The new acceptance of sodomy

[tafan2]

Household/tribe. Whichever word you prefer. If a household can send out 300 men in a military expedition, my guess is it has 3000 people total.

As for polygamy being a corruption, not part of God’s plan at that time, tomorrow when I am in the office, I will get the reference from JP II and provide it.

 

[Gorgias]

From the article:

“ The first huge question is this : How did priests who took a promise of chaste celibacy come to think that it was now morally acceptable for them to engage in sodomy with consenting adults and even with minors — whether under the legal age of consent or psychological minors, such as seminarians under their influence? I am assuming that they did not engage in these behaviors thinking, I know this is a mortal sin but I am going to do it anyway. So my assumption is that somehow they rationalized their thinking so that they could call it acceptable. Another way of phrasing this question is this: how did they come to think they could accept the revised cultural practices as morally normative? My assumption here is that they were very much influenced by changes both in Western culture and also within the Church.”

The writer tracks those changes.

I think that the author goes off the rails right at this point. There are a number of problems with the article, IMHO:

• He presumes that an instrumental cause of the sin is the sinner’s perception that the wider culture thinks it’s not sinful. That’s a poor assumption (and the statistics don’t bear it out). People sin because they’re tempted and they fall to that temptation. What others think of the behavior (of actions that are not in the public eye) is irrelevant. (Think about it for a second: was there no such thing as sexual affairs outside of marriages until a Belgian priest suggested a new meaning for ‘fidelity’ in 1967? Hardly.)
• He posits that the sexual abuse of minors by priests can be tied to events in the 1962-1987 timeframe (and beyond). The statistics show that incidence of these crimes stretch far earlier than the 1960s. Moreover, the numbers seem to be demonstrating that, with proper controls in place, the rate of incidence has dropped dramatically since the mid '90s (despite the fact that he claims that the “cultural moral” dynamic continues on the course he has plotted, up through the present day). If the cause was the culture, why did this exist in the same numbers before 1960 as after? If the cause was the culture, why are the numbers dropping in the post-1990 timeframe?

Therefore, on two critical fronts – rate of incidence prior to the “moral change” he posits and recent observed decline, as well as the thesis that culture (and not concupiscence) is the cause of sin – the author fails to demonstrate that his thesis holds up. This article has the appearance of placing blame outside of the places where it belongs: on those who committed these crimes and on those who allowed them to continue to be committed.

 

[JimG]

Do you actually know any non-Catholics who have been convinced by this ‘rational’ argument and/or its ‘plain English’ explanations? There must be some, but from my reading of Humanae Vitae, they must be few and far between. If you don’t have faith, you can’t make it make sense.

And yet from the beginning of the reformation until 1930, every Protestant denomination had the exact same teaching on contraception as the Catholic Church. The teaching was universal in both the Catholic Church and in Protestant denominations, until 1930 when the Anglicans made a concession in the 1930 Lambeth Conference. After that the deluge.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

The acceptance isn’t that new, but you know how headlines work.

 

[TMC]

He posits that the sexual abuse of minors by priests can be tied to events in the 1962-1987 timeframe (and beyond). The statistics show that incidence of these crimes stretch far earlier than the 1960s. Moreover, the numbers seem to be demonstrating that, with proper controls in place, the rate of incidence has dropped dramatically since the mid '90s (despite the fact that he claims that the “cultural moral” dynamic continues on the course he has plotted, up through the present day). If the cause was the culture, why did this exist in the same numbers before 1960 as after? If the cause was the culture, why are the numbers dropping in the post-1990 timeframe?

I think this is an important point. It has become popular in some Catholic circles to blame the sexual abuse on the culture of the 60s and 70s. The fact is that the abuse began long before then - probably centuries before. The abuse became a “crisis” when the abuse became more public, not when it began. As to whether the abuse has declined or stopped, I am not sure we know that yet. But if it has, I agree that is further evidence the popular culture did not cause the abuse.

 

[CatholicELATeacher]

We see on this website the ongoing efforts by a cabal of posters who attempt with the same false arguments to normalize the unnatural act of sodomy. “Out of the closet” was not good enough. Now these poor souls are in our faces and in our children’s faces.

Of course, this thread will draw them like carrion to a carcass.

a very accurate assessment. Why aren’t they being reined in here?

