As a followup to what I posted here, we should strive to see the larger picture, the fuller account of the Holy Father’s remarks on the airplane about priests who abused minors. The New York Times has something:
Pope Expresses Deep Shame Over Priests’ Sexual Abuse
By JOHN HOLUSHAPope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday that he was “deeply ashamed” by the Roman Catholic Church’s child sexual-abuse scandals in the United States, and said it is causing “great suffering” for the church and “me personally.”
Speaking to reporters on an airplane taking him for his first visit to the United States as pope, he addressed the scandal in the U.S. that has produced more than 5,000 sexual abuse victims since it erupted in 2002 and cost the church more than $2 billion.In his most extensive remarks so far on the issue, the Pope expressed his personal remorse about the abuse scandal and said the church is increasing its efforts to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.
“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”
Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the Pontiff said: “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”“Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest,” he added.
The Pope said church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.”
“We hope that we can do, and we have done and will do in the future, all that is possible to heal this wound.”
The Pope is not new to issues involving abusive priests. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was responsible for deciding whether to discipline priests accused of sexual abuse.
He read dossiers on the cases forwarded to him from bishops around the world. Aides said he was deeply distressed reading the accounts of victims whose trust in the church was betrayed by the priests who violated them.
In a homily he gave just before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger decried the “filth” in the priesthood, which many interpreted as a reference to the abusers. As Pope, he ordered the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaires of Christ, to be removed from his ministry and to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penitence. Rev. Maciel died in February.
The Pope answered four questions from reporters that were submitted in advance and selected by the Vatican. He spoke for about 15 minutes.
The Pope also spoke about immigration and said he would discuss the issue with President Bush, who is scheduled to meet the Papal airplane when it lands this afternoon at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He also discussed the role of religion in America.One of the repercussions of the child abuse scandals in the United States is that lay Catholics across the country are demanding more financial accountability from their bishops and more control over decisions, particularly when it comes to parishes.
The Pope plans to spend several days in the Washington area before traveling to New York to hold services, address the United Nations and visit a synagogue.
So, that is a somewhat fuller account that what La Reppubblica issued, isn’t it!
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First of all, I love and respect the Holy Father and emphatically do not want to see his visit hijacked by the pedophilia/ sex abuse theme.
That said, my entire family was profoundly affected by the sexual crisis, two brothers in particular, but all of us as a result, including a sister who left the faith.
The Holy Father promises no more pedophiliac priests, but it was not a pedophilia crisis by and large, though the two most prominent perpetrators, Frs Shanley and Geoghan were pedophiliacs. Pedophiles do not prey on post-pubescent males, but that is overwhelmingly the demographic of the victims.
This was a crisis of a homosexual culture overwhelming our seminaries. Until that diagnosis is made and the appropriate steps taken, promises that no more pedophiliacs will be ordained leaves me flat, frankly. I don’t know to what extent that miserable culture has been eradicated from the seminaries and priesthood, but I sincerely hope that that papal and episcopal concern is not limited to merely keeping pedophilacs from our seminaries and altars. No more “gay” priests, bishops, seminary professors and rectors, Holy Father! Per favore! Please, never again!
May the Lord bless you and keep you on this trip, and help us to absorb and implement the message you have for the church in the United States!
Please remember my family in your prayers. We are still lost, stunned, broken.
Be sure to post comments on the NYTimes blog on the Holy Father’s visit. Help to tip the balance in favor of orthodox Catholicism in the Times blogosphere. Don’t miss Colleen Carroll Campbell’s piece: http://thepope.blogs.nytimes.com/author/cccampbell/
I, too, am sad that La Reppubblica is already making this trip into a discussion of the clergy abuse crisis. The teaser at the end of the NYT article isn’t much more revealing than the original La Reppubblica. I really do want to know what B-XVI said about immigration and about religion in America! And I think most readers would be interested in that, too. After all, paedophile priests has been batted around ad nauseum for quite some time, whereas the Papal Thoughts on these other topics have not.
Still, I was just over looking at how the gay press is covering this one. And they have jumped on the same conclusion as you, Lee. It gives many celibate gay priests hope that Benedict is doing some good to erase the prior bad rap. It was harmful when some folks tried to load the sheep and the goats together on the train to Hell. I think Benedict did well by making the distinction.
But still, lets hear more of the Holy Father’s more inspirational, less political, words!
