ONE of the most disturbing things about Pope Francis’s recent comments on the plane from Rome to Rio was his implication that the Church may legitimately view homosexuality as a permanent inclination and a form of identity. But there is no such thing as a Christian homosexual. There are obviously Christians who have homosexual desires, but not homosexual Christians. Here is some deeper analysis of the Pope’s remarks at the sedevacantist website, Novus Ordo Watch. Novus Ordo writes:

Francis plays right into the wrong-headed but widespread idea that some people are homosexual in their identity, in their nature, as part of “who they are”. This is exactly what modern-day liberals want you to believe, that just as people are biologically either male or female, so they are also biologically either heterosexual or homosexual.

Nonsense! If a Catholic accepts this idea, he has already crossed the line….

Also, here is a reader’s comment on the same subject that came in before the Pope’s remarks on the plane to Rome.

A Grateful Reader writes:

The editorial in the latest Touchstone Magazine gives a good response to the problem of how to respond to those who continue to engage, without repentance, in sinful behavior.  The two excerpts below give the key ideas which are: 1) There is no such thing as a homosexual Christian and 2) Those who define themselves by some sin have no place in the Church, and in rejecting the sin, the Church must reject those who identify themselves as willingly, unrepentingly, participating in that sin.  The essence of the Church lies in helping people toward metanoia [a change of nous (heart/mind/will) that will bring them closer to Christ].

“In 1 Corinthians 6, St. Paul gives vital clarification on a subject where there is much foggy thinking among those who ask questions like, ‘What should the Church’s approach to homosexual Christians be?’ The apostolic answer is that there is no such thing as a homosexual Christian. There are brethren who struggle with various temptations, to be sure, and may on occasion fall to them before rising again. But believers who resist homosexual lust are not ‘homosexuals.’ They are just Christians, as are the rest of us with our own besetting sins.

Its message to those who, in abandonment of hope, define themselves by some sin, and present themselves as though they, as so defined, should have a place in the Church, is and only can be that of complete rejection. With respect to loving the sinner and hating the sin, which it indeed is called to do, what can it say to those who, in contempt of the saints who have fled their sins, declare their persons to be inseparable from the sin, identifying themselves with it—and then blame the Church for hating them as persons? It can only say to them that all perversion of what it is to be human has been destroyed in and by Christ, who makes those who love him straight and whole after his own image. To some, this is the promise of life; to others, who have bound themselves to that which is to be destroyed, it is the intolerable threat of destruction.”

This would suggest, too, that there is no such thing as a pro-choice Christian.

— End of Initial Entry —

A Grateful Reader adds:

A tripartite thesis on the same subject comes from Father Hugh Barbour, a Norbertine priest. He asks whether homosexuals exist at all. He points out that the terms homosexual and heterosexual–used to describe inclinations–arose only recently, in the late 19th century. On the other hand, the term sodomite, which describes actions, is ancient.

“The practically universal triumph of the juridical recognition of gay marriage in the countries of the world that used to be Christendom requires those of us who accept the morality of the Bible to reassess the matter of homosexuality.  This reassessment must be radical and practical.  Things have come to such a pass that unless we are content to concede, we must utterly reform our notions and our customs.  There is no other way to move forward.

I propose a number of reforms, both of our ideas and our practice, which will enable us to confront the problem of homosexual identity.  First, the overcoming of the unhelpful dichotomy of heterosexual and homosexual.  Second, the promotion of committed friendship as an essential aspect of Christian moral life.  Third, a revision and broadening of the aesthetic of the human body in the light of the classical tradition.  For the most part I will be speaking in terms of male relationships, but everything I say can apply, mutatis mutandis, to women as well.

For too long, for more than a century, Christians and others who accept the view of human nature found in the Bible have accepted characterizations of that nature that flow, not from the acceptance of man as male and female created in the image and likeness of God, but from that “reprobate sense” that treats as real, existing, and normative things that are vain, foolish lies flowing from the rejection of the truth of God.

How is it that Christian (and Jewish, for that matter, and not to mention Greek) moral reflection flourished for millennia until the latter 19th century without the categories heterosexual and homosexual?  It is because these categories are foreign to a biblical and natural understanding of man.  They offer very little to us and shed no light on human nature, its operations, inclinations, and acts.  They merely describe an undeniable fact that there are persons who are physically attracted to members of their own or the other sex.  They imply something very unwholesome—namely, that sexual identity is simply a result of an individual inclination.  The origins of the one inclination or the other are then a matter of discussion, and they can be congenital, hereditary, acquired, chosen, imposed, changed, and so on.  This is what underlies the current use of the word gender in place of sex.  In any case, sexual identity as heterosexual or homosexual is not something given in nature: It is not simply sex, the fact of being male or female, but something to be determined in the individual.  This dichotomy imprisons those who characterize themselves as one or the other in a personal identity not rooted in nature, but in affective preference.  Thus, all the affective inclinations of persons who are heterosexual or homosexual can be treated as unstable, suspect, and subjective.”

Laura writes:

Very good.

Jeff W. writes:

In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”  (New International Version.)

To be defiled, of course, means to be separated from God, not to be allowed into God’s presence. In this statement, Christ lists twelve kinds of evil thoughts that separate us from God. Three of these have to do with sex:

Sexual immorality. Greek:  porneiai, meaning illicit sexual intercourse, including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals, sexual intercourse with close relatives, sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman.

Adultery.  Greek: moiceiai, meaning adultery.

Lewdness.  Greek: aselgeia, meaning unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence.

I would emphasize that Christ says that thinking about these things defiles us. Doing them, of course, defiles us even more.

Historically there have been times when Christians knew that Christ has called them to sexual purity. Today is not one of those times. Today is a time instead when church leaders wonder why their churches seems to be separated from God.

In Romans 8:13, Paul describes how Christians are to conquer these twelve kinds of evil thoughts: “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”  Christians cannot overcome these evil thoughts and urges on their own. But when we sincerely plead for God’s help, the Spirit intervenes against the power of sin.

We cannot react with complacency and approval when we encounter people who have been overpowered by sin. Yet that is what church leaders today seem to be telling us to do in response to the sin of homosexuality.

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