A Fr James Martin, an Ultrapontine as I believe, has made a comment on the recent Vatican document about gender.
He welcomes the Vatican's expressed willingness to 'dialogue'. But the whole bent of his piece is that, before the dialogue, it should be accepted that traditional teaching is wrong. So an appearance of tolerance is paraded, but his call is the same old 'liberal' call for submission. We in the Ordinariates know all about these dodges because, while we still in the House of Bondage, this was the method employed by those advocating the ordination of women to sacerdotal ministries. 'Hear our experience' was the call. 'Meet us and dialogue'. (Their actual unwillingness to dialogue became clear: with much labour, a committee, chaired by Bishop Ali and containing adherents of every tendency, put together a lucid exposition of the different arguments. Archbishop Williams made it clear that he expected this 'Rochester Report' to be the basis of deep theologial discussion within the Church Of England. But the feminazis made it brutally clear that time for discussion was now over: their demands needed to be granted instantissime.)
But I want to concentrate this morning on another aspect of Father's comments.
He refers to "the now commonly held understanding that sexuality is not chosen by a person but is rather part of the way they are created".
I don't think it is unfair to suggest that in some minds there is attached to this an implication that, because a sexuality is not chosen but is part of how one is created, it is in some way validated.
I now offer a question which I have offered on a number of occasions before.
Does this apply to paedophiles? And if not, why not?
I am aware that this is a dangerous question to ask, because there are people out there whose grasp on logic is so frail and their passions so intense that they start shouting
(1) "So you're saying that all homosexuals are paedophiles"; or
(2) "So you're saying that homosexuals are as bad as paedophiles". Of course, my question implies neither of these propositions. (In fact, I personally repudiate them both.) It simply enquires whether paedophilia might be "not chosen by a person but [be] rather part of the way they are created", and, if so, what conclusions ought to be drawn from this dogmatic proposition.
And I go on to wonder why it is that in a society where Fr Martin's assertion is "the now commonly held understanding", paedophilia is still surrounded by popular hysteria.
If Fr Martin were to concede that there are sexualities which are indeed not chosen but are indeed part of the way a particular human is created, but which, for whatever reasons, still have to be classified as immoral or even illegal, we could start dialoguing about the criteria to be employed in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable sexualities ... without getting cross with each other.
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Many years ago now, I followed and commented on a Catholic bulletin board where Catholics of all types congregated. One particular contributor, an intelligent man who held a post at a university in Thailand, was very keen on the argument you've referred to here - given that one's sexual proclivities were inborn, there was no justification for forbidding homosexual practices. I used your point in reply: that this would also justify paedophilia. He was outraged - outraged! - that I was conflating homosexuality with pederasty; how dare I make such a suggestion? I pointed out that analogies weren't necessarily equal in all respects, but he wasn't mollified. I was still way out of order.
A couple of years later, we heard that he'd been arrested, together with his live-in partner, on charges of - you've guessed it - paedophila.
I'm not trying to draw any wider conclusions from this case, except to note that sometimes the lady really doth protest too much.
Generally speaking, Homosexual hypocrites are those who grant themselves the liberty to ignore parts of the Universal Objective Moral Code (UOMC) while insisting all others adhere to the entirety of The UOMC.
After giving themselves the liberty to ignore the UOMC when it comes to their favorite mortal sins, they have no legitimate reason to complain if others (beastiality and incest come to mind) do similarly. But, as active homosexuals are naturally subversive of The UOMC, they think themselves virtuous and the only way for you to be considered by them to be virtuous is for you to accept this degrading and malign Homosexual Privilege, this Homosexual Supremacism. What Christian man desires to be seen as virtuous by such christian charlatans?
Homosexuals are subversive and any organisation that promotes them to positions of authority is begging for trouble as the homosexual will diligently strive to subvert, weaken, undermine, and eliminate all moral codes, laws and doctrines which condemn their favorite sin.
Father Martin is engaged in a politics that is Homosexual Privilege in action. It is also Homosexual Supremacism in action, and it is an action that stinks like the bottom of a monkey’s cage.
