You are indeed correct, inocente: Saint Paul’s argument is based on the consequences of idolatry. He gives sodomy as the extreme and most obvious and deplorable consequence because it so blatantly offends reason and is contrary to nature: he can produce no more obvious a disorder and consequence of idolatry than sodomy.
However, I fear you have forgotten that the Apostle was well aware that even greed or sexual lust was considered idolatrous: the former is condemned as idolatry by the Lord Himself, and the latter likewise is condemend as “adultery” by the same Authority. Now, in the context of the Covenant, adultery is considered infidelity to God and thus a form of, or at least equivalent to, idolatry itself. Indeed, the Prophets of old were wont to condemn Israel’s idolatries as nothing other than shameless whoredom or adultery.
So greed (the worhsip of Mammon) for the Apostle is one instance of the worship of creatures and, specifically, the worship of even that which is nothing but the work and product of mortal men’s hands, namely money; and lust likewise threatens to overthrow the reign of God in our hearts, as desire for the creature supplants the love of the Creator and His Law for us and His Covenant with us. Thus greed or sexual lusts are a form of idolatry and lead to selfishness, evil, perversion and all manners of disorders that are the consequence of perverting the order of Creation and abandoning justice. The extreme of this is given by Saint Paul as the practice of sodomy.
Now Christians will have no difficulty providing endless proofs that Western culture has indeed fallen into the worship of Mammon (idolatry) or is filled with the vice of lust (idolatrous). Saint Paul says the extreme consequences of these disorders and perversions is the practice of sodomy - and that this is the very case presently is obviously beyond dispute. Hence, your challenge is met: we can substantiate Saint Paul’s argument that sodomy is indeed the consequence of idolatry and faithlessness.
Thanks for your response, however your theory doesn’t quite work.
One problem is that Paul says “For although they knew God”. But atheists do not know God, pagans do not know God, in fact the only people who could be said to know God were Jews and Christians. These Jews and Christians must have renounced their faith, possibly blaspheming against the Spirit, since they “neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” and they “became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles”.
None of that applies to atheists or pagans, they never knew or glorified God to start with and so from Paul’s point of view didn’t become foolish but always were.
Another problem is that Paul says because these people “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles”, “therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires”.
So they first of all became idolaters and then it was God, not them, who gave them over to sinful desires. Then “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts” - again God does it, not them. Then God “gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”
None of this applies to the sixteen year old girl sitting next to you in Mass, or to the middle aged business man sat in front of you.
