The Illinois Family Institute has warned repeatedly about the failure of faith leaders to lead properly on matters related to homosexuality and the “trans” ideology. These failures are found in most Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church. A recent interview with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich reveals part of the reason many Catholics lack biblically informed views on these matters.

Cardinal Cupich was asked about Pope Francis’ controversial and confusing Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” to which Cupich offered this controversial response:

[Amoris Laetitia] asks people to have an adult spirituality….to realize that in some way you have the grace, by God, to discern truth in your life in terms of where the Lord is calling you to the next step. It does put the responsibility on each individual, rather than an outside authority telling people what to do as if they were children. What the Holy Father is calling us to, what the Church is calling us to now is to be able to take responsibility for our lives and that means making sure people understand the freedom of conscience but also the responsibility that goes with it. So, this really, I think, is a movement to moving out of adolescent spirituality into an adult spirituality. That’s a big significance and it’s been going on since the Second Vatican Council. 

IFI’s good friend and faithful Catholic Daniel Boland (PhD), offers this analysis of Cupich’s words:

Cardinal Cupich’s statement, however well-intentioned, is a worrisome summary of present day Catholic relativism. Indeed, he adds significantly to the magisterial relativism which is unraveling the Church at all levels, from Baltimore’s Fr. Joseph Muth and his celebration of lesbian marriages to Cardinal Cupich’s notions of an “adult” Catholic to Pope Francis and his oft-confusing commentaries.

As a psychologist for fifty years (with a theology background), I believe the comments of Cardinal Cupich are astonishingly naive and reveal incomprehensible ignorance of 1) human nature (even so-called “adult” human nature), 2) the deep and enduring impact of our morally-tattered culture’s agencies and their profound effect on moral and intellectual growth, and 3) fundamental psychological facts relating to human development (e.g., in the realm of psycho-sexual identity, many persons continue to evolve well into their adult years, not to speak of the plethora of moral aberrations which are now commonplace).

These and a dozen more reasons clearly reveal and starkly underline the fact that we humans need the guidance of the organized Church all the years of our lives. We have only to look at the morally derelict conditions in our United States for stunning evidence of the corrupting results of relativism in public and private realms, corruption and violence wrought by educated “adults,” many of whom claim to be Catholic, many of whom claim both maturity of years and purity of “discernment.” But any experienced and candid spiritual director will attest that discernment is an elusive and often precarious quality which is so often missing even among those who are spiritually motivated and deeply prayerful.

In the world of human realities, Cardinal Cupich opens the door to moral nihilism and calls it “adult” Catholicism. This is astonishing. It is a recipe for institutional disaster for the Catholic Church and for the society which the Church supposedly is called to evangelize. It is also a recipe for moral isolation of individuals, as is (or should be) already evident to those who have eyes and will see.

The notion of “discernment,” in the generic, come-get-yours manner in which ecclesial relativists are using it, is a near-frivolous example of a lack of discernment, a psychological and moral anomaly. It is a misguided, if well-meant, idea (“offensive to pious ears” as older moralists used to say) to suggest that at some point in life, we can safely detach from the theological traditions and moral restraints of Catholicism because we have, at last, decided that we have attained Our Responsible Adult (transgendered? thrice-married? GLBTQ? goat-loving?) Self.

Given the topsy-turvy morality of our culture, one cannot fathom why Cardinal Cupich would promote the probability of even greater moral anarchy. The cumulative evidence over many decades now strongly indicates that major elements within the Magisterium (i.e., the Church’s official teaching authority of the bishops in unison with the Holy Father) are, at the very least, profoundly confused about their prophetic role in our culture. They seem to be in substantial doctrinal flux or in a state of political correctness about their fundamental moral responsibilities to the Church, reluctant to attest forthrightly to their Christocentric pastoral responsibilities to Catholics and to the larger secular culture in which the Church supposedly evangelizes (or used to).

