This is what passes as "evangelization" in the morally bankrupt "Catholic" Church in the United States

As noted here, Gio Benitez, an openly homosexual news anchor known for his work on Good Morning America, World News Tonight and 20/20, has joined the Catholic Church and reaffirmed his "faith" - Whatever that's supposed to mean. The ABC personality stood with his "husband" Tommy DiDario, who also served as his sponsor.

In an essay on the meaning of evangelization, Father Vincent Miceli, S.J. wrote, "Being the work of God and man in cooperation, it must ever be a thrilling and awesome adventure.  We can say, however, that this sanctifying activity proclaims Christ to those who do not know Him, preaches the Gospel to them through catechesis and missionary sermons, confers Baptism and other sacraments and tirelessly exhorts converts to scale the heights of sanctity.  Jesus Christ, Himself, the Good News of God, was the very first and greatest evangelizer.  He proclaimed an absolute Kingdom of God, making everything else relative.  He proclaimed salvation, namely liberation from sin, Satan, death, a liberation that bestowed upon sinners returned to God grace, resurrection in immortality and glorification in the triune God.  He proclaimed the price man must pay for his salvation, namely that men must gain Heaven by violence, i.e., through a life of penance, toil, and suffering accepted in the spirit of the Suffering Servant of God.  And above all He proclaimed that man must undergo that interior renewal which the Gospel calls metanoia, that is the radical change of heart and mind which destroys 'the old man of sin' and creates 'the new man of grace.'"

Fr. Miceli then explains that there are obstacles to evangelization.  He writes, "St Thomas Aquinas teaches that three things are necessary for a soul to find, follow and embrace Christ.  First, a person must know what he ought to believe.  Second, he must know what he ought to desire.  Third, he must know what he ought to do.  Now ignorance is the first great obstacle to evangelization.  Catholics, therefore, should grow in a profound knowledge of their Faith through a constant reading and reflection on the Gospels and a faithful following of the teachings of the Magisterium.  Only thus will they come to appreciate the Catholic Faith as a gift of God that is true, good and beautiful.  They then will be moved by the Holy Spirit to bring non-Catholics to share this gift from God with them..."

Finally, surveying the Catholic Church in the United States, Fr. Miceli writes, "Unfortunately, the fact is that the Church in the United States, instead of being the crusading, courageous, evangelizing society Christ founded it to be, has become a cream-puff chaplaincy to the converted - and because of this attitude is failing to hold on even to these...How are we to stir up again the spirit of evangelization?  Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi gives us our marching orders:

'On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the responsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel message to the men and women of our times.'" (Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, citing Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, No. 40).

Note this passage.  What does Pope Paul VI mean by "complete fidelity to the content of evangelization"?  The Holy Father means that pastors of the Church must offer the men and women of our times what Pope Benedict XVI has said is the entire plan of God.  That is to say, the full content of Catholic teaching - including, and especially, those hard truths which the world does not want to hear but which faithful Catholics must share with hurting souls who wander about without a shepherd.  This is what evangelization is all about!

"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward 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." Catechism of the Catholic Church,  2357.

Francis: I ignore faithful Catholic Bloggers but homosexual activists have my ear...

Francis has made it clear that he doesn't read Blogs written by devout Catholics faithful to Tradition.  As noted here:

"Few bloggers critical of this notorious pontificate, mired in scandal upon scandal, can be surprised that the Pope regards them as enemies to be prayed for, but ultimately ignored, like a bedraggled Big Issue vendor outside a supermarket might be for much of his time. Some, but not many, will be surprised to hear that he 'sees them and knows them' and that it is unlikely that he sees 'spiritual goodness' in many of them."

For Francis, inspired not by Heaven but by the poison of Hell, orthodoxy, fidelity to Jesus Christ and His Revelation, is wickedness.  See here.  As one Cardinal has said, "Do not follow this pope into his evil designs to destroy Holy Mother Church."

Now that we can say with certainty that Francis ignores those of us who lovingly embrace the Church's perennial teaching, the immutable truths of Holy Mother Church which are not subject to the whims of sociopaths or the prevailing zeitgeist, who exactly does Francis listen to?

