Catholics Reject Unorthodox Speakers at the REC

Springtime is approaching in Southern California, which means that the time has come for the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (REC). For decades, the REC has been a scandal to the Catholic world due to its yearly promotion of dissident speakers who use it as a platform to push their heterodox agenda. This is all the more serious since the REC is America’s largest Catholic event, with an annual attendance that customarily approaches 60,000.

In an apparent nod to the coming of spring, the theme of this year’s congress is “Wrapped in Mercy, Hope Renewed.” This is an odd choice because promoting speakers who contradict Church teaching puts the Faith of the attendees at risk. Such risks are known as “occasions of sin.” However, unnecessarily exposing oneself to an occasion of sin constitutes presumption, which is a sin against hope.

Explaining the seriousness of this sin, theologian Rev. Francis Spirago wrote: “He who refuses to give up what to him is an occasion of sin, cannot expect to obtain pardon of sin here, or eternal salvation hereafter.”¹

That is why Catholics must reject the REC and ask Archbishop José Gomez to stop allowing error to persist where only Truth should shine.

You can ask Archbishop Gomez to cancel these seductive speakers:
213-637-7215 — [email protected].

The unorthodox speakers who will be presenting at this year’s REC include:

Father Ricky Manalo, CSP

Fr. Manalo will be presenting two talks this year. However, he has a rather strange understanding of Catholic unity. Whereas Catholic unity must always be centered on Truth, he claims that it can be based merely on exchanging the sign of peace.

On June 6, 2025, he gave a sermon in which he stated: “Unity does not come from agreement. It comes from the love that flows from the very heart of God. Right now, you could be sitting to the left, or to the right of someone who has a total opposite political opinion than you do. Give each other a sign of peace, and when you do, you could be giving that sign of peace to someone who is all for abortion, or someone who is not; to someone who is all for gay marriage or someone who is not. My instinct, when you give that sign of peace, that does not matter, because then we share the one body and blood of Christ. It’s not so much about agreement, but about encounter.”²

Father Richard Fragomeni

Fr. Fragomeni will be presenting the talk: The Eucharist: A Sacrament of Initiation and an Outburst of Hope. However, he calls into question the existence of limbo and claims that parents anxious to have their infants baptized because they fear that they may lose Heaven are acting in a way that is not “authentically Catholic.” In a 2022 article published on The Priest website, he wrote: “In a former theological environment, infants were baptized because of the fear of early death and the peril of surviving forever in limbo. Limbo was conceived as a place of happiness without encountering the divine. In recent theological conversations, limbo is understood as a theory that never achieved the status of formal Church teaching. It is not even mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This motivation, therefore, is no longer authentically Catholic.”³ He also sacrilegiously claimed that liturgical reform must continue until the liturgy “becomes as attractive as sex.”⁴

Father Thomas Reese

Fr. Reese will discuss the attitude Catholics should have towards President Trump. However, while serving as editor for America magazine, Fr. Reese came under scrutiny from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, then led by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, for his controversial articles on priestly celibacy, homosexual priests and the ordination of women. This led to his resignation.

Get Involved! Help TFP volunteers protest heresy at the LA REC.

In 2005, Fr. Reese was interviewed by the New York Times, during which he opined: “With the shortage of priests, the church can hardly dismiss gay seminarians.” In a similar vein, in a 2010 interview, he said: “I personally think the Church’s battle against the legalization of gay marriage is misplaced. The idea that gay marriage is somehow a threat to family life or heterosexual marriage doesn’t make sense.”⁵

Father Gregory Boyle, S.J.
Photo Credit: © durfeefoundation, CC BY 3.0

Father Gregory Boyle, SJ

Fr. Boyle will also be speaking. He is well known for his work reforming gang members in Los Angeles. However, his views on homosexuality and women’s ordination go directly against the teachings of Holy Mother Church.

In a 2010 video interview, Fr. Boyle was asked about California’s Proposition 8. His response included these words: “I think it’s always important to kind of say, ‘how does God see sexual orientation.’ Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don’t think anybody who has a connection to God and God’s understanding and depth of compassion who’s going to say no.”

