In this episode Trent reviews statements from German priests and even cardinals about their growing dissent over the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.
Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers’ apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. And today we’re going to talk about dissent in Germany and among other European Catholics over the church’s perennial teaching on sexuality. And what really startled me was that you can find priests, and I had done an online article about a group of priests that came out in Germany saying that the church’s teaching should change. And we’ll talk about that. But you can find whackadoodle priests saying whackadoodle things all over the place. It’s a lot more concerning when you see people like bishops or cardinals advocating for dissent against things that have always been taught for 2000 years.
Trent Horn:
So here is what this article, is in the National Catholic Reporter. So I have two articles from there, then another one at NBC.com, I want to share with you. But this is what it says. “Top EU cardinal calls for change in church teaching on gay relationships.” So Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Jesuit who leads the Pan-European Catholic Bishop’s Conference has called for a change in the church’s teaching on homosexuality. And this is a big deal. That would be like if the head of the USCCB here in the United States said that the church’s teaching should change. So he says the church’s assessment of homosexual relationships as sinful is wrong. He says, “I believe that the sociological scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct. It’s time for a fundamental revision of church teaching.”
Trent Horn:
So how could somebody say something like this? Well, revisionist scholars, and I got a whole bunch of them in my bookshelf behind me, because actually that is a project I’m working on now. I’m playing around with a new book. When I write books, it’s funny, I’ll sometimes have like three books going at once that I’ll get this creative drive and I’ll start hitting the keyboard furiously and get 3,000 words done. And suddenly, when I’m out of gas on that topic, I’m out of gas. And I’ll want to write about something else. And I’ll jump to a new word document and I’ll start working on something else. So I have to like be creative in the writing process. I actually sometimes have multiple books or multiple writing projects going at the same time so if I get bored with one, I turn to the other.
Trent Horn:
And one of them is a book I’m tentatively thinking of calling refuting gay Catholicism. I don’t know if that’s too blunt of a title or not. But it would address two types of people who challenge the church’s teaching on sexual ethics, on LGBT issues, things like that. One would be dissenters. People like Cardinal Hollerich. And this kind of thing, like, oh, the sociological scientific foundation of the teaching is not correct. We have heard this old song and dance since the 1970s. Okay, I’m going to grab this. As I said, this is an old song and dance we’ve heard since the 1970s. I just quick grabbed off my bookshelf here a book called The Church and the Homosexual by John McNeill, Father McNeill. I don’t know. I don’t know either if he’s still alive or if he’s still a priest, honestly. But he was a priest when he wrote this book. And it was originally published back in the ’70s. And I think that what I have here is the fourth edition from 1993.
Trent Horn:
But this is basically, already back in the ’70s, oh, we’ve misunderstood the teaching on homosexuality. What they’ll say is that the Bible and tradition only condemn exploitative same sex relationships, right? So what they’ll say is, oh, well in the Bible when it says, “No man shall lie with a man.” Well, they’ll say that’s the Old Testament so it doesn’t count now. But they’ll say that Paul in Romans 1, or 1st Corinthians 6:9, where there, if you read in your RSV in 1st Corinthians 6:9, it says in the RSV translation, “Homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The new American Bible puts male prostitutes and sodomites. So you can even see in some of the other translations, they’ll try to say that Paul is only talking about prostitution, exploitative relationships, pederasty, that is what is being condemned. And they’ll say that people like St Paul and others, they had no idea, or they’ll even say Jesus had no idea, even though he is omniscient, that there could be same sex relationships that are on par with male, female relationships. They’ll say that they only had in mind exploitative relationships.
Trent Horn:
And so you have people like Cardinal Hollerich who will argue, oh, the scientific foundation of the teaching isn’t correct. We now understand more about same sex attraction. Or they’ll say, the other argument is, Paul and others like him didn’t know that this was an orientation. That all they knew was that you could be attracted to almost anybody, and if you let things get out of a hand, you might engage in same sex relationships. And they thought this could be true for anyone. And that Paul didn’t know there were some people who were only attracted to others of the same sex. So maybe it is natural for them.
Trent Horn:
Now that’s a very implausible proposition to offer because Paul was a scholar in his own right. He understood Greco-Roman culture. He would quote Greek poets. And when you read in Greco-Roman literature, there are stories about people who are only attracted to others of the same sex, and have relationships that are actually not too dissimilar to what we see today. A big example of that would be Plato’s symposium. He talks about people that would seem to have kind of an innate orientation.
