Many heresies that infiltrated the early Church stemmed from false anthropology. An erroneous notion of human nature leads to a false theology and a mistaken notion about the nature of the Creator. Several Gnostic heresies in the early centuries of the Church are typical examples.1
Something similar happens today with the homosexual heresy that has infiltrated the Church. More than a heresy, it is a new religion grounded in Gnosticism that affirms one better understands the nature of God through homosexuality. Its believers claim God created homosexual men and women to better reflect His image and likeness.
Fr. Jim McDermott, S.J., a fellow editor of America Magazine with Fr. James Martin, S.J., expounds this doctrine in a sacrilegious and blasphemous article in the magazine of the American Jesuits.2 The title summarizes his thesis: “The Catholic Church Needs L.G.B.T. Saints.” The author bluntly declares: “I’m gay.”3
Homosexuals “Offer a Glimpse of Who God Is”
Here we will emphasize a single point of the article that sheds new light (or new darkness) on the doctrine underlying the homosexual movement and its infiltration of the Catholic Church. It explains the attitudes of many high-ranking members of the hierarchy and priests in this matter.
Fr. McDermott’s doctrine on the need for homosexuality to better know God can be reduced to a false syllogism, which he formulates in his own words:
- “As Catholics we believe that each of us is born in the image and likeness of God. Not just straight people, white people or men—everyone.”
- “To say that God created us or that we are made in God’s image is to say that we offer a glimpse of who God is.”
- Therefore, “any of us [homosexuals] could be such a gift, a way by which others may come to know God and themselves better.”
Fr. McDermott fails to distinguish between the homosexual tendency, which, although intrinsically disordered, is not sinful as such and can be resisted with the help of grace, and the practice of homosexuality which is condemned by natural and Divine law, as taught by the Church. He mentions only “L.G.B.T. people” which refers to those who practice this vice, or support the homosexual movement. Thus we can assume he refers to those who practice homosexuality or is an “ally.”
“Image and Likeness of God” as Homosexuals?
The fallacy implies that homosexuals are created in the image and likeness of God, not as humans, but as homosexuals.
He says: “As Catholics we believe that each of us is born in the image and likeness of God. Not just straight people, white people or men—everyone.” (“Everyone” is an indirect way to say “homosexuals” as opposed to “straight people.”)
He deems this a “truth of our faith”—a dogma.
It is true that all men were created in the image and likeness of God. Indeed, this is a “truth of our faith.” However, it is wrong and blasphemous to imply that the practice of the sin against nature somehow resembles or reflects the Divine nature, and that this is a “truth of our faith.” That is to introduce sin into God Himself.
Image and Likeness
Saint Thomas says “it is manifest that in man there is some likeness to God, copied from God as from an exemplar.”4 Now, homosexual practice, being at odds with human nature as God created it, cannot be a copy of the Divine nature.
The same saint says the image and likeness of man to God stems above all from his rational nature.5 However, homosexuality runs counter to human reason, the natural law, and therefore goes against a likeness with God. Although similarity with the Creator is imprinted in human nature, man does not always and necessarily act according to it. Man can sin grievously if, using his free will, he is unfaithful to grace and gives free reign to the lawless concupiscence resulting from Original Sin. Through sin, the Angelic Doctor says, the image of God is obscured and disfigured.6
Though in his nature, a sinner maintains a likeness to God the Creator, no sin resembles His Supreme Holiness or offers “a glimpse of who God is.”
The Doctrine Behind “Who am I to judge?”
According to Fr. McDermott, this “truth of our faith” forms the basis of Pope Francis’s theology and thoughts about the practice of homosexuality:
“It is this truth of our faith . . . that allowed Francis to say, when asked a question about gay priests, ‘If a gay person is in eager search of God, who am I to judge them?’”
This new “truth of our faith,” the Jesuit continues, “has allowed him [Pope Francis] to praise the work of organizations like New Ways Ministry and people like Jeannine Gramick, S.L., and my colleague James Martin, S.J., all of whom have been ministering to L.G.B.T. Catholics, in Sister Gramick’s case for over 50 years . . .”
“If we [homosexuals] are children of God like everyone else,” Fr. McDermont insists, “then we should be afforded the same care and respect that they are.”
Taking a Principled not a Personal Stand
As practicing Catholics, we are filled with compassion and pray for those who struggle against violent temptation to sin, be it toward homosexual sin or otherwise.
