Cardinal Dolan celebrates homosexuals

Cardinal Dolan is celebrating homosexuals marching in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade.  This comes as no surprise.  Church Militant notes how, "Sources from within the New York archdiocese are revealing that a corrupt homosexual network reaches into the top ranks of the New York archdiocese, involving the priest personnel office, the communications director, the vicar general, and even the former archbishop of Baltimore, Cdl. Edwin O'Brien — and that Cdl. Timothy Dolan is aware of much of this and does little to stop it."

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.

Canadians deserting the faith

It was Frank Bigeart who reminded us that, "..if freedom of choice is, as we believe it to be, an integral part of man's human nature, then it would seem that unless God takes away that freedom, unless, that is to say, man's nature is to be fundamentally changed, such a loss at least seems possible.  So long, therefore, as man is a free agent he must be free to reject the sovereignty of God; and God will not compel him to accept it.  Man can fight his own perfection.  He can deliberately choose to remain outside the love of God....That this power of choice may be lost, and lost forever, is, in part at least, that which underlies the doctrine of Hell.  The will can be fixed in antagonism to God."

And what is the price of love rejected?  What is Hell?  Fyodor Dostoevski provides an answer: "What is hell?  It is the suffering that comes from being unable to love.  Once in an infinite existence that cannot be measured in time or space, a spiritual creature, appearing on earth, was given the ability to say, 'I am, and I love.'  Once, and only once, he was given a moment of active, living love, and it was for that that he received earthly life with its temporal limitations.  But that happy being did not appreciate and welcome the priceless gift; he rejected it, looking at it perversely and unmoved.  He goes loveless before God to draw near to those who have loved when he has despised their love...They cursed God in life and now they are themselves accursed.  They feed on their malignant pride like a man starving in the desert who sucks blood from his own veins.  But they can never have enough, never and they spurn forgiveness, cursing the God Who called them.  They cannot look upon the Living God without hating Him and they wish that the God of Life could be no more, that He would destroy Himself and all His Creation.  They will burn eternally in the flames of their own rage, longing for death and nothingness.  But there will be no death for them."

This is the fate of those who spurn God and His Law of Love.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that, "We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love Him.  But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against Him, against our neighbor or against ourselves.." (1033).  How many have forgotten this truth?  Even within the Church.  And so, fornication is justified, abortion is justified, homosexuality and contraception are justified, deserting the sacraments is rationalized away: "I might not go to Mass but I'm basically a good person."  And yet, Our Lord assured us that unless we eat His Body and drink His Blood, we would have no life in us. 

The door of Hell is locked not from without but from within.  The self-will which ultimately leads to Hell manifests itself in this life.  God and neighbor are spurned.  And with the saddest of consequences.