Trent Horn:
But even if that were the case, even if Paul didn’t know this, we’re wrong, we found out that this attraction was innate. That doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ve done more research in the past 2,000 years of psychology to find out that you can have an innate genetic predisposition to alcoholism. You could have that, it could be something that runs in your family, or other kinds of mental illness or personality disorders. It’s quite possible those are innate inclinations we have as well. But guess what? That doesn’t change the fact that the Bible says that drunkenness is a sin, that dwelling on anger is a sin. Just because something is innate doesn’t mean that it’s natural.
Trent Horn:
That’s a big thing that people fail to understand. They’ll think that, oh, well, if I feel it within inside me, it’s natural. No, no, no, no. It’s innate. But natural would mean what corresponds to your nature, what God wants you to be. So I’ll cover that more. And I think I’m probably going to and end up doing that book. I think that would be a lot of fun. Well, it’s not a fun topic. But I enjoy really researching a lot of this dissent.
Trent Horn:
Oh, by the way. So part one of that book, if I’m refuting gay Catholicism, would be on people like Cardinal Hollerich, Father McNeil. This stuff is also Boswell, Same Sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe, trying to say this is something the church tolerated or winked at for a long time. Part one would be the dissenters. Part two would be the confusers. These are the people who have not come outright challenging the teaching, but confuse people about the teaching. Who am I talking about? Well, his name rhymes with Father Shmartin. So that would be included in there. It’s in the baby stages, in the embryonic stages. But I think it’s something that’s well worth writing about.
Trent Horn:
Zoe goes on, “He made these comments in response to the public campaign by 125 Catholic church employees who outed themselves as queers, saying they want to live openly without fear in the church. ‘It is important for us to remain human,’ Hollerich said. He knew of homosexual priests and lay people in the archdiocese of Luxembourg. ‘And they know that they have a home in the church,’ said the cardinal. ‘With us, no one is dismissed because they’re homosexual. With us, no one has ever been dismissed because of that.'”
Trent Horn:
But here’s the problem. Here is the big problem why I don’t like using terms like gay Catholic, homosexual, LGBT Catholic. And The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said recently that these are terms that we should not use, because they put the human person into a box and they become confusing. That’s why the RSV’s translation, I could see how someone might be confused by it when it says, “Homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That does not mean someone who merely has a same sex orientation will not inherit the kingdom of God, anymore than a man who has an orientation to want to commit adultery, but says no to that orientation, or people who are unmarried might have an inclination to commit fornication. And they say no to that inclination. So there is a difference, obviously, between your inclination and desires and how you choose to act upon them.
Trent Horn:
So in the one sense, yeah, just because someone has same sex attraction, it doesn’t mean that we never talk with them and that they have no place in the church. But we treat that like other sexual attractions or other attractions to sinful things that are not good for us, like attractions to money, for example. Paul says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” What if someone says, “I love money. I love it. And it’s something that I want to have a lot of. I don’t want to give it away.”? That’s a natural feeling people have. But you say no to that natural feeling. Because if you say yes to it, Jesus says you can’t serve God.
Trent Horn:
And Mammon. Now, the difference there, of course, is that there’s no specific. It’s like, there’s no specific action that is greed. It’s like in the moral life, there are some things that are of specific actions. Like abortion is a specific action. Taking the child out for the purpose of killing him or her before they can survive outside of the womb is a specific action. But other things like greed. Even anger, there’s a spectrum. Paul says, in his letter to the Ephesians, “Be angry, but don’t let the sun set on your anger.” So you can have righteous anger and unrighteous anger.
Trent Horn:
But here with sexuality, it’s very clear. If you engage in this sex act, that is contrary to the natural purposes God created for us, that’s wrong. So one thing I don’t like here is this, oh, we don’t want to dismiss them, they who are homosexual. You’re lumping in saying we want to not push people away because of their inclination, which is a good thing, along with, well, it doesn’t matter what you do. We’re not going to dismiss you. The actions are important. And there’s no concern here at all.
