St. Peter Damian and the Vice of Sodomy
St. Peter Damien (1007-1072) Abbot of the Fonte Avellana Monastery and the Cardinal/Bishop of Ostia, is considered one of the stellar advocates of Catholic reform in the XI century. His Liber Gomorrhianus, circa 1049, ias written because corruption was widely spread, particularly in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In this work, which was addressed to Pope Leo IX, St. Peter Damien condemns the perversion and degradation of the unnatural vice of sodomy occurring in his time in a language without nuance, compromise or excuses, because he was convinced that of all the sins, the gravest is sodomy, that is, including all the acts against nature and which want to satisfy sexual pleasure by separating it from procreation. “If this absolutely ignominious and abominable vice is not immediately stopped with an iron fist" he wrote, "the sword of Divine wrath will fall upon us, bringing ruin to many.”
The Motivation for a Treatise on Sodomy
When this humble but fiery servant of the Faith presented his Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah, to Pope Leo IX in 1049, he made it clear that his chief concern was for the salvation of souls. While the work is addressed specifically to the Holy Father, its distribution was intended for the universal Church, most especially the bishops of secular clergy and superiors of religious orders.
In his introduction, the holy writer makes clear that the
Divine calling of the Apostolic See makes its primary consideration
"the
welfare of souls". Therefore, he pleads with the Holy Father to take
action
against "a certain abominable and most shameful vice," which he
identifies forthrightly as "the befouling cancer of sodomy," that is
ravaging both the souls of the clergy and the flock of Christ in his
region,
before God unleashes His just wrath on the people." A;though he
recognized how repulsive any aspect of sodomy must be to the Pontiff,
he
nevertheless asked
with blunt frankness: "... if a physician is appalled by the contagion
of
the plague, who is likely to wield the cautery? If he grows squeamish
when he is
about to apply the cure, who will restore health to stricken hearts?"
The Saint distinguished between the
various
forms of sodomy and the stages of sodomical corruption beginning with
solitary
and mutual masturbation and ending with interfemoral (between the
thighs)
stimulation and anal coitus, noting that there is a tendency
among prelates
to treat the first three degrees of the vice with an "improper
leniency," preferring to reserve dismissal from the clerical state for
only
those men proven to be involved in anal penetration. The result, Damian
states,
is that a man, guilty of the "lesser" degrees of the vice, accepts his
milder penances, but remains free to pollute others without the least
fear of
losing his rank. The predictable result of his superior's leniency,
says Damian,
is that the vice spreads, the culprit grows more daring in his illicit
acts
knowing he will not suffer any critical loss of his clerical status, he
loses
all fear of God and his last state is worse than his first.
St. Peter Damian condemns the audacity of men who are "habituated to the filth of this festering disease," and yet 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. Quoting St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:5) he continues, "... 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?" [15]
The holy monk likens sodomites seeking holy orders, to those citizens of Sodom who threatened "to use violence against the upright Lot" and were about to break down the door when they were smitten with blindness by the two angels and could not find the doorway. Such men, he says, are stricken with a similar blindness, and "by the just decree of God they fall into interior darkness." If they were humble they would be able to find the door that is Christ, but they are blinded by their "arrogance and conceit," and "lose Christ because of their addiction to sin," never finding "the gate that leads to the heavenly dwelling of the Saints," Damian laments.
Not sparing those ecclesiastics
who knowingly permit sodomites to enter holy orders or remain in
clerical ranks
while continuing to pollute their office, the holy monk lashes out at
"do-nothing superiors of clerics and priests," reminding them that
they should be trembling for themselves because they have become
"partners
in the guilt of others," by permitting "the destructive plague"
of sodomy to continue in their ranks.
Homosexual Bishops Who Prey on their Spiritual Sons
Then comes the harshest judgment which is reserved for those bishops who "commit these absolutely damnable acts with their spiritual sons." "Who can expect the flock to prosper when its shepherd has sunk so deep into the bowels of the devil who will make a mistress of a cleric, or a woman of a man? Who, by his lust, will consign a son whom he spiritually begotten for God to slavery under the iron law of Satanic tyranny," the Saint pours out in disgust. Drawing an analogy between the sentence inflicted on the father who engages in familial incest with his daughter or the priest who commits "sacrilegious intercourse" with a nun, with the defilement of a cleric by his superior, he asks if the latter should escape condemnation and retain his holy office? Actually, the latter case deserves an even worse punishment says he because whereas the prior two cases involved natural intercourse, a religious superior guilty of sodomy has not only committed a sacrilege with his spiritual son, but has also violated the law of nature. Such a superior damns not only his own soul but takes another with him, Damian states.Specifically, Regarding the Vice of Sodomy That Surpasses All Other Vice, He Rails:
Without fail it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes truth from the mind. ... It opens up Hell and closes the Gates of Paradise. ... It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity. ... It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things. ... This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church. ... it separates the soul from God to associate it with demons. This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God. ... She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice. ... She humiliates her slave in the church and condemns him court; she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire ... this unfortunate man (he) is deprived of all moral sense. his memory fails and mind's vision is darkened. Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I say more?
Wolves, Not Shepherds
Who can expect the flock to prosper when its shepherd has sunk so deep into the bowels of the devil? ... Who will make a mistress of a cleric, or a woman of a man? ... Who, by his lust, will consign a son whom he spiritually begotten for God to slavery under the iron law of Satanic tyranny? ... a religious superior guilty of sodomy has not only committed a sacrilege with his spiritual son, but has also violated the law of nature. Such a superior damns not only his own soul, but takes another with him. [From Peter Damian by Blum.]
A Few Short Quotes:
- "Tell us, you unmanly and effeminate man, what do you seek in another male that you do not find in yourself?"
- "For God’s sake, why do you damnable sodomites pursue the heights of ecclesiastical dignity with such fiery ambition?"
- "By what right or by what law can one bind or loose the other when he is constrained by the bonds of evil deeds common to them both?"
- "It is not sinners, but the wicked who should despair; it is not the magnitude of one’s crime, but contempt of God that dashes one’s hopes."
- "The problem of overtly lax canons and penances for clerical and religious offenders make a mockery of the seriously sinful nature of homosexual acts."
2. Cardinal O'Connell of Boston
3. Cardinal Spellman of
New York
5. The Curious Case of Pope Pius XII
6. Rome Turns a Blind Eye, the Relaxation of Seminary Standards Begun under Pius XII
8. Known Prelates of the Homosexual Hive
8b. Cardinal Bernardin, the Most Influentual Sodomite in Modern Times: a Tribute to Depravity
9. All Roads Lead to
Rome: Pope Paul VI
The Chastisement of the Sinful Priest by St. Alpohnsus Liguori
The Chastity of the Priest by St. Alphonsus Liguori
11. From Christ's Directory:
PRAYER FOR PRIESTS AND THOSE DESTINED FOR THE PRIESTHOOD
WITH CONSECRATION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
12. From the Priests' Directory:
FATIMA AND THE PRIESTHOOD
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