Virgil, this is the first I’ve heard of what I had hoped the Pope actually said, i.e. differentiating between the child abuse and homosexual adolescent abuse. Unfortunately, the first thing I heard on the radio this morning was the media quoting “there is no place in the preisthood for pedophiles” – and that was it! I would have hoped that advisors to the Pope, with him on the plane, would have warned him (maybe they did, and it just doesn’t make any difference!) that the Amercian secular media would take any simple sentence, and put into whatever context they desired.
The crisis in the Church was NOT about pedophilia. It was about homosexual priests praying on pubescent and post-pubescent young men. The elephant in the room is homosexuality. You’ll never hear it from the mainline press.
I remember the former Vatican press agent quoting then Cardinal Ratzinger, CDF head, something to the effect that the priestly ordinations of intentionally homosexual men (unrepentant) were invalid.
Then, quickly a correction was ordered by someone (Cardinal Sodano) from on high.
I wonder why… Notice how the media emphasizes the Pope making the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia. I’ll bet these were VERY selected quotes to set this path for the trip by the NY Times–a juggernaut of journalistic integrity… {dripping with sarcasm}
“preying” not “praying”. Sorry about the slip-up.
So, thus far, we’ve got The New York Times, and only The New York Times, claiming the Holy Father made the very distinction between homosexuality and clerical sex abuse that it has been topmost on the liberal agenda (so far as this issue is concerned) to make. Hmmm.
Not that the distinction is necessarily meaningless. There are (aren’t there?) gay priests who struggle successfully against their temptations. The question is whether the Church should knowingly admit more, trusting that, with appropriate theological and ascetic formation, the outcome will always be positive, or in enough cases to make the risk worthwhile. I humbly suggest it will not be, and I think the same is implied in the words everyone agrees the Pope said on the plane: “It is more important to have good priests than many priests.”
Of course if the Pope did make the distinction in question, I suppose that will mean a few more discriminating pope-consumers will be ready to excommunicate him and start attending the chapel of their choice….
Brian, your statement is debatable and somewhat unfair. Just a because one is homosexual does not intimate a predisposition to pedophilia. A distinction does need to made in this regard and the Holy Father at least put that forward. I understand the statistical anecdotes from what we have witnessed so far, in that we could also say, not all Islamics are terrorists but all the terrorists thus far have been Islamic. It should also be noted crime stats show the majority of molestations are heterosexual among family members and acquaintances.
The Church’s response thus far has been unsettling to me from the beginning. The emphasis is always on the priests. What about the bishops? They were the ones who hid the problem, moved them around without disclosure to the receiving diocese, on and on. What about the bishops? There is never a consequence to the behavior of a bishop. This has to end.
Also, one can screen all he wants regarding tendencies, behavior, etc., but when there is a mind-set, a darkness of heart unspoken, NO ONE can see that but God and the individual. NO ONE can make any pro-active attempt to exclude such people. Only honest people are honest. Emotionally frazzled people in one form another exhibit their frailties, but when one has a deep-seated darkness they want concealed, it remains so and no screening on this planet is going to reveal it.
I remember when Faux News was covering the 2002 bishops’ conference in Dallas on this issue; their reporters were under strict orders to NOT interview Michael Rose on this because they didn’t want to touch the homosexual issue with a ten foot pole.
But, Fr Eutenauer has suggested that they make not be unrelated because sodomy with minors (pre or post pubescent) is how “Gays” sexually reproduce.
Pray for and end to the preying
Mr. Mershon,
I remember the story you are referring to, and I always thought it was retracted, because being even an active homosexual, can not be considered an obstacle to valid ordination. Yes the ordination could be illicit, but for invalidity there has to be a defect in Form, matter or intent. I do not see how homosexuality could be considered a defect in matter, unless the Church is maintaining that all homosexual men are non compos mentis. This would invalidate the Sacrament, but would have devastating effects for the Church. If all homosexual priests are not validly ordained, the number of invalid Sacraments in the Church would be legion. Just think of all the invalid confessions. So I conclude that homosexuality is not of such a nature that it would invalidate the Sacrament. This by no means implies that I am in favor of a homosexual becoming a priest. I am just saying that if this were the case, there would be no more moral certitude about who is a priest and who is not.
Matt said: “A distinction does need to made in this regard and the Holy Father at least put that forward.”