Trent Horn:
And I think what gives rise to this dissent, this is another book I got to write, is this idea of basic universalism, that nobody’s go going to hell. You don’t have to worry. The church only exists for social welfare programs. You don’t worry about anyone going to hell. So if you don’t worry about anyone going to hell, the next thing you worry about is keeping people happy. Then there’s no concern here for engaging in sexual activity that is contrary to God’s plan, number one. And number two, frankly, it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t stop there. Mark Regnerus published a survey, a survey a few years ago, showing that Christians who identify as LGBT, they’re much more likely to say there’s nothing wrong with pornography. There’s nothing wrong with abortion. So it’s really not parallel. It’s the tip of the iceberg in this situation. So that’s something to be concerned about there.
Trent Horn:
And what’s referring to earlier is these 125 employees when the German Catholic church come out saying, “Well, we don’t want to hide anymore.” “More than 120 employees of the Catholic church in Germany publicly outed themselves queer on Monday, saying they want to live openly without fear in the church, and pushing demands for it to allow the blessing of same sex couples and change its labor rules.” The idea that, well, if you’re in a relationship, a public relationship that contradicts church teaching, you should be fired. If you are publicly contradicting the teaching of the church and you work for the church, you should be fired. Now, I do agree that it’s unfair if a Catholic school hires someone in a same sex relationship, because the school doesn’t really care anyways. I’ve seen this happen time and time and time again. The school hires a lesbian teacher, knows they’re in this kind of relationship. And the principal, frankly, could probably be LGBT herself, I’ve seen this personally before, and doesn’t care. Thinks it’s great and hires the person. Then 10 years later, the Bishop finds out, or the person chooses to publicly get married, announces their wedding to students. And then the Bishop finds out. And the Bishop says they got to go. And the school doesn’t want to lose their, because the Bishop can strip the school’s ability to call themselves Catholic if they’re not under the Jesuits or something like that.
Trent Horn:
So the school fires the teacher. And now, in this case, I think it is almost a little unfair in this situation. I still don’t think the teacher should work there, but I understand that it’s really not the teacher’s fault as much as it is the principal. It’s sort of like the permissive parent who lets their kids get away with everything. Then the other parent tells them, “Hey, get their act together.” And they panic, like, “You guys are all grounded for life.” Like, well dude, you let them get away with this stuff for months. And now you’re dropping the hammer. That’s not fair.
Trent Horn:
So when I’ve seen that, it’s unfortunate. But my point is that in other cases, I’ve seen people who were fired. I know people, well, not know personally. I’ve read stories about people who were fired. A guy gets his girlfriend pregnant, commits fornication. He’s fired. If I had an affair with somebody, here’s the pink slip, you got to go. Now, think about it. Imagine if you changed, because you could take this whole line of thinking and say, well, maybe adultery is wrong, but consensual non-monogamy, open relationships. I’m telling you I’ll put money on it right now, in 20 years, that’ll be the next one that the dissenters will argue about. Maybe the Bible doesn’t really condemn. This is what they’re going to do. I’m going to put money on it. 20 years from now, maybe sooner, they’re going to say that non-monogamous relationships aren’t wrong. The Bible only condemns patriarchal, possessive, exploitative adultery, not open, ethical, non-monogamy polyamory, blah, blah, blah nonsense. And that’s what they’re going to try to argue.
Trent Horn:
And imagine if someone tried to argue the [inaudible 00:14:57] saying, “Well, look, I have a mistress, and I don’t want to live in fear of this teaching just because I have a mistress or something like that.” What about people who are racists? What about people who have racist inclinations, who work in the church, saying, “I don’t want to live in fear of being found out about my racism. I want to come out openly.” It really does boggle the mind.
Trent Horn:
And then here’s the last one. Black gay priest in New York city challenges Catholicism from within. This is about Father Bryan Massingale. Let’s see here. “Parishioners worshiping at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Harlem are greeted by a framed portrait of Martin Luther king Jr. A Baptist minister named after a rebellious German priest excommunicated in the Catholic church. The Reverend, Bryan Massingale, who sometimes preaches at St. Charles pursues his ministry in ways that echo both Martin Luthers. So Father Massingale has done a lot on racial issues within the Catholic church. And I think he also dissents against the church’s teaching on homosexuality.
Trent Horn:
I go down here. Like the German Martin Luther, Massingale is often at odds with official church teaching. He supports the ordination of women and making celibacy optional for clergy. And as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church’s doctrine on same sex relations. It’s always just sugar coated over with the same stuff. He said in a recent homily that he envisioned a world “Where the dignity of every person is respected and protected, where everyone is loved.” As if calling people towards sanctification is not respecting their dignity. If anything, saying that they are incapable of leading a holy life, it does not respect their dignity.