In the same interview, he commented on the possibility of women’s ordination, saying: “…the Vatican just said that the ordination of women is a grave sin. Have you ever met anybody who would agree with that?… Its shameful to kind of say stuff like that because it’s not honest…The Church should say I’m frightened that women will be ordained, that’s honest to say that. But, don’t say it’s a grave sin because that is nonsense.”⁶

Doctor Phyllis Zagano

Dr. Phyllis Zagano is presenting a lecture on the controversial issue of synodality. However, she is in favor of women’s ordination to the diaconate. She buttresses her opinion with blatantly false claims, such as: “Women perform and have performed diaconal ministry throughout the history of the Church.”⁷

Father Richard Leonard, SJ

Fr. Richard Leonard will present two lectures: one on “Living Lives of Faith, Hope and Love,” the other on Easter. Fr. Leonard is the author of the disrespectfully titled book: Where the Hell Is God? in which he repeatedly calls into question Catholic doctrine on the “permissive Will of God,” by refusing to accept that God can will personal suffering.

He takes this so far as to call into question the doctrine of Original Sin and the Redemption itself. He wrote: “God did not need the blood of Jesus. Jesus did not just come ‘to die,’ but God used his death to announce the end of death. This is the domain of ‘offer it up’ theology: it was good enough for Jesus to suffer; it is good enough for you. While I am aware of St. Paul in Romans, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Anselm of Canterbury and later John Calvin’s (sic) work on atonement theory and satisfaction theology, I cannot baldly accept that the perfect God of love set up for a fall in the Fall, then got so angry with us that only the grisly death of his perfect son was going to repair the breach between us.”⁸

Sister Barbara Reid, OP

Sr. Reid will be presenting a talk on the Gospel of St. Matthew. She is a leading expert in so-called feminist biblical interpretation. She is an odd choice since she clearly rejects the infallibility and Divine authorship of the Scriptures. In an article in America Magazine, she explained that one of her rules for feminist interpretation is to be: “aware that the books of the Bible have been written, for the most part, by men, for men, about men, and to serve men’s purposes.

Accordingly, it is imperative to attend to the questions: who wrote the text, for whom, in what circumstances and with what purpose. Another step is to evaluate what the text does to those who accept it: does it reinforce domination and oppression? Or does it liberate for the flourishing of life? This question must be asked again and again in each new context.”⁹

Father James Martin, SJ
Photo Credit: American TFP Photo Archive

Father James Martin, SJ

The infamous Fr. Martin will be speaking on “What have been the most significant developments affecting LGBTQ parish communities and Catholics worldwide?” and again on his recently published book. Fr. Martin is well-known for his promotion of homosexual sin. He often does so in a sinuous way that led writer Kennedy Hall to call him “devilishly cunning.”¹⁰

At other times, Fr. Martin is more direct in his approach. For example, he has said that Catholics must “reverence” homosexual unions, supported transgenderism for children, favored homosexual kissing during Holy Mass, called dissident nun Sr. Jeannine Gramick a “saint,” welcomed an award from the condemned group New Ways Ministry, tweeted a blasphemous depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe brandishing a snake and stepping on an angel, written the book Building a Bridge (which undermines Catholic teaching on homosexual sin) and praised the blasphemous “rainbow rosary.”¹¹

Greg Walton

Greg Walton has two “transgender” children, whose dysphoria and homosexuality he supports, endorses the dissident group New Ways Ministry, promotes heterodox authors Fr. James Martin and Sr. Jeannine Gramick and works with the radical group PFLAG,¹² which even supports sexually explicit books in school libraries.¹³ Yet he will be presenting the talk: “Journeying to a Generous Space for LGBTQIA+ Ministry: Applying Experience, Scripture, and Tradition” (sic).

Father Ronald Rolheiser
Photo Credit: © GreenIsBest10, CC BY-SA 4.0

Father Ronald Rolheiser

Fr. Rolheiser is another common speaker at RECs. This year, he will be speaking on hope and mercy. However, his views on the “spirituality of sexuality” are Freudian. He once defined spirituality as “what we do with the fires inside of us, about how we channel our eros.” Apparently unaware of the life-giving effects of chastity, he dismally described Saint Therese of the Child Jesus as one who “slept alone on her celibate cot” and was “tormented by constant yearning.”¹⁴

His views on Hell are equally unorthodox. He hopes for the day when Lucifer will convert and join God in Heaven, and once said, “A person who is struggling honestly to be happy cannot go to hell since hell is the antithesis of an honest struggle to be happy.”¹⁵

