Topic: CNSNews.com
As its publication of Michael Orsi shows, CNSNews.com is not afraid to exploit Catholic teachings to push right-wing talking points -- not surprising, given that the people who run it think they're more Catholic than the pope. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman has even taking to citing Catholic exorcists to push those narratives. He wrote in a Dec. 5 article:
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a licensed psychologist and exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said in a recent interview that a pornography addiction, "like any serious sin, is an opening to the demonic," which can "distort a person's sexuality."
Msgr. Rossetti, 71, has worked as a licensed psychologist for 30 years. He is a priest with the Diocese of Syracuse and has been an exorcist with the Washington Archdiocese for more than 15 years.In a Dec. 1 interview with the Catholic News Agency, Rossetti said, “A pornography addiction, like any serious sin, is an opening to the demonic. It is never a good thing to exploit people as sexual objects, which the porn industry does."
Chapman moved to a different exorcist who more closely repeated current right-wing narratives in a Jan. 9 article:
In his Jan. 8 sermon on the family, Fr. Chad Ripperger, a Catholic priest and exorcist, explained that "transgenderism" is a direct attack "on "motherhood," and added that "the entire feminist movement is an assault on motherhood."
Fr. Ripperger spoke at St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church in Madison, Wisc.
While discussing marriage and how it is under constant attack by our culture, Fr. Ripperger said, “Things like transgenderism is a full-blown attack against motherhood. People usually don’t put it together. Why is it [an attack on motherhood]?"
"Well, because any woman who goes through a transgender operation can’t bear children anymore," he said. "And any guy who becomes a woman – at least by the modern technology – he’s not having any kids."
"In point of fact, the entire feminist movement is an assault on motherhood, which is frankly one of the most sublime and magnificent offices that God ever created," said the priest.
The next day, Chapman generated a second anti-LGBT article out of Ripperger's sermon:
In his Jan. 8 sermon on the Holy Family and the necessity of marriage in civil society, Fr. Chad Ripperger, a Catholic priest and exorcist, defined what marriage is and dismissed "gay marriage" as an "abomination," a "disordered" practice for which God will punish us.
Fr. Ripperger spoke at St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church in Madison, Wisc.
Today, "there’s a complete, all-out assault on the very nature of marriage," said Fr. Ripperger. "The definition of marriage is that it’s a solemn contract between a man and a woman for the sake of having children. The primary end is having children. That’s what it is ordered towards."
“This is something which, unfortunately, has not been understood today,"' he added. "People think marriage is just a license to engage in the conjugal act. But that’s not what we are talking about here."
[...]
"The fact that there is gay marriage – perhaps put marriage in quotes because it’s not true marriage -- it doesn’t meet the definition of marriage," he said. "It’s an abomination. There’s no way that God isn’t going to afflict us in some manner, as a result of taking on something that is that disordered."
"In fact, their acts are so disordered that St. Catherine of Siena said that even the demons find it repulsive," said Fr. Ripperger. "And yet today it’s glorified."
In her writings, St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) claimed that Jesus Christ Himself had remarked pitifully on some of the clergy who had engaged in homosexual behavior.
"Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they [practicing homosexuals] do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves," she wrote. "For this not only causes Me [Christ] nausea, but is disgusting even to the devils themselves whom these depraved creatures have chosen as their lords."
As to be expected from Chapman, he allowed no dissenting views, though he published numerous articles attacking Pope Francis for not hating gay people enough.