With his appointment of LGBT promoting Father James Martin, S.J., as a Vatican Consultant and his meeting with homosexual activist Simon Cazale, a man who claims to be married to another male while demanding that the Church change her teaching regarding homosexual acts, it's obvious who has Francis' ear.  It's not Nineveh he's listening to, it's Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Cult of Softness and the "Francis effect"

We need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men.  Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death.  Neither will homosexual or effeminate clerics who cannot relate to men.

Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.

Why have so many priests succumbed to fear?  Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin?  Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:

"The reason for this is not difficult to find.  A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world."  In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound.  Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice.  Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not.  Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize.  So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.'  In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).

The Cult of Softness (see here) continues to produce only rot within the Church.

The New York Times has confirmed what devout Catholics already know, that the "Francis effect" is a myth:

"...are Catholics actually coming back? In the United States, at least, it hasn’t happened. New survey findings from Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate suggest that there has been no Francis effect — at least, no positive one.

In 2008, 23 percent of American Catholics attended Mass each week. Eight years later, weekly Mass attendance has held steady or marginally declined, at 22 percent.

Of course, the United States is only one part of a global church. But the researchers at Georgetown found that certain types of religious observance are weaker now among young Catholics than they were under Benedict. 

In 2008, 50 percent of millennials reported receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday, and 46 percent said they made some sacrifice beyond abstaining from meat on Fridays. This year, only 41 percent reported receiving ashes and only 36 percent said they made an extra sacrifice, according to CARA. 

In spite of Francis’ personal popularity, young people seem to be drifting away from the faith."

Young people are naturally idealistic. They want to be challenged.  They need to be challenged with the hard demands of the Gospel, with the truth.

But Francis offers only a non-dogmatic, Cotton-Candy Catholicism.  A sacharrin "gospel" which appeals to worldly types but which is short on substance.  And while more and more youth are abandoning the Church, rather than placing an emphasis on doctrinal truths, Francis offers unsound teaching and meets with people like Simon Cazal, a homosexual activist who claims to be married to another man while demanding that the Church founded by Christ Jesus change its teaching on homosexuality to accommodate the New Sodom.  See here.

The Cult of Softness has failed.  But Francis cannot steel himself to admit this.  He has succumbed to an alien ideology.  He has decided to genuflect before the spirit of Sodom while this demonic spirit continues to wreak havoc within an already devastated vineyard.  See here.

Father Peter Naranjo, Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts on Twitter:

Francis: Church should apologize to homosexuals

ABC News is reporting:

"Pope Francis says gays — and all the other people the church has marginalized, such as the poor and the exploited — deserve an apology."

Really?   Then by extension,  Francis is implying that God owes homosexuals an apology.  For God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for engaging in unnatural vice:

"We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the Lord against those here is so great that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” (Genesis 19:13).

The rejection of homosexual behavior that is found in the Old Testament is well known. In Genesis 19, two angels in disguise visit the city of Sodom and are offered hospitality and shelter by Lot. During the night, the men of Sodom demand that Lot hand over his guests for homosexual intercourse. Lot refuses, and the angels blind the men of Sodom. Lot and his household escape, and the town is destroyed by fire "because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord" (Gen. 19:13).


Throughout history, Jewish and Christian scholars have recognized that one of the chief sins involved in God’s destruction of Sodom was its people’s homosexual behavior. But today, certain homosexual activists promote the idea that the sin of Sodom was merely a lack of hospitality. Although inhospitality is a sin, it is clearly the homosexual behavior of the Sodomites that is singled out for special criticism in the account of their city’s destruction. We must look to Scripture’s own interpretation of the sin of Sodom.

Jude 7 records that Sodom and Gomorrah "acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust." Ezekiel says that Sodom committed "abominable things" (Ezek. 16:50), which could refer to homosexual and heterosexual acts of sin. Lot even offered his two virgin daughters in place of his guests, but the men of Sodom rejected the offer, preferring homosexual sex over heterosexual sex (Gen. 19:8–9). Ezekiel does allude to a lack of hospitality in saying that Sodom "did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezek. 16:49). So homosexual acts and a lack of hospitality both contributed to the destruction of Sodom, with the former being the far greater sin, the "abominable thing" that set off God’s wrath.

But the Sodom incident is not the only time the Old Testament deals with homosexuality. An explicit condemnation is found in the book of Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. . . . If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them" (Lev. 18:22, 20:13).

