Wow. That's a LOT of information. Yikes. Thanks(?) Dr. Blosser. 
No, really, it needed to be done.
Truly indeed 'a nasty little hell of a pit'.
I suppose we should clear up one tiny error, before Fr. Joe and Atiyah jump all over it:
'The rectum was designed for the absorption of nutrients from digested food before its excretion, and clearly not for introducing anything from the outside.'
One word: suppository. The 'enormous lymphatic network in the mucosa of the rectum' obviously lends the rectum to the introduction of medication from the outside. (Can you believe that we're actually having to talk about this stuff on a Catholic theology blog?!) Nevertheless, I still think that the concluding thought of Dr. Blosser's excellent post passes the "smell test" :
'Hence, the use of the anus for intercourse is quite simply unnatural, contrary to nature, counter to the purposes for which human anatomy was naturally designed.'
While it is natural to introduce a suppository into the rectum (precisely because of the vast lymphatic network therein), it is certainly NOT natural to introduce a penis, for all of the health reasons described above.
And we haven't even addressed the lack of true mutual affectivity based on sexual complementarity -- a lack which is scarcely resolved by having one of the men wear a dress.
Spirit of Vatican II,
As you reminded me, indirectly, in a previous of comment that accuracy counts I will return the favor: an unaltered chromosomal human female’s urethra exits the pelvis anterior to the her vagina. A human female does not excrete urine from her bladder through he vagina. The vagina, in this case, is not part of the excretory system at all.
An unaltered chromosomal human male, however, does transport both semen and urine in his urethra depending one whether he is using his penis in its reproductive function or in its excretory function respectively.
Zowie!
Great! This is a great hobbyhorse of a relative of mine--"Keeping saying what they are DOING; describe it; don't let them hide behind vague conceptualizations." She is entirely right. Disgusting stuff!
And thanks for the addresses. I wonder though if you know who his canonical bishop (in Ireland, I assume?) is. There must be some way of finding out.
Of course, we could just ask.
Father O'Leary, who is your canonical bishop, pray tell?
Complaints won't work in the short term, of course. But the system is slowly re-limbering itself and we help it along by using it. Bishops are beginning to imagine exercising discipline again, as well they should.
You forgot gay sex at highway rest stops. Here in New England especially in Vermont you are hard pressed to find an open rest stop. The gay activity became so dangerous police officers could not stop without being accosted. Rather than arresting the perverts- after all the cops don't want to get AIDS from being spat upon and bloodied they closed the rest areas down.
In Vermont that' what they call progress.
Necessary post but so distasteful.
I never put vaginal sex on the same level as anal sex; merely pointed out even in that case sexual and excretory are not so far apart, as Yeats noted in my quote.
Again, all I can say is that I have listened to the testimony of gay Catholics who have had the courage to give that testimony in face of brazen bullying on all sides. And their testimony is that homosexuality is not an obsession with the anus but a capacity for love, and that within the context of a loving couple sexual activities have a unitive bonding role. Sorry, but that is what they say.
I am not here as an apologist for the other sexual behavior you mention.
And what of lesbians? I am friendly with a married lesbian couple (Canadian-Irish) -- how does your hateful screed apply to them?
Mr O'Leary,
Even if males sexually attracted to other males aren't obssessed with the anus, as you aver, you even admit that they (at some point) engage in sexual activities, which both historical Judaism and Christianity categorically eschew and condemn (see James Dunn's remarks on Romans 1:26-27 in the Word Commentary series). How you justify this conduct in the light of Judeo-Christian history or Scripture is beyond me.
In any event, you say that Catholic gays have testified to the "unitive bonding role" that homosexual activity plays in the life of gay couples. Do you accept the testimony of any professed Christian at face value, even if it conflicts with massive amounts of data from the Judeo-Christian tradition? I wonder what a Catholic or Baptist (fill in the blank) pedophile might say about the "unitive bonding role" that sex plays in his/her relationships? I've heard some "christian" pedophiles wax eloquent on the subject. Yet, that does not lead me to lend much credence to their testimonies. Likewise for the narratival accounts you mention.
Father --
I'm sorry to need to be a witness for the prosecution in this case, but you did say (I can't find it exactly) that homosexual sex was analogical to heterosexual sex in important ways.
Philip:
I suppose this is the example of holding him up for everyone to see what he proudly proclaims under other circumstances? Heavy heart.
Be assured, Father O'Leary, of my prayers for you.
Bravo Mr. Blosser!
Father O'Leary you are in my prayers. I've read your screeds in defense of homosexuality ad nauseum and as someone who struggles with same sex attraction I far prefer the forthright unambiguous Christianity that I get from the likes of the Pertinacious Papist and others. Christ has saved my soul and helps me to bear this cross (and yes, it is a cross) but it has become a light yoke since I truly gave it over to Him and now it is merely a temptation that I struggle with (gee, just like heterosexuals who are commanded to live chaste lives also!) and not an obsession that defines who I am. May God bless all who speak out against the glorification of homosexuality and bless all those who help us (homosexual and heterosexual) live rightly ordered lives for the glorificatio of God. Sorry for the rant. bridgit
Sex at rest stops is as old as the hills, Mary -- it flourished especially in the 1950s, the age of flourishing sodomy laws. If you want to change this kind of gay subculture, you should be promoting civil unions.
Thanks for your piece on Bertone -- I see he is another of the anti-gay crowd in the Vatican. The entire Curia seems to be turning into one monolithic inquisition, with a sharp focus on gay issues. Consider -- former head and secretary of the CDF are now pope and secretary of state; then we have the present CDF, and Cardinal Grocholewski of Catholic Education and Cardinal Trujillo of Pont. Council for the Family (his dismal recent document still unavailable in English) -- the latter two are viciously anti-gay and are also involved in the sacking of leading Jesuit theologians.
Making the whole Curia an Inquisition is of no value whatever to our paralyzed Church. It is a totally wasteful, destructive response to the needs, including the religious needs, of humanity today.
"I'm sorry to need to be a witness for the prosecution in this case, but you did say (I can't find it exactly) that homosexual sex was analogical to heterosexual sex in important ways." Of course it is. It is well known that every single sexual practice that gays perform is also performed (and in absolute terms far more frequently) by heterosexuals. What you are thinking of is my claim that loving gay couples can share analogically in the goods of marriage. That claim is made by many moral theologians today.
Thanks for your prayers.
Bridgit, thanks for your witness. But what response have you to the countless gays who say they have tried celibacy for decades and found only unhappiness, and that they have found happiness in a quasi-marital relationship with another person? Do you dismiss them because they do not fit your current choice?
"Fr. Joseph O'Leary (who's [recte WHOSE] comment box signature is "Spirit of Vatican II"), is [recte Associate] Professor of English Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and a Catholic priest who dissents from [recte: suggests the need of development of] Catholic Church teaching on very many points, especially pertaining to Church moral (read: sexual) teaching. Another Catholic priest, Fr. J. Scott Newman (on Fr. Al Kiemel's [recte KIMEL] Pontifications weblog) once called him "a closet Anglican on the Catholic payroll," which may be an apt description for him, as he seems quite the Anglophile, enamored of the aesthetic refinement [AND SCRIPTURAL WEALTH] of Anglican liturgy, what he regards as the non-doctrinaire [BUT I PRAISE THE PURITY OF ANGLICAN DOCTRINE AND ITS WONDERFUL INTEGRATION OF PATRISTIC AND REFORMED INSIGHT] and exegetically-based Anglican homiletics, and the openness to trendy liberal agendas one finds in the Anglican communion -- including openness to gays.