Father Casey Cole

Fr. Cole will be addressing the REC about evangelization. His views on the origin of the Gospels conflict with Catholic teaching. He doubts, not just the authorship of the Gospels, but even that they are eye-witness accounts of Our Lord’s life. In a YouTube video, he stated: “Most Christians in the early days after the Resurrection believed that Jesus was returning shortly. There would have been no reason to write anything down or establish structures because the world was about to end as they knew it. Rather, the Gospels were written down much later by people who never witnessed Jesus themselves.”¹⁶

This contradicts the findings of the Biblical Pontifical Commission established by St. Pius X to combat the scriptural innovations of the modernists. This cannot be taken lightly because St. Pius X considered it a grave sin to speak or write in opposition to the findings of that commission.¹⁷

Roy Petitfils

Louisiana-based Roy Petitfils will be speaking twice about working with adolescents. However, he advocates indulging the psychosis of youth suffering from gender dysphoria. The leftist National Catholic Reporter quoted him saying: “The No. 1 thing schools can do to support transgender youths is to give faculty permission to call students by their chosen name and pronoun.”¹⁸

Doctor Tracey Lamont

Dr. Lamont will be presenting about “A Theology of Reconciliation and Forgiveness in Ministry with Young Adults.” Her ideas on evangelization coincide largely with the false ideas of certain radical leftist missionaries in Brazil in the 1970s. These notions were forcefully refuted by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in the work: Indian Tribalism: The Communist-Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the Twenty-First Century.¹⁹

These errors affirm that evangelization does not mean bringing people to the Faith, but rather recognizing that God is already present among them and allowing oneself to be “evangelized” by them.

These false notions are evident in Dr. Lamont’s works. In a 2020 paper, she wrote: “We are not bringing God to anyone; God is present in the world, in all people and all of creation. If our mission is to evangelize young adults, then we must first, according to [Peter] Phan, ‘search for and recog[nize]…the presence and activities of the Holy Spirit among the peoples to be evangelized, and in this humble and attentive process of listening, the evangelizers become the evangelized, and the evangelized becomes the evangelizers.’”

She developed these ideas further on, stating: “The mission of the Church is not directed towards converting people to Catholicism, but aims at building up God’s kin-dom [sic], on earth as it is in Heaven. In this way, young adults will find in ministry leaders, mentors—accompaniers—who listen deeply to their lived experiences, and who can journey alongside them as they explore how they might make the faith their own. As Pope Francis states, our primary concern should not be about whether or not a young person accepts the full teachings of the Church; rather, we should embody a ministry that ‘can open doors and make room for everyone.’”²⁰

Sister Teresa Maya

Long-time REC presenter Sr. Maya will return this year to present the talk “A Listening Church: Synodality, Interculturality, and Community.” However, her notions of Ecclesiology are not compatible with traditional teaching. Falsely ascribing the sins of Her members to the Church Herself, she made this shocking statement: “…brother bishops, this church, this faithful people, holds so much pain, so many questions, so much grief. For months, I personally have found the words of the creed—one, holy, catholic, apostolic—painful to pronounce. I confess I was even tempted to mount my personal boycott by remaining silent for that part…”²¹

Doctor Antonio Alonso

Dr. Alonso will be speaking about “renewing hope in challenging times.” He believes that theological education must include input from other religions and homosexuals. In answer to the question of how to make such learning successful in the future, he stated: “Anything like an adequate understanding will require knowledge from multiple perspectives. The pluralism essential to our discernment requires diversities of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, faith, region, discipline, and vocation.”²²

Doctor Thomas Groome

Influential leftist professor Thomas Groome will be presenting a talk about Catholic Education. Dr. Groome is a well-known promoter of ending priestly celibacy and the ordination of women to the priesthood. He took advantage of the clerical abuse crisis to pen a 2002 Boston Globe article²³ promoting both.

Jason Kidd

Mr. Kidd is the National Director of Alpha in a Catholic Context. He will be lecturing on “Inviting the Holy Spirit to Sustain You and Your Ministry.” Alpha is a program developed by an Anglican minister to be a bare-bones introduction to Christianity. By its nature, it reduces Christianity to a state of such simplicity as to render it impotent. It also lacks any mention of the sacraments and other key elements of the Faith.

