Daily Archives: November 30, 2014
Why We Need To Hear More “P” Words.
The defence of Catholic teaching in matters of homosexual perversion – heard from many corners since October – is certainly encouraging. Still, one cannot but notice one feature typical of all or almost all the interventions: the extreme reluctance to call homosexuality a “sexual perversion”.
Whilst there are not a few prelates who would use words like “intrinsically disordered” – which amounts to the same but said in a way most people will not fully understand – when it is about really making an impact, most of our prelates balk at the “p” word.
This leaves the public in a strange limbo, as they are told that homosexuality is wrong, but they aren’t really told why. Not, at least, in a way that drives the point home.
I am sure a lot of Catholics begin to think the Church condemns homosexuality for some reason that we will never fully grasp, but register it (for now at least) as fact. Apart from the perversion of healthy thinking such a thinking betrays, it makes dissent not all too difficult; actually, it invites it, because when things are not properly explained trouble can never be far away.
Perversion is a simple concept to understand: the thinking of someone whose sexual desire goes in the wrong (per; as in perjury) direction (versio; as in conversion). This is so, as every simple mind understands, irrespective of the person acting on his perversion, or not. The pedophile is a pedophile because he lusts after children; he does not begin to be a pedophile only when he rapes a child. The perversion is there before the action. The action – or the mindset – is particularly grave because it goes – other than, say, gluttony – against what the natural desire should be. Gluttony is the result of a god-given desire gone out of control. Perversion is a desire that must not be there in the first place.
When you put the issue in these simple words, it becomes easier for the faithful to understand the intrinsic depravity of homosexuality. If you keep talking of something “God does not want” without qualifications you are muddling the waters, because gluttony or fornication do not go frontally against the way we are built, but homosexuality, incest or pedophilia do. We also know that even mortal sins have different degrees of gravity; therefore, to invoke the fact that gluttony can induce a man to mortal sin does not help, either.
Clarity is the only way. Pussyfooting around doesn’t help anyone. Let the church abandon the concept of homosexuality as perversion, and your children will be – when sufficiently perverted in their reasoning – unable to understand what the fuss is all about. Hey, they remember when they stole from the cookie jar. That can be a mortal sin too, no?
We need more prelates and simple priests able and willing to pronounce the “p” word instead of using more or less indirect expressions, lacking in clarity and forcefulness even when they do not lack in meaning. We must not allow political correctness to prevent us from clearly expressing what the Church believes. Our shepherds should be the first to tell the truth whole, lest the real message (it’s a sexual perversion) goes lost in the pussyfooting (“God says he’d really like you not to; why it is so beats me, but hey…”).
Clarity creates clear alternatives and demands clear choices. “The Church says homosexuality is a perversion. No, really. This is what the Church believes. What do you say?”
Ten years of this, and things will change radically.
Nothing of this, and I see persecution coming.
M
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