Saint Peter Damian, in his Book of Gomorrah, decries the audacity of men who are "habituated to the filth of this festering disease," and who still dare to present themselves for holy orders, or if already ordained, remain in office.
Was it not for such crimes that Almighty God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and slew Onan for deliberately spilling his seed on the ground? he asks. And then he cites St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 5:5): "... if an unclean man has no inheritance at all in Heaven, how can he be so arrogant as to presume a position of honor in the Church, which is surely the kingdom of God?" See here.
Saint Catherine of Siena, a great mystic and Doctor of the Church, fought for reform at a time when many clergy had succumbed to the vice of homosexuality. In her Dialogues, St. Catherine said that, "...these wretches not only do not bridle this fragility [of a weak nature], but do worse, committing that accursed sin against nature, and as blind as fools, with the light of their intellect darkened, they do not know the stench and misery in which they are."
Saint Peter Damian, another Doctor of the Church, a Cardinal and great reformer of the clergy, wrote an entire treatise entitled the Book of Gomorrah against the inroads made by homosexuality among the clergy. In his important work, St. Damian describes the iniquity of homosexuality as well as its psychological and, more importantly, its moral consequences:
"Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices...It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth....The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus [Hell]....In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured. It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself. This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence. And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out."
Because the soul en route to Hell has lost faith and is utterly miserable, it seeks company on its journey to final impenitence and, ultimately, eternal damnation.
Such a soul welcomes a parade of filth.
