Francis I
 |
| Kasper |
By Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi
On May 29, 2015, not long
after the controversial Private Rome Meeting organized by liberal members of
the German, French, and Swiss Bishops' Conferences, one of its participants and
speakers, prof. Schockenhoff, gave an interview in Germany to the radio of the
Archdiocese of Cologne, called domradio.de. In it, he made two important
statements. First, he is cautious about the possibility of bringing about a
liberal reform at the upcoming synod of bishops on the family; secondly, he
restated his revolutionary position concerning the acceptance of same-sex
relationships, reports LifeSiteNews.
When asked what his
expectations about the upcoming synod are, Schockenhoff said:
“As a theologian, I do not
expect that everything will be expressed in a fundamentally different and new
way. For me, a positive [sic] outcome of the Synod would be of course
desirable, because it would show that the Catholic Church is able to reform
itself, and that the following principle is also important for it: namely, that
the search for more adequate forms of expression of its faith will continue.
But, for me as a theologian, the substantial reasons for positions which I
represent are the ones that count. For example, concerning the question as to
how to deal with remarried divorcees; the reasons for a respectful, accepting
treatment also of those people who live in same-sex living partnerships. If
this would now lead to an official recognition by the Synod, then that is good.
But, if that fails, then the reasons are not thereby devalued. They, of course,
are still valid. And that is the reason why I look forward to it [the Synod]
with a certain detachment.”
When asked about Ireland's
recent referendum and approval of same-sex “marriages” and its criticism by
some prelates, speaking of “defeat for humanity,” the “theologian” responded:
“That would not be my
language. This matter is to be considered in a differentiated way. First of
all, one has to say that those people who have same-sex feelings have the right
[sic] to be recognized in their lives – and that includes the fact that they
are sexual beings, just as all people are. That includes also their form of
living. The church's position – that one does not discriminate against them as
persons and that one respects them, but that one considers their acts as
intrinsically disordered – that is in itself not a convincing position.”
Of course the position
that one does not discriminate against homosexuals “as persons and that one
respects them, but that one considers their acts as intrinsically disordered”
is in no way the position of the Catholic Church (the true Church simply
anathematises homosexuals) but that of John Paul II, well embedded in his false
“Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
In Schockenhoff's eyes, to
declare a conduct as sinful or immoral implies immediately an unjust
discrimination. One wonders, how, then, one could claim any conduct as sinful
any more. According to this German “theologian”, the Church should
unconditionally accept homosexual couples and their immoral conduct.
In the wake of this interview,
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of the organizers of the Private Rome Meeting of May
25, 2015, had the following to say on June 5 at the German Protestant Church
congress: To find a consensus within the Catholic Church concerning the
question of how to deal with homosexual couples is “extremely difficult,” since
there are vast differences between European, African, and southern American Catholics.
With respect to the upcoming synod of bishops, the liberal prelate promised the
audience, speaking this sentence in English: “I'll do my very best.”
These comments from the
liberal group of “Catholic” leaders in Germany are countered by an interview
that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal
Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, gave the Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost for its June
6 edition. Cardinal Mueller rebuked the German lay organization central committee
of German Catholics (ZDK) for their recent liberal demands concerning marriage
and the family, namely a church's blessing of homosexual couples and an
acceptance of second civil marriages. “One does not have there [at the ZDK]
competence – instead of the magisterium – to interpret essential contents of
revelation, nor to empty them out.” The ZDK cannot, in Mueller's eyes, refer to
a democratic backing when it comes to the mission of the Catholic Church in the
world. The claim to bless something that God Himself does not call good and
which is a violation of the sixth commandment, is a “stunning contradiction
against the word of God.”
Cardinal Mueller, in the
same interview, also supported Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin's
now-famous claim that Ireland's referendum is a “defeat for humanity.” Mueller
congratulated everybody “who did not bend their knees in front of the idols of
self-creation and self-redemption, both of which will lead us with certainty
into the self-destruction – just as other political ideologies have done it,
too.” And Mueller assured the readers that a majority (of a vote) in itself
had nothing to say about its truthfulness. “The truth will prevail, even if
with great sacrifices!”
Similarly, the grave
effects of Ireland’s May 22 referendum in favour of same-sex “marriages,” not
only for the secular world, but also especially for the Catholic Church, are
showing themselves already.
None other than the
leading cardinal who has promoted the liberal agenda for the two-part Synod of
Bishops on the Family, Cardinal Walter Kasper, has now come out publicly and
with force, telling the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that
the Church needs to address more fully the question of same-sex couples. This
topic was at the last Synod “only a marginal topic, but now it becomes
central,” Kasper said on Wednesday.
Kasper also defended the vote
of the Irish in favour of homosexual “marriages,” saying: “A democratic state
has the duty to respect the will of the people; and it seems clear that, if the
majority of the people wants such homosexual unions, the state has a duty to
recognize such rights.”
