Does Fr. James Martin approve of lowering the age of consent? Does he support the effort to effectively normalize adults having sex with minors?

Over the course of the next week or so, an answer to these provocative but unavoidable questions will become exceedingly clear.

While defenders of the high-profile LGBT advocate will understandably balk at the mere suggestion that Martin might actually approve of adults engaging in sexual acts with minors, the matter described below demands a response that will make it obvious to all whether or not he truly does.

Last month, UNAIDS, a “Joint Programme of the United Nations to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals,” published a report titled, The 8 March Principles. (Thanks to child advocate attorney Elizabeth Yore for calling attention to the report.)

Among other things, the 8 March report calls on international “prosecutors and legal practitioners, legislators, government officials, policymakers” and the like to decriminalize sexual acts with minors.

Below in boldface (with occasional emphasis added in italics) are select highlights from the 25-page text (abbreviated when appropriate for conciseness without sacrificing accuracy), followed by my own commentary. Page numbers from the report are included to allow readers to easily access the citations in full context.

Before we get to the heart of the matter, let’s be perfectly clear that the 8 March Principles, though not being presented (yet) as an officially approved statement of the United Nations, it is without question an initiative of the UN’s 2030 Agenda.

In recent years, the UN Secretary-General, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights … have expressed concern about the harmful human rights impact of criminal laws proscribing conduct associated with … consensual sexual activity … They have called for the removal of criminal and other punitive laws … (Pg. 6)

In 2018, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists … convened an expert meeting to discuss the role of jurists in addressing the harmful human rights impact of criminal laws proscribing sexual and reproductive health and rights, consensual sexual activity … Following this expert meeting, the International Commission of Jurists produced successive drafts of the principles … until this final version of the principles was finalized and circulated for endorsement in early 2023. (Pages 9, 10)

In addition to making plain the United Nations’ hand in the report, already in the introductory pages one sees that lowering the age of consent, an effort near and dear to the stone cold (perhaps now flaming) heart of Ruth Bader Groomsburg, is going to be a key focus.

With respect to the enforcement of criminal law, any prescribed minimum age of consent to sex must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner. Enforcement may not be linked to the sex/gender of participants or age of consent to marriage. Moreover, sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. (Page 22)

NB: Pay very close attention to what is being proposed. Here, the text is encouraging prosecutors and other government officials to circumvent the law of their jurisdiction, to forgo the prosecution of child molesters in light of the presumption that the victim may have consented!

The text continues by suggesting that it is the right of minors to consent to sex with adults.

In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them. Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees. (Page 23)

The authors of this text are infected with the same diabolical mindset as those who insist that children have the capacity to consent to hormone blockers, sex change surgeries, abortions, and vaccines. The bottom line in all of these efforts is the decriminalization of child abuse.

As readers may recall, in February I posted in this space about a “Minor Vaccine Consent” bill in Maryland (since withdrawn thanks to citizen outrage) that went so far as to propose that even minors who are mentally impaired are able to consent to vaccination without parental approval. The 8 March document, while somewhat more stealth in its approach, is no different:

Consensual sexual conduct, irrespective of the type of sexual activity, the sex/ gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression of the people involved … or consensual sexual relations with or between trans, non-binary and other gender-diverse people … may, therefore, never be criminalized. With respect to the enforcement of criminal law, any prescribed minimum age of consent to sex must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner. (Page 22)

Please allow me to unpack this: According to the principles being espoused, sexual activity with an underage person (otherwise known as a child) who is “non-binary” or “gender-diverse” may be consensual, even if the law states otherwise. Obviously (at least to all but the godless) such confused adolescents are deeply impaired mentally, psychologically, and spiritually, making their victimhood all the damnable.

In addition to the above, noteworthy of mention is the fact, acknowledged in the text, that the 8 March Principles are ordered against what it calls “discriminatory criminal law provisions rooted in religious and other power dynamics.” (cf Page 7)

This is a tacit admission that the true enemy in their crosshairs is none other than Almighty God.

CALLING ON FR. JAMES MARTIN, S.J.

What has all of this to do with James Martin? Plenty.

For starters, it is a well-known fact that more than 80% of the clergy sex abuse cases that rocked the conciliar church in recent decades involved the homosexual molestation of adolescent boys. Given his passionate embrace of the LGBT movement, and his insistence that it should be welcomed and supported in the Church, he is dutybound to denounce this effort to decriminalize the sexual exploitation of minors.

If nothing else, given the (well justified) perception that the grooming of underage victims is pervasive in the gay community at large, he owes it to the people he claims to represent to take this opportunity to declare in no uncertain terms that there is no place in the LGBT movement, or anywhere for that matter, for sexual activity between adults and children.

If that is not enough, among the “jurists first to endorse the Principles,” as named in the text itself, is one “Fanny Gomez-Lugo, J.D., LL.M., Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center.” (Page 25)

According to Georgetown Law, the institution is “guided by its Catholic and Jesuit tradition.”

Next to his boss, Francis, who appointed him as a consultant to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications in 2017, James Martin is the English-speaking world’s highest profile Jesuit. He is Editor-at-Large of the Jesuit publication, America Magazine. As much as anyone, therefore, he should speak out against Gomez-Lugo’s endorsement of the Principles, as well as the simple fact that Georgetown Law is mentioned anywhere therein.

In sum, Fr. James Martin, S.J., has a unique obligation to publicly condemn the 8 March Principles, in fact, he is doubly dutybound.

Silence in this case is unacceptable and would only go to demonstrate support, beyond any shadow of doubt, for the effort to lower the age of consent, thus normalizing the sexual exploitation of children.

Fr. Martin may be contacted via email c/o America Magazine: america@americamagazine.org

You may reach America Magazine at (212) 581-4640, or fax (212) 399-3596.

Fr. Martin may also be engaged via his Twitter feed: @jamesmartinsj.