Reinterpreting Scripture


To discount this, some homosexual activists have argued that moral imperatives from the Old Testament can be dismissed since there were certain ceremonial requirements at the time—such as not eating pork, or circumcising male babies—that are no longer binding.


While the Old Testament’s ceremonial requirements are no longer binding, its moral requirements are. God may issue different ceremonies for use in different times and cultures, but his moral requirements are eternal and are binding on all cultures.

Confirming this fact is the New Testament’s forceful rejection of homosexual behavior as well. In Romans 1, Paul attributes the homosexual desires of some to a refusal to acknowledge and worship God. He says, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. . . . Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them" (Rom. 1:26–28, 32).

Elsewhere Paul again warns that homosexual behavior is one of the sins that will deprive one of heaven: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9–10, NIV).

All of Scripture teaches the unacceptability of homosexual behavior. But the rejection of this behavior is not an arbitrary prohibition. It, like other moral imperatives, is rooted in natural law—the design that God has built into human nature."

The Catholic Church has nothing to apologize for.   It is Francis who must apologize.   To the faithful.

Clergy serving Moloch...

Jack Minor writes:

"In a bizarre ecumenical twist, a group of apostate clergy has publicly said there are times when a mother is fully justified in killing her baby as they asked God to “bless” an abortion clinic.

The group of 15 ministers and rabbis met outside of a Cleveland abortion clinic and conducted a service where they asked God to bless the abortions occurring inside.

"Bless this building," the Very Rev. Tracey Lind, Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, prayed. "May its walls stand strong against the onslaught of shame thrown at it. May it be a beacon of hope for those who need its services."

Harry Knox, president of the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), told the approximately 40 people joining the group for the event, “Thank God for abortion providers.”

During the meeting, some of the clergy tried to claim to draw a false dichotomy between themselves and members of the pro-life community.

Event organizer Laura Young, a United Methodist minister who also head up the Ohio chapter of the RCRC, claims that the pro-life community is opposed to all abortions, including those where the health of the mother is at stake.

“We want to show the clinic staff and the women who obtain their services and the community that there are people of faith who do believe that abortion is sometimes necessary and that it should be done in a safe, dignified way without shame,” Young stated.

The truth is the overwhelming majority of the pro-life community believes in an exception for the health of the mother. However the reality is as Dr. Ben Carson recently pointed out these circumstances are incredibly rare.

The reality is what they are advocating for is a position similar to that of many on the pro-abortion side who expand the definition of “health of the mother” to include almost any situation including self-esteem and other mental issues.

“[Our faith] is why we absolutely believe that every woman should have the ability to make her own decision on whether and when to raise a child,” Knox wrote in a September 2014 article “Reverends Like Us Should Never Oppose Access to Abortion or Sex Ed.”

However, Clenard Childress, pastor of New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J. says these clergy members have forsaken their calling and are now worshipping at the feet of the Democrat Party with its sacrament of unlimited access to abortion.

“I say to the clergy, they must remember Who called them. The Democratic Party didn’t call them, nor the Republican Party,” he told Christian News Network at that time. “And their call came from a God that asked them to represent Him—to represent His teachings and His word.”

“How can you not defend life when you read in Jeremiah 1:5: ‘Before you were formed in your mother’s womb, I knew you?’” Childress asked. “I was already somebody in God before I was in the womb. … The pulpit must reconcile themselves to that verse.”

The clergy asking for blessings upon abortion clinics is striking when one considers the events that occurred at a similar abortion clinic operated by convicted abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted in 2013 of the murder of three infants who were born alive. Gosnell killed the babies by severing their spinal cord with a pair of scissors.

It is unclear how Lind expected God to bless these types of procedures. The arguments used by those in the pro-abortion community defending actions such as those committed by Gosnell is that even if the baby survived the abortion and was now born, the intent of the mother should prevail, even after the birth.

While a state senator, Barack Obama opposed a bill that would have required babies surviving an abortion to be given medical care, saying he did not want to “burden the original decision of the mother.”

Democrats have even gone on record as supporting a woman’s right to abort her baby simply because it is a girl. Last year, California Democrats voted down the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act. The bill specifically outlawed abortions where the sole reason for the procedure was the baby’s gender.