Trent Horn:
In 1st Corinthians 6:9 through 10, Paul says, “A lot of people will not inherit the kingdom of God.” He says, “Fornicators, idolaters, drunkards, revilers, like people who start fights and stuff, those who engage in homosexual relationships. And the two words there, by the way, it’s not prostitutes. It’s referring to the active and passive partners in a same sex relationship. The greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God. He goes through a long list. But then he says, “But as such, were some of you .” 1st Corinthians 6:11, “As such were some of you, but not anymore. You were washed, you were sanctified in the Lord, Jesus Christ.” Isn’t that what we should be preaching? Our focus is always on our savior, Jesus Christ, and what he does for each one of us, to put off the old man and to put on the new man in Christ.
Trent Horn:
So he goes on. I can’t seem to find it here. Oh, he says, “Nearly half of black US adults who were raised Catholic no longer identify as such, with many becoming Protestants.” I think reaching out to the black community is something that is really important. And I think that’s an area obviously to work on. There’s a big historical precedent. It’d be too complicated to get into now about why Catholicism in the United States has such low membership in the black community, when that’s not the case throughout the world. Catholicism is thriving, for example, in many places in Africa. I love when I go into a Catholic church here and I see we have a Nigerian priest who’s going to get up and speak, because they don’t pull any punches. I love it.
Trent Horn:
I was talking with a priest once. And he was saying how difficult it can be to preach on issues like contraception or homosexuality. And he said, my friends from Nigeria though, they just tell it like it is. This priest friend of mine, he said, “I’ll try to give a homily in homosexuality. And I’ll be so nervous. When my Nigerian priest friend, he’ll get up at the ambo. And he’ll say, ‘These things about gay relationships, this is from the devil. This is from the devil. Jesus does not want us to do this.’ And will just tell it like it is.” I love it. And then they’ll do the dancing in mass and just singing. If I hear a homily from a Nigerian priest, 9 times out of 10, he ends up singing something. And I love it. And it’s great.
Trent Horn:
So it’s interesting to hear this statistic, nearly half of black US adults raised no longer identify as such. I don’t think that’s that alarming of a statistic because here at the Pew Research Center, this is true of adults in general. It says half of US adults raised Catholic have left the church at some point. So take that as you will. And this teaching on sexual ethics, it will be the one that will separate the wheat from the chaff, the goats from the sheep. That is the real thing. What are you going to worship? Are you going to worship God or worship modern society and its code of ethics, and what it says is right or wrong?
Trent Horn:
Here’s a quick one, quick bonus one, of what’s going to be right or wrong. This is from Wesley Smith. Great bioethicist. Definitely read him. He has a great book on euthanasia called Forced Exit, Our Looming Procreative Anarchy. This is on National Review. And he’s talking about an article in the reproductive and fertility medical journal where a bioethicist there asks, is there a valid, ethical objection to the clinical use of in vitro derived gametes? What that means is, what if we took somebody’s body cells like their skin cells and turned those skin cells into sperm and egg, and then you could create a person? It’s basically like cloning.
Trent Horn:
And the author of this says, IVG, so not just IVF, in vitro fertilization, not just by an embryo from sperm and egg, but taking body parts and making sperm and egg. Like, you could take my cell, make sperm and egg out of them that are from my DNA. And it’s kind of like a clone of myself, or you could mix it with another person. So it says, by doing this technology, biological parenthood could conceivably be made accessible to the deceased, postmenopausal women, single individuals, same sex couples, groups of more than two individuals, children, fetuses, and embryos.
Trent Horn:
You could take a fetus, take genetic material from it, creates sperm and egg and then create an embryo so that this parent, so you could have a situation where you could use technology to give birth to two babies, maybe just like a month or two apart. And the baby that’s two months older is the biological parent of the other baby because you get, oh, well, as long as it’s not hurting anybody.
Trent Horn:
One day, the Frankenstein stuff will catch up, but we have to be ready and get out ahead of it because this idea that, as long as it doesn’t hurt, as long as everyone consents. I’m sorry, children created this way didn’t consent to have two men as their parents and to not have a mother at all, or to have their parent be a fetus somewhere else. Get out ahead of it, folks. We need to be able to do that. That’s why we have to stand firm for the church’s teaching on sexuality, on life and these important rights and the dignity of the human person. Well, I hope that was helpful for you all. Thank you, guys, so much for watching. And I just hope you have a very blessed day.
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