Grace & Peace!
I ignore nothing. I know what Scripture says, and what we think it says is not always what is said. The connection of homosexuality with Sodom is probable, but tenuous. The only reference is Jude 1, and that is not absolute. Homosexuality is condemned. The connection with Sodom is probable. In any case he did not “call sex between two men and abomination” in the Sodom narrative.
Indeed, and given Jude’s definite anti-gnosticism, it’s even more likely that the mention of Sodom (and the comment on lusting after “alien flesh”) is a reference to the gnostic notion of an angelic twin or guardian-angel-like figure residing somewhere in the “pleroma” to whom one could or should somehow be sexually joined. Jude also makes a couple references to Enoch (both by name and by referencing the angelic prison that is more completely described in Enoch 1), whose eponymous book deals with the fall of the angelic Watchers through sex with humans. These references all re-enforce a reading of Jude that stresses: you shouldn’t have sex with (or desire to have sex with) angels.
What is really difficult about Catolico’s argument, though, is that s/he is clearly identifying “Christian perfection” with heterosexuality in some way, either directly, or by suggesting that the latter is the gateway to the former–i.e., you have to be heterosexual before you can begin to think about Christian perfection. The term “heterosexual”, (like the term “homosexual”), describes a movement of desire, but not a call to right relationship–it is, in other words, another form of human concupiscence: not bad in itself, but (given our nature), subject to mis-apprehension and abuse. Given that the catechism describes human sexuality in terms of a call to right relationship (specifically in terms of an orientation to marriage), it’s little wonder that the catechism does not ever use the term “heterosexual.” Along similar lines, it’s also little wonder that the catechism does not recommend the conversion of homosexuals into heterosexuals–why would it recommend merely swapping one form of broken concupiscence for another?
(The counter argument could be made: “well, in order to get married, it helps to be heterosexual.” But while heterosexual concupiscence may give a* practical *advantage here in terms of the ability to sexually desire the opposite sex, it does not give any
moral advantage. Moreover, homosexuality has not prevented and need not prevent any given homosexual person from getting married to someone of the opposite sex–history is full of such marriages.)
At any rate it’s clear that the teaching that Christian perfection either requires- or is identical with a heterosexual orientation is grossly (if not dangerously) heterodox: in some, it could very easily lead to despair.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!