Thinking about the story of Fr. Krzy (Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa)
There is a lot of hateful stuff on line - understandably so, since the priest in question appears to have made an attempt to hijack the Synod on the Family which began today. Sodomite is the operative word to drive home the point this guy is a filthy homosexual. That's the language I'm encountering - not unfamiliar to my ears either.
I've never felt more sad over a story like this.
When I first read the story, I thought it was sad, unfortunate, and felt badly for the guy. I imagined something sudden must have happened - and he fell in love and simply wanted to find 'happiness' with his lover and attempt to live happily ever after. Turns out he had a sort manifesto, a list of demands that the Church change her teaching, even rewrite Scripture, to accommodate and approve LGBTQ lifestyle and relationships, and so on. Equality and liberty for all. That's essentially Antichrist, anti-Christian.
How do people fall away like this?
For a religious person, I think it usually begins with a falling off of interior devotion. Faith without devotion, that is, love, weakens and is easily shaken. In Krzy's case, it might have begun shortly after arriving in Rome. Rome is incredibly romantic and dazzling, the Italians are fun, beautiful, and seductive. He may have been impressed by the glamour. He may have been seduced by the prestige of working in the Vatican. Encountering and dining with influential visitors, young acquaintances, perhaps - always happy and fun and in a Roman holiday spirit - all of which is enough to sap devotion. To neglect prayer and mortification and self-denial. To blunt humility.
One kiss ...
The lyrics from a Bozz Scaggs song came to mind as I was thinking of these things. Strange as it seems, I was reminded of St. Teresa of Avila's account of her 'falling away', as well as her tale of a priest she'd met, who had been 'charmed' by a woman. Not following that? Here's the lyric that influenced my thoughts, occasioned by some of the photos of Krzy and Edouard.
I can still remember
What you told me with your eyes
One kiss
Now it's down to this
Guess it's time you realize ... song here.
Mix that song, or one like it, with a sexually attractive person gazing at you from across the room, penetrating your 'heart' with his eyes - and you can fall - just like lightning from the sky ...
One kiss, with the eyes ... when faith and love and devotion has grown cold it is amazing how easily, how quickly we can be seduced. Like lightning - a tsunami of hot, flowing, emotion enveloping the depths of your being. The time must be ripe, the lonely heart shivering cold, the danger signals muted, the emotions and senses open to the occasion. It can happen in an instant. Through a simple, though evocative scent, a familiar taste reminding you of an earlier encounter or fantasy. Suddenly .... the fall.
The more serious the sin - or the propensity for it - the more fervent our prayer - our devotion must be.
Prayer - devotion - is incompatible with self-indulgence. (Hence my tie-in to Teresa of Avila.) Self-love, self-pleasure and self gratification cannot exist together in the devout life. Either little by little, or in one fell swoop we can return to our former way of life - which tugs at our heart - sometimes violently, inviting us to look back - perhaps just for an instant, just to glimpse the destruction of Sodom - which has a strange, fantastic appeal and exhilarating music all its own.
Back in my arms again...
The love, the passion, the vain rejoicing in natural goods ... the misappropriation of a false mysticism, leading to coveting what is lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not yours - all of that is forbidden to celibates, and when indulged, foments contempt of what is holy and sacred. The person rebels against nature. Then God and his Church. He blames the Church for his sin - and insists the Church absolve and erase the law from its books - because only the law defines it as disordered. The person sets himself in opposition to Christ - and is therefore, anti-Christ.
That. That is the scary part, as well as the extremely sad part of this story. Obstinacy in sin, rejection of the Commandments, leads to the denial of God - it makes us enemies of Christ and his Cross. We declare: I will not serve.
Yet we ask why the Blessed Virgin weeps...
I hope and pray this priest and his friend will come to understand the delusion homosexuality and lgbtq-gender-theory presents today. Fr. Krzy's apostasy demonstrates why it is so necessary to take care to avoid that 'an all too benign interpretation be given to the homosexual condition itself'. Sometimes this benign interpretation leads to the very fall we seek to avoid.
Be careful how you condemn as well - lest a worse fate fall upon you. Fr. Krzy and Edouard have the opportunity to repent and return - we may not if we condemn. And remember - no Pope caused this or accommodated this situation. Not any more than the Law or the Church invented this sin, as Krzy seems to suggest. Christ warned us and left an example of all of this in and through the conduct of his disciples.
Go and sin no more.
Jesus, I trust in you.
Our confidence is our salvation.
*If anyone reading this sees or knows these guys, tell them I will pray for both of them, Krzystof and Eduard, for the rest of my life, and give them a hug.