Brian replied: The distinction is meaningless except for the fact that there never has been, nor is there, a “pedophile” crisis in the Church. The number of pre-pubescent males was VERY SMALL. It is horrific, but it is definitely NOT a pedophile crisis. The media wants us to think so, and so far, even among more well informed and “conservative” Catholics, they have done a great propaganda campaign.
Matt said: “I understand the statistical anecdotes from what we have witnessed so far, in that we could also say, not all Islamics are terrorists but all the terrorists thus far have been Islamic. It should also be noted crime stats show the majority of molestations are heterosexual among family members and acquaintances.”
Brian said: Matt, the statistics are NOT anecdotes. Anecdotes are personal testimonies or experiences that are few and far between that have no statistical validity. The report given to the USCCB showed that about 85% of the abuse cases were with pubescent or post-pubescent males. Another percentage were with females and a minuscule percentage were with pre-pubescent males. This equals HOMOSEXUALITY.
As for the statistic that is bandied about among all of the wonderfully hideous “child protection programs” nowadays, I would state that in the vast population of everyone, perhaps this abuse number MAY be true. I would qualify it to state that because the number of men with homosexual tendencies is documented to be less than 2 percent, homosexual men are actually 100 times more likely to sexually abuse than are heterosexuals. The Catholic Medical Association has an entire researched report on all of this.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2508
Last March (2002) Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the official spokesperson for the Vatican, publicly linked pedophile priests with homosexuality and even went so far as to suggest that gay men could not be validly ordained. His statement in itself would not be of great concern, since Dr. Navarro-Valls is not in any sense part of the church’s magisterium. However, his remarks seem to take on an authoritative nature, because no bishop in the Vatican or elsewhere has publicly rejected those remarks. This can certainly leave the impression that he speaks with official support.
I will keep my comments on this as brief as possible and as respectful as possible. Quite frankly, the new seminary document, instead of addressing this problem, worsens it. The 1961 document which preceded it, however flawed, was actually a good deal better. Given what the Pope has said, I can only assume that his signature on the new seminary document was a mistake. He seems to be saying now that more needs to be done to remove those from the seminaries who have a tendency to sexual inversion. This is cause for great hope. I am praying that a new seminary document will be prepared in this pontificate, one which removes the distinction between ‘deep seated’ and lesser tempatations: anyone having any tendency at all should be barred from admission or continuation in the seminary. It is not fair to people having such tendencies to submit them to the near occasion of sin, and it is not fair to risk children and others. Since there is no right to the priesthood (and, at one time, even men having withered hands were barred), I see no reason why the Church should not use psychological and polygraph testing and a network of informants in the seminaries to identify tendencies to sodomy and purge those who are subject to them. I feel that extreme measures are needed, given how pervasive and how damaging the problem seems to be.
Obviously, the Pope makes a correct distinction between the condition of homerasty and pædophilia. But there is nonetheless considerable evidence that many of those suffering from inverted sexual tendencies are also attracted to children. So, while pæderasts in the priesthood certainly need to be defrocked, those having the tendency to sexual inversion should be barred from seminary. That could reduce the need to laicise priests later on, which is never a good thing because, once a priest, one is a priest forever.
P.K.T.P.
I wrote in my last comment that those suffering from homerastic tendencies also tend to be attracted to children. I was thinking of children as those under the age of 21. To clarify, I agree with Mr. Mershon that there is considerable evidence that most of them are attracted to adolescent boys and young men (in other words, those between the ages of 12 and about 25). I guess that they are not typically attracted to small children, although we have all heard of some horrific reports of small children being abused.
I agree with Mr. Mershon that this is a problem of homerasty (as I prefer to call it), not one of pæderasty. Hence the solution is to bar from the seminaries and from ordination all those who have homerastic tendencies, whether ‘deep seated’ or ‘shallow seated’. Frankly, I’d use polygraph and psychological testing, hidden cameras, and informants to identify them. Removing them is for their own good as well as that of others.
A certain priest told me that one bishop in an Eastern Catholic church did such an investigation of a seminary a few years ago. He found that, when they identified and decided to remove all the seminarians who were queer, there were not enough left to keep the seminary open. So they had to move the remaining seminarists to other seminaries and close the affected seminary. That suggests a ‘gay culture’ to me. Such a thing is a danger to the Church; it suggests that a certain group is taking over the priesthood from within, like communist infiltrators in the Eastern Orthodox seminaries behind the Iron Curtain. It needs to be stopped right now.
