Christian opposition to homosexuality is based upon Divine Revelation and the Natural Law. For Catholics, the Catechism clearly teaches that homosexuality is contrary to nature and homosexual acts are among the "sins gravely contrary to chastity" (CCC, 2396) and that "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."
This teaching, as the Catechism makes clear, is based upon Sacred Scripture, Tradition and the Natural Law. But for homosexual activists and others who support the radical homosexual agenda, moral opposition toward homosexuality is something evil and is rooted in mental illness. The word "homophobia," as explained here, is employed by homosexual activists as a semantic weapon in the cultural war.
The United States Department of Justice, as this article explains, has categorized Repent America as a "hate group" because of its Biblical opposition to homosexuality. And the USDOJ has an article at its website which asserts that "homophobia" is rooted in a "toxic masculinity." This article says that, "Toxic masculinity is the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence...According to Connell, contemporary hegemonic masculinity is built on two legs, domination of women and a hierarchy of intermale dominance...It is also shaped to a significant extent by the stigmatization of homosexuality...Today's hegemonic masculinity in the United States of America and Europe includes a high degree of ruthless competition, an inability to express emotions other than anger, an unwillingness to admit weakness or dependency, devaluation of women and all feminine attributes in men, homophobia, and so forth...Toxic masculinity is..socially destructive...proclivities associated with toxic masculinity include..a strong need to dominate and control others....a readiness to resort to violence, and the stigmatization and subjugation of women, gays and men who exhibit feminine characteristics." (See here).
The USDOJ seems anxious to categorize Christian opposition toward homosexuality as a form of mental illness, a "toxic masculinity" which is prone to violence and domination. But the Church's teaching isn't an attempt to "dominate" or "stigmatize" homosexual persons. The Church teaches clearly that homosexual persons, "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." (CCC, 2358). The Gospel is not a dominating force. It is a liberating force. It liberates from the slavery of sin. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Sash Movement (part of the Homosexual Hate Movement) has announced its plans to violate federal law by interfering with the First Amendment rights of Catholics. Will the USDOJ take action? Or will radical homosexual activists be allowed to terrorize Churches as they did in California over Proposition 8? Have radical homosexual activists shown respect for Christian believers?
Is the stage being set for persecution? President Obama has already asserted that Christians and others who oppose homosexuality are clinging to worn out ideas. See here.
Pope Benedict XVI on the dangers of abortion and same-sex "marriage" here.
Remember the Domestic Extremism Lexicon fiasco? Read here.
This teaching, as the Catechism makes clear, is based upon Sacred Scripture, Tradition and the Natural Law. But for homosexual activists and others who support the radical homosexual agenda, moral opposition toward homosexuality is something evil and is rooted in mental illness. The word "homophobia," as explained here, is employed by homosexual activists as a semantic weapon in the cultural war.
The United States Department of Justice, as this article explains, has categorized Repent America as a "hate group" because of its Biblical opposition to homosexuality. And the USDOJ has an article at its website which asserts that "homophobia" is rooted in a "toxic masculinity." This article says that, "Toxic masculinity is the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence...According to Connell, contemporary hegemonic masculinity is built on two legs, domination of women and a hierarchy of intermale dominance...It is also shaped to a significant extent by the stigmatization of homosexuality...Today's hegemonic masculinity in the United States of America and Europe includes a high degree of ruthless competition, an inability to express emotions other than anger, an unwillingness to admit weakness or dependency, devaluation of women and all feminine attributes in men, homophobia, and so forth...Toxic masculinity is..socially destructive...proclivities associated with toxic masculinity include..a strong need to dominate and control others....a readiness to resort to violence, and the stigmatization and subjugation of women, gays and men who exhibit feminine characteristics." (See here).
The USDOJ seems anxious to categorize Christian opposition toward homosexuality as a form of mental illness, a "toxic masculinity" which is prone to violence and domination. But the Church's teaching isn't an attempt to "dominate" or "stigmatize" homosexual persons. The Church teaches clearly that homosexual persons, "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." (CCC, 2358). The Gospel is not a dominating force. It is a liberating force. It liberates from the slavery of sin. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Sash Movement (part of the Homosexual Hate Movement) has announced its plans to violate federal law by interfering with the First Amendment rights of Catholics. Will the USDOJ take action? Or will radical homosexual activists be allowed to terrorize Churches as they did in California over Proposition 8? Have radical homosexual activists shown respect for Christian believers?
Is the stage being set for persecution? President Obama has already asserted that Christians and others who oppose homosexuality are clinging to worn out ideas. See here.
Pope Benedict XVI on the dangers of abortion and same-sex "marriage" here.
Remember the Domestic Extremism Lexicon fiasco? Read here.
10 comments:
Looks like the USDOJ tuned a blind eye toward homosexual activists when they terrorized churches throughout California. Likewise, police did absolutely nothing to stop hate-filled activists from terrorizing a church in Boston as Mass Resistance has reported.
Apparently it's deemed "acceptable" to violate the rights of Christians and even to terrorize their churches.
Some Catholics do not understand what we mean by Natural Law. As its name indicates, natural law flows from human nature. It is called Natural Law because it is grounded in nature itself, and manifests itself through the nature or essence or constitution of things.
Someone calling himself "On the Side of the Angels" left a comment here which read (in part), "Paul, be careful the way you interchange words - contrary to natural law does not mean contrary to nature." This because I wrote that homosexual acts are "contrary to nature."