Please tell me what the word "ultrapontine" means. Yes, I know what you are going to say, "figure it out or look it up yourself." I tried and am still left wondering what YOU actually mean by the word. Anyway, please tell me what it means in the context of your sentence. Gratias tibi ago. --Tom
Would it not be more accurate to say that there is no such thing as 'sexuality', and there certainly wasn't before the notion was relatively recently conceived, but only sex, male and female, and what one does with whichever of the two physical constitutions one has been created with?
In other words, there is no such thing as a homosexual, but males who carry out homosexual acts and so on.
One last thing, Father. There is a commonly held believe, at least among the 'T' section of the LGBT crowd that, contrary to what this James Martin says, 'sexuality' is a function, not of what is born with, but of the will. These people believe that a male can, at the drop of a hat (and without even having to drop anything else) declare himself female. Apparently, it is up to this 'female' to decide for him/her-self whether he/she is straight or lesbian! Presumably, the same dilemma applies in the transition, as they label it, from female to male. Now, since this Martin person claims to represent the LGBT community, it is quite foreseeable he will eventually land himself in some kind of soup.
"the now commonly held understanding that sexuality is not chosen by a person but is rather part of the way they are created"
I wish people like Father Martin were more willing to talk about why they believe this. The only evidence in favour seems to be the reported experience of some homosexuals.
The evidence against seems much stronger. Former homosexuals have described how and why they have chosen their sexuality. Children raised by homosexual couples are more likely to be homosexual. The rate of homosexuality in the population is changing significantly. The pill has been shown to affect the sexuality of women. Prison conditions are known to increase the rate of homosexual activity between men. Child victims of paedophilia are more likely to be paedophiles in adulthood.
The idea that our sexual appetite should unique among all our drives in being completely independent from external influence and self control seems strange. The predominant method of defending the idea in public is to bully anyone who questions it and that suggests that everyone knows really that it isnt true.
I'm a little uneasy about the tone of some phrases in some comments. For example, "homosexual hypocrites" might be taken by some people to imply that all homosexually inclined people are hypocrites. Et cetera.
There are very many decent Cathlics with a homosexual inclination, who with the help of God's grace do not act upon it. Their lives are lives of a particular kind of martyrdom. I believe they are eminently pleasing to God and an example to the rest of us.
They deserve enormously more respect than is due to heterosexuals who cheerfully assume that, when one 'marriage' ends, they are entitled to have a go at another one.
I think the problem with the question is that it doesn't distinguish between the attraction and the act.
Sexual abuse of children is discussed as "rape" in the Catechism:
"2356 Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person [man, woman, child]. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.
Certainly, a "pedophile" who rapes children is to be condemed for the action. It is a crime as well as a sin.
However a "pedophile" who experiences a sexual attraction to young children but does not act on that attraction, leads a chaste life and is entitled to respect and welcome.
As #2358 says about people with attracriin to others of their same sex "They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."
Dear Father. ABS anticipated your unease and so he clarified who are the homosexual hypocrites.
It is prolly best if ABS exits by noting that when FDR said the Japanese attacked America he was not referring to every single Japanese person nor did any man alive think he was making that reference, but, owing to the homosexualisation of culture and society, one is putatively constrained to offer certain qualifiers when speaking about those guilty of one of the sins crying to Heaven for vengeance.
As for offering respect for homosexuals, that is an oddity that will forever remain entirely foreign to ABS , and also to every single Catholic Church Father, Doctor of The Church, and Saint.