I am also aware that some Protestants are saying, very loudly, in fact, that the problem is our tradition of a celibate priesthood. They say that this is only a cover for inverted men who go to seminary to hide their proclivities. Naturally, the old leftist saw is then used: It was happening from the beginning: it’s just that, until recently, it wasn’t being reported (since we now have a more ‘open’ society with less authority concentrated in patriarchal institutions, blah, blah, blah). The ‘solution’, of course, is to abolish celibacy in our priesthood. If married men could enter, the queer seminarists would lose their cover.
Such an argument would not have any weight were it not for the record of sexual abuse. Therein lies the problem. We either solve this problem or we risk losing the tradition of celibacy.
Some bloggers are focusing on the Pope’s supposed mistake in distinguishing between homerasty and pæderasty. But I note that he has also said that we need to remove from the seminaries anyone having these tendencies, that we should “make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. ‘We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment'”.
Let’s just pray that this idea be translated into action.
P.K.T.P.
P.K.T.P.
P.K.T.P.
unless the Church is maintaining that all homosexual men are non compos mentis
Umnnhhh…depends on the meaning of the phrase “Grave Disorder.”
I agree with K Perkins’ take: while pederasty (or ephebophilia) is not present in all homosexual men, ONLY homosexual men are ephebophile priests.
I await the ‘clarifications’ from the Vatican.
“[I]t is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.”
YES! YES! YES!
I’ve said this for years now. Mere numbers cannot help the priesthood. First it must be pruged of homosexuals and pedophiles and heretics. The numbers will take a further hit, but only then can a holy remnant spark a a true springtime for Holy Orders. No matter how many holy, orthodx men enter seminary, things cannot fully recover until the cancer is cut out.
I am glad clarity is being given to this issue. To read our local (Los Angeles) diocesan newspaper, one would never surmise this was a homosexual problem, nor was this the emphasis of “Protecting God’s Children” mandatory “training” we had to go through as church employees.
When I brought out in front of the “training” session group the obvious omission, (as someone called ‘the elephant in the room’) there was no derision, but I was sure alone in the room with the elephant, or so it seemed. People did listen, and it was just so foreign to those mostly older ears who had been not been alerted to what as really going on — so well disguised by “our” Catholic press and othere reps of “our” Church.
What should we call it when we as Catholics are deliberately fed a load of “huey?” Is it OK, even with the idea to prevent further “scandal.” This is out and out deception and casts further aspersions on our clergy who are faithful. To me, Disgusting. To be fair, here, I can armchair quarterback, and not really have to feel the brunt of any fallout should the truth be bared — or should I say promulgated — as the statistics are known, but we are still fed the ‘company’ line. I have not sat and prayed over this, but it just strikes me as very twisted.
The cases I know about, first or second hand, are exactly as has been characterized above, trists between priests (homosexual) and post pubescent, sexually or socially confused and/or lost or needy and thus vulnerable teenage young men. When I started high school at age fourteen, my dad told me that now I was a “young man,” not a boy. And that is what I felt like. I had a friend leave the church because Fr. so and so tried to get frisky in the hot tub. The priest wins the trust of a young guy and tries to see how far he can go. It is gay sex. It’s usually not Fr. Weirdo trying to put his hands down some nine year old’s pants in the sacristy, although that may be the case in the small minority of cases, same with a girl.
Girls today at fourteen can look and sometimes act twenty one. Men are attracted to them (doh!!) and that is not pedophilia in its exact neaning, and this is not to justify any sordid behavior, but just to draw with distinct lines.
The definition may need clarification. Pedophilia is sex with a pre-pubescent child.
C’mon. homosexulas know what is going on, and if you catch them in any sort of candid moment, they will admit that this is exactly what IS going on. Is the lavender mafia that strong (rhetorical) and/or are we that worried about a homosexual witch hunt?
The Bible says God will give those who persist in their sins “over to a reprobate mind.” I have noticed that homosexuals that engage in the “lifestyle” are not at all logical in many other areas,IOW, their thinking is “upside down” (reprobate) and as such they are not fit for priesthood. (of course, if one is engaged in any non celibate lifestyle you are not living your vows, but a lifestyle might just include rejecting one’s masculine nature or being in solidarity with persistent sinners, which the Bible commands that we avoid.