 

[Crusaderbear]

Remember Sodom and Gomorrah…sodomy didn’t workout well for them…

Amazing how some tales are timeless.

 

[Thorolfr]

Remember Sodom and Gomorrah…sodomy didn’t workout well for them…

Amazing how some tales are timeless.

I doubt that anyone would have to worry. If so called “sodomy” ( a word that doesn’t even appear in Scripture) were actually the reason that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, it doesn’t seem to have happened again since then. And according to Ezekiel 16:49:

49 This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

And according to Matthew 10:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions:…11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

So, being inhospitable to strangers would seem to be even worse than what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did. Not helping the poor and needy seems to be the main sin of Sodom.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

So, being inhospitable to strangers would seem to be even worse than what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did.

Rejecting God’s ministers is what’s happening in those verses, not just being inhospitable.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

So, being inhospitable to strangers would seem to be even worse than what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did.

Rejecting God’s ministers is what’s happening in those verses, not just being inhospitable.

The verses mention welcoming and listening. They don’t say the people in question must necessarily accept their words.

 

[adgloriam]

I agree @Thorolfr lack of charity (love) is a terrible sin. And especially lack of charity towards those most in need of love.

Rejecting God’s ministers is what’s happening in those verses, not just being inhospitable.

No, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was more about lack of simple elementary charity -towards our neighbor and fellow man- than about disregard of appointed ministers.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

No, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was more about lack of simple elementary charity -towards our neighbor and fellow man- than about disregard of appointed ministers.

I wasn’t talking about Sodom or Gomorrah.

 

[jeannetherese]

probably centuries before.

This is speculation. Have you sources which support the conjecture?
Thanks and may God bless all who visit this thread.
Amen.

 

[CatholicELATeacher]

How many times are people going to repeat that canard here?
The sin of Sodom was epitomized by depraved individuals attempting to forcibly rape two male angels, and Lot himself.
I guess the euphemism for that among pro-homosexuals is “lack of charity.”

 

[CatholicELATeacher]

As it still is accepted, the point of the article.
Another ridiculous defense of buggery that gets brought up again and again is, “well, it was good enough for the Greeks and Romans.”
Right, the pagan, idolatrous Greeks and Romans should be the role models for Catholics.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

That wasn’t the point of the statement, just to show that the problem was worse back then.

 

[Thorolfr]

As it still is accepted, the point of the article.
Another ridiculous defense of buggery that gets brought up again and again is, “well, it was good enough for the Greeks and Romans.”
Right, the pagan, idolatrous Greeks and Romans should be the role models for Catholics.

But Idolatrous Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato had a tremendous influence on Christianity and the Catholic Church. Not everything that idolatrous Greeks and Romans did was bad.

 

[CatholicELATeacher]

But Idolatrous Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato had a tremendous influence on Christianity

Keep telling yourself that. It has nothing to do with Catholic, Christian understanding of the wickedness of sodomy. That understanding comes from GOD.

 

[glencor63]

Abuse is cyclical. Unless a person through the Holy Spirit understands that they have been spiritually damaged by abuse and that it was wrong it will most likely be perpetuated. It becomes normal. It becomes generational. This is why certain sins seem to resurface repeatedly in families and now we know institutions. The reality is that clerical sexual abuse became “normal” among a significant percentage of the clergy in the Church. It was perceived as normal because it was the only sexual experience of that person, an experience of abuse and neglect. There’s a psychic break, if not addressed or realized in time.

We also cannot discount demonic influence. Some of the abuse in the Pennsylvania report was actually demonic. I suspect that there are people in the hierarchy that don’t love Jesus and seek to destroy the Catholic Church through abuse of the most defenseless of his sheep. I think they are aware of one another because of direct contact with evil.

 

[TMC]

This is speculation. Have you sources which support the conjecture?
Thanks and may God bless all who visit this thread.
Amen.

Absolutely. We know, as just one example, that many of the reforms of the Church attempted in the 11th Century were expressly aimed at the practice of pederasty in the seminaries. We also have lots of anecdotal reports that the priests conducting abuse in the 60s and 70s were themselves abused in their youth. It is reasonable to believe their abusers had similar experiences, and so on.

What is the basis of asserting that the problem materialized out of thin air in the 60’s?