The clergy rallying in support of abortion clinics do indeed seem to be serving their god, who is mentioned in the bible. However, their god is not the God of Judaism and Christianity but the god of Molech who demanded child sacrifice.

These clergy members would have fit right in with the apostate priests of those days prior to God bringing judgment and destruction upon the land of Israel."

The sexual morality popular in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah brought them to complete and utter destruction.  Today we are building a New Sodom, a Moloch State which offers not law and justice but an oppressive demonic order which claims total jurisdiction over man and defies God and His plan for humanity.  So it is no surprise that many within the priesthood (as throughout society in general) have succumbed to homosexual ideology as they deny the true God and His Commandments.  Rousas Rushdoony exposes the nature of the demonic Moloch State which so many of the clergy now willingly serve:

"The Moloch state simply represents the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God.  Lesser efforts, divination, spirit-questing, magic and witchcraft are equally anathema to God.  All represent efforts to have the future on other than God's terms, to have a future apart from and in defiance of God.  They are assertions that the world is not of God but of brute factuality, and that men can somehow master the world and the future by going directly to the raw materials thereof."

The Devil seduces men through the deceitful tactics of pseudo-saviors.  And ours is a perverse age in which many pseudo-saviors pretend to offer liberation through sex without love, violence and drug abuse as well as the occult.  As Fr. Miceli, S.J., warned: "In the name of its new secular gods, Progress and Liberty, titles that are false fronts for Rebellion and Licentiousness, many formerly Christian nations are driving their sons and daughters through the demonic fires of sacrificial murder.  Thus..so-called Christian nations, having legalized abortion and while preparing to to legalize euthanasia, have become Moloch states."

A new class of priests is necessary to serve the emerging Moloch State.  Such priests will never speak of sin, the need for repentance and conversion, the reality of Hell and the possibility of finding your soul there after death, etc.  When is the last time you heard a homily from your priest discussing these items or citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church?  Of course, there are still good priests who still preach sound Catholic doctrine - but these are now in a minority.  In the New Order, priests who preach traditional Catholic doctrine will be replaced by priests who traffick in souls by substituting the doctrines of demons for the Word of God and Holy Tradition and the City of Progress for the City of God.

A new city is arising which is based upon Satan's blueprints.  Many cannot see this.  Others choose not to.  But all around us things are changing.

Watch and pray.

Boston Archdiocese decides in favor of "Gay Pride" Mass.

The Boston Archdiocese has decided to allow a "Gay Pride" Mass at St. Cecilia's Parish in South Boston.  I learned of this just this morning from Michael Brown's Spirit Daily.  Michael had published a link to The Boston Globe article informing the public that the Mass will be held on July 10th.  And then I received a comment from a parishioner of St. Cecilia's which is very revealing.  The anonymous individual wrote, "It is happening in three weeks, on July 10 and there's nothing you can do about it. Yap, write letters, wring your hands, and spew forth your anti-Christian bile all you like, it's happening and the entire parish, as well as the Archdiocese, couldn't be more pleased. It will be prayerful, as are all liturgies at St Cecilia's, there will be good music, a packed church, and good preaching. Come by if you want to see a real community that gathers to worship God in action. Of course, you won't though. So, start writing to Rome, you have less than three weeks to keep showing the world how pathetic and uncharitable you all are."


It's easy to see that love is a strong suit in this person's brand of Catholicism.  Those of us who have the sheer unmitigated gall to accept the Church's teaching regarding homosexual acts and same-sex "marriage" are deemed to be "pathetic and uncharitable" characters who are spewing "anti-Christian bile." We have been accused of "bigotry, hate and injustice" and of fostering an atmosphere of "prejudice."

It shouldn't surprise us that the Boston Archdiocese would allow a "Gay Pride" Mass.  For the Boston Archdiocese has succumbed to the leaven of infidelity.  Why a pride Mass?  Cornelius a Lapide, a brilliant Scripture scholar, has explained that, "First among the vices of Sodom is pride.  Then the satiety of bread, or rather of food, delicacies, banquets.  Third, the abundance of goods, of luxury and pleasure.  Fourth, idleness.  Fifth, lack of mercy...