On the contrary, scripture
refers to the vice of homosexuality with special severity:
“Thou shalt
not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination” (Lev.
18:22). “If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an
abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them” (Lev. 20:13).
Again, we
read: “And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and
their sin is become exceedingly grievous” (Gen. 18:20). The angels arrived at
Lot’s house, under the appearance of two handsome men. “But before they went to
bed, the men of the city beset the house both young and old, all the people
together. And they called Lot, and said to him: Where are the men that came in
to thee at night? Bring them out hither that we may know them. . . . And they
pressed very violently upon Lot; and they were even at the point of breaking
open the doors. And behold the men [angels] put out their hand, and drew in Lot
unto them, and shut the door. And them that were without, they struck with
blindness from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door”
(Gen. 19:4-11). “And they [the angels] said to Lot: Hast thou here any of
thine?…all that are thine bring them out of this city, for we will destroy this
place, because their cry [of their crimes] is grown loud before the Lord, who
hath sent us to destroy them” (Gen. 19:12-13). “And they brought him forth, and
set him without the city: and there they spoke to him, saying: Save thy life;
look not back, neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself in
the mountain, lest thou be also consumed” (Gen. 19:17). “And the Lord rained
upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he
destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the
cities, and all things that spring from the earth. And his wife looking behind
her, was turned into a statue of salt. And Abraham got up early in the morning,
and . . . looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that
country, and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace”
(Gen. 19:24-28).
Again, on the punishment that God prepared for the Jews, we read: “And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them . . . the shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them. . . . The Lord standeth to judge the people” (Is. 3:4-13). Vague references to sodomites, without special interest for our exposition, are found in 1 Tim. 1:8-10. For other references to Sodom and Gomorrha, without express mention of the vice of homosexuality, see: Deut. 29:23; 32:32; Jer. 23:13-14; 49:18; 50:40; Ezech. 16:55-56; Matt. 10:15; Rom. 9:29; Apoc. 11:8.
In the New
Testament, Saint Paul indignantly castigates this vice against nature: “Do not
err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate,
nor liers with mankind [sodomites] . . . shall possess the kingdom of God” (1
Cor. 6:9-10). In the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle of the Gentiles
threatens perverts with punishments even on this earth: “Wherefore God gave
them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own
bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and
worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for
ever. Amen. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For
their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have
burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is
filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their
error” (Rom. 1:24-27).
Saint Peter,
the first Pope, stresses the infamy of the sin of sodomy and the chastisement
God reserves for it: “For if God . . . reducing the cities of the Sodomites,
and of the Gomorrhites, into ashes, condemned them to be overthrown, making
them an example to those that should after act wickedly, and delivered just
Lot, oppressed by the injustice and lewd conversation of the wicked . . .
[then] the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to
reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented” (2 Peter 2:4-9).
Saint Jude
is no less severe: “As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighboring cities, in like
manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh,
were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire, in like manner
these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion [of Christ], and
blaspheme majesty” (Jude 7-8).
Of course
the Bible, as any good historian knows, is a product of the Catholic Church.
From the above quotations therefore, one can see the Church’s severe stance on
the sin of homosexuality. The first statement of a Church council on homosexual
practices was issued by the Council of Elvira (305-306). The decree excludes
from communion, even in articulo mortis (at the moment of
death), the stupratores puerorum (defilers of boys). The
decree of the Council of Ancyra, held in Asia Minor in 314, strongly influenced
the Western Church, and it was often cited as authoritative in later enactments
against homosexual practices. Canon 17 speaks about those “who . . . commit
[acts of] defilement with animals or males.” The Council of Ancyra established
for these crimes a series of punishments according to the age and state of life
of the infractors: “Those who have committed such crimes before age twenty,
after fifteen years of penance, will be readmitted to the communion of prayer.
Then, after remaining five years in that communion, let them receive the
sacraments of oblation. However, let their lives be analyzed to establish how
long a period of penance they should sustain in order to obtain mercy. For if
they unrestrainedly gave themselves over to these crimes, let them devote more
time to doing penance. However, those aged twenty and over and married who fall
into these crimes, let them do penance for twenty-five years and [then] be
received in the communion of prayer; and, remaining in it for five years, let
them finally receive the sacraments of oblation. Moreover, if those who are
married and over fifty years of age commit these crimes, let them obtain the
grace of communion only at the end of their lives.”
Pope Saint
Siricius (384-399) issued norms for admission into the priestly state. They
apply indirectly to homosexuality: “We deem it advisable to establish that,
just as not everyone should be allowed to do a penance reserved for clerics, so
also a layman should never be allowed to ascend to clerical honor after penance
and reconciliation. Because although they have been purified of the contagion
of all sins, those who formerly indulged in a multitude of vices should not
receive the instruments to administer the Sacraments.”