Pax tecum, Father
Adios
A good reason for abstaining from communion in the Catholic church has always seemed to me the fact that 1) it, given the condition of baptism administered by in fact anyone according to the presceibed formula, allows full participation in the eucharist to non-Catholics; 2) that homosxuality virtual or actual does not close the door to the priesthood. By "actual" I mean homosexual acts for which a person repents. The reasoning I suppose is that perpertation of homosexual acts a does not necessarily indicate a permanent habitus or disposition. Moreover, with the aid of sacramental grace such acts are forgivable, as long as one does not keep returning to committing them. So much seems fair enough. However, this sort of reasoning does not cover the current day pathology. It looks back to an earlier period, where marriage was the norm and a married man or woman raising children has less time to indulge sexual appetities. Today that is not true. Marriage is less frequent and went entered upon more likely to lead to divorce. People are deciding to satisfy sexual desires in new and perverse ways. If the Church does not face this situation, Christian life, as it was known in the earlier centuries will disappear. Reception of the eucharist presupposes a soul, which is balanced. At least, that was what I was taught by more than one confessor. They forbade communion, even after masturbation until an attempt toward balance was met by a regimen of penance. The unblance deepens when more than one person is involved. A permanent condition of unbalance seems to mock the aims of a sacramental regimen. We are speaking about Christ as a norm here, whose flesh we share in every way except sin. The harmatēma misses the norm due to the Incarnation. I have stuck with masturbation without venturing into a other acts, whose impairment of the flesh cannot be said to be sound. Do we not have medical evidence of this? To me the Catholic Church has failed to make the unsoundness of teaching like Morris's clear. I have difficulty in accepting that at the last conclave the Cardinals succeeded in electing a Catholic pope in line with the pope who reigned when I was catechized. It is enough to reflect that Pope Francis has spent his pontificate not on what conditions eternal life but what conditions the reproductive years from puberty to menopause. This is unprecedented. Life on this earht is but a moment in eternity. Why so much talk about a relatively brief span of life? He says nothing about the artificial attempts to extend fertility beyond its natural span, as if one should parent until one drops with no serious preparation for the next stage. In my view current Catholicism has become increasingly bizarre in its pose as vehicle of salvation.
ABS, I refer to my post above. There is no such thing as a homosexual, that's a modernist notion, probably intended to confuse people. There are only homosexual acts. I seem to remember the French philosopher Foucault, himself an indulger in sodomitic acts, I believe, saying that the notion of homosexuality is only about 150 years old. What are described as chaste homosexuals are really just men faced with temptations that they are resisting. Modernist thinking has confused them into believing there is something fundamentally different from most other men about them, even to the degree that they are genetically or biologically different. This makes it much more difficult to shake off their temptations and many more succumb than might have under the older way of thinking. These labels are in themselves destructive. That's the way I see it.
Michael Leahy, well said. It's very hard to argue against your point (and I certainly don't intend to try). Do you know this article from First Things? https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/against-heterosexuality
Exponents of the 'created that way' argument such as Fr Martin would do well to refresh their memory of St Thomas's distinction between the antecedent and consequent will of God. That is, God never directly wills or intends moral evil or physical evil (defects, malum poenae). But his antecedent will can be thwarted because he entrusts it to fallible instruments. Thus the dubious status of being 'born gay' (of which I am sceptical, but let us allow it for argument's sake) is no different in principle from being born with a physical defect -it is not good per se. And in St Thomas's metaphysics, defects can be in us only per accidens, not per se.
If, however, we freely choose to persist in sin until death, God's consequent will comes into play and cannot be thwarted. That, according to St Thomas, is the basis of eternal damnation. As Lewis put it, God says those terrible words 'very well, THY will be done'.
Michael Leahy's comment comes quickly to the point. Sill, repeated act contribute to a disposition. Whether that disposition becomes a permanent feature of one's life, depends upon the operations of grace. The latter is not in our control. Otherwise, grace or charis would not be what it is. It is a gift. A person who creates a disposition to fulfill his or sexual desires with persons of the same sex must first see that there is something abnormal about this and then take steps to correct his or her situation through sacramental means. Only, the first step, one of insight, is necessary. This too, however, is an operation of grace. The charism of spiritual is extremely helpful or at the very least a charismtic confessor. Unfortunately, in the Roman Church such individuals are difficult to find. It is especailly unhelpful if a person in the grip of the force of his or her accumulated homosexual acts is being told that the condition is normal. What norm is being invoked here? Certainly not the norm of nature. Natural existence is gendered existence. The two genders are necessary to carry out the command to increase and multiply. In the absence of the fulfillment of this command, none of us are here. Certainly this must be the moral behind the Sodom and Gommorah narrative.
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