To fix these shortcomings, “Alpha in a Catholic Context” was developed. However, authorities of the Faith, such as Raymond Cardinal Burke, have publicly denounced it as incompatible with Catholic apostolate. In fact, His Eminence forbade its use among the Marian Catechist Apostolate that he was overseeing at the time. A 2015 memorandum from the cardinal stated: “It has come to my attention that a program called ‘Alpha in a Catholic Context’ has been recommended to some Marian Catechists.

Having studied the program, both from the perspective of doctrine and methodology, I must make it clear that the program may not be used, in any form, in the Marian Catechist Apostolate and that Marian Catechists are not to become involved with it. While, like so many similar programs, Alpha may seem to offer a more attractive and effective form of evangelization and catechesis, it does not have the doctrinal and methodological foundations required for the teaching of the Catholic Faith.”²⁴

His assessment should come as no surprise, considering that very little was changed to produce the Catholic version of Alpha. In fact, an information page on the Alpha website claims: “The Alpha videos are exactly the same for all denominations and traditions! There is not a different set of videos for Catholic parishes.”²⁵

Former Evangelical turned Catholic Eric Sammons described why this is troublesome, saying: “Catholic evangelization is not simply Protestant evangelism with a Catholic twist. It cannot be reduced to leading people to a non-denominational Jesus, then later catechizing them on the tenets of Catholicism. The Catholic kerygma includes distinctively Catholic doctrines…Doctrine is not the icing on the cake, it is the ingredients of the cake itself. Without these ingredients, we present an empty message that does nothing to fill the deepest desires of the human heart.”²⁶

A Call to Action

With all the confusion rampant in society, and even the Church, Catholics need true Hope which can only come from Truth, not presumptive experimentation with novel doctrines. They need the solid teaching that comes forth from the wellspring of Christ, Himself, which has been faithfully handed down for 2,000 years of consistent teaching.

Many REC speakers fall short of the mark. Spreading their errors can only lead to more confusion, decay and loss of Faith. That is why the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) urges you to take a stand by calling Archbishop Gomez and telling His Excellency that you reject the unorthodox speakers at the REC and hope to see future congresses that transmit only the purity of Catholic truth. Please be polite, but firm.

May Our Lady, Mother of the Church and Destroyer of All Heresies, assist the archbishop and bring full orthodoxy to Los Angeles.

Archbishop Gomez can be reached at: 213-637-7215 or [email protected].

