In response to the recent statement by Pope Francis concerning homosexuality, Joseph Sciambra, a former homosexual and gay porn star turned Catholic and anti-homosexual activist, argues that the seeming confusion in the Church about homosexuality did NOT start with him, but began decades earlier with the acceptance of homosexuality in local churches and tolerated by bishops. In his words, there is a “civil war” in the Church right now being waged by the LGBT against the Faithful:

I have to get this off my chest – once again. It’s like out damned spot – this will never leave me.

This did not start with Pope Francis – in the 1990s, I attended a gay wedding ceremony at a Catholic Church in San Francisco – performed by a Catholic priest; friends and acquaintances had similar marriage “blessings” in SF. As of a few years ago – when I spoke with another priest involved in these ceremonies, this practice continued. When I left SF in 1999, I thought my experiences with facilitating and lecherous priests were endemic to a relatively small section of the world ranging from the Castro to USF. Ten years later, went I started writing about the topic – I heard stories from Catholics (primarily mothers with a “gay” son) who lived in every part of the US, they told a similar tragic tale – how a concerned parent sent a confused kid to an officially sanctioned LGBT ministry in their diocese, and the boy later emerged as a gay-rights advocate; they also usually picked-up a boyfriend at these ministries. When I began my outreach in San Francisco to the LGBT community – and tried to have an honest discussion with someone about what the Church teaches, I heard the same thing over and over again: that is NOT what they teach at the local parish. Before I started this outreach, I thought my struggle would be with the secular gay community. No, that has not been the battle front. There is a gay civil war in the Church, those that stand up for truth are few and ill-equipped; we have almost no support from the hierarchy. While the gay-affirmative side controls entire parishes, LGBT ministers in almost every major Archdiocese (CMLGP in LA, Out at St. Paul in NYC, and AGLO in Chicago) they also determine who speaks at the largest gathering of Catholics in the US – the LA REC.

Over the past ten years, because of this issue, I have teetered every day on the edge of leaving the Catholic Church. Beyond the physical and mental torments, I have suffered due to a decade I spent as a gay man, the Church has been my greatest source of suffering. It would be easy for me to leave the Church – then I would have peace. But I cannot abandon Christ as I once abandoned Him. He never left me.

I have a long history with this topic of homosexuality in the RCC. Within a few months of leaving San Francisco, a traditional community of priests took me in. I worked for them as a cook and house-cleaner. I thought they cared about me. Almost from the start, I witnessed strange goings-on in their house. I tried not to be suspicious, but I couldn’t help it. I shared my concerns with one of the priests – he then manipulated me into believing that my past had clouded by judgment. I kept silent. Their interest in me seemed peculiar. Later, I noticed more public instances of grooming young men. I had to get out of there. As a former sex abuse victim, I thought I was reliving the abuse. This almost destroyed me. Back in California, when another priest encouraged me to contact the local ordinary where the religious order was located – I did just that. I wasn’t treated well – like a liar. Horrible experience. This was just before the Boston scandal – and the diocese really did nothing. They denied it. A few years later, a boy sued the diocese. I got a subpoena to testify. In court, one of the lawyers reveals things about my past that only the priests knew through my confessions. Beautiful. The lawyer for the diocese sits there like a dunce. Never got an apology from anyone.

I have tried in all earnestly and charity to have a discussion with several bishops about the issue of gay-affirmative ministries within their dioceses – the universal reaction has been similar to what I experienced when I tried to report sex abuse – they throw up the shield, get a glazed look on their face and treat you like the enemy. There is no place in the RCC for someone who won’t be silent about the failure of the bishops to address this issue.

I take this very personally, in the 1990s, I had a wonderful and funny sad friend who always wavered on his alliance to being gay. I thought he was simply conflicted. The RCC meant nothing to me. But it meant something to him. He struggled. Then he discovered John J. McNeill and a nearby gay-affirmative parish. Before that, I think he might have gotten out of the life. He didn’t. He died of AIDS before the introduction of antiretrovirals in 1994. I still find the Church complicit in his death. It haunts me to this day.

At age 17, a Catholic priest told me that God created me this way.

When I left SF, I never thought I would have this conversation with Catholics. When I went to the Castro in 1988, it was the height of the AIDS crisis, but I didn’t care. I’d been alone my whole life, and I was willing to risk my life, if I could live like a human being for a few years rather than as a freak. Because I lived within a whole community of freaks – and they didn’t judge me. By the early-1990s, everyone was dying – of AIDS, drug overdoses, and suicide. The Castro became a death camp without any visible barb-wire. But I wouldn’t leave. I had nowhere to go. The local Catholic Church had a rainbow flag hanging outside the front door. I watched as friends dropped into the grave, but I didn’t care – because I was alive.

Sometimes the greatest punishment endured by those who survive – is surviving. I can’t forget those I left behind. After seeing such carnage – I cannot understand why the gay experiment has not been abandoned like other failed utopian philosophies that resulted in mass murder – Fascism, Nazism, Communism. After over 300,000 gay men in the US alone have died of AIDS, that the Church allows this debate to continue is reprehensible.

When I hear those in the Catholic Church say – you were born gay, I think: My God, they are killing us.

 

The Catholic teaching on homosexuality is the same of that in the Bible- it is a sin that is evil, worthy of death, and is one of four that specifically cries out to Heaven for vengeance.