But is it worth Fisking a Blosser post? It's like shooting goldfish in a goldfish bowl.
Have they really chosen chastity? Or have they looked on it as a burden to be struggled against only and then 2, 5, 10 years down the line they're not "happy" (gee, like alot of people because of different circumstances in their life)do they decide they must start a same-sex relationship or never find happiness? Everybody struggles with something, if all we do is look at our struggles as burdens instead of as means of sanctification then we'll always be unhappy. This is where many well intentioned people have been fooled and led down the primrose path. Taking the narrow road (my worst struggles have been against a society that keeps claiming this is not a sin! then any actual temptation I have) has given me more peace than I ever thought I'd have. I have fallen many times before and I'll probably fall some more! This is why God gave us confession!! So, no I can't speak for anyone else but my own redemption in Christ. This is not my "current choice" Father, it's been my lifelong choice but I am looking at it differently now, it's no longer an obsession or even a burden, its a means to sanctification, no better or worse than any cross God gives to anyone else. I finally am over myself and my poor me attitude about my particular struggle and I've gotten this attitude from Christians who teach the Truth in love, not from others who preach a false gospel. bridgit
"The other thing that's ironic is that it's very often O'Leary himself who drags the discussion into the gutter (one recalls references made in his exchanges in former debates with 'Dreadnought' and his photographs, for example)." How strange to find Philip Blosser claiming that these photos, of a near naked man in sm poses on a rooftop, are what Dreadnought claims them to be -- comparable to the Ignudi on the Sistine Chapel roof! See http://johnheard.blogspot.com/20...e-sing-
for.html
Spirit,
Your lackluster response to Bridgit's beautiful statment reveals much more about you than you likely intended. Your concern, it seems to me, is simply "happiness." From my armchair, I have diognosed you as a common hedonist, accepting an "ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good." Truth and virtue seem to have little standing. Or rather, you define these terms according to what brings you, or others you know, "happiness."
I am convinced by your frequent posts that you would theologically justify any behavior that permits you to avoid pain while maximizing pleasure. Were you a married heterosexual man, I suppose you would pronounce adultry a virtue if your wife were a bore while your secretary "understood" you. What a sad, warmed over, 1960s cliche.
Rather than advance tortured theological positions, may I suggest you immerse yourself in Holy Mother Church's rich theology on suffering? I pray God will grant you the grace to repent and pick up your cross, like Bridgit, and obediently follow Christ into glory.
"Surveys indicate that about 90% of gays have engaged in rectal intercourse, and about two-thirds do so regularly."
What surveys? If what is meant by "gays" here is "same-sex attracted men", I suggest that this is piffle.
"In a six-month long daily sexual diary study (L. Corey and K.K. Holmes, "Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men," New England Journal of Medicine, 1980:302:435-38.6), gays averaged 110 sex partners and 68 rectal encounters per year (more recent studies would likely show higher statistics)." Again what was the sample? If you suppose these statistics apply to all gay men you are talking through your hat! The universe would not be able to contain such sexual energy!
"Saliva, however, contains many germs foreign to the rectum. During rectal intercourse, the rectum therefore becomes a receptacle for a cocktail of 1) saliva and its germs and/or an artificicial [sic] lubricant, 2) the recipient's own feces, 3) whatever germs, infections, or substances the penus [sic] has on it, and 4) the seminal fluid of the penitrant."
Lubricants are also used often for vaginal intercourse. All intimate contact, including kissing, involves risk of germ transmission. Differences here are in degree not kind. Lesbians are the safest sexual partners, to compensate perhaps for the dangers of man-man sex.
"Since sperm readily penetrate the extremely thin rectal wall (only one cell's width) causing immunological damage, and tearing or brusing [sic] the anal wall is very common during rectal sex, these substances have a high possibility of gaining direct access to the blood stream. In contrast to vaginal intercourse (in which sperm cannot penetrate the multilayered vagina and no fecal matter is present), rectal intercourse is probably the most sexually common way to speading hepatitis B & C, HIV, syphilis and other blood-borne diseases (G.W. Manligit, et al., "Chronic Immune Stimulation by Sperm Alloantigens," Journal of the American Medial Association, 1984:251:237-38.
." 1984 is a long time ago; I doubt if anyone would claim this today.
" The risk of tearing the anal wall during rectal sex mounts exponentially with practices like "fisting," where the hand and arm are inserted into the rectum, or sex 'toys' (bottles, dildos, vegetables, even rodents) are inserted into the anus. The prospect of ending up with a colostomy bag for the duration of one's life is quite real." Note that these bizarre practices are not confined to gay men.
"That's just the rectal sex. Then there's fecal sex. About 80% of gays admit to licking and/or inserting their tongues into the anus of their partners (rimming) and thus ingesting medically significant amounts of fecal matter." This is complete nonsense! Even if -- on the quite implausible supposition that 80% of the world's same-sex attracted men are into "rimming", the idea that they would then "admit" it is a further implausibility. Your sources stink, Ph
"If the vagina could accept viruses, women would be dying like flies from every sort of viral disease imaginable. Women survive because nature has designed the vagina for the reception of sperm but not viruses."
Are you saying that Aids is transmitted only or chiefly by anal sex? I thought vaginal intercourse was the chief channel of transmission.
Why in the world is it necessary for homosexuals to be in a sexual relationship in order to be happy?
That is not the case for any other group of people. I'm not even simply making the point that many people choose celibacy and are happy. There are a lot of people who desire to get married but never get the opportunity to do so, and nonetheless, lead happy lives.
Bias and prejudice are patent in Philip Blosser's choice of "authorities" -- shameful in an academic. I can only pity his students to be exposed to his petty hysterical dogmatism -- his readiness to delate them to the authorities if they resist him -- his inability to spell and his chronic rampant inaccurac.
Here is what his source says about the origins of homosexual orientation:
"There is evidence that homosexuality, like drug use is "handed down" from older individuals. The first homosexual encounter is usually initiated by an older person. In separate studies 60%, (6) 64%, (3) and 61% (10) of the respondents claimed that their first partner was someone older who initiated the sexual experience."
And of course his source associates homosexuality and pedophilia etc.
But I am tired of plunging my hands into the cesspool of Dr (!) Blosser's mind...
inaccurac SHD BE inaccuracy (must be infectious!)
"Why in the world is it necessary for homosexuals to be in a sexual relationship in order to be happy?"
It may not be absolutely necessary, but it helps. What is a cause of major unhappiness to both parties is when a gay man is forced by social pressure to marry a woman.
"That is not the case for any other group of people." Perhaps not, but if you have ever seen a Hollywood movie or read a novel, the whole thing is predicated on the need of a beloved for full happiness. This probably generates a lot of unhappiness and frustration in many people.
" I'm not even simply making the point that many people choose celibacy and are happy. There are a lot of people who desire to get married but never get the opportunity to do so, and nonetheless, lead happy lives."
Absolutely. Yet is would be a severe crime against human rights to take away the "natural right to marry" of those people.
Here's that pic again, that Philip seems to like so much (the randy old dog!).