Hear St. Jerome: 'Haughtiness, satiety of bread, the abundance of all things, idleness, pleasures, such were the sins of Sodom.  Because of these, they forgot God, since the continual presence of riches seemed perennial and thus there was no need of recourse to God to obtain them.'  Therefore, we first encounter pride in the sins of Sodom.  Then God chastises the proud, permitting them to fall into a great and ignominious lust, as can be deduced from Rom 1:27.." (Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Commentaria in Ezechielem Prophetam, Paris: Vives, 1880; Vol. 12, pp. 618-619).

Pride.  Vanity.  Saint Paul so vividly describes this process of degradation in the first chapter of the book of Romans.  He explains how pride leads to idolatry and how God abandons such people to their own passions:

"Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.  While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.  Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies." (Romans 1: 21-24).

And what does this mutual degradation consist of?  St. Paul (or more accurately the Holy Spirit through St. Paul) explains that this mutual degradation is the practice of homosexuality: "Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another.  Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." (Romans 1: 26-27).

St. Paul notes the unfortunate consequences which result from this process of degradation: "They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite.  They are gossips and scandal-mongers and they hate God.  They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents.  They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." (Romans 1: 25, 28-31).

Haughty and boastful.  Qualities which jump out of the anonymous comment left at this Blog.  By allowing a "Gay Pride" Mass, the Archdiocese of Boston has given the green light to celebrate the first sin of Sodom.  The darkness continues to spread.

When I read the following words from the anonymous commenter, I had to do a double-take: "There will be good music, a packed Church, and good preaching...Come by if you want to see a real community that gathers to worship God in action."   I say this because I remember years ago a Christian woman saying the very same thing about her church, the People's Temple. 

I'm not suggesting that the people of St. Cecilia's Parish are going to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.  But it would certainly seem to be the case that a Catholic parish is embracing something even worse than a Jim Jones.  Pastor Jones led his congregation to a physical death in French Guyana.  But the "Gospel of Sodom," the "Gay Pride Gospel," will lead souls to final impenitence and an eternity in Hell, all under the guise of advancing something "Christian."  It was Saint Cyprian of Carthage, writing against the Greco-Roman pagan world and its vices, who said: "That Jupiter of theirs is not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders...now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion." (Letters 1:8).

Pray for the people of St. Cecilia's, that they will come to understand that while it is noble and Christian to affirm people, there is nothing noble or Christian in affirming others in their sins or their dissent from Church teaching.
 
Photo above is of a "Gay Pride 2011" demonstrator.

Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1867, which lists the "sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance."

Karen Armstrong and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

Karen Armstrong, the former Catholic nun and self-proclaimed "freelance monotheist" whose agenda to break down dogma has been praised by Father Thomas Massaro of Boston College, has written that, "We also have a more complex understanding of sexuality than the biblical writers. Yet the Bible has to be read with care. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 condemns homosexual rape and the violation of the sacred rules of hospitality rather than homosexuality per se. It has nothing to say about the open, stable gay relationships that are essentially a feature of modern western society, and did not exist in their current form in the biblical world. Again, the rules against sodomy in Leviticus 18 and 20 are not legislating for ordinary human affairs. Throughout, the authors of Leviticus are chiefly concerned with temple ritual. The practices forbidden in these chapters featured prominently in the idolatrous religions of the near east, which, as we know from the Bible, the people of Israel found extremely alluring: ritual bestiality (as practised in Egypt), child sacrifice, and the cultic use of menstrual blood in sorcery. The verses against sodomy (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) forbid temple prostitution: in the late seventh century, there had been a house of sacred male prostitutes in God's temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:7) It is this kind of worship, which defiles the land, that concerns Leviticus.

In the same spirit, St Paul's condemnation of the 'unnatural practices' of the Graeco-Roman world springs from a visceral disgust with idolatry, the root cause of all the disorders in Paul's long list (Romans 1:20-31). The Bible is not a holy encyclopedia, giving clear and unequivocal information; nor is it a legal code that can be applied indiscriminately to our very different society. Lifting isolated texts out of their literary and cultural context can only distort its message. Instead, we should look at the underlying principles of biblical religion, and apply these creatively to our own situation." See here.

