There seem to be two great burning issues on the Catholic blogosphere these days, and they both involve showing mercy and compassion to sinners. One issue is how to deal with divorced and remarried couples in the Church, and the other involves the Church's outreach towards the gay community. The Catholic blogosphere has personified these issues in two people: Pope Francis and Father James Martin. Those who self identify as the only true Catholics in the world today have relentlessly attacked and vilified Pope Francis and Father Martin, accusing them of heresy and basically saying they are agents of the devil.
I have recently written a couple of posts regarding Pope Francis. Today I am focusing on Father Martin. An article from Catholic World Report by Janet Smith encapsulates this issue very well. She starts her article by claiming that Father Martin's approach is "full of ambiguity." She pointed to a talk at Villanova University in which she pulled exactly one small quote from an hour long conversation Father Martin had with Brandon Ambrosino, a gay Catholic man.