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/3...roof%
20gay1.jpg
A lot of the things you cite as causes for the unhappiness in homosexuals - social pressure, Hollywood idolizing romantic love, etc. - are things that Catholics would agree with you are things that need to be seriously reformed.
Why not zero in on those rather than the homosexuality issue?
This is the crux of the "dialog."
Father O'Leary says "hateful screed," i.e, your position is morally offensive and cannot be given credence, even for the sake of argument. So: Step One is beg the question and reject the good faith of the other side.
Step Two: The witness of "happy homosexual couples" is to be taken at face value, as is their complaints about loneliness, etc. No criticism or questioning allowed.
Step Three: Other homosexuals once claimed to be happy homosexuals but now say, "It wasn't true, it was lies and self-deception, I was hurt and I saw other people hurt by this. Thank God for people who will tell the truth about this." This testimony is to be rejected out of hand as an attack on those who differ. We can only regard their experience as, at best, applicable to them in some personally quirky way. No generalization allowed.
I guess that means that even in the abstract, it can't be that an activity which some people claim--even believe--is happiness inducing is in fact destructive. The question of what happens when large numbers of people start acting this way is so far out of bounds that it can't even honestly be put, just as with contraception and divorce. Hardly any kids and the ones there are don't know their parents and have to take care of themselves. But, hey, the couples testified that they were happy and unitive and embarked on a great spiritual journey.... To accuse them of being selfish and to ask them to be "unhappy" to avoid a deeper and more long-lasting unhappiness is...well, I guess it's "hateful screed." After all, a society of atomized and autonomous sexuality can't possibly be destructive--after all everybody is just nicely and sweetly pursuing what they claim makes them happy. Paradise should be right around the corner, if only we could do away with the "hateful screed".
This is a childish pseudo-psychological approach to moral theology and not even set up as any kind of dialog at all. We can never progress in a discussion of this kind until Fr. O'Leary grasps the reasons why we are so utterly, utterly unimpressed by arguments like, "But they are nice and they swear they are happy." But then he's not open to grasping them or even entertaining them.
Anyone who has ever, I mean EVER, had an interior conviction of personal sin and repentence, knows the depthless inadequacy of this kind of "thinking." You go on and on acting happy and tellng yourself that you are happy and smiling and living your life and then you suddenly realize that it's all a tissue of lies and self-deception and you don't know the first thing about how to live life or what happiness is supposed to be. And in despair--hope beyond despair--you reach out to God begging for salvation: "I am a sinner, save me God, I cannot save myself. Teach me Your ways and help me to walk in them."
Fr. O'Leary, it's time to repent, to wake up, put aside inte
(continued)
Fr. O'Leary, it's time to repent, to wake up, put aside intellectual and spiritual pride and find your way back to Christ. But, in the meantime you are hurting others. So: Who is your canonical bishop? From whom do you derive your priestly mission?
Let's take a look at some of Father O'Leary's style of argumentation. He is vastly prolix, so one must go in search of the gems.
To Dave:
"Dave, you are beginning to worry me. This effeminate snooping about and sniffing of other people's underpants is the obsession of a lonely man."
To Me, just beforehand:
"You have no need to use the language of a schoolyard bully."
In this context:
"Jeff, what is your basis for saying that it is an "infantile belief" that homosexuality is more common in the upper stages of the evolutionary ladder? It is either a fact or not a fact. If you can show that it is not a fact I am happy to correct my mistake. You have no need to use the language of a schoolyard bully."
Fr., is the "evolutionary ladder" a fact? Are we scientifically "higher" than, say a lion? Than a dolphin? A clam?
This is a vague, broad, sweeping generalization that could not possibly be sustained in any definitive way except by thousands, perhaps millions of studies, which would then be open to all sorts of objections. And we know that there is not such vast literature available. Besides the fact that studies potentially critical of homosexuality don't get funded. They are "hateful screeds" you see.
You and I both know that this is sheer wish fulfilment, fairy-tale nonsense couched in pseudo-scientific terminology.
Not to mention one pathetically easy response: murder is more common among humans than among animals, too. So what?
You say: "Hateful" "Underpants" "Cesspool". I say: "Infantile." Schoolyard bully yourself.
Repent, Father; it's not too late. There really is a Divine Life of Grace, it's not just kid talk and fundamentalism. Come back to us!
And, BTW, who is your canonical bishop? Wouldn't it be fun if he joined the thread?
"Father O'Leary says "hateful screed," i.e, your position is morally offensive and cannot be given credence, even for the sake of argument. So: Step One is beg the question and reject the good faith of the other side." I think most people recognize a bully.
"Step Two: The witness of "happy homosexual couples" is to be taken at face value, as is their complaints about loneliness, etc. No criticism or questioning allowed." Question all you like, but on the basis of first listening and having dialogue.
"Step Three: Other homosexuals once claimed to be happy homosexuals but now say, "It wasn't true, it was lies and self-deception, I was hurt and I saw other people hurt by this. Thank God for people who will tell the truth about this." This testimony is to be rejected out of hand as an attack on those who differ." This refers to Jim Caputo's postings? I did not reject his accounts, but asked him has he any positive message for gays? Is the telling them to become pseudo-straights, with all the unhappiness that is known to cause?
"We can only regard their experience as, at best, applicable to them in some personally quirky way. No generalization allowed." The roll of public opinion is buying the case of self-affirming homosexual men and women and is suspicious of self-hating ones. People who come across as merely negative rarely excite much enthusiasm.
"I guess that means that even in the abstract, it can't be that an activity which some people claim--even believe--is happiness inducing is in fact destructive." It doesn't mean that at all. Many other happiness-based cases have failed to carry conviction. Judge each case on its merits, I say.
" The question of what happens when large numbers of people start acting this way is so far out of bounds that it can't even honestly be put, just as with contraception and divorce." Well, Philip Blosser wants a legal ban on contraceptives and I suppose on divorce as well. But that is not going to happen.
"Hardly any kids and the ones there are don't know their parents and have to take care of themselves. But, hey, the couples testified that they were happy and unitive and embarked on a great spiritual journey.... To accuse them of being selfish and to ask them to be "unhappy" to avoid a deeper and more long-lasting unhappiness is...well, I guess it's "hateful screed." After all, a society of atomized and autonomous sexuality can't possibly be destructive--after all everybody is just nicely and sweetly pursuing what they claim makes them happy. Paradise should be right around the corner, if only we could do away with the "hateful screed". This is a childish pseudo-psychological approach to moral theology and not even set up as any kind of dialog at all. We can never progress in a discussion of this kind until Fr. O'Leary grasps the reasons why we are so utterly, utt.erly unimpressed by arguments like, "But they are nice and they swear they are happy." But the
But then he's not open to grasping them or even entertaining them. " The only counter-argument of you and Philip Blosser is the unique horror of anal sex, which for him is the essential core of homosexuality. That is based on total deafness to the witness of gays and the countless theologians and others who plead for gay rights
"Anyone who has ever, I mean EVER, had an interior conviction of personal sin and repentence, knows the depthless inadequacy of this kind of "thinking." You go on and on acting happy and tellng yourself that you are happy and smiling and living your life and then you suddenly realize that it's all a tissue of lies and self-deception and you don't know the first thing about how to live life or what happiness is supposed to be. And in despair--hope beyond despair--you reach out to God begging for salvation: "I am a sinner, save me God, I cannot save myself. Teach me Your ways and help me to walk in them."" Fine, but irrelevant to the issue, or at best question-begging. Catholics practicing contraception have faced down this kind of moral and spiritual blackmail for decades, and more power to them. Gays have done the same, and more power to them.
