By: Deacon Keith A. Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC


I received my Diocesan Newspaper yesterday.

I was tired, having come to the end of a particularly long week. I placed it near my recliner and saved it for what I hoped would be a relaxing Friday evening perusal.

Finally, after unpacking the briefcase, checking the E-Mail, unwinding with my family and climbing into some comfortable clothes, I sat down to relax. Following my usual pattern, I skimmed through the pages before zeroing in on the articles.

On page six of this month’s edition, a prominent advertisement caught my attention. The “Dorothy Day Lecture Series, Lecture 4” was being sponsored and hosted at a local Catholic parish.

Of course, I was interested. I have spent most of my life involved in social justice and I am a long time admirer of Dorothy Day, I thought it may be something I would want to attend.

Then, I noticed the name of the speaker and read the full content of the advertisement. My heart broke. I immediately thought of the loving warning given by the Lord Himself to those who would cause scandal:

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“He said to his disciples, "Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” “Luke, Chapter 17: 1-2

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This was not simply an advertisement for a speaker. It was at least an implied endorsement of the speaker and his message by a local parish. After all, the event is being held in a Catholic Church. Tickets are being sold! When I called the number listed, I got the parish office on the other end of the line.

At the bottom of the large, prominent advertisement the following notice was written:

“Individual copies of the official Catholic Church document on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual persons will be available that evening.”

To the theologically untrained eye (which is the eye of most wonderful faithful Catholics reading this paper) it looked as though there was a connection between the speaker, his message, the sponsorship and this document; that somehow, this speaker and his message is an example of the “Official” teaching” of the Catholic Church.

Of course, anyone who has read this excellent pastoral letter or studied the clear and compassionate teaching of the Church on this vital area and is aware of the “ministry”, message and views of this speaker knows that this is absolutely NOT the case. I have studied that document and the clear, unambiguous teaching of the Catholic Church on this vital moral issue at the graduate level.

I wondered why they were handing out this excellent document at such an event. I found myself both flabbergasted and growing cynical. After all, I am a lawyer. I have also been actively involved in politics. I understand the concept of “deniability”. Could that be the reason? My suspicions grew.

The advertisement also used the technique of borrowed esteem or authority. First, the name of the lecture leads one to believe that Dorothy Day would have endorsed the overt homosexual lifestyle of the speaker. It also implied some kind of endorsement of efforts to equalize homosexual sexual practices with a civil and human right. Was this an effort to connect Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker movement they had founded with those who advocate for some “new” (actually very old) sexual ethic, elevating them on a par with the great human and civil rights advocates of our age?

If so, nothing could be farther from the truth.Dorothy Day, (who will soon, and in my opinion rightly so, be canonized), was a faithful, orthodox Catholic Christian. She arrived at her deep commitment to authentic human freedom and social justice through her deep, “incarnational” life of prayer, her absolute fidelity to the magisterium of the Catholic Church and her insistence on the relevancy and prophetic role of the “social encyclicals” of the Church.

Finally, there were two other references in the advertisement that appeared to be designed to send implied messages. One was to the fact that Dr. White received a “civil liberties” award and the other to the fact that he was a ghostwriter for four Christians often associated with the “religious right”. There are many interesting implications here that would not further the purpose of the article. However, two points are worth noting.

I am a constitutional lawyer and have found myself pitted against the A.C.L.U. more often I would like, defending religious freedom, parental choice in education and the inalienable right to life. The A.C.L.U. can certainly be ...