A contrary condition of moral, doctrinal, and canonical relativism is what is involved in and represented by this Cupich statement. He and a number of Francis’ appointees to the Magisterium are changing the Church in radical ways. One cannot but be concerned about the degree to which relativism has been embraced by the first ranks of the teaching authority of the hierarchical Church Christ founded. Laity are unable to make any impact or even be listened to, and yet it is clear that the laity can offer profound enlightenment to Church leadership.

Perhaps the Church is meant to devolve into a state of dispirited chaos about 1) its moral and doctrinal identity and 2) about the reliability—if not the stability and validity—of its leaders, following the model of the Episcopalians and other morally fragmented assemblies. If so, we are clearly on that path, and it is the relativism, silence, and passivity of ecclesiastical and clerical leadership that are taking us there.

IFI is richly blessed by the supportive, encouraging, wise, impassioned, and eloquent email messages and Facebook comments we receive. Yesterday, we received just such a message in response to the call-to-action article about State Representative Kelly Cassidy’s (D-Chicago) anti-identity-choice bill, which is formally titled “Conversion Therapy Prohibition Act.”

We think IFI subscribers would be equally blessed by reading what a practicing psychologist with over fifty years of experience thinks of the legislation that professional politician and pro-abortion/pro-homosexuality activist Kelly Cassidy has proposed.

With the author’s permission, his letter is published here:

This legislation is an outrageous intrusion into the rights of families. I cannot begin to expand on the extraordinary self-imposed stupidity of persons espousing such thinking. (I do not use the word “stupid” very often, but I can think of no more expressive, all-encompassing word than “stupid” to describe my disgust for such people.)

Their ignorance of human psycho-sexual development is abysmal. There is no such thing as a “gay” gene. There may, in some cases, be a pre-disposition to what is called “gay-ness” (although the word “gay” seems an absurd distortion of language, given the relentlessly depressing medical and psychological outcomes experienced by its full-time participants). But in most instances, the choice (it is a choice) of a “gay” lifestyle results from a combination of factors, not from a single, universally determinant gene, as much of the gay community disingenuously preaches.

To suggest that counseling, freely chosen as an aid to the choice of a non-“gay” lifestyle, is harmful says that no one has the God-given, constitutionally-protected freedom to choose his/her behavior and to accept responsibility for such behavior. Such prohibitive legislation is utterly unconscionable.

Those who support the denial of client-and-family rights might also wish to recall that similar legislation was passed during the 1930s in Germany and is also entirely in sync with the dictates of Shari’a law prompting the stoning of women and the whacking off of hands. The next step could well be the banning of Alcoholics Anonymous by heavy-drinking legislators or the banning of certain religious teachings about marriage by divorced lawmakers.

One is stunned by the crass and punitive measures which militant “gay” legislators engender and, worse, by the further blindness of their colleagues who promote the advance of injustice in the cause of a sickeningly intolerant political correctness. The dimensions of this debate are a good example of how politics has overcome science and how evidence is diminished in the face of pressure, especially among ruling members of the American Psychiatric Association who knew better but caved to the politically correct flow from the “gay” culture—pressure which has devastated both common sense and our collective wisdom

Daniel Boland, PhD.

If passed this bill would prohibit parents from accessing any counseling efforts for their minor children—including teenagers—that may involve facilitating the construction of an identity that does not affirm homoerotic feelings or gender confusion. This disastrously written, fascistic (i.e., oppressive or dictatorial) bill would prohibit such counseling even if, for example, a teenager desires to construct such an identity.

This draconian bill even mandates that if a licensed mental health provider in Illinois were just to refer a teen to a mental health provider in another state in which such counseling is legal, the Illinois mental health provider would be subject to professional discipline. So much for autonomy, choice, parental rights, religious liberty, and free speech.

TAKE ACTION: CLICK HERE to contact your local state representative and urge him/her to protect the rights of minors to seek help for their unwanted attractions.  Ask them to uphold parental rights. Request that they vote “NO” on HB 217.

You can also call the Illinois Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and leave a message for your state representative.

Fighting back: Click here to donate to the Illinois Family Institute!