In a column written by Dr. Charles E. Rice for publication in the Notre Dame observer, which was subsequently published in Ignatius Insight, Dr. Rice says the same thing:
"A big issue at Notre Dame a few weeks ago was 'sexual orientation' and the status of the Notre Dame Gay/ Lesbian/ Bisexual/ Transgender (GLBT) community. Enough time has passed to make it useful to review some of the governing principles as found in the teaching of the Catholic Church. That teaching includes four pertinent elements:
1.Homosexual acts are always objectively wrong. The starting point is the Catechism: "Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction to persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, Tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved" (No. 2357).
"Homosexual acts are doubly wrong. They are not only contrary to nature. They are wrong also because they are extra-marital. The Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, issued in 1986 with the approval of John Paul II, said, "It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally. To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals of the Creator's sexual design" (No 7)."
Rainbow Sashers only prove the fact that the homosexual movement is highly-radical and thoroughly saturated with the ideology of hate.
For those Catholics who refuse to accept that homosexual acts are contrary to nature (against nature), the Third Lateran Council (1179) establishes: "Anyone caught in the practice of the sin against nature, on account of which the wrath of God was unleashed upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6), if he is a cleric, let him be demoted from his state and kept in reclusion in a monastery to do penance; if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated and kept rigorously distant from the communion of the faithful."
The Teaching of St. Thomas on Natural Law
“Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.
St. Thomas categorically condemned the homosexual sin as contrary to nature.
“Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances; inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the Natural Law.
"Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this inclination, those things are said to belong to the Natural Law, which nature has taught to all animals, such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth.
“Thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the Natural Law (Summa Theologica, I-II, question 94, article 2).
The teaching of Aquinas continued:
“For it has been stated that to the Natural Law belongs everything to which a man is inclined according to his nature.
“Wherefore, since the rational soul is the proper form of man, there is in every man a natural inclination to act according to reason: and this is to act according to virtue.
“Temperance is about the natural concupiscences of food, drink, and sexual matters, which are indeed ordained to the natural common good, just as other matters of law are ordained to the moral common good.
“By human nature we may mean either that which is proper to man - and in this sense all sins, as being against reason, are also against nature, as Damascene states (De Fide Orthod. II. 30): or we may mean that nature which is common to man and other animals; and in this sense, certain special sins are said to be against nature; thus contrary to sexual intercourse, which is natural to all animals, is unisexual lust, which has received the special name of the unnatural crime (ibid., I-II, q. 94, a. 3).
“Consequently we must say that the Natural Law, as to general principles, is the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge. As, in man, reason rules and commands the other powers, so all the natural inclinations belonging to the other powers must needs be directed according to reason (ibid., I-II, q. 94, a. 4).
The teaching of Aquinas continued:
“The Natural Law dates from the creation of the rational creature. It does not vary according to time, but remains unchangeable. The Natural Law was perverted in the hearts of some men, as to certain matters, so that they esteemed those things good which are naturally evil (ibid., I-II, q. 94, a. 5).
“Thy law is written on the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. But the law which is written in men's hearts is the Natural Law. Therefore the Natural Law cannot be blotted out.
“There belong to the Natural Law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly, certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions following closely from first principles. As to those general principles, the Natural Law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's hearts (ibid., I-II, q. 94, a. 6).
St. Thomas on Homosexuality
“The unnatural vice is a species of lust. It is reckoned together with other species of lust (2 Cor 12:21) where we read: 'And have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness,' where a gloss says: 'Lasciviousness, i.e., unnatural lust.'
“The venereal act is rendered unbecoming through being contrary to right reason, and because, in addition, it is contrary to the natural order of the venereal act as becoming to the human race: and this is called the unnatural vice. This may happen by copulation with an undue sex, male with male, or female with female, as the Apostle states (Rom 1:27): and this is called the vice of sodomy (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 154, a. 11).
St Augustine wrote: "Of the sins belonging to lust, that which is against nature is the worst."
“Augustine says (De adult. conjug.) that 'of all these,' namely the sins belonging to lust, 'that which is against nature is the worst.'
Aquinas on the Natural Law continued:
“I answer that, in every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend. Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting. This may be observed both in speculative and in practical matters. Wherefore just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as determined by nature.
"Therefore, since by the unnatural vices man transgresses that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions, it follows that in this matter this sin is the gravest of all. After it comes incest, which is contrary to the natural respect which we owe persons related to us.
“Just as the ordering of right reason proceeds from man, so the order of nature is from God Himself: wherefore in sins contrary to nature, whereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature.
Aquinas on the Natural Law continued:
"Hence, Augustine says (Conf. III, 8): 'Those foul offenses that are against nature should be everywhere and at all times detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom, which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that very intercourse which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is the author, is polluted by the perversity of lust.'
“Vices against nature are also against God, and are so much more grievous than the depravity of sacrilege, as the order impressed on human nature is prior to and more firm than any subsequently established order.
“The nature of the species is more intimately united to each individual, than any other individual is. Wherefore sins against the specific nature are more grievous. “Wherefore among sins against nature, the most grievous is the sin of bestiality, because use of the due species is not observed. After this comes the sin of Sodomy, because use of the right sex is not observed (ibid., II-II, q. 154, a. 12).
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