So, this is the crux of the problem besetting the Church, or at least one of the main vexations, and gives witness to the Biblical admonition that divine judgement starts in the house of God. Thanks to those who are, again, bringing the light of clarity to this situation and calling it like it T-I-Z ‘tiz. The obsfucation has been a wonderment to behold, and hence the residue of confusion lingers like the SF morning fog. Thank you Brian and Peter.
Also, any still a little in the dark about the distinctions being drawn here should look up pederasty on the web (wikipedia or other) and that may end the dilemma for you once and for all.
But now the question remains, why is the “Rottweiler” acting like a chijuajua? Let’s pray it is discernment and discretion at work here and not more obsfucation and paying the PC piper. I do give Benedict more credit and in this case, the benefit of the doubt.
The Holy Father is AWESOME!
God Bless and Protect him!
However, I do believe that, all in all, homosexuals should DEFINITELY be excluded from the Priesthood.
We should not allow our seminaries to be (as described on EWTN by Fr. Francis) “Pink Palaces”!
The obviously high proportion of priests and seminarians who have a homosexual disposition, or are given to same-sex attraction (many of whom are particularly virtuous), cannot but dissuade many heterosexual males from entering seminaries and religious communities. This HAS to be true. Few heterosexual men would be tremendously comfortable living in a community with a high percentage of homosexual men.
Although effeminacy is a different thing, we traditionalists, and Catholics with aesthetic judgement, must be particularly careful that our care for liturgical beauty should not be interpreted as a decadent and homosexual passion. Many people attempt to attribute this inclination to our priests and celibate laymen. We are NOT an off-shoot of the pre-occupations of the late Gianni Versace, and we must let that be known abroad.
Shadrach: The obviously high proportion of priests and seminarians who have a homosexual disposition, or are given to same-sex attraction
I simply don’t buy that.
FYI, John Allen has posted a rush transcript of the entire press conference of the Pope that was given on the plane:
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1736
Le Renard – You mean the same Fr. Francis who ran off with a woman, right? You did mean him right? Well at least it’s a heterosexual scandal in the Church for once, not a homosexual one – at least it’s a “normal” scandal…right?
“Brian replied: The distinction is meaningless except for the fact that there never has been, nor is there, a “pedophile” crisis in the Church. The number of pre-pubescent males was VERY SMALL. It is horrific, but it is definitely NOT a pedophile crisis. The media wants us to think so, and so far, even among more well informed and “conservative” Catholics, they have done a great propaganda campaign.”
)(
Brain, I understand the bit about the media–deviously evil and scandalous in their own make-up, and I give the Church the benefit of the doubt, but in reality, how do you know? With what authoritative knowldge of ir insight, do you know whether the matter is large or small in the Church? I believe it to be small, but mere belief does not make it fact.
)(
Brian wrote:
“Matt, the statistics are NOT anecdotes. Anecdotes are personal testimonies or experiences that are few and far between that have no statistical validity. The report given to the USCCB showed that about 85% of the abuse cases were with pubescent or post-pubescent males. Another percentage were with females and a minuscule percentage were with pre-pubescent males. This equals HOMOSEXUALITY.”
)(
Nonetheless, the USCCB, a great source of their own un-Churchly ideology, and their study still is to be taken with a grain of salt, as well as the Catholic Medical Association’s report. All must be taken as possibly skewed. When one body states one thing, and others come with another, one takes the side of the one with the Catholic label? Perhaps with the label of Catholic bishops who hid things, lied, moved the guilty around… cost the dioceses almost 2 billion dollars? No, trust is not automatic, and certainly not your credibility just because you say so.
==========
Shadrach wrote:
“The obviously high proportion of priests and seminarians who have a homosexual disposition, or are given to same-sex attraction cannot but dissuade many heterosexual males from entering seminaries and religious communities. ”
Father Z replied:
“I simply don’t buy that.”
)(
I agree with Father. What empirical statistic are you using, Shadrach, to put forth such a broad statement? What you have just said implies straight men entering priesthood and religious life are rare, but the gay man answers and pursues his vocation more readily?* It’s more credible to assert that because of the conflict of interests and social aspects of living in community would be more of a reason for a gay man NOT to enter religious life. This is merely anecdotal from the one or two Religious I happen to know.
