Hate Has a Field Day This Lenten Week in American Catholicism, As Anti-LGBTQ Catholic Hate Group Church Militant Gloats

The viciously anti-LGBTQ Catholic hate group Church Militant is having a good week, isn't it? Yesterday, Father James Martin issued a public report on Facebook about how this Catholic hate group, Church Militant, has issued a gloating report regarding something that has happened to the well-known Catholic musician Dan Schutte. The report states that Schutte has had a concert moved from Catholic premises in Kansas City, due to a "backlash" because Schutte is believed to be gay. Father Martin links the gloating report from the Catholic anti-LGBTQ hate group Church Militant, if you want to see it.

Father Martin writes,

Another triumph of hatred and homophobia in the Catholic Church. Dan Schutte, the renowned composer and musician (and one-time member of the "St. Louis Jesuits") has had his concert moved off church grounds after a "backlash," (that is, another campaign ginned up by online hate sites) Why? Although he has never come out, he is "believed" to be gay. 

Father Martin has now shared another public post on Facebook, stating that an official of the diocese of Kansas City denies that the blocking of this concert on Catholic premises had to do with questions about Schutte's sexual orientation. As this report also indicates, the parish council of Visitation Catholic church in Kansas City, where Schutte was to perform, indicates that it had unanimously approved of his performance at the parish, and is stating that it was diocesan officials, not parish officials, who insisted that the conference be moved from Catholic premises.

Church Militant also reported yesterday (again, I won't link to the site of this anti-LGBTQ Catholic hate group — but feel free to go there and see the report for yourself) that Archbishop Dennis Schnurr is warning Catholics abouit a lecture Father Martin will offer at University of Cincinnati on March 24. Other speakers at this talk, Church Militant indicates, include Sister Jeanine Gramick of New Ways Ministry and "self-professed lesbian Jamie Manson."

University of Cincinnati is not a Catholic university, in case you're unclear on that point. It's a public one.

And I'll say it again: this kind of hate will keep rolling forth in U.S. Catholicism just as long as the people with most clout to stop it remain silent, passive — complicit in it, since that's what they patently are. I'm speaking of the lay leaders of the intellectual sector of the U.S. Catholic church, its academics and journalists. 

I'll repeat: they're silently complicit in the hate, and this tells me — and has long told me — that they tacitly approve of the marginalization, abuse, vilification, lying about, destruction of the careers and lives of fellow Catholics who happen to be queer. Period. Full stop.

P.S. Did I say that Church Militant is an anti-LGBTQ Catholic hate group? If I didn't make that point clearly above, then I want to be sure to do so in conclusion.