HOMSEXUALITY: Following God or following Mammon
The question of Homosexuality is a divisive one and alas even within the Catholic Church where there are many who have fallen to what is called 'human compassion'. Indeed there is a large scale battle in the Church over 'homosexual clergy' This was not true in the early Church, where the teaching of the Fathers was very much to condemn the practice and perhaps in a what would be called today a very 'uncharitable manner".
Letter of Barnabas (AD 75) "You shall not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such"
Tertullian of Carthage (Modesty 4, c. AD 220) "All the other frenzies of passion -impious both towards the bodies and the sexes - beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold - but from all shelter of the Church because they are not sins but monstrosities".
St Cyprian of Carthage (Letters 1;8 C. 240AD) "Then you look to the abominations of another spectacle to be deplored......Men are emasculated and all their pride and visor of their sex is effeminate to the disgrace of their enervated body and he is more pleasing who has most completely broken down the man into the woman".
I could quote many of the early Fathers of the Church speaking in the tone of St Cyprian which would turn many to anger and yet these were the early followers of Christ who were emphasising that Homosexuality was a sin. In the pagan society in which the Church grew many imitated the Gods like Hercules who had sex with young boys, and the female Goddess Demeter who was enticed to have sex by the mortal woman Baubo. So much of the immortality was in imitation of the gods and was rife in many societies. This perhaps explains the severity of the Church.
But let us turn to the Bible. "That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions. Why their women have exchanged natural interecouse for unnatural practices; and the men in a similar fashion too have given up normal relations with women and consumed with passion men doing shameful things with men, and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion". (Roimans 1:20 - 27) The due reward I can only guess is some kind of venereal disease. But let us move on "Make no mistake the sexually immoral, idolators, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites, thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God" Perhaps we should look around us on a Sunday morning and ask "Then who will be saved from this community?"
"Sodom and Gomorrah, too, and the neighbouring towns, who with the same sexual immorality pursued unnatural lusts, are put before us as an example since they are paying the penalty of eternal fire" (Jude 7)
This is not an easy subject to write on since it arouses in some a great deal of hatred, for in the modern world the values of the secular society trump Christian teaching. Christians can be torn between a natural human compassion and following the teachings of Jesus Christ. But the teachings of the Church which came to us from the Master and the Apostles is either the word of God or it is not. So that is the bottom line of any discussions. Jesus ands his Apostles taught this, the Bible is the Word of God, and so it is commanded of us. But there is so much more about the effects of homosexuality which is there for us to see, and yet we turn our eyes away. If indeed homosexuality is just the same as heterosexual sex why do our hospitals refuse blood from homosexuals unless they have refrained from sex for 12 months. There is much food for thought here. Then there is the question of the safety of young people. In normal society attacks on young people in puberty and teens are in the region of two thirds being girls and one third being boys. In the Catholic Church today the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania revealed last year that over a period of 20 years there had been 300 cases of abuse in the Catholic Church of nine diocese they had examined. They noted that this was not pedophilia because the children were in puberty or their teens. Something the media is very silent about. Now we can forget the 300 victims if you like and just argue about the good of the Church and pretend it does not matter as long as the clergy can get on with their work. But Cardinals, bishops and priests are very much what the Pennsylvania court called Homosexual Predators. They found that 80 per cent of the victims were male and only 20% female. There had been Catholics and who have been protesting for along time that the prelates were coving up for one another. Even in the seminaries there were clergy who were raping young seminarians. This is all out there in the open and is not southing people are making up. As I said and I will say it in more stronger language, we can say to hell with the victims as long as we do not criticise the Church. But that is a dishonest approach for the victims matter a great deal more than the clergy. Such were the findings of the Pennsylvania Court the the American FBI are conducting their own investigations into the Catholic Church, and I say it is about time.
Letter of Barnabas (AD 75) "You shall not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such"
Tertullian of Carthage (Modesty 4, c. AD 220) "All the other frenzies of passion -impious both towards the bodies and the sexes - beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold - but from all shelter of the Church because they are not sins but monstrosities".
St Cyprian of Carthage (Letters 1;8 C. 240AD) "Then you look to the abominations of another spectacle to be deplored......Men are emasculated and all their pride and visor of their sex is effeminate to the disgrace of their enervated body and he is more pleasing who has most completely broken down the man into the woman".
I could quote many of the early Fathers of the Church speaking in the tone of St Cyprian which would turn many to anger and yet these were the early followers of Christ who were emphasising that Homosexuality was a sin. In the pagan society in which the Church grew many imitated the Gods like Hercules who had sex with young boys, and the female Goddess Demeter who was enticed to have sex by the mortal woman Baubo. So much of the immortality was in imitation of the gods and was rife in many societies. This perhaps explains the severity of the Church.
But let us turn to the Bible. "That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions. Why their women have exchanged natural interecouse for unnatural practices; and the men in a similar fashion too have given up normal relations with women and consumed with passion men doing shameful things with men, and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion". (Roimans 1:20 - 27) The due reward I can only guess is some kind of venereal disease. But let us move on "Make no mistake the sexually immoral, idolators, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites, thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God" Perhaps we should look around us on a Sunday morning and ask "Then who will be saved from this community?"
"Sodom and Gomorrah, too, and the neighbouring towns, who with the same sexual immorality pursued unnatural lusts, are put before us as an example since they are paying the penalty of eternal fire" (Jude 7)
This is not an easy subject to write on since it arouses in some a great deal of hatred, for in the modern world the values of the secular society trump Christian teaching. Christians can be torn between a natural human compassion and following the teachings of Jesus Christ. But the teachings of the Church which came to us from the Master and the Apostles is either the word of God or it is not. So that is the bottom line of any discussions. Jesus ands his Apostles taught this, the Bible is the Word of God, and so it is commanded of us. But there is so much more about the effects of homosexuality which is there for us to see, and yet we turn our eyes away. If indeed homosexuality is just the same as heterosexual sex why do our hospitals refuse blood from homosexuals unless they have refrained from sex for 12 months. There is much food for thought here. Then there is the question of the safety of young people. In normal society attacks on young people in puberty and teens are in the region of two thirds being girls and one third being boys. In the Catholic Church today the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania revealed last year that over a period of 20 years there had been 300 cases of abuse in the Catholic Church of nine diocese they had examined. They noted that this was not pedophilia because the children were in puberty or their teens. Something the media is very silent about. Now we can forget the 300 victims if you like and just argue about the good of the Church and pretend it does not matter as long as the clergy can get on with their work. But Cardinals, bishops and priests are very much what the Pennsylvania court called Homosexual Predators. They found that 80 per cent of the victims were male and only 20% female. There had been Catholics and who have been protesting for along time that the prelates were coving up for one another. Even in the seminaries there were clergy who were raping young seminarians. This is all out there in the open and is not southing people are making up. As I said and I will say it in more stronger language, we can say to hell with the victims as long as we do not criticise the Church. But that is a dishonest approach for the victims matter a great deal more than the clergy. Such were the findings of the Pennsylvania Court the the American FBI are conducting their own investigations into the Catholic Church, and I say it is about time.
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