We are conscious of the enormous difference between these individuals who struggle with their weaknesses and strive to overcome them and others who transform their sin into a reason for pride, and try to impose their lifestyle on society as a whole, in flagrant opposition to traditional Christian morality and natural law. However, we pray for them too.
According to the expression attributed to Saint Augustine, we “hate the sin but love the sinner.” And to love the sinner, as the same Doctor of the Church explains, is to wish for him the best we can possibly desire for ourselves, namely, “that he may love God with a perfect affection.” (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, No. 49, www.newadvent.org/fathers/1401.htm)
An Anthropological Error . . .
This new religion, which holds that the practice of homosexuality is a virtue by which one can achieve holiness, is based on the false premise that God created some people heterosexual and others homosexual. This conclusion would mean He made two different human natures: one heterosexual and one homosexual.
This assumption contradicts Scripture, which says that God “created them male and female” (Gen. 5:2) and also Divine wisdom. How could God create homosexual people and at the same time forbid homosexuality? For all created things are oriented toward their end.
. . . That Leads to a Theological Error
We must insist that homosexuality contradicts human nature as God created it and cannot offer “a glimpse of who God is.” The only way to affirm this contradiction is by changing the concept of God. By claiming to change human nature, the homosexual movement in the Church also changes the nature of God.
If an evil man’s deeds were caused by his nature which God created in His image and likeness, the inevitable consequence would be that Divine nature itself would be evil and the cause of all moral evil, as many Gnostics claimed.
Joseph Cardinal Tobin and 13 U.S. Archbishops and Bishops are “on your Side”
The Jesuit priest’s doctrine is not an isolated or insignificant opinion. America Magazine, one of the most influential religious magazines in the country, is marketing this opinion through a major promotional campaign:
“America recently launched a national marketing campaign called #OwnYourFaith. This article is part of a series of essays tackling the questions many Catholics are asking about the church and the world. It’s time to #OwnYourFaith.”
Moreover, an American cardinal and several bishops shared this doctrine in a pro-L.G.B.T. “manifesto” mentioned in Fr. McDermott’s article:
“‘Know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side,’ Cardinal Joseph Tobin and 13 other U.S. archbishops and bishops wrote in a statement last December, speaking to L.G.B.T. youth.”7
This article appeared shortly after the release of the propaganda film about Fr. James Martin’s pro-homosexual activism. Titled Building a Bridge, it is directed by the notoriously blasphemous filmmaker Martin Scorsese.8
A Delirious, Atheistic and Fetishistically Credulous Canticle
All this reveals the extent of the terrible crisis in the religious and temporal spheres. It leads us to ask, with Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira:
“[T]o what degree may a Catholic perceive the deceitful flashes, the canticle (at once sinister and attractive, soothing and delirious, atheistic and fetishistically credulous) with which, from the bottom of the abysses where he lies eternally, the Prince of Darkness attracts those who have denied Jesus Christ and His Church?”9
“Adjutorium Nostrum in Nomine Domini”
“Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini, qui fecit caelum et terram.” (“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” (Ps 123:8)
Through the intercession of Our Lady, He will help us remain faithful to the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us beseech God to shorten these terrible times and fulfill soon Our Lady’s promise at Fatima: Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Top photo credit: © Andre – stock.adobe.com
Footnotes:
1. Cf. John Arendzen, “Gnosticism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909), Vol. 6. Retrieved June 3, 2022 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm.
2. Jim McDermott, “The Catholic Church needs L.G.B.T. saints,” America Magazine, June 2, 2022, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/06/02/lgbt-saints-catholic-243073.
3. All quotations of Fr. McDermont are from his article cited.
4. Summa Theologica, I, q. 93, a.1.
5. Id. I, q. 93, a. 6.
6. Id. Ibid. a. 8.
7. Jim McDermott, op. cit. See also “God Is On Your Side” statement at https://tylerclementi.org/catholicbishopsstatement/, accessed June 7, 2022.
8. Cf. Luiz Sérgio Solimeo, “Father Martin Smiles at the Sin of Homosexuality and Pope Francis Thanks Him,” May 27, 2022, https://www.tfp.org/father-martin-smiles-at-the-sin-of-homosexuality-and-pope-francis-thanks-him/.
9. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution, https://www.tfp.org/revolution-and-counter-revolution/, accessed June 6, 2022.