A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Some quotes from Saints and Doctors against homosexual acts August 6, 2013

Mind you, when most of these quotes were made, there was no such thing as “homosexuality,” which is an invention of the 20th century.  Prior to that, no one ever had conceived of the idea that someone might have a “lifestyle” that involved sodomy – they simply committed incredibly sinful acts, acts that cried out to Heaven and resulted in the destruction of several cities now residing at the bottom of the Dead Sea.

However, Tan books has a site that contains many gems of Catholic doctrine, including this one on sodomy.  Given the incredible amount of self-serving propaganda out there these days on this subject, I think it important to get the Church’s traditional viewpoint on this subject. One thing before I begin with the quotes, the Tan site notes, as I have estimated myself, that there are about 2 dozen specific condemnations of homosexual acts in Scripture, both Old and New Testament (they list them all, chapter and verse).  While some aspects of the old law were abrogated after the coming of Christ, rejection of perverse sexual activities was not one of them:

Saint John Chrysostom denounces homosexual acts as being contrary to nature.  Commenting on the Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), he says that the pleasures of sodomy are an unpardonable offense to nature and are doubly destructive, since they threaten the species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end and they sow disharmony between men and women, who no longer are inclined by physical desire to live together in peace.

Saint Pius V is no less rigorous in the Constitution Horrendum Illud Scelus of August 30, 1568. He teaches: “That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were burned by virtue of divine condemnation, causes Us most bitter sorrow and shocks Our mind, impelling it to repress such a crime with the highest possible zeal. [Note: not “tolerate,” not “who am I to judge,” but “repress such a crime with the highest possible zeal.”  So, would some today claim St. Pius V was uncharitable?  Or, did he act from true charity, willing to use ALL means to preserve morality as well as individual souls from perdition?]

Saint Augustine is categorical in the combat against sodomy and similar vices. The great Bishop of Hippo writes: “Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed. If all nations committed them, all alike would be held guilty of the same charge in God’s law, for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust.” [Thus, the relative popularity for sodomy has no bearing on whether or not it must be opposed. Even should the entire world, outside the Church, commit them (and, frankly, given the depredations that occur in so many married couples today, it is probable that a very large part of the world has committed, or is committing, these acts]

Saint Albert the Great gives four reasons why he considers homosexual acts as the most detestable ones: They are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; [amazing how prescient the great Doctors of the Church are. But that’s because human nature never changes. Even 900 years ago, those who fall into this worst of vices find it extremely difficult to escape from it]  they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: “However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.”

Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words  of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.” [probably because the person has now descended to the state of brute animal rutting, as St. Thomas Aquinas describes, and possibly also because they are now so far gone, naturally, supernatural oppression may no longer be necessary?

——————–End Quotes———————-

There is much more at the Tan site.  Folks, the Church didn’t just make this stuff up because it doesn’t like a certain kind of person, or even certain acts. These acts have been deplored because they have corrosive impact not only on individual souls, but on society at large. The more this is tolerated, the sooner we can expect inevitable calamity on an uprecedented level.

Domine, miserere nobis!