Pope Francis, the Catholic Church, and Homosexuality

With respect to Church teaching on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality, there are some who trumpet the false claim, "everyone already knows what the Church teaches," and thus skirt and avoid the "hard teachings" (and most beautiful teachings!) of our Blessed Lord and His Church. Please reflect on this at length: do we really know what the Church teaches?

To know what Christ and His Church teach means to love this truth and to conform one's life (i.e. the intellect and will) to this truth, even to the point of shedding one’s blood! Yet how many millions of innocent, precious babies have been murdered in this country? How many millions of "Catholics" are contracepting? How many millions of "Catholics" believe in "tolerance," "not judging," and granting some form of legal recognition to sodomy? Granting legal recognition to sodomy? Granting legal recognition to sinful behavior that cries to heaven for vengeance? What, dear faithful, has happened to God's holy Church?

massive apostasy, there are Church prelates who downplay Church teaching on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality, and summarily reply, "everybody knows Church teaching."

Can this be possible? What dreadful diabolical disorientation has taken hold of the minds and hearts of so many . . .

At the root of the grave sins of abortion, contraception, and sodomy, is the vice of impurity and the deadly sin of lust. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2351), "lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure." Do all Catholics really know and understand what the Church teaches (i.e. the truth ) about lust and impurity? The special pleasure which God has attached to the acts whereby the human race is propagated is permissible only to husband and wife. This pleasure is permissible to the married couple, provided they use it for the purpose for which marriage was instituted; outside of this it is strictly forbidden. Is there anyone who can seriously argue that "everybody already knows what the Church teaches" in this regard? Quite the contrary, the Church’s beautiful teachings on purity, virginity, chastity, and the sacredness of the marital act are likely the least known and understood of all her teachings! Oh, how immense is the need for Catholics to know, understand, accept, and live Holy Mother Church's teachings on purity!

Truly knowing what (and why) the Church teaches about abortion, contraception, and sodomy includes understanding the foundational moral and spiritual principles upon which this teaching is based, e.g. Church teaching on purity.

How can anyone possibly think that "everybody already knows what the Church teaches" concerning purity? Only a tiny remnant (pun intended) know the what and the why of the Church’s heavenly teaching on purity!

Here is one simple example of the very few Catholic mothers who actually have some knowledge and appreciation of Church teaching on purity. One Catholic mother blogged on "ten ways to give your child the gift of purity," and two of those ways are: "don’t allow, and then strictly limit, social media," and "be the gatekeeper for visual images." This is very wise advice. However, how many Catholic parents are actually adopting these practices? Of all the millions and millions of Catholic parents, how many are actually extremely vigilant when it comes to their children’s use of any social media, e.g. television, telephone, texting, internet? Guarding against any and all impure images is essential for inculcating the virtue of purity.

The following are some of the valuable comments made by other mothers to the aforementioned blog:

_ Excellent, excellent post! I remember not allowing my teenagers to watch "Beverly Hills 90210." We also had "moles" (title my kids gave neighbors) that mentioned any activity seen that was not constructive.

_ Beautiful post. My dear husband and I were never into TV or tech products, and were committed to filling their free time with lots of outdoor activities and books. (We homeschooled.) One other thing I did was this: at bedtime, after they’d fallen asleep, I went in and made the sign of the cross on their foreheads with holy water, and asked God to protect their purity. I figured if they got that right, most everything else would fall into place.

_ I’ve been reading "The Big Disconnect," and then yesterday saw the latest Miley Cyrus video. The girl is beautiful and the video is clearly porn, and I’m thinking, how in the world am I supposed to keep my adolescent boys from encountering that because they won’t be the same once they’ve seen it.

If only all Catholic parents had the basic appreciation of Church teaching on purity which is manifested in the comments quoted above, how different our world would be! If everybody really knew (and practiced!) what the Church teaches about the virtue of purity, the hideous sins of abortion, contraception, and homosexual activity would be vanquished . . . wiped away.

Conclusion: Hopefully, this introduction has served to demonstrate that among the Church’s most important and urgent pastoral needs, under the heading of recovering her doctrine, is: to ensure that all the faithful really know why she condemns the nefarious sins of abortion, contraception, and homosexual acts, and to teach and spread the truth about purity, virginity, and marriage.

The Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality is of great importance because these gravest of sins strike against God Himself as Creator! Gen 1:26-28, "And God said: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness.’ And God created man to His own image, to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. And God

blessed them, saying: increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." At the

very beginning

(and center) of Divine Revelation—God’s revelation of Himself and His love—stand God’s sacred

gift of life

and God’s creation of man as male and female. Abortion, contraception, and homosexuality are the complete, diabolical overturning of the order established by God, and the greatest assault upon all of God’s attributes, i.e. how He, the Almighty, has revealed Himself to man.