Further, I think it’s rather smug of a person to think life revolves around a heterosexual.
* Father Z, is it oxymoronic for one who is truly homosexual to have a vocation? Of course, a “homosexual” certainly can live life piously and chastely as everyone is called to do, but is a religious/priestly vocation possible? I don’t mean to put down anyone who is living a virtuous life in whatever state of life be he straight or gay. Just curious on the validity of an actual vocation as such.
If the Holy Father has made this distinction he does so for good reason. First of all the word homosexual means literally “same-sexed” one who has a same sex attraction. It would be extremely difficult to drive all such men from the priesthood given that in most cases we must suppose this attraction is subbjective and never acted upon. Pedophiles “child-lovers”, yes that is distinct and deserves to be treated as such. This need not be acted upon, no doubt there are pedophiles who are so morally outraged at their condition that they never abuse a child. Yet even these are to be excluded from the priesthood. This is where discernment must be concentrated because priests are called to give the love of God to children.
Matt, The well-known report paid for by the bishops that was conducted by an imminent university (John Jay College/Univ. I believe.)
Even the bishops’ own report, paid for by them, could not hide the statistical evidence that about 85% of the “sexual abuse” cases were conducted against pubescent or post-pubescent males. That is NOT pedophile.
And 85% IS a large percentage of these thousands of known cases. That is statistical evidence. I am floored at how few Catholics are aware of this.
Disparage both sides (USCCB and CMA) as extreme and point to the middle. That is a logical fallacy called “the false idea of a middle way between two extremes.”
The CMA report is based upon years of medical evidence. It is not a political organization.
Le Renard – You mean the same Fr. Francis who ran off with a woman, right? You did mean him right? Well at least it’s a heterosexual scandal in the Church for once, not a homosexual one – at least it’s a “normal” scandal…right?
How does that even defeat my statement that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed in seminaries?
Moreover, where in my statement do I even imply that heterosexual scandals are permissible?
In regard to the per centage of priests who may be sexual inverts, we simply don’t have adequate statistics on it. However, I can think of four priests in my local area who definitely show very clear signs of such tendencies (especially effeminancy and certain standard mannerisms), and about ten priests who do not. Also, as I reported earlier, I was told of a seminary in an Eastern church which had so many inverts that, when they were expelled, there were not enough left to keep the seminary open. The remaining seminarists had to be sent to other seminaries. (Of course, we don’t know enough here. For example, we need to know the total number of seminarists.) I admit that the statistical base in my examples is simply too small for anyone to draw sure conclusions. On the other hand, it does count as evidence of a problem. I believe that someone named Mr. Rose wrote a book on this entire subject. But I haven’t read that book. Any comments on this?
P.K.T.P.
Well is homosexuality just a feeling that is many times not acted upon? Or is it something more ?? I dunno, spiritual? maybe, and if so, which “spirit.” Certainly not the Holy Spirit.
“Let us make man after our own image,” speaks God (The Holy Trinity)in the Book of Genesis.
So that which God has joined, let no man put asunder. Would that be two men? Or women? Certainly, I would say, not.
Special invective, in the Old and New Testament is reserved for Sodom. God calls homosexuality an “abomination” in Holy Scripture. Paul says in regards to such acts, that they are “unnatural,” and those behaving thusly are “exchanging the natural for the unnatural.” So, if the “act” is unnatural, what about the tendency? I suppose one could say it is just another tempatation. But, consider Romans 1:26 :
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence [sic] of their error which was meet.”
“For this cause ..” Romans says. And what was “this cause.” It was worshiping and the serving “the creature,” i.e., themselves, “more than the Creator” and not glorifying God, when indeed they knew Him, through various ways, especially God manifesting Himself in His creation, and the first book of Romans lays out the case for the many ways God manifested himself to men, “so they are without excuse” as Paul says, and so in this refusal to acknowledge God and be thankful and to glorify Him, their “foolish hearts” were darkened. “Thinking themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
So Paul is either wreaking havoc and causing untold confusion and pain upon those who decidedly don’t deserve it, and that down through the ages until now, because their condition is inherent and not of a person’s choosing, or he is laying bare the souls of men and basically saying this is a recompense for a stiff necked refusal to honor the Lord God.
Which one is it?