Pope Francis died Monday, the day after Easter. He was 88 years old. Beloved by many, this first Latin American pontiff was chosen partly to pursue an ongoing mission of cleaning up alleged, financial corruption in the Vatican. To his great credit, this most affable pope was known mostly for his advocacy for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized. Many young people were drawn to Pope Francis. And he did make progress at the Vatican with financial reforms.
But there was one other black mark against the Roman Catholic Church that needed to be cleaned up as well, and that was its pedophile priests and homosexuality among priests. Pope Francis had a mixed record on this at best. He once said of the matter, “Who am I to judge?”
What! I thought that’s what leaders are expected to do. Of course, we are not to judge in the sense Jesus cautions in Matthew 7.1-5. But that is about hypocritical judging. Jesus did not teach therein that there should be no judging. Leaders, including church leaders, must make judgments of various kinds all the time.
Pope Francis’s Remarks on Homosexuality
Pope Francis had said to reporters in 2013 regarding homosexuality, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?” Members of the LGBTQ who were Catholic regarded that statement as an approval of homosexuality. Yet to this day, the Church condemns homosexuality as sin.
In 1992, the previous Pope Benedict, as director of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which determines or approves Catholic teaching, had authored an official Vatican declaration on homosexuality. It said, “a homosexual orientation is a objective disorder and a tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil.” This remains to this day the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, and I believe it is biblical.
Pope Francis’ remark about homosexuality caused an uproar among many Catholics. Perhaps to assuage this discontent, he later alleged during a meeting with clerics that there was an “atmosphere of faggotry” at the Vatican. It was not the first time he had so alleged. He also reportedly had assented to the need to ban homosexual young men from Catholic seminaries. This harsh language seemed to contradict his previous statement, “Who am I to judge?”
The Apostle Paul on Sexual Immorality
The Bible has some very sobering statements that condemn sexual immorality which includes homosexuality. For instance, the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?” (1 Corinthians 5.1-2 NRSV).
Paul was pretty upset about this matter. He even wrote further, “I have already pronounced judgment in name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, … you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (vv. 3-5). Paul then provides an overall teaching about what constitutes being a Christian, and he doesn’t mince words about it. He further states, “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral” etc. (1 Corinthians 5.11).
The Torah on Homosexuality
We read in the Old Testament Moses’ declarations condemning homosexuality, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination,” and, “If a man lies with male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death” (Leviticus 18.22; 20.13).
The apostle Paul begins his magisterial book of Romans by declaring in its first chapter, referring to previous generations, “God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men” (Romans 1.26-27). Paul explains that God “gave them up” to these passions because they had “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” with their idols (v. 25).
More from Paul
Paul writers further in his letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6.9-11).
But what if a person has considerable trouble with being tempted with sexual immorality of any kind. This reminds me of the Bible account about Cain slewing his brother Abel due to jealousy (Genesis 4.1-8). Before it happened, God saw Cain’s jealous anger and warned him about it by saying, “If you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (v. 7). Cain obviously didn’t listen, but went and planned the murder of his brother Abel and did it (v. 8).
Are a Majority of Cardinals Homosexual?
As Roman Catholics attended the funeral of Pope Francis this Saturday morning at the Vatican, cardinals had been gathering there previously to discuss and choose the next pope to succeed him. A disturbing announcement was made last Monday by Professor Rik Torfs, a canon law expert at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, in which he charges that perhaps most of those cardinals who will choose the next pope are homosexuals. Torfs stated, “A paradoxical situation remains. On the one hand, homosexual relations are considered sinful but on the other, a significant percentage—probably the majority—of cardinals are homosexual.” He added for support, “People I know in the Vatican think it’s a large majority.”
Conclusion
This is not a subject I relish to write about, especially with our world now so accepting of homosexuality. But regarding homosexuals and pedophiles being more common in the Catholic clergy than one would expect, I think it reveals the celibacy of the Catholic priesthood has been a misguided and non-biblical enterprise. What do you think?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In