As a reminder of the evil of homosexuality, and the fact that as the teaching on homosexuality is from divine revelation it cannot change regardless of what anybody says, it is good to review what the saints said about homosexuality so to know that what one hears today is an error and a historical abberation that, by the grace of God, be placed into the refuse bin of history.

So what did the saints say about homosexuality?

See for yourselves.

St. Athenagoras of Athens: “But though such is our character (Oh! why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the proverb, ‘The harlot reproves the chaste.’ For those who have set up a market for fornication and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure – who do not abstain even from males, males with males committing shocking abominations, outraging all the noblest and comeliest bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonoring the fair workmanship of God.” (A Plea For the Christians, Chapter 34)

Tertullian: “[Regarding sodomy]But all the other frenzies of passions–impious both toward the bodies and toward 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.” (On Modesty, Chapter 4)

Eusebius of Caesarea: “[God in the Law given to Moses] having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men.” (Demonstratio Evangelica, Book 4, Chapter 10)

Saint Jerome: “And Sodom and Gomorrah might have appeased it [God’s wrath], had they been willing to repent, and through the aid of fasting gain for themselves tears of repentance.” (Book 2, No. 15)

Saint John Chrysostom: “But if thou scoffest at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration!… 

“Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time!… For that rain was unwonted, for the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who hath pandered himself, or what more execrable?” (Homily IV, Romans 1:26-27)

“All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men… There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.” (Of the Epistle to the Romans Homily IV)

Saint Augustine: “Those offences which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites, which should all nations commit, they should all be held guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which hath not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. For even that fellowship which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature of which He is author is polluted by the perversity of lust.”(Book III, Chapter 8, No. 15)

Saint Basil of Caesarea: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship… with young people.” (St. Basil of Caesarea, in St. Peter Damien, Liber Gomorrhianus, cols. 174f.) [Note: Punishments for sodomite priests and monks as well as paedophiles is clearly prescribed here!]

Saint Gregory the Great: “Sacred Scripture itself confirms that sulfur evokes the stench of the flesh, as it speaks of the rain of fire and sulfur poured upon Sodom by the Lord. He had decided to punish Sodom for the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment he chose emphasized the shame of that crime. For sulfur stinks, and fire burns. So it was just that Sodomites, burning with perverse desires arising from the flesh like stench, should perish by fire and sulfur so that through this just punishment they would realize the evil they had committed, led by a perverse desire.”(Morales sur Job, Part III, Vol. I, book 14, no. 23)

Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072): “The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus [Hell]…. In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured. It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself. This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence.

“And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out.” (Book of Gomorrah, Pierre J. Payer, trans., (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1982), pp. 63-64)

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): “Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed…. I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil…. 

“If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature….

“Man can sin against nature in two ways. First, when he sins against his specific rational nature, acting contrary to reason. In this sense, we can say that every sin is a sin against man’s nature, because it is against man’s right reason…. 

“Secondly, man sins against nature when he goes against his generic nature, that is to say, his animal nature. Now, it is evident that, in accord with natural order, the union of the sexes among animals is ordered towards conception. From this it follows that every sexual intercourse that cannot lead to conception is opposed to man’s animal nature.” (Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Romanos, Cap. 1, Lec. 8)

Saint Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380): [Our Lord Jesus Christ addressing her states the following:]

“But they act in a contrary way, for they come full of impurity to this mystery, and not only of that impurity to which, through the fragility of your weak nature, you are all naturally inclined (although reason, when free will permits, can quiet the rebellion of nature), but these wretches not only do not bridle this fragility, but do worse, committing that accursed sin against nature, and as blind and fools, with the light of their intellect darkened, they do not know the stench and misery in which they are. It is not only that this sin stinks before me, who am the Supreme and Eternal Truth, it does indeed displease me so much and I hold it in such abomination that for it alone I buried five cities by a divine judgment, my divine justice being no longer able to endure it. This sin not only displeases me as I have said, but also the devils whom these wretches have made their masters. Not that the evil displeases them because they like anything good, but because their nature was originally angelic, and their angelic nature causes them to loathe the sight of the actual commission of this enormous sin.” (St. Catherine of Sienna, The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1925), p. 255)

Saint Bernardine of Sienna (1380-1444): “No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God.… Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy.… They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy…. Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Sermon XXXIX in Prediche volgari, pp. 896-897, 915.)

Saint Peter Canisius (1521-1597): “As the Sacred Scripture says, the Sodomites were wicked and exceedingly sinful. Saint Peter and Saint Paul condemn this nefarious and depraved sin. In fact, the Scripture denounces this enormous indecency thus: ‘The scandal of Sodomites and Gomorrhans has multiplied and their sins have become grave beyond measure.’ So the angels said to just Lot, who totally abhorred the depravity of the Sodomites: ‘Let us leave this city….’ Holy Scripture does not fail to mention the causes that led the Sodomites, and can also lead others, to this most grievous sin. In fact, in Ezechiel we read: ‘Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me; and I took them away as thou hast seen’ (Ezech. 16: 49-50). Those unashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this never sufficiently execrated depravity.” (St. Peter Canisius, Summa Doctrina Christianae, III a/b, p. 455)

—

Homosexuality is evil.

There is no getting around this

God is Love, and Love is Mercy and Justice.

He will NOT be mocked forever.

His judgment will come.

When it comes, it will be final.

Be a smart virgin, and not a foolish one- get ready now lest it comes and it is too late.