St. Peter Damien - a new translation of The Book of Gomorrah ...

My first post on gay stuff in a month.

Yeah - you homos tell me that's all I write about when I write stuff you don't like.  What?

So anyway.

I wasn't really aware that the earlier translations Peter Damien's treatise were 'adulterated', though I knew gay revisionist scholars had attempted to discredit both saint and the general acceptance of the work - claiming the Pope pretty much rejected the letter.  New scholarship disproves that theory - revisionist claims I never accepted in the first place.  Now if only someone would redeem the reputation of St. Aelred from claims that he is some sort of gay friendship guru and gay saint.

From the Catholic World Report interview:

Ite ad Thomam Books and Media has now published a rigorous and careful translation ofThe Book of Gomorrah, praised by scholars as “highly readable”, “clear and well-articulated”, and “excellent and accurate”. Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, recently corresponded with the translator, Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, who is a graduate student at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and a regular contributor to a number of Catholic periodicals, including CWR.

CWR: What is The Book of Gomorrah and why did St. Peter Damian write it?

Matthew Cullinan Hoffman: The Book of Gomorrah is letter written to Pope St. Leo IX around the year 1049 in response to an epidemic of sodomy among the priests of Italy, which Peter Damian feared would bring down the wrath of God upon the Church. This plague of sexual perversion was part of a larger crisis of moral laxity in the priesthood, including widespread sexual incontinency and illicit marriages, the simoniacal purchasing of clerical ordination, and the prevalence of a worldly and carnal mentality among the clergy. The laity were outraged by such behavior and were even beginning to rebel against the Church hierarchy in some places, such as Florence and Milan.

The Book of Gomorrah is an eloquent and impassioned denunciation of the vice of sodomy, describing in harrowing detail the devastating spiritual and psychological effects on those who practice it. Damian holds that sodomy is the worst of all sins because it does the greatest harm to the soul, and argues very persuasively that no priest who is habituated to such behavior should be permitted to continue in the priesthood. However, the work is not only a condemnation of evil, but also an outpouring of grief for those who have fallen into such immorality, urging them to "rise from the dead" and return to Christ, and promising them forgiveness and even spiritual glory if they repent and do penance. So the work expresses very profoundly both the justice and the mercy of God.

What I especially like is how the translator Matthew Cullinan Hoffman explains and defines the sin of Sodom - or sodomy - and the striking parallel to our times - wherein the sin of sodomy permeates Western culture.

CWR: How does Peter Damian define "sodomy" and what significance does this have?

Hoffman: This is one of the most interesting and relevant aspects of the book for the modern reader. Damian sees "sodomitic vice" as not only including homosexual acts (which he holds to be the most grievous kind of sodomy) but any form of sexual perversion, which notably includes contraception and masturbation, which he regards as closely related. In chapter four he notes that God "struck Onan, the son of Jude, with an untimely death because of this nefarious offense," that is, spilling his seed upon the ground rather than completing the sexual act in the natural way.

I believe that by placing contraception and masturbation under the heading of "sodomy" Damian is recognizing a truth that seems to be all but completely forgotten among Catholics today, and that is that the sexual revolution and the rise of the social acceptance of unnatural sexual behavior is rooted in a contraceptive mentality that divorces the sexual act from its natural procreative purpose, and tends to make it into an act of selfish, narcissistic lust. Given the almost universal acceptance of contraception in our society, is it surprising that we have become so numb and unconcerned about the rise of more perverse forms of the same fundamental vice, and even applaud them? - CWR

Like I've always said - contraception is the original sin of the sexual revolution.

St Peter Damian sees "sodomitic vice" as not only including homosexual acts (which he holds to be the most grievous kind of sodomy) but any form of sexual perversion, which notably includes contraception and masturbation, which he regards as closely related.

So anyway.  When you call people sodomites - remember that may include a whole lot of people other than gays.

I think gender-queer theory is a direct result.  Since, as Hoffman points out, "the sexual revolution and the rise of the social acceptance of unnatural sexual behavior is rooted in a contraceptive mentality that divorces the sexual act from its natural procreative purpose" - so it seems to me gender option and sexual identity derives from the same disordered social conditioning.  The result is a sort of sexual Babel.

Good luck with that.