Heresy in the defense of Milo.

debate has bro­ken out online fol­low­ing Catholic radio host Patrick Coffin’s deci­sion to invite ped­erasty apol­o­gist Milo Yiannopou­los on his radio show. Cof­fin used to be at Catholic Answers; Milo is in a same-sex mar­riage but presents him­self as a crit­ic of Pope Fran­cis and “homo­sex­u­al­ist lead­ers” in the Church. There’s your dose of irony, or hypocrisy (what you will), for today. When he was Car­di­nal Bergoglio, Pope Fran­cis said that same-sex mar­riage is a “machi­na­tion of the father of lies.” Milo, who is in a same-sex mar­riage, says Pope Fran­cis is not tough enough on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, and Faith­ful­Catholics™ swoon. Per­haps you can fath­om this, dear read­er.

In any case, I want to say a few words about the fol­low­ing [no longer avail­able] Face­book apolo­gia for Milo:

Milo was a vic­tim of priest rape. He’s very clear that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, even though he can’t get out of it due to his own weak­ness­es, is not a good thing—it is a grave sin. But Father Mar­tin? Pro­motes the “God made you gay” and waves the rain­bow flag.

It goes with­out saying—I hope it goes with­out saying—that we all must have com­pas­sion for Milo giv­en the unspeak­able abuse that he expe­ri­enced. You can’t go through some­thing like that and not have per­ma­nent wounds, and Milo deserves the prayers of all Catholics.

But this idea—that Milo “can’t get out of” homo­sex­u­al­i­ty “due to his own weaknesses”—is a heresy. It is a denial of grace. It is con­demned by the Coun­cil of Trent. Here is Canon 18 on Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion:

If any one saith, that the com­mand­ments of God are, even for one that is jus­ti­fied and con­sti­tut­ed in grace, impos­si­ble to keep; let him be anath­e­ma.

Trent elab­o­rates:

[N]o one ought to make use of that rash say­ing, one pro­hib­it­ed by the Fathers under an anathema,—that the obser­vance of the com­mand­ments of God is impos­si­ble for one that is jus­ti­fied. For God com­mands not impos­si­bil­i­ties.

None of this, “Milo can’t get out of it; he’s weak.” This is a denial of grace. It is a heresy. It is con­demned by the Coun­cil of Trent. More than that, it is an excom­mu­ni­ca­ble heresy.

But there is an irony behind this that I can not help but point out. The very same Faith­ful­Catholics™ who fall all over them­selves to defend Milo in these hereti­cal terms were also among the biggest pro­mot­ers of the Fil­ial Cor­rec­tion of Pope Fran­cis. And what do you think is the very first heresy The Cor­rec­tors said the pope pro­motes in Amor­is Laeti­tia?

Right you are! From the FC:

A jus­ti­fied per­son has not the strength with God’s grace to car­ry out the objec­tive demands of the divine law, as though any of the com­mand­ments of God are impos­si­ble for the jus­ti­fied; or as mean­ing that God’s grace, when it pro­duces jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in an indi­vid­ual, does not invari­ably and of its nature pro­duce con­ver­sion from all seri­ous sin, or is not suf­fi­cient for con­ver­sion from all seri­ous sin.

Oh, but Milo has not the strength to car­ry out the objec­tive demands of the divine law! say his Faith­ful­Catholic™ apol­o­gists. He’s weak! They advance the very heresy, in defense of Milo, that they con­demn the pope for (pur­port­ed­ly) advo­cat­ing.

But indeed—and I have point­ed this out myself—the pope express­ly denies that the jus­ti­fied are inca­pable of fol­low­ing the divine law. It’s in AL 295:

For the law is itself a gift of God which points out the way, a gift for every­one with­out excep­tion; it can be fol­lowed with the help of grace.

So think of this. Faith­ful­Catholics™ charge the pope with a heresy. The pope, in fact, express­ly denies that heresy. Faith­ful­Catholics™ go on to employ that very heresy them­selves in defense of Milo.

I just couldn’t resist point­ing that out.

But wait, bear with me yet a lit­tle while longer, for there is a sec­ond heresy in that screen­shot from Face­book above. It is the idea that Milo is excused by virtue of his pro­fess­ing what the Church teach­es, inde­pen­dent of whether he actu­al­ly lives it. Trent also con­demns this idea. You can find that, too, in the Canons on Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion:

If any­one says that the man who is jus­ti­fied is not bound to observe the com­mand­ments of God and the Church, but only to believe; as if the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eter­nal life with­out the con­di­tion of observ­ing the com­mand­ments, let him be anath­e­ma.

But you see, accord­ing to the Faith­ful­Catholics™ Milo pro­fess­es the ortho-con­ser­v­a­tive shib­bo­leths; so he’s pure, regard­less of what he does. Fr. James Mar­tin is actu­al­ly obe­di­ent to the Church’s teach­ing and pro­fess­es that teach­ing; but he stands con­demned (by the Faith­ful­Catholics™) because he fails to pro­fess the ortho-con­ser­v­a­tive shib­bo­leths.

I find this kind of think­ing shame­ful.