Shortly before Benedict XVI’s pilgrimage to Bavaria in September of 2006, it became clear that the former Cardinal of Munich and now the reigning Pope had no chance of being named honorary citizen of this city. Despite renewed efforts, the Socialist and Green parties presiding over city hall would not agree to it. The reason? His unshakeable refusal to bow to the demands of homosexualist groups.
Just four weeks before the Pontiff’s arrival, gay activists organized a march in Munich displaying vulgar and obscene photomontages and an effigy of the Holy Father dressed as a drag queen. Such profanations directed against the Catholic faithful are the norm in the “pride parades” of western countries.
During the Fifth World Congress of Families held in Valencia in July of 2006, Spanish television covered the event in the same mendacious way that our communist-run media covered John Paul II’s first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979. Communist television tried to show only the Pope and a few elderly nuns, while screening out the millions of pilgrims in attendance. To cite just one example, the Spanish media screened out the faces of that beautiful family of twelve children from Munich, which stood right beside the Pope. By contrast, the day before his arrival, they presented a highly favorable coverage of the gay demonstration against him. Polish television used to manipulate our communist Mayday parades in the same way.
These three instances involving one city — Munich (I was able to be present there during the papal visit) — show just how aptly the issue of homosexualism epitomizes the conflict between the Church and the modern world.
We witnessed even more dramatic events. The president of the Italian Conference of Bishops, Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, received a letter containing a swastika’d photograph of himself and an unspent bullet. In the language of the mafia, the bullet spelled death. This, along with several other threats, resulted from the bishop’s courageous opposition to the demands of the homosexualist lobby. Italian authorities took these terror threats seriously enough to provide him with round-the-clock police protection. Both Pope Benedict and the people of Genoa rallied in his defense, the latter even taking to the streets in a show of solidarity with their bishop. The Pope and the Italian episcopate continue to unite their efforts in thwarting the legalization of pseudomarriages in that country.
Why does Mother Church, with all her mercy and her respect for the human person, so clearly, categorically, and resolutely oppose the demands of the powerful and hostile homosexual lobby? She does this because of her very nature. Quite simply, it is a matter of elementary truth — of elementary intellectual and moral honesty. Jesus Christ revealed the whole truth about man and continues to proclaim it tirelessly through His Church, which stands in defense of marriage, the family, and the dignity of the human person.
Biblical reasons
Holy Scripture condemns homosexualism unequivocally — and this right from the very beginning. IntheBook of Genesis we read, “And the Lord said: ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave’” (Gen 18: 20). Their “sin” is the sin of homosexualism. Evidently, God considers this sin to be especially grave and repugnant. While Lot entertains the two strangers at his house, the young and old citizens of Sodom say to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them” (Gen 19: 5). They respond to Lot’s entreaties with threats and acts of violence. The cup of bitterness overflowed. The following day the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah lay waste and incinerated. Only one righteous man was saved — Lot and his family. It is from here that we take the expression “Sodom and Gomorrah” to mean extreme depravity and moral blindness.
We find a similar story in chapter nineteen of the Book of Judges. There too the male inhabitants of the town are ready to sodomize a guest. They commit a terrible crime and, as a consequence, the Benjamite tribe is wiped out almost to a man.
The New Testament censures homosexualism even more forcefully. Saint Paul clearly tells us that, like other sinners, practicing homosexuals who refuse to convert, risk eternal annihilation. “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6: 9 et inf.). St. Paul saw homosexualism as a sign of the nadir of man’s moral degeneration — a sign of man’s self-contradiction and estrangement from God (Rom 1: 18-32). Like us, he knew homosexualist propaganda, which mocks God openly. He writes: “Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Rom 1: 32). We read similar words in the Letter to Timothy (1: 3-11) and the Book of Leviticus (18: 19-23). Such manifest abuse of God’s plan, such a rejection of the natural complementarity between a man and a women, must profoundly wound and destroy a human being in a multiplicity of areas. It must eventually lead to catastrophic results — and must, therefore, incur divine condemnation.
