One common way that liberal media outlets report on the Catholic Church is to suggest they’re declining in numbers because they haven’t fully embraced the libertine left. CBS News posted a classic in this genre on St. Valentine’s Day:
Boston's Catholic parishes see decline in membership, with some alienated by beliefs
Reporter Laura Haefeli began:
BOSTON - Boston's Catholic parishes are seeing a significant decline in membership, an alarming trend in one of the most Catholic cities in America.
"I have distinct memories of being 4, 5 years old, praying each night before going to bed, you know, what if my life was slightly different?" said Madeline Marlett of Dignity Boston. She's a transgender woman, who was homeschooled as a child with a conservative Catholic curriculum.
"To be LGBT mean you were ill or disordered," said Marlett. She's still devoted to the church, leading Catholic LGBTQ+ youth at Dignity Boston.
The story cites the Catholic News Agency reporting a Gallup poll that the percentage of Catholics who are members of a church has declined 20 percent since 2000. The decline, they regularly suggest, is due to failing to modernize like Massachusetts.
What's always missing from a story like this is any notion of "why didn't you leave?" Why wouldn't you join a transgender-"welcoming" church like the Episcopalians, or the Unitarians? The answer? They want to undermine the conservatives. Dignity Boston pledges to "work for the development of its sexual theology and for the inclusion of LGBTQI persons as full and equal members of the Church." It's a theology that says God "created me trans."
🏳️⚧️ We're so proud of our Young Adult Caucus co-chair Madeline Marlett's response in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article! We stand against trans exclusion and discrimination!
— DignityUSA (@DignityUSA) May 19, 2022
📰 Read it here: https://t.co/KhHw8AmxgB pic.twitter.com/SukEf4T4Oj
CBS found a Jesuit theologian from Harvard who locates a middle ground between conservatives and progressives, and they posted a statement from the Diocese of Boston that sounds receptive to all. CBS won't quote a real dissent from a conservative who would combat the LGBT activists, because that kind of "fairness and balance" is considered "hate speech." The LGBT lobby calls for "reform," and the conservatives would call for repentance, as every church member should repent of their sins. But, typically, the word "sin" never appears in this story.
They also found a woman who's "the executive director of Resolve New England, a resource for families facing infertility, like she did." She can't understand why the church can't support in vitro fertilization and surrogacy. CBS noted Pope Francis recently spoke out strongly against surrogacy.
Marlett returns for a quote to end the story, to leave the reader with the leftist message:
In the meantime, hopeful Catholics like Marlett will continue to cheer for the church she loves and wait for it to love her back.
"It does cause pain, people will continue to feel left out and excluded but in this moment now, it is our church," said Marlett.
Liberal journalists constantly misunderstand that the Catholic Church is not a democracy. Catholics believe the church was founded by Jesus and handed down to the Pope and the bishops in apostolic succession. Conservatives believe the scriptures and the deposit of faith -- built since Christ died and rose again -- should be upheld, not surrendered after a poll to the latest libertine sexual theology.
