The Catholic Church in Italy, next month, will be sponsoring its second-ever National Queer Christian Youth Retreat. With the theme ‘Lazarus, come out’—a blasphemous mockery of the words spoken by our Lord as He raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11, 1–44)—the event is ‘an invitation [to those that are 18 to 35 years of age who identify themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community] to stop, to listen, to let ourselves be called by name. A time to go through our nights and our interior tombs, to let ourselves be reached by a Word that calls to life, to relationships, to a shared journey.’
Unfortunately, this new psycho-driven phase in the Church today, which focuses on finding a solution outside the Gospel teachings for those who have an active role in the LGBTQ+ lifestyle, has become standard. Just last month, the Italian Episcopal Conference’s journal L’Avvenire published a piece titled ‘Come si cresce un figlio che non riesce a riconoscersi nel proprio corpo’ (‘How to raise a child who can’t recognize himself in his own body’), which counsels parents to understand and accept the legitimacy of their children’s argument that God had created them inside the wrong biological body. Nothing, of course, is mentioned on how God created male and female as detailed in the Books of Genesis, let alone prayer, relying on the Sacraments, perseverance, etc.
Without a doubt, given the LGBTQ+ bombardment minors undergo on social media, television, in schools, in the political sphere, and, regrettably, even in church circles, it should not be surprising that an adolescent’s curiosity yields to such influence.
Ever since the fall of man (Genesis 3, 1–6), our natural inclination has been to please ourselves instead of pleasing God. Our human attempts to be good, as St. Paul taught, fall far short of God’s perfection:‘There is no one just, not even one’ (Romans 3, 10).
‘Ever since the fall of man, our natural inclination has been to please ourselves instead of pleasing God’
The Apostle’s admonition in Romans was directed toward the Jews who believed that they could be shielded from God’s judgment for their personal sin just because they were part of the nation of Israel, the chosen People. This approach, that of self-righteousness, is exactly what is being communicated by Catholic churchmen to those who actively live a homosexual lifestyle or who seek to have their sexual gender biologically changed, if they have not done so already. What is worse is that minors, including pre-adolescents, have been entrapped in the campaign of portraying sexual disorientation vis-à-vis the LGBTQ+ as normal.
The fact that the Church is telling us to hear, as opposed to properly guide, those who have a same-sex orientation or claim that God created them inside the wrong body, thereby having the full right to surgically alter it, has become an endorsement of an ideology that also preys on minors.
It is not just the doctors who perform these procedures who are to be held responsible before God, but the parents who provided the ways and means for their children to undergo whatever surgical procedure to change their sex are equally guilty. They scar these young people’s lives forever as they face daily physical, mental, and spiritual torments as a result.
One of the tactics LGBTQ+ protagonists use to advance their cause is to constantly present themselves as victims of physical and/or verbal threats they face in the workplace, social gatherings, church services, etc. And, there is absolutely no place for this. Yet, while the mainstream media hypes this up, nothing is mentioned as to how violent LGBTQ+ advocates can be. The most recent salient and tragic example was the assassination of Charlie Kirk by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.
While the exact motive is still to be deciphered in court, Robison, who was in a ‘romantic relationship’ with a male transitioning to female, viewed Kirk’s positions as hateful—in reality, all one has to do is see what Kirk advocated, which was traditional family values without ever judging those who live contrary to the natural law, let alone incite hatred or violence!
The real shame, as already indicated, is that, regardless of the cause(s) of such sexual disorientation—and here I speak as a Roman Catholic priest—the Church has legitimized LGBTQ+ lifestyles as a natural branch of Catholicism. And this is crucial, for the Church sets the tone for most of those who align themselves with the teachings of Christ. The paradox is that, under the pretension of elevating such individuals as victims of hate and discrimination, they become further marginalized.
‘What is needed is a reminder to convert from sin…so that we may truly live freely as God created us’
Human sexuality is not merely a desire but a gift ordered toward two inseparable ends: the conjugal union between a man and a woman in marriage and their openness to life. From this perspective, homosexuality is a tendency that prevents the full realization of God’s creative design for human love since it lacks both complementarity and fruitfulness. So far as transgenderism, it is an affront that God created us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1, 26–27).
What is needed is a reminder to convert from sin—and this applies to each and every single one of us—so that we may truly live freely as God created us. Hence, the reason why the Son of God was made incarnate and dwelt among us, died in our place, and rose from the dead to vanquish death and sin forever:
‘For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15, 3–4).
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