Ms. Armstrong's argument has been thoroughly refuted.  As this website explains:

"The rejection of homosexual behavior that is found in the Old Testament is well known. In Genesis 19, two angels in disguise visit the city of Sodom and are offered hospitality and shelter by Lot. During the night, the men of Sodom demand that Lot hand over his guests for homosexual intercourse. Lot refuses, and the angels blind the men of Sodom. Lot and his household escape, and the town is destroyed by fire "because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord" (Gen. 19:13).


Throughout history, Jewish and Christian scholars have recognized that one of the chief sins involved in God’s destruction of Sodom was its people’s homosexual behavior. But today, certain homosexual activists promote the idea that the sin of Sodom was merely a lack of hospitality. Although inhospitality is a sin, it is clearly the homosexual behavior of the Sodomites that is singled out for special criticism in the account of their city’s destruction. We must look to Scripture’s own interpretation of the sin of Sodom.

Jude 7 records that Sodom and Gomorrah "acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust." Ezekiel says that Sodom committed "abominable things" (Ezek. 16:50), which could refer to homosexual and heterosexual acts of sin. Lot even offered his two virgin daughters in place of his guests, but the men of Sodom rejected the offer, preferring homosexual sex over heterosexual sex (Gen. 19:8–9). Ezekiel does allude to a lack of hospitality in saying that Sodom "did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezek. 16:49). So homosexual acts and a lack of hospitality both contributed to the destruction of Sodom, with the former being the far greater sin, the "abominable thing" that set off God’s wrath.

But the Sodom incident is not the only time the Old Testament deals with homosexuality. An explicit condemnation is found in the book of Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. . . . If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them" (Lev. 18:22, 20:13).

Reinterpreting Scripture


To discount this, some homosexual activists have argued that moral imperatives from the Old Testament can be dismissed since there were certain ceremonial requirements at the time—such as not eating pork, or circumcising male babies—that are no longer binding.


While the Old Testament’s ceremonial requirements are no longer binding, its moral requirements are. God may issue different ceremonies for use in different times and cultures, but his moral requirements are eternal and are binding on all cultures.

Confirming this fact is the New Testament’s forceful rejection of homosexual behavior as well. In Romans 1, Paul attributes the homosexual desires of some to a refusal to acknowledge and worship God. He says, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. . . . Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them" (Rom. 1:26–28, 32).

Elsewhere Paul again warns that homosexual behavior is one of the sins that will deprive one of heaven: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9–10, NIV).

All of Scripture teaches the unacceptability of homosexual behavior. But the rejection of this behavior is not an arbitrary prohibition. It, like other moral imperatives, is rooted in natural law—the design that God has built into human nature."

Ms. Armstrong has one thing right.  The Bible does have to be read with care.  This because ignorant and unstable people [and she would certainly fall into this category] wrest (or interpret) the Scriptures unto their own destruction.  Which is why we have a Teaching Magisterium to interpret the Scriptures for us.  Vatican II, in Dei Verbum, No. 10, reminds us that, "..the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether in its written form or in that of Tradition, has been entrusted only to those charged with the Church's living Magisterium, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.."

And what does this living Magisterium tell us about homosexual acts?  The Catechism couldn't be more clear: "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." (2357).

Why would Father Thomas Massaro promote the work of such a person? What do you think?

Related reading here.

'Because of these, they forgot God..."

Saint Jerome said that, "Haughtiness, satiety of bread, the abundance of all things, idleness, pleasures, such were the sins of Sodom. Because of these, they forgot God, since the continual presence of riches seemed perennial and thus there was no need of recourse to God to obtain them."

The first sin of Sodom [as with our own morally bankrupt culture] is pride. In Ezekiel 16: 49, we read, "And look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in their prosperity, and they gave no help to the poor and needy." The New Sodom is also a City of Corruption rooted in pride and arrogance. And as we know, many priests have joined the ranks of that City of Satan. Which is why our Holy Father Benedict XVI has said that sin, satanic influence and the toleration of error lie at the root of the priestly sexual abuse scandals.

Our age has riddled with satanic pride. And this pride has entered even the Church. But God humbles those who are proud. This because it is only through humility that men can become and remain faithful servants - saints.

Meditation: 1 Peter 5: 5

Related reading here and here.