuals were actually deposed quietly by their dioceses to the Vatican so they don't have so much interaction with children, for example, but they still remain homosexual."

But there is another reason: "The second reason is careerism. Obviously the Vatican's a source of authority — a lot of money, prestige, and that's where they want to go — sort of like a natural attraction for them."

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