Op-Ed: Catholic Bishops Should Denounce the Dodgers, But Mustn’t Ignore the Obscenities Within Their Own Church

In an epic cave, Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles just issued a squeamish memorandum, presumably with the approval of Archbishop José Gomez, emphasizing that the archdiocese does not support the planned protests against the Los Angeles Dodgers and their decision to honor the profane Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at their 10th annual “Pride Night” on Friday.

Apparently, the archdiocese would instead prefer to “take a step back” and kumbaya its way around the scandal by engaging in — you guessed it — “dialogue.”

The message contrasts sharply with the recent unequivocal rebuke from Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, former auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and founder of the Roman Catholic media organization Word on Fire.

Barron, who enjoys a massive social media following and is an avid baseball fan, pointed to the drag performers’ degrading parody of Easter featuring a mock crucifixion and pole-dancing extravaganza, and urged his followers not to tolerate this attack on the Catholic faith and to boycott the Dodgers accordingly.

Yes, every Bible-believing Christian should Bud Light the life out of the Dodgers. As St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?”

Barron is correct: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are an anti-Catholic hate group and should be condemned as such.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Author Anne Hendershott recently observed in The American Spectator that the cultural firestorm fueling the Dodgers scandal has been to a significant extent fanned by the “LGBTQ enablers … from their privileged perches within the Catholic Church itself.”

The slimy “celebrate sin” propaganda peddled by deviant priests, religious sisters, bishops and even Pope Francis himself has inevitably empowered degenerates like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the corporations that are shoving these obscenities in the public’s face.

One might reasonably ask Barron why he expects a secular organization like the Dodgers to show greater reverence for the Catholic faith than do those in the church who unashamedly promote unorthodox lifestyles.

Notable senior Catholic prelates are notorious and unashamed promoters of same-sex unions.

Churches in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. under Cardinal Wilton Gregory and in the Archdiocese of Newark under Cardinal Joseph Tobin are holding “pride masses” this month. Over in Seattle, Archbishop Paul Etienne is apparently once again permitting the prominent heterodox parish of St. Joseph to host its annual “pride picnic.”

Then there’s the infamous Fr. James Martin S.J., whose spiritual musings Barron has lauded as “genius,” an endorsement that remains a serious blemish on the bishop’s record. Martin is spending the month of June making a case for how the sacred heart of Jesus, which the Catholic Church venerates this month, is somehow compatible with sodomy.

Martin’s magazine Outreach recently promoted a screening of the documentary “Wonderfully Made” by Jewish director Yuval David, which portrays Our Lord as “a member or ally of the LGBTQ+ community” and features appearances by Martin himself.

The film’s poster depicts a rainbow sash draped over the cross. It also inserts “LBTQ+” in place of the inscription “INRI,” the immortalized testimony to Christ’s kingship that the Jewish chief priests wanted scrubbed, only to have the pagan Roman governor Pontius Pilate tell them in no uncertain terms: “What I have written stays written.” I wonder if Barron discerns the irony in any of that.

No one disputes the need for pastoral support in ministering to homosexual individuals. As sinners, we are all called to overcome vice and detach ourselves from the passions and worldly consolations that distance us from God. It is the responsibility of our pastors to honestly and lovingly nurture us on this difficult journey, not wantonly lead us down the primrose path.

But the gig is up on the whole Psalm 139 “God made me wonderfully” ruse.

Firstly, there’s no theological basis for the suggestion that the Author of Life, who knitted us together in our mother’s womb, intentionally designed some of his children to be destined for same-sex relationships and glories in that sterile distortion of the life-yielding sexual union of man and wife.

From the patriarchs and prophets to St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John, sacred Scripture offers explicit warnings against indulging in adultery, fornication, sexual sin and perversion.

The second big giveaway comes from the LGBT community itself.

Once the trans crowd started voicing their pseudoscientific claims that one can transition in and out of gender ad voluntatem, the head-scratching normies started wondering how it is that one can glide from man to woman, and sample a smorgasbord of exotic options in between, yet one’s sexuality is somehow fixed in stone.

Of course, the whole fantasy is bogus. But here’s the rub: However deceptive, illogical and spiritually destructive it may be, the con job has the support of Rome.

Gomez knows it. Gregory and Tobin know it. Martin knows it. And Barron knows it, too. That’s why only a thimbleful of American bishops ever speak up. They know whence the prevailing winds blow and are not so cavalier as to hoist their feeble sails against this force of nature.

Pope Francis has been about as explicit as he can get away with. His promotion of rainbow flag wavers like Cardinals Blaise Cupich and Robert McElroy, along with his cozy correspondence and cute photo ops with Martin, tell you everything you need to know.

So yes, we need more bishops — particularly the crew out in Los Angeles — to follow Barron’s lead and boycott the Dodgers. But the real test of courage is for faithful prelates to start calling out — or, at a minimum, refrain from endorsing — their wolfish brethren, even though it means putting themselves at odds with Rome.

The predatory conduct of these libertines is endangering the flock and diminishing the already floundering credibility of the Roman Catholic Church. It is luring countless souls into the eternal abyss and facilitating the societal collapse of which the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are merely the latest ghastly example.

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