In the
opening speech of the XVI Council of Toledo in 693, Egica, the Gothic King of
Spain, exhorts the clergy to fight against homosexual practices: “See that you
determine to extirpate that obscene crime committed by those who lie with
males, whose fearful conduct defiles the charm of honest living and provokes
from heaven the wrath of the Supreme Judge.”
The most
complete set of norms against homosexual practices in the medieval era is
contained in the canons approved at the Council of Naplouse, assembled on
January 23, 1120 under the direction of Garmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and
Baldwin, King of the same city. On that occasion, a sermon was preached about
the evils that had befallen the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Earthquakes, plagues, and
attacks by the Saracens were judged as a punishment from Heaven for the sins of
the people. As a consequence, the Council issued twenty-five canons against the
sins of the flesh, four of which related to homosexual practices. Death at the
stake was decreed for those convicted of those specific crimes.
The Third
Lateran Council (1179) establishes: “Anyone caught in the practice of the sin
against nature, on account of which the wrath of God was unleashed upon the
children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6), if he is a cleric, let him be demoted from
his state and kept in reclusion in a monastery to do penance; if he is a
layman, let him be excommunicated and kept rigorously distant from the
communion of the faithful.”
Such was the
horror that surrounded the sin against nature that, by the late twelfth
century, sodomy was a reserved sin for which absolution was reserved to the
Pope and, in some cases, to the Bishop.
Nevertheless,
with the Renaissance this vice surfaced again. Homosexuality was a matter of
grave concern to Saint Pius V. As the well-known historian von Pastor narrates,
“In the first year of his pontificate, the Pope had two preponderant concerns:
zeal for the Inquisition and the struggle against ‘this horrendous sin whereby
the justice of God caused the cities contaminated by it to be consumed in
flames.’ On April 1, 1566, he ordered that sodomites be turned over to the
secular arm. . . . The various imprisonments of sodomites . . . impressed Rome
and frightened especially well-established people, for it was known that the
Pope wanted his laws enforced even against the powerful. Indeed, to punish for
vices against nature, the torment of the stake was applied throughout the
pontificate of Saint Pius V. . . . An earlier papal Brief mandated that clerics
who were guilty of that crime be stripped of all their posts, dignities, and
income, and, after degradation, be handed over to the secular arm.” The Holy
Inquisitor promulgated two Constitutions in which he castigates and punishes
the sin against nature.
In the
Constitution Cum Primum of April 1, 1566, Saint Pius V
solemnly established: “Having set our minds to remove everything that may in
some way offend the Divine Majesty, We resolve to punish, above all and without
indulgence, those things which, by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures or by
most grievous examples, are most repugnant to God and elicit His wrath; that
is, negligence in divine worship, ruinous simony, the crime of blasphemy, and
the execrable libidinous vice against nature. For which faults peoples and
nations are scourged by God, according to His just condemnation, with
catastrophes, wars, famine and plagues. . . . Let the judges know that, if even
after this Our Constitution, they are negligent in punishing these crimes, they
will be guilty of them at Divine Judgment and will also incur Our indignation.
. . . If someone commits that nefarious crime against nature that caused divine
wrath to be unleashed against the children of iniquity, he will be given over
to the secular arm for punishment; and if he is a cleric, he will be subject to
analogous punishment after having been stripped of all his degrees [of
ecclesiastical dignity].”
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.
Quite opportunely
the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] decrees: “Let any member of the clergy
caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or
forced to do penance in a monastery, so that the contagion of such a grave
offense may not advance with greater audacity, taking advantage of impunity,
which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the
clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by
the death of their souls, We determine that they should be handed over to the
secular authority, which enforces civil law. Therefore, wishing to pursue with
the greatest rigor that which We have decreed since the beginning of Our
Pontificate, We establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either
secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the
present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and
ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, be
immediately delivered to the secular authority to be executed as mandated by
law, according to the appropriate punishment for laymen plunged in this abyss”
(chap. 4, X, V, 31).
The Code of
Canon Law undertaken at the initiative and encouragement of Saint Pius X, and
published in 1917 by his successor Pope Benedict XV, says this: “So far as
laymen are concerned, the sin of sodomy is punished ipso facto with
the pain of infamy and other sanctions to be applied according to the prudent
judgment of the Bishop depending on the gravity of each case (Can. 2357). As
for ecclesiastics and religious, if they are clerici minoris [that
is, of a degree lower than deacon], let them be punished with various measures,
proportional to the gravity of the fault, that can even include dismissal from
the clerical state (Can. 2358); if they are clerici maiores [that
is, deacons, priests or bishops], let them ‘be declared infamous and suspended
from every post, benefit, dignity, deprived of their eventual stipend and, in
the gravest cases, let them be deposed’ (Can. 2359, par. 2).”
So many
saints and doctors of the Church such as St Augustine, Saint Basil of Caesarea,
Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Peter Damian, Saint Albert the Great, Saint Thomas
Aquinas, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Bernardine of Siena
and Saint Peter Canisius have denounced the sin of homosexuality.
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