Theological reasons — from Tradition
What the Church has always and universally taught she considers irrevocable. Such is her condemnation of homosexual practice, which she never ceases to proclaim. We find the teaching, among other places, in sections 2357-2359 and 2396 of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. What is clearly stated there is that same-sex tendencies in themselves are not sinful, but rather a trial, a hardship against which the person must strive, just as we all must struggle daily with our evil predispositions. We sin only when we give in to our disordered tendencies. The Church calls upon us to help those who suffer same-sex attractions and to treat them with “respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”
Pope John Paul II was always clear on the matter; for example, in March of 1999, he characterized homosexual marriages as “a lamentable perversion.” In 1994, he took a direct stand against the European Parliament, which was calling for the legalization of such unions. “The European Parliament,” he stated, “is wrongly according legal recognition to deviant behaviors that are incompatible with God’s design….Man cannot falsify moral norms.” In a special document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2003, the reigning Pope, John Paul II, and the future one, then still Cardinal Ratzinger, jointly declared: “If all the faithful have the duty to oppose the legalization of homosexual marriages, then Catholic politicians are bound to do likewise in a special way, at the level appropriate to their area of competence.” Here then is the directive of two popes — John Paul II and Benedict XVI: To the extent that we consider ourselves Christians, we — and especially the politicians among us — must oppose the legalization of the homosexualist lobby’s demands.
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, our best-known and most recognized modern saint, stated: “We must live in accordance with the plan by which we were created. Homosexual practice is unnatural.”
Medical reasons
On this subject we have a rich literature, including hundreds of articles and books. Worthy of special recommendation is the book Homosexuality and Hope published by the American Catholic Medical Association. Here are a few facts, most of which are taken from a report drafted by a group of Canadian doctors (John Shea, John K. Wilson et al.) entitled, “Gay Marriage” and Homosexuality: Some Medical Comments.
From this report we learn that active homosexuals are statistically 4 times more likely to suffer depression, 5 times more likely to be addicted to nicotine, and 6 times more likely to commit suicide. On the average, depending on the kind and intensity of their sexual activity, they live 8 to 20 years shorter than other men.
Gays in Germany and Canada comprise, respectively, 60 and 70% percent of AIDS cases. By the same token, the likelihood of contracting this incurable disease is 73-85 times higher among homosexuals. The same is true of other infectious diseases; for example, in Scotland the majority of syphilis cases are found among homo- and bisexual men. This means that in the rest of the population, including sex-trade workers and their clients, there are about half as many AIDS and STD cases as among homosexuals, who according to the best estimates in Canada and the United States comprise less than 2% of the general population.
Naturally, this epidemic condition, especially in the gay communes, does not come from just anywhere; it is the simple and terrible consequence of the homosexual lifestyle: “By their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7: 20). It comes from the unimaginable promiscuity practiced. 75% of the most famous self-declared gays in the USA admitted to having had over 100 partners in their lifetime. 28% admitted to more than 1000! In Canada, as many as 43% of gays suffering from AIDS continue to have sex without scruple, cheerfully spreading the seeds of death among their partners. Homosexual unions last 1.5 years on the average. Even while remaining in such a union the “spouses” have an average of 12 other partners. They speak of “monogamy without fidelity” — a notion that makes as much sense as a square circle. What is more, a homosexual union is 2-3 times more likely to experience domestic violence than a normal marriage. Thus the homosexual partners constitute their own greatest threat, far greater than anyone outside the homosexual milieu. How often their lives are a physical, psychological, and social catastrophe — an out-and-out nightmare! The testimonies of those who manage to break free from this enchanted circle are truly shocking.
To this we must add that pedophilia is also more widespread among homosexual circles. There is a 40% likelihood that all the pedophilia cases reported by the Polish press in 2004 were of a homosexual
nature. Here the Church has her own tragic experience. Everyone knows of the child abuse scandals that have rocked the Church in America. Yet despite all the publicity, the media scrupulously conceals the fact that 80% of these abuses were of a homosexual nature. All this was the result of too lax a selection process in the seminaries. Church authorities placed too much faith in certain psychologists, with the result that for decades candidates with same-sex attractions were allowed to be ordained and then entrusted with too much responsibility. The Church’s response has been the Vatican Instruction of November, 2006, which calls for a much stricter screening process of seminarians with same-sex tendencies. They must now provide adequate proof of self-control before even being considered for ordination. The fact that these restrictions are being implemented at a time when there is such a dearth of vocations underscores the gravity of the rationale underlying the restrictions.
The homosexualist ideology
What to say of those people, especially the physicians and psychologists, who refuse to accept such stark and incontrovertible medical and sociomedical facts? What to say of those who put the sexual conduct of this group on a par with that of others, even when it results in epidemic conditions; when, as among our German neighbors, for example, homosexuals are 73 times more likely to contract AIDS than other groups? What to say of the doctors who claim that the same-sex orientation is irreversible; that they have never cured anyone with this orientation, when in fact many of their colleagues have proven by their therapeutic successes that they are mistaken; that the very opposite is true? For, we do know that this is a disorder that can be corrected. All one needs is the right knowledge and the will to act on it. What to say, finally, of the journalists and politicians who ignore these catastrophic data and tirelessly peddle the propaganda of homosexual success?