Yes, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in their Pastoral Letter on Marriage, November 2009, state correctly, "One of the most troubling developments in contemporary culture is the proposition that persons of the same sex can ‘marry.’ This proposal attempts to redefine the nature of marriage and the family and, as a result, harms both the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good of society." It is definitely true that public acceptance of homosexual "marriage" harms "both the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good of society," because this is an attack (i.e. an outright rejection ) on the God-given nature of marriage and the family.

However, the first one Who is terribly offended by this sin is God Himself! As faithful Catholics, we must always keep Holy Mother Church’s supernatural perspective in the forefront. She evaluates everything, first, in its relation to God and eternity, not in relation to "human dignity." In other words, the acceptance of sodomy is a most heinous offense against the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; it is a diabolical desecration of His marvelous creation of man, and therefore, it necessarily harms marriage, the family, the common good of society, and the dignity of every human person. Satan is "a liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44), and the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is a horrible

lie

We were created male and female to the image and likeness of God! The sin of contraception is another horrific lie about our nature! God made us to be co-creators with Him, and He is the only One Who has sovereignty over the transmission of life. However, as just noted above, the worst offense is that these sins—abortion, contraception, homosexual acts—are the ultimate blasphemy against God, grotesque lies about Who He is.

About the Author: Fr. Michael Rodríguez is a priest of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas. He is currently the parochial vicar of Santa Teresa Catholic Church in Presidio, Texas.

(2) The Salvation and Damnation of Souls Well-grounded in the supernatural perspective of the Catholic Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787), preached a sermon entitled, "Hell’s widest gate: Impurity."

Behold, the four gates [hatred, blasphemy, theft, and impurity] by which the greater number of souls enter hell; and it is of these four that I mean to speak today, in order that you may amend and cure yourselves of these four vices, otherwise God will cure you of them, but by your own destruction.

We have now to speak of the fourth gate of hell, which is impurity, sexual sins.

It is by this gate that the greater number of the damned enter. The impure say, ‘God has compassion on us who are subject to this vice, because He knows that we are flesh.' What do you say?

God has compassion on this vice? But you must know that the most horrible chastisements with which God has ever visited the earth have been drawn down by this vice. St. Jerome says that this is the only sin of which we read that it caused God to repent of having made man, for all flesh had become corrupted (Gen 6:6-12). And so it is, St.

Jerome says, that there is no sin which God punishes so rigorously, even upon earth, as this. He once sent fire from Heaven upon five cities, and consumed all their inhabitants for this sin (Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen 18-19). Principally on account of this sin did God destroy mankind, with the exception of eight persons, by the flood. It is a sin which God punishes, not only in the other life, but in this also. St. Remigius says that the greater number of the damned are in hell through this vice. St. Bernardine of Siena wrote: ‘This sin draws the whole world, as it were, into sin.’ And before him St. Bernard and St. Isidore said that ‘the human race is brought under the power of the devil more by lust than by all the other vices.’

The ultimate mission of the Holy Catholic Church is to save souls from eternal damnation. This alone, more than justifies why her teaching on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality is of utmost importance.

Pope Francis is quoted as saying, "A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality.

I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person."

Of course, the person must be considered, but if the person is committing sinful actions, he is destroying himself, i.e. spiritual suicide!

Indeed, the person must be considered, but in the light of eternity: what is the state of the person’s soul? Can any true Catholic "stand by idly," if a person’s soul is being torn away from God, if such a soul is on the path of damnation due to grave sins of impurity? If one fails to condemn mortal sin, does one care about the person's salvation?

Furthermore, if one fails to oppose sins which cry to heaven for vengeance, is not one contributing to the human race— all persons —being brought under the power of the devil? If one fails to condemn abortion, contraception, and sodomy, is one not making a mockery of God—His holiness, His goodness, and His love?

In posing his question above, the Holy Father directed his attention, first, to "the person." Holy Mother Church—with the witness of the angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and saints—might very well respond to Pope Francis’ question with some queries of her own. She, however, directs her eyes, first, heavenward. She looks up at the Cross, considers the sacred wounds of her Blessed Savior, adores His Precious Blood, shed for man’s salvation, weeps tears of gratitude and in reparation, and asks:

_ Dear soul, will you sin in such a way as to scourge, spit upon, and beat your Most Blessed Savior?

_ Dear soul, will you sin in such a way as to drive thorns into His sacred head, and nails into His blessed hands and feet?

_ Dear soul, will you sin in such a way as to pierce the Immaculate Heart of His Mother with yet another sword, will you scoff at her unimaginable sorrows, grief, and suffering at the foot of the Cross, and add to them? v