Fr James Martin SJ Jesuit Fr James Martin will deliver an invocation at the Democratic National Convention this week where former Vice President Joe Biden will accept his party’s formal nomination for president of the United States.
Fr Martin, an editor-at-large at America Magazine and one of the most well-known American priests on social media, will also be joined by a rabbi and an imam. All three will offer prayers on the final night of the convention, August 20, when Mr Biden is scheduled to speak.
In an interview with National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Fr Martin stressed that his role at the convention will not be political in nature.
“I was honoured to be asked,” said Fr Martin. “Normally I shy away from anything overtly political, but it’s hard to turn down a request to pray.”
“Plus, I knew that Cardinal Dolan, whom I respect, had offered prayers during the last presidential election and, for good measure, I asked my Jesuit superiors, who approved,” he continued.
Prayers
Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, offered closing prayers at both the Democratic and Republican conventions in 2012, and, in 2016, offered a prayer at the inauguration for President Donald Trump.
“I hope that my prayer to respect the dignity of all life — the unborn, the young Black person, the LGBTQ teen, the migrant — will help people find a way to build a more welcoming nation,” he told NCR via email.
Fr Martin has become closely associated with promoting LGBTQ inclusion within the Church in recent years following the publication of his 2017 book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.
The book has sparked controversy among conservative Catholics. But it was endorsed by a number of high-ranking church officials, and Fr Martin was a Vatican approved speaker at the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland.
Fr Martin, who is also a consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, was received in a private audience with Pope Francis in 2019 where the two discussed his work as a Catholic ally of the LGBTQ community.