To a greater or lesser degree, they are simply promoting and spreading the homosexualist ideology; for, both cursory examination and deeper analysis demand that we characterize in this way the homo-image dominating the media. It is an ideology — a collection of truths, half-truths, illusions, falsehoods, and myths. A collection of ideas aimed not at achieving knowledge for the common good, but at securing immediate advantages for the group espousing it. It is ideology in its purest form; a weapon in the war for social consciousness. Authentic learning and philosophy strive for the truth for everyone’s benefit. Homosexualism seeks to win undeserved privileges for the homosexual lobby. It uses the methods of modern marketing, whose task consists in skillfully and professionally changing the image of homosexuality and promoting it like an article of merchandise. The program drawn up by leading gay activists at their meeting in Virginia in 1988 included four main objectives in their campaign to change social consciousness and, eventually, the laws of the land. These are: desensitization, manipulation, conversion, and elimination.
1. Desensitization
First you have to bury society under an avalanche of pro-gay publicity. You have to gain such a clear advantage in the mass media that, after the initial show of resistance, stupefaction or at least weariness set in. In the process, the homosexualist cause becomes acknowledged as something normal and acceptable. The publicity campaign must be like an opening artillery barrage. It has to be of such deafening power that the shell-shocked opposition fears to rear its head. In Poland, Gazeta Wyborcza is currently leading the pack in realizing this objective. Last year, there appeared in its various editions an average of three pro-gay articles a day.
2. Manipulation
You must portray gays in an exclusively positive light — as a particularly sensitive, noble-minded, meritorious, and successful group of people; you also portray them as a poor, underprivileged minority. Persuading people that many great figures of the past were homosexuals serves the same purpose — a task made all the easier by the fact that dead men do not talk. At the same time, you conceal and deny even the most incontrovertible facts about the dark and darkest sides of homosexuality — the very data, which I have enumerated above; for example, you obscure the truth about the overrepresentation of homosexuals among the Nazi elite.
3. Conversion — the Nietzschean “reversal of values”
What used to be relegated to the pathological peripheries of social life, you now present as its center, as a thing worthy of the highest respect. By the same token, you marginalize the critics of homosexualism; exclude them from the public discourse. You portray them as eminently repugnant people. Without any discussion, you label them “homophobes” and lump them along with the hidebound, the hateful, the bigoted, and so cow them into shameful silence. You also inflate the percentage of homosexuals in society: 10–25%, as some activists claim.
4. Elimination of opponents
When those who cry out loudly for tolerance achieve a certain level of influence, they often deny it to others. This is why the noted philosopher and humanist, Dr. Rocco Buttiglione, a close friend of John Paul II, could not become commissioner of the European Union. This is why the prosecutor demanded a six-month jail term for Swedish pastor Ake Green for delivering a sermon (the trial court eventually sentenced him to a month in prison). I have already mentioned the fate of Archbishop Bagnasco of Genoa. What homosexual person ever receives such treatment? After publishing my article Ten Arguments Against, which became the most talked-about anti-homosexualist article in Poland, I myself had to endure both a public smear campaign and a spate of revolting anonymous threats of every description. Gazeta Wyborcza ran a whole series of articles directed against me, while denying me the elementary courtesy and legal right to respond. What was most significant, however, was that it was the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny which led the pack of smear campaigners with its unbelievably aggressive article by Fr. Jacek Prusak entitled Others Think Differently — an article in which he categorically rejects the teachings of the Church. On the other hand, I did receive support from the Church, from cardinals, bishops, priests, and many of the faithful, including university professors. Clearly, opponents of homosexualism have to be cowed and forced into silence, be it by destroying professional careers or by threat of imprisonment or death. The demand for tolerance and equality very quickly turns into the persecution of Christians. Homosexualism resorts to slogans and vituperation rather than rational discourse. It avoids meritorious discussion so as not to reveal the intellectual poverty of its reasoning. Small wonder; for, something that is inherently evil is unable to produce anything but a specious rationale.
Homosexualism is simply another essentially atheistic ideology that is taking the place of its severely compromised predecessor, communism. Since this utopia cannot be sustained on the level of economics, the atheist left has in the last decades engaged its energies at the level of sexual freedom, where it seeks its reason for being. Thus homosexual and communist ideologies have a great deal in common; they share many analogous features. (To be continued).