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Footnotes

Rev. Francis Spirago, The Catechism Explained, Rockford, Illinois, Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1993, p. 476.
Fr. Ricky Manalo, “Paulist Father Ricky Manalo, CSP speaks on unity with those we disagree with at one of our livestreamed masses.”, Facebook, June 6, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/ColumbusAve.at.W.60th/videos/paulist-father-ricky-manalo-csp-speaks-on-unity-with-those-we-disagree-with-at-o/1061601272562372/, accessed Jan. 28, 2026.
Father Richard Fragomeni, “Pope Francis and the Beauty of the Liturgy,” The Priest, no date, https://thepriest.com/2022/12/15/pope-francis-and-the-beauty-of-the-liturgy/.
Paul Likoudis, “Liturgical Renewal Has Been Run by Sexual Liberationists,” Catholic Culture, February 17, 2000, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2571.
Joseph Sciambra, “Gay Apologist Thomas Reese to Address 2019 LA REC on Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis,” January 13, 2019, last accessed March 7, 2019, https://musingsofanoldcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2019/01/gay-apologist-thomas-reese-to-address.html.
John-Henry Westen, “Catholic Charities USA invites pro-gay ‘marriage’ priest to keynote annual gathering,” LifeSiteNews, June 4, 2013, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-charities-usa-invites-pro-gay-marriage-priest-to-keynote-annual-ga, accessed February 9, 2026.
Los Angeles Religious Education Congress Registration Guidebook, p. 47, http://www.recongress.org/2019/pdf/RGB2019.pdf, accessed March 10, 2019.
Richard Leonard, SJ, “Where the Hell is God?”, Thinking Faith, March 21, 2011, https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20110321_1.htm, accessed February 9, 2026.
Barbara E. Reid, “How We Read Scripture Can Help or Hinder Efforts Towards Gender Equality,” America, November 16, 2015, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/11/16/how-we-read-scripture-can-help-or-hinder-efforts-toward-gender-equality, accessed February 9, 2026.
Kennedy Hall, “The Devilish Cunning of Fr. James Martin,” Crisis Magazine, June 30, 2023) https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-devilish-cunning-of-fr-james-martin, accessed February 9, 2026.
John Ritchie, “10 Ways Fr. James Martin Is Harming the Catholic Faith,” TFPStudentAction, February 23, 2018, https://www.tfpstudentaction.org/blog/fr-james-martin-is-harming-the-catholic-faith, accessed February 9, 2026.
Making LGBTQ Parish Ministries Work – Part 1, YouTube, Greg Walton, April 10, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=l6zxaY0w2Udg2ROD&v=l0-nTf0epZI&feature=youtu.be, accessed February 10, 2024.
WATCH: Oreo’s Partnership With ‘’Militant’ LGBT Org Challenged By Group’s Ad, Shareholder Proposal, Mairead Elordi, The Daily Wire, February 7, 2024, https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-oreos-partnership-with-militant-lgbt-org-challenged-by-groups-ad-shareholder-proposal, accessed February 10, 2024.
Sr. Joseph Mary Maximillian, FTI, Catholic Culture, “Red Flags Are Up! On the Writings of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI,” https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7026, accessed January 31, 2020.
Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, RonRolheiser.com, “Who goes to Hell, and who doesn’t?,” May 6, 2019, https://ronrolheiser.com/who-goes-to-hell-and-who-doesnt/#.XjTBIC2ZNjs, accessed January 31, 2020.
As reproduced by: Dan Burke, “Can I Trust Fr. Casey Cole? Is His Critique of “The Chosen” Valid?,” SpiritualDirection.com, October 2, 2021, https://spiritualdirection.com/2021/10/02/can-i-trust-fr-casey-cole-is-his-critique-of-the-chosen-valid, accessed February 9, 2026.
Heinrich Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 1957, pp. 542-554. Describing the assent that should be given to the Biblical Pontifical Commission, the saint pontiff stated: “Therefore, we see that it must be declared and ordered as We do now declare and expressly order, that all are bound by the duty of conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Pontifical Commission, both those which have thus far been published and those which are hereafter proclaimed…and that all who impugn such decisions as these by word or in writing cannot avoid the charge of disobedience, or on this account be free of grave sin; and this besides the scandal by which they offend, and the other matters for which they can be responsible before God, especially because of other pronouncements in these matters made rashly and erroneously.”
Katie Collins Scott, “New Catholic policies across US create ‘culture of fear’ for LGBTQ students, advocates say,” National Catholic Reporter, September 15, 2022, https://www.ncronline.org/news/new-catholic-policies-across-us-create-culture-fear-lgbtq-students-advocates-say, accessed February 9, 2026.
Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Indian Tribalism: The Communist-Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the Twenty-First Century.
Tracey Lamont, Ministry with Young Adults: Toward a New Ecclesiological Imagination, Loyola Institute for Ministry, Loyola University New Orleans, November 2, 2020, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/11/570, accessed February 9, 2026.
Soli Salgado, Global Sister’s Report, “’Listen to the Heart of Our People,’ Sr. Teresa Maya tells US bishops,” November 14, 2018, last accessed January 31, 2020, https://www.globalsistersreport.org/blog/gsr-today/trends/listen-heart-our-people-sr-teresa-maya-tells-us-bishops-55617?gsr_redirect=1.
“Theological Education between the Times: Reflections on the Telos of Theological Education | Religious Studies News,” Religious Studies News, April 28, 2017, https://rsn.aarweb.org/spotlight-on/theo-ed/between-the-times/theological-education-between-times-reflections-telos-theological-education, accessed February 18, 2023.
Thomas H. Groome, “The free flow of fresh air,” The Boston Globe, May 19, 2002, https://archive.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/print/051902_focus.htm, accessed February 9, 2026.
Raymond Cardinal Burke, “Directive to Marian Catechists regarding the program ‘Alpha in a Catholic Context’”, December 3, 2015, https://mariancatechist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/marian-catechist-apostolate-mca-alpha-memo-12-3-2015-la-crosse-wisconsin.pdf, accessed February 9, 2026.
Denise Santella, “How is Alpha for Catholics different?”, Alpha USA, https://help.alphausa.org/en/articles/8770304-how-is-alpha-for-catholics-different, accessed February 9, 2026.
Eric Sammons, “The Protestantization of the New Evangelization,” OnePeter5, September 18, 2017, https://onepeterfive.com/the-protestantization-new-evangelization/, accessed February 9, 2026.