Yup, I am replying to Philip Blosser (for the first time) in his own language. Just to see how he likes it. Of course he will remove the posts -- we know how scrupulously he follows Da Rulz...
And I would point out to all of you that the case I am making is shared by many, many Catholic pastors and theologians -- despite Vatican bullying. It is a case for the recognition of gay couples (even if only as a "lesser evil" as even the Vatican itself recognizes -- see Jan Visser's comment on Persona Humana which he co-authored; but I was to say not a lesser evil but a "lesser good to marriage").
It is Philip Blosser and he alone who constantly drags this discussion back to anal sex, with which he seems to be totally obsessed (as one can see by looking at many of his postings from the beginning of this weblog long before I appeared). A gay couple embark on a communion of love and life. Anal sex may or may not be part of that life, but I doubt if it looms as large in the imagination of any happily "married" gay as it does in that of your regular homophobe.
Dr Blosser accuses me of “little asides and jibes” yet he continues to provide sooooo much material. He is the gift the keeps giving.
What a morbid negative Catholicism we have on this blog.
Oh dear oh dear this time he blows his top. Where does one begin to up-pack the psychology of all of this – three posts in a row two on sodomy and a thieving nun chucked in for good measure. And we all know sodomy = homosexuality the words are actually interchangeable. And so we must endure the luridness of the 14yr olds in the school yard. But it’s the frenetic nature of the post rather than the content that disturbs the most.
I am greatly enjoying the prospect of a flood of letters rushing their way across the Pacific to these two senior clerics in Japan. In a region where many Asians resist Christianity as western and therefore foreign, where Christianity makes slow progress in Japan and religious oppression abounds in North Korea and China I am sure everyone can drop what they are doing and focus on the problem of Fr. O’Leary. He is after all a latter-day Luther who must be nipped-in-the-bud - the very survival of Catholicism rests upon it. Such is the importance of the rectitude of Dr Blosser’s blog to the course of Christendom.
But why stop at Japan why not write to Benedict himself after all his address is as they say “in the book” why not go right to the top. I guess both of the bemused clerics in Japan be confirmed in their view that American Catholicism is indeed a mixed blessing.
As to the charge that Fr. O’Leary is a secret Anglican – one treads dangerously when accusing an Irishman of this. As for his partiality for Anglican liturgy – this is merely to accuse him of good taste.
Lets to Dr Blosser's pièce de résistance:
“If the vagina could accept viruses, women would be dying like flies from every sort of viral disease imaginable”
This is surely a statement of theology or philosophy for it is not a statement of science. Any Catholic medical professional would be disciplined for this - it is grossly negligent advice and if given to a women whose husband is HIV positive would result in a medical malpractice suit.
Women are of course dying like flies in Africa where Aids/HIV is an overwhelmingly heterosexual disease passed by vaginal intercourse. Most human diseases both viral and bacterial come from animals (perhaps bird flu is transmitted by anal sex too). This one jumped the species barrier in the 1930’s in West Africa because of the hunt for bush meat and someone’s broken skin. Accord to our Dr Blosser clearly the chimps where up to sodomy and that explains why they have it.
Aids/HIV is so interesting to evolutionary biologists because it is an example of evolution in practice – decent with modification. A very interesting disease.
Of course Blosser shows himself a total ignoramus, and a heartless one, in his remark about women dying like flies.
God bless you, Bridgit.
Be advised that Fr. Joe's beef with Rome extends beyond the Vatican's "inquisitorial focus" on homosexuality. He is also critical of the Vatican's "obsession" with the quaint idea that the person of Jesus Christ is the center of the Gospel. It seems that for Fr. Joe, a little bit of Jesus goes a long way; too much Jesus spoils the pot.
You will find that one minute the "Spirit of Vatican II" will praise the self-authenticating authority of the early Christological councils of Niceae and Chalcedon, while the next minute he will say that Christology is an obstacle to the evangelization of Asia. This "Spirit" is a bit of a slippery eel, quite hard to grasp and hold in one place.
By the way, be sure to profread your comments before posting. Fr. Joe also relishes the role of grammar schoolmarm, and will fisk your comments for mispellings. Thank God this is a virtual classroom and he cannot crack your knuckles with a ruler. Unfortunately he can still melt your brain with his sophistry.
Fr. Joe, here is a positive message for gays: Turn to the Lord. Repent of your sin. Try not to sin anymore. Keep in mind that Jesus does not expect perfection from any of us. Fall down, get up, try again. Trust the Word of God. Trust the shepherds whom the Lord has placed over you. Distrust the voices of dissent and so-called "dialogue". Distrust the hermeneutics of suspicion. Adore Jesus in the Sacrament of Love. 'Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying.' (Eph 6:24)
'... while the next minute he will say that Christology is an obstacle to the evangelization of Asia.'
Fr. Joe will correct me here. Let me correct myself. The Bishops of Asia say that Christology (or too much focus thereupon) is an obstacle to the evangelization of Asia. In this, the Bishops of Asia (or the FABC) are in full agreement with Fr. Joe. It is an interesting topic -- perhaps the subject of another thread if Dr. Blosser deems it worthwhile. It WOULD be nice to take a respite from anuses.
Jesus Christ is the center of the Gospel but the center of Jesus Christ's teaching is not himself but the Kingdom. The Asian Bishops are perhaps saying that we must reveal the values of the Kingdom first, only then will our proclamation of Jesus as Lord make sense to our hearers.
Fr Timothy Leary, sorry Fr O'Leary's comments are banned at DREADNOUGHT. Based on the compulsive, wildly incoherent, scattered nonsense he has pasted here - including the obsessive references to me, my site and the photos I took of my friend Jason - I don't think there's a reasonable man who'd fault my decision.
For those who labour to counter the apparent priest's comments, don't bother. You don't have to respond to all of the claims that come from the dark fringes of theory.
Sure, Fr O'Leary sounds clever, sometimes frightfully so, but his hermeneutics of distrust, his overweening ego and his various, often non sequitur, literary and theological allusions reveal an undisciplined mind.
He has frequently demonstrated that he is not interested in dialogue, his is an onanistic monologue, his development stuck at the level of a precocious grade-school kid, always keen to show how apparently clever he is, but not willing to learn from others.
He's also fallen victim to the ex-pat's disease, a kind of intellectual degradation that accumulates amongst those in foreign places, whose already arcane mutterings, relatively free of challenge from English-speaking students/colleagues, acquire - or so the academic thinks - a level of currency or coherence that would not be the case were the man speaking in the US, Australia, Britain or elsewhere.
The claims he makes cannot, by virtue of the format - a comments box is hardly a thesis paper - be satisfyingly refuted. One needn't bother, however.
The fact that O'Leary publishes where he does, and lectures where he must, the fact that he persists as a Catholic priest despite his heterodoxy proves the paucity of his ideas. This last, indeed, demonstrates that not even he takes his comments seriously.
He writes as though he is Hans Kung or Joseph Ratzinger, but the reality, both personal and academic, is somewhat more humble.
Fr O'Leary needs our brotherly concern - the dissonance must be extreme - but he doesn't always need our dialectical interaction, even though he craves it.
Ignore the man, for his own good. Perhaps in the resulting silence some of his nonsense will reverberate back and he'll realise how silly he is.
When he does, I know I'd be pleased to interact once more with the newly minted, newly humble, re-orthodox, priest from Japan.
Well Dread
Took you long enough to pop on over
Still a disappointing post but I guess you are stirred to action by the link to one of your pics.
Would have been nice to see a substantive post on either natural law/gay marriage and Dr Blosser’s great obsession: sodomy.
You say Fr O’Leary suffers from the ex pat disease a level of currency or coherence that would not be the case were the man speaking in the US, Australia, Britain or elsewhere” Strange that describes the Catholic Church’s position on civil unions and contraceptives and homosexuality here – and that’s with her own faithful let alone anyone else.
I guess you support Dr Blosser’s sage medical advice that a women can have vaginal sex with an HIV positive man because her vagina is immune to viruses. Is this standard of discourse we can expect. Not so much incoherent just wrong and very dangerous.
Of course from an immunity point of view repeated exposure the virus does over many generations result in rendering the disease non lethal as in the case in chimpanzees (those little sodomites) and a very few Africans – especially the odd prostitute. Of course people must “die like flies” as Dr Blosser puts it in a supreme example of Christian charity.
Perhaps Dr Blosser is a closet supporter of evolution through natural selection after all.
Dave, Fos, Trog, Mary, Bridgit, Chris have this in common: they accept the fetid codswallop sought out in 30 year old sources as VALUABLE INFORMATION whereas a brief glimpse reveals it to be full of impossible claims and to be motivated by pure prejudice. This must cast doubt on the intellectual integrity of the afore-named.
Dreadnought -- amazing that you, a self-proclaimed same-sex attracted Catholic man -- would come out in support of the dreck pb publishes here (and puhlease, it was he who resurrected your rooftop pics, for reasons best known to himself). I notice you have banned several others from your weblog, including a brilliant guy who challenged you in the very field you claim to have degrees in -- law.
I have nothing against "jason" myself, but I find it odd that pb thinks that I am salacious for pointing us that "jason" is posing in a rather erotic position (simulating masturbation in one pose). I just believe in calling a spade a spade.
Jason looks to me like much happier gay man than Dread, or that any of the screaming in-denial folk here. Go, Jason!
corrections:
Jason looks to me like a much happier gay man than Dread, or than any of the screaming in-denial folk here. Go, Jason!
From today's GUARDIAN:
"The more biological older brothers a man has, the greater the likelihood that he will be gay" (Report 27 June, page . What a shame no one told my mother, who gave birth to me (unquestionably gay) and my younger brother (who won't object to being outed as a heterosexual). Who benefits from knowing whether sexuality has medical, psychological or social origins? In this week when we celebrate gay - and lesbian - Pride, why not concentrate on welcoming our diversity and challenging prejudices instead of continuing a 150-year-old, and so far vain, search for a medical cause that has led instead only to repeated and disastrous efforts to "cure" people of homosexuality. Lesbian and gay people don't need curing, we need equality."
Peter Purton
Southall, Middx
"The question Rowan Williams needs to address is this: would it be right to put priority on holding together the worldwide Anglican communion if the issue were not gender or sexuality, but slavery? That's how it was in the early 19th century, with opponents of abolition just as vociferous in their use of the Bible to justify a position now felt to be untenable. In what way does homosexuality - or being female - interfere with the prime Christian message to love our neighbour? It's time to stand up and make clear that we should not in the Christian church allow injustice, simply to maintain a stronger power base."
J Richard Pater
Kendal, Cumbria
Dreadnought bans contributors and then goes on to badmouth them on his weblog with no right of reply. At least pb grants us the right of reply! (Gee, sorry if that remark is incoherent -- or is the incoherence in the jaundiced eye of the reader?)
'Jesus Christ is the center of the Gospel but the center of Jesus Christ's teaching is not himself but the Kingdom.'
This is a false opposition. There is no Kingdom apart from Jesus. Jesus IS the Kingdom in person. Therefore Jesus is the center of his teaching, albeit not in a self-glorifying way.
'The Asian Bishops are perhaps saying that we must reveal the values of the Kingdom first, only then will our proclamation of Jesus as Lord make sense to our hearers.'
There is some truth to this. Of course we glorify the Lord by living as he has taught us to live. Christology must become incarnate in works of love. However, I am distrustful of the point of view that suggests that Christology is an obstacle to establishing the reign of God. How does focusing our hearts and minds on the person of Jesus Christ distract us from the task of building the Kingdom? That did not seem to be the case for Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, for whom adoration of our Eucharistic Lord was the driving force of her mission to the poor and outcast.
By the way, in another combox I signed off from the discussion on homosexuality. I will add this one comment: if my treatment of Fr. O'Leary in that discussion has not reflected the values of the Kingdom, then I am a hypocrite and my words above are empty clanging. If my words and actions have offended Christ, then I repent. Let us assume that they have offended the Lord, because surely they were written less in the Spirit of Christ than in the spirit of polemic. The litmus test is this: was my heart and mind focused on the Lord when I was writing those comments to Fr. O'Leary? In truth, not really.
So there you have it. I am sorry. I repent. Forgive me, Father.
The Spirit of Vatican Two has become Disgusted!
Now, that's progress!
Did you notice? No interaction at all on substance from Father. Just deny that there is any question to be discussed. It's all a matter of "Vatican bullying." Our entire society is being wiped out by the failure to reproduce (contraception! divorce! homosexuality! More power to them!) and being replaced by Muslims: no friends of Fr. O'Leary's! But that's not in his social "science" magazines. It must be a "hateful screed."
Immature children are the ones who think of any exercise of authority as "bullying." They are the ones who think they are so grown-up, so mature, that they never need any correction. "I'm a big boy now; I can make my own decisions!" More power to them, eh?
Repent, Fr. Disgusted. Time to return out of the universe of solipsism to His wonderful light.
And, oh, yes. Who is your canonical bishop? From whom do you derive your priestly mission? Or are you off on your own like the SSPX?
Atiyah, ET AL.:
The Japanese episcopate is not in great shape, it's true. But I wouldn't generalize about Asia.
The Chinese Church is undergoing martyrdom and is steadfast in its loyalty to the Pope. Even the "Patriotic Association" is more Catholic than a lot of ostensibly loyal Churches.
The Korean and Philippines Churches are pretty sound. The Church in Vietnam is wonderful.
The Indonesian Church is a mixed bag, but getting better.
The Indian hierarchy is undergoing a slow transformation under the watchful eye of the increasingly powerful Cardinal Dias, recently of Bombay, now Prefect of the dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples. Many of the new episcopal appointments have been very good indeed and there are many more to be made.
All in all, progress is being made, just as it is in North America. Excelsior!
Look what decades of complaining and bitching have done about the liturgy! Look what they have done about seminaries--now filling with orthodox young priests. The battle is being won on every level and before two more decades have passed, the universities and theological associations will be feeling the full weight of renewal.
And, of course, the Anglican Church in the US is slowly being pushed out of full communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the issue of confusing anuses with vaginas. Everything is looking up!
**
What was the objectionable thing that the Cardinal of Lagos is supposed to have said? I think I missed that one. Was it something like, "If you try to destroy our societies as you have been destroying those in the West, we will put you in jail?" Something like that?
Since people go to jail in Europe for talking about traditional moral theology--remember, it's a "hateful screed"--and are hounded from their jobs in America for saying that they merely BELIEVE that homosexual activity is deviant, I don't know what the complaint would be. Rather hypocritical, I'd say.
It's not tolerance they want--it's victory! And they will persecute us to get it. Soon, they will take our children away if we try to teach them that homosexuality is wrong. They are already beginning to force us to allow our children to be "reeducated" on these issues in Canadian schools. Why should we let them do it without a squeak? Don't kid yourselves about what's going on. They won't be putting up with us for much longer. They don't want tolerance. It's us or them and they KNOW it. We should know it, too.
But after the Europeans have contracepted and anal-sexed themselves to death--in line with O'Leary's recommendations--what does he think the Muslims who replace them will do? Will they be convinced by his junk "science" magazines?
God bless you, Father. You don't need all this nonsense. Let it go, you can, you really can.
Disgusted accuses me of putting trust in 30 year old sources cited by Dr Blosser, but I find that somewhat humorous in view of the fact that I neither affirmed nor denied the alleged veracity of Blosser's sources. My arguments have been based on Greek grammar, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the pre-Nicenes. I also encouraged O'Leary to exercise critical rationality when it comes to the testimonies of gays, who speak about the unitive bonding role of sexual relations.
First, I am not Catholic. And Dr Blosser can attest to my disagreement with his views in a number of areas. I read Blosser's post on what homosexuals do and I would probably agree with some of its content but also question some of the post. Just as I would do with any truth-claims from gays or anyone else.
Father:
WHen you insisted on lauding Anglicans, I brought to your attention the testimony of a former Anglican, me, who is now grateful to be Catholic. Your constant ranting about how the rest of us don't understand gays lesbians, same-sex attracted persons, homosexuals, and similar persons has now been completely undone by the testimony of one of the people you so ardently protest that you represent. Why not take Brigid to the woodshed, as it were, instead of merely minimizing her testimony, singling her out for making a "current choice"? The answer, I hope, is that you realize the sheer nonsense of your position.
Karl Keating has remarked about Vatican bullying: an average of one heretic a year has been censured by the Holy Office. This couldn't be counted as bullying, but perhaps neglect. I prefer to think of it as evidence gathering with an eye to mounting an effective counter-attack.
Perhaps you would care --- and I would certainly like Brigid's comment on a recent blurb in Newsweek:
"House calls from [sexual] predators don't happen spontaneously when your kid does homework on Google or hangs out solely with buddies on MySpace.com. (After some alleged cases in which teenagers unwisely got together with adults they met on the service, MySpace introduced new protections last week, making it tougher for strangers to contact minors.) NBC [the broadcasting network] does its investigations with a watchdog group that supplies decoys who pose as minors hanging out in unmoderated, all-access, regional chat rooms and gay chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo -- hot spots for hookups ....." Surely NBC knows better than to look for abusive predatory sex in gay chat rooms? Haven't the execs studied the testimony of nipponese gaelic priests and the manual on how homosexuality is never the problem, regardless of evidence?
'The Indian hierarchy is undergoing a slow transformation under the watchful eye of the increasingly powerful Cardinal Dias, recently of Bombay, now Prefect of the dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples. Many of the new episcopal appointments have been very good indeed and there are many more to be made.'
This definitely bears watching. Chris (or anyone else), have you seen anything about Cardinal Dias' views concerning the FABC, in particular their reaction to Dominus Iesus?
Further to the comment above:
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/resea...resea...aejt_6/
phan.htm
Oops, broken link above; here it is again:
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/resea...aejt_6/
phan.htm
My apologies for diverting the discussion from anuses and such.
In a rant against Blosser, Fr. O'Leary writes: "... his inability to spell and his chronic rampant inaccurac [sic]"
What was that, Father? Eigo wakarimasu-ka? (Trans. "Do you understand English?") Charming.
"But I am tired of plunging my hands into the cesspool of Dr (!) Blosser's mind..."
And yet you keep coming back to bloviate.
"Step One is beg the question and reject the good faith of the other side..."
You've hit the nail on the head, Jeff.
Atiyah, Fr. O'Leary. HIV can be communicated by shaking hands with another person, provided you've each got an abraision or tear in your skin. The virus is communicated through the blood. The point of the "pièce de résistance", as Atiyah put it, is that the chances of that happening through rectal-anal sex are exponentially higher than with ordinary vaginal intercourse, do to the design and construction of the respective orfices and their tissues.
-- Your beloved 'Total Ignoramus,' PP
Dave:
Dominus Iesus?
"Despite the religious syncretism that sometimes flourishes in India, Cardinal Dias was a strong proponent of Dominus Iesus, the document released in 2001 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith-- of which he is a member-- reaffirming the unique and necessary role of Jesus Christ and his Church in the plan of salvation."
Moreover, I did see a strong defense of Benedict by Cardinal Dias when he objected to Indian laws forbidding conversion. "The Pope has no business interfering in Indian affairs," said the Indian Govt. "The hell he doesn't!" said Cardinal Dias. "He's the Vicar of Christ on earth!"
Dias is a well-known opponent of Hinduization and a strong proponent of modesty in dress.
"Christ needs India and India needs Christ," he said a couple of days ago.
He will oversee 39% of the world's dioceses in his new job (Yay!). Make a great Pope, he would. Though Benedict must live at least another half a century.
Ah No Dr Blosser
You claimed that the vagina was immune from viruses. If you were a real Doctor you would be struck off.
This sort of claim is pure snake oil.
Jeff (and others),
Here is an interesting quote from the article that I posted above (courtesy of Tailgunner Joe, who kindly provided it to me in another combox):
'This imposition of Christology [by insensitive Vatican provocateurs] with its claim of Jesus as the “mediator and one and only savior" on the Asian Synod’s agenda and conceiving it as the panacea for what may ail the Asian churches constitute, to judge from all the documents of the FABC, a massive misdiagnosis of the situation of Asian Christianity. As we have seen above, neither Christology nor ecclesiology are at the center of the Asian churches’ concerns but God’s reign or a new way of being church. It is most interesting that the FABC’s seventh Plenary Assembly, which took place shortly after the synod on January 2-12, 2000, adopted the second part of the theme of the synod, i.e., “mission of love and service” but replaced the first part “Jesus Christ the Savior” with “A Renewed Church,” thereby subtly but unmistakably subverting the Roman-imposed focus on Christology.'
Most interesting, indeed.
It gets better:
'Even from a cursory reading of these responses, it is clear that the uniqueness and universality of Jesus as the Savior was never placed in question by the Asian churches. Rather, the burning issue for the Asian churches, a tiny minority in Asia, is how to proclaim this truth about Jesus credibly in the midst of crushing poverty, competing religious systems, and cultural diversity. The unanimous answer to this problem was found to be dialogue: dialogue with the Asian poor, with their religions, and with their cultures.'
Ah ... DIALOGUE! Sound familiar? We've seen how dialogue works in practice, haven't we? '[I]t is clear that the uniqueness and universality of Jesus as the Savior was never placed in question by the Asian churches.' Again, sounds familiar. Fr. O'Leary is constantly re-assuring us of the good faith of his Christology. He even affirms the self-authenticating authority of the ancient Christological councils! (Continued ...)
(Continued ...) Yet is it REALLY 'clear that the uniqueness and universality of Jesus as the Savior was never placed in question by the Asian churches'? Let's read on:
'With regard to interreligious dialogue, many Asian episcopal conferences called for not only a respectful dialogue with non-Christians but also an explicit recognition of the salvific value of non-Christian religions, not as independent from or parallel to Christ, but in relation to him. The Indian bishops affirmed: “ ... For hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings, salvation is seen as being channeled to them not in spite of but through and in their various socio-cultural and religious traditions. We cannot, therefore, deny a priori a salvific role for these non-Christian religions.”'
We should parse these words carefully. On the one hand, we hear that 'an explicit recognition of the salvific value of non-Christian religions [is conceived], not as independent from or parallel to Christ, but in relation to him.' Yet on the other hand, we are told that it must be affirmed and cannot be denied that there is 'A PRIORI a salvific role for these non-Christian religions' (emphasis added). Excuse me, but what is it to affirm an A PRIORI salvific role to Hinduism, if not to recognize (or better, to assert) the salvic value of Hinduism INDEPENDENT from or PARALLEL to salvation in Jesus Christ? If Indians are already (a priori) getting their salvation channeled to them through Brahma, why do they need Jesus Christ?
According to the author of the article, this is the Federation of Asian Bishops Conference (FABC) talking. First question: is it a true report? Second question: if it is true, what is Cardinal Dias doing about it?
Sorry again to divert the combox from the illuminating discussion of penises, anuses, and vaginas.
Dr Blosser
I would actually like to respond to your serious reply to my basic outline of the development of natural law – some of which I agree with. Instead we must dwell on sodomy. Again!
I am interested in Catholicism in Asia and pleased to hear it is in good heart from your readers. The Japanese are especially interesting. Asia is a fascinating part of the world. Dave seems to have just discovered it. I am watching the Catholic Church go toe to toe with the totalitarian Chinese regime and have an idea of who will win. Yet with all this material the contribution by this blog is an immature rark up to write to a couple of prelates in Japan over O’Leary. This is the behaviour of little people.
Well Dr Blosser if you didn’t have Fr. O’Leary you would have to invent him.
You claim the purpose of the post is to consider the relative risks of sexual behaviour in relation to viral diseases. Is that so?
In absolute terms most of the worlds victims of Aids/HIV are heterosexual does this mean that heterosexual activity is inherently more risky than homosexual activity?
Ooops, I just noticed that I misrepresented the statement by the Asian bishops. I represented them as affirming an 'a priori salvific role' to Hinduism. In fact they said that we cannot DENY A PRIORI a salvic role to Hinduism and other Asiatic religions. There is a significant difference. Therefore I must retract (or at least modify) the following statement: 'If Indians are already (a priori) getting their salvation channeled to them through Brahma, why do they need Jesus Christ?' The Asian bishops are not saying that Hindus get their salvation channeled to them through Brahma and apart from Christ. My bad.
Nevertheless, one must ask, why is a de-emphasis and de-centering of Christology necessary for dialogue with non-Christian religions? How does this strategy advance the cause of evangelization? Why is 'the central and neuralgic issue' in the Asian churches the need to 'present Jesus Christ and the Church with an authentic Asian face?' Why is it not sufficient to present Jesus Christ as he is authentically presented in the Gospel portraits? Has the cause of evangelization been advanced in the United States by presenting Jesus Christ with an authentically American face? What have we gotten out of that? The "Buddy Christ" of the movie Dogma.
Modifications to my original comment notwithstanding, I still find the anti-Christological stance of the FABC to be troubling, and I am still interested to know Cardinal Dias' view of the issue.
Dave
Withdrawing the "Tailgunner Joe" comment too?
"Withdrawing the "Tailgunner Joe" comment too?"
See, Dave? Apologists for unutterable foulness, who corrupt minds and hearts. You won't get any cred by being nice to them.
I don't think fierce opposition to and condemnation of the enemies of the Church is "uncharitable." I can't imagine bishops, priest, and laypeople responding to the apology for sodomy by a Catholic priest with anywhere near as much forbearance as is shown by the fiercest critic on this blog.
What's the name of O'Leary's canonical bishop, BTW? Anybody know?
That should be, "and laypeople of past centuries"
Jeff
You tell us that "the Japanese episcopate is not in great shape"
I guess you will be taking that up with the Apostolic Nuncio to Japan and The Archbishop of Tokyo when you write to them and complaining about Fr. O'Leary?
How to win friends and influence people from a master.
'Dave
Withdrawing the "Tailgunner Joe" comment too?'
No, I'm not. I don't see anything wrong with it. If it was good enough for Senator Joseph McCarthy, it is good enough for Padre Joe O'Leary. Good grief.
Just when I was going to make nice and tell you that I, too, am very interested in Catholicism in Asia. That topic is indeed a new discovery for me, although not quite as recent as today.
Frankly, though, I am utterly drained and disgusted after the last 24 hours. My disgust is not only from the content of the recent "dialogue", but also from the overall atmosphere -- to which I have made my own contribution and for which I shoulder my own portion of blame.
Part of me would welcome a fresh discussion on a weighty and challenging subject like Catholicism in Asia. Another part of me wants to just dump the whole thing.
And I haven't necessarily withdrawn the substance of my previous comments -- just the spirit and the tone.
I've been thinking about Fr. Joe's outrage at my attempt to "out" him. Is the outrage really justified? What if we were debating racial discrimination? Would it be out of bounds to identify the race of those who are participating in the debate -- especially of those who offer the most provocative comments? Race is an ontological category, therefore no judgment would be implied. Is not sexual orientation also an ontological category? Why is it out of bounds for me to "quiz" Fr. Joe in order to understand the ontological basis of his controversial and often offensive views? And for the record, I am a straight, white, Catholic male. As if that wasn't already obvious!!!
For the record, too, I NEVER asked Fr. Joe for the details of his personal life. He is the one who confessed to hanging about in gay bars. I NEVER asked what he did there. All I said is that we can only guess. Well, that's TRUE, isn't it??? I have NEVER asked Fr. Joe what he does in gay bars, nor have I asked him the details of ANY aspect of his private life.
In short, I think that Fr. Joe's outrage is pure posturing. By the way, is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that Fr. Joe finds it necessary to characterize his opponents as "girlish" and "prissy"? I find it very queer indeed. "Queer" in the sense of "odd", that is.
I did mention taking a very straight visitor to Tokyo to a gay bar (a place by no means as sleazy as the gay bars Dave knows seem to be), which I described as a totally harmless place (with what looked like heterosexual couples among the customers). Dave has put his own spin on this and come back to it compulsively again and again. I suppose Dave has been in bars -- would I be entitled to suggest that he is going there to pick up girls for casual sex? In addition, Dave has certainly been showing himself very concerned to get me to talk about my personal sexual feelings etc., and backed off only when I asked him to talk about his! However, now I see he assures us he is straight, as if anyone was interested.
And an attempt to "out" someone when the motive is to undercut his rational arguments by ad hominem (why not try the same on David Brooks, another advocate of gay marriage?) seems rather vicious to me.
Again if a lawyer on a weblog argues for racial equality, would you quiz the lawyer to know if he had any Afro-American blood in his veins? If you did you would show yourself to be a racist, wouldn't you?
I see Dave is already a censor of Asian bishops, about whom he knows next to nothing.
Catholic faith is not a passport to instant omniscience, either about your neighbor's state of soul or sexual temperament or about the orthodoxy of the Bishops of Asia, who have to deal with the challenges of immense cultural and religious pluralism as well as huge social problems.
I guess the Spirit of Vatican Two has recovered from his Disgust!
Fr. O'Leary mentions "the orthodoxy of the Bishops of Asia."
What do you think Catholic orthodoxy is Father? And heterodoxy, what is that?
Are there any heterodox Catholics, Fr. O'Leary? I mean on matters of dogma, not on political or social questions.
Let's leave aside war and racism and homophobia and other things like that.
Is there say anyone that you know of that departs from orthodoxy in, say Christology? Or Sacramental Theology? How about on Ecclesiology?
Are there any people who define themselves as "outside" on these questions? Anyone at all who might legitimately be treated as departing from the teaching of the Church in these areas?
Of course, you know there pretty much always have been such people, who were regarded as having departed from Catholic belief, in centuries past.
If there aren't any more, how come the big change? And is that 'big change' really beyond argument? I mean, has maintaining that there are such things as Christological heretics become itself a sort of 'heresy', just another form of persecution-in-the-making?
(Since you don't want to tell us who your canonical bishop is, I suppose we have to talk about something!)
Amusing to see the oh so pious folks here are wasting not much time whatsoever and delightfully engage in kindergarten level musings about "what homosexuals do".
It does not concern me in the least what Dr. Blosser does with his Amy or anybody else in the privacy of there homes. Same goes for anybody else.
After you guys are done indulging in your 'disgust' you might consider how this kind of naive immature childish outburst of frustration with the fact that our western societies are in effect well on the way to marginalize this kind of 'well-meaning' sniffing into other peoples private space.
It is telling and quite frankly a bit concerning that a good number of the most outspoken folks are 'refugees' of sort from other denominations that happen to be a bit further along in acceptance of gays, married men and women to priesthood.
As far as I am concerned I have the highest respect for my aging gay neighbors who take great care of one another and do each other and by the way our society a great service in doing so.
As far as I am concerned my sons playmates mothers are raising two wonderful children and do this society a bigger favor than the heterosexual couple down the block that is too busy for having kids.
The moral fault line as far as I am concern has not much to do with the
individual’s sexual orientation per se and more with how the person actually behaves in real life. Plenty of jerks in either camp same is true for saints.
I find it also a bit stark when some of the most outspoken 'orthodox' happen to be divorced, happen to be cut from merciless hardliner cloth that does otherwise not have much room for the intricacies of catholic social teaching.
I am sorry I find the many one/two trick ponies that seem to think that they are just splendid Catholics because they happen to be very much against female ordination, find homosexuality disgusting and proclaim obedience but can not be bothered to follow their "beloved" pope JP the Grear when he correctly called the most recent american war not justified.
By the way perhaps, the connoisseurs of disgust here should google some of Dr. Blossers buzzwords.
Every single one will get you plenty of rather undesirable insights also into what "heterosexuals do".
Oh, Father!
Dave speculated on your sexual proclivities. You speculated on his personal and social life, remarking that he was probably lonely and interested in people's underwear.
After all, lawyers often defend lawyers; doctors defend doctors; people who love classical music defend public funding for orchestras. A person who defends the current state of malpractice suits will usually reveal that he is a malpractice lawyer if he is, so that people will at least know that he has some possible motivations other than purely neutral ones for the positions he takes.
Come on! If sexual proclivities are neutral, why should you be shy about putting yours on the table? Lots of other people in these discussions have revealed theirs.
I ask this only in the abstract. Actually I have NO desire to know what your sexual proclivities are. In fact, I rather prefer NOT to know, if you don't mind terribly much.
But I don't see the point of the rant against poor Dave. He didn't buy himself much peace by trying to meet you halfway did he?
I won't try to meet you half-way. Your "hateful screed" and "more power to them" rhetoric simply masks an apologetic for evil. It's wickedness and soul-destroying nonsense about sexual morals that you foster and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Won't you reconsider just letting it go and returning to Christ? It's not as hard as you might think, though probably a bit disorienting at first. It would come as a mighty relief, if you could just take that step. Life would still be fraught with misery and trouble, but all different, all transformed. Give it a shot, why don't you?
Grega:
Oh, we heterosexuals (silly word! like 'food eaters') do a lot of deplorable stuff! Why should we give in and say that there's no such thing as deplorable stuff just to get out of that?
The heart of normal sexual intercourse is the regular, progenitive stuff between a man and a woman. The other stuff may be a nasty sort of spice, but it isn't the heart of the matter. You almost never meet a heterosexual couple who for preference engage in anal sex or oral sex and never copulate. And nobody uses contraceptives for kicks--they just aren't very arousing. Rather the opposite, I'd say.
People with sexual urges toward individuals of the opposite sex don't glory in their perversities and make them a centerpiece of their moral theology, calling them 'unitive' and other such nonsense.
I am a dreadful sinner with terrible weaknesses of all kinds, but I don't define myself by them and I don't defend them. I try to stop them or at least I hope to have the guts to try to stop them again tomorrow.
It's not homosexuals I have a beef with. I don't have a beef with anybody who confesses their sinfulness and tries and tries again to overcome it. It's the culture of missionary homosexuality that insists that it be recognized as neutral, even good, that I have a huge beef with. That has to be fought as Christians have fought it for 2000 years.
Hypocrisy is a bad thing. But it's better than the unashamed embrace of Wickedness. There's no mercy in that for one's self or for others.
Homosexual persons usually define themselves as people who love people of the same sex. Most homosexual persons have these feelings from childhood and think of sexual expression only at puberty, same as their heterosexual counterparts.
If you reduced heterosexual persons to their sexuality, and their sexuality of vaginal intercourse (treating foreplay as "nasty spice"), you are well on the way to reducing humans to animals. Same goes for the same reductive attitude to gays.
It is rather blashpemous to drag Christology into this cesspool of leering homophobia, but yes, I agree that one who denies the divinity of Christ is not longer orthodox. Unfortunately, that doctrine, like transubstantiation, has often been expressed so crudely that people deny it under a cloud of misunderstanding. The ICEL now want us to say "consubstantial" instead of "one in being" in the Creed -- unaware that even within orthodox Nicene theology there are scores of different interpretations of the word homoousios. The orthodoxy-obsession of Rome is not at the service of true orthodoxy at all. It is destructive and counter-productive. But I do not for a moment believe that bullies and snitches have any concern for the golden values of orthodoxy -- which I have loved and cherished all my life, if they could understand that...
Jeff
So when writing to Japan you will be telling the Archbishops that they are useless. Because Christians do speak the truth to power don’t they – even when it is to each other.
Adopting any other course will leave you open to the charge of being a hypocrite: a lion in Dr Blosser's Blog and a mouse in the letters to Tokyo.
Come Jeff be strong – you have a direct line to God on what makes a good or bad cleric.
Please please Jeff make the letter 10 pages long, this is after all a matter of heresy. And don't forget to print out a copy of every comment that Fr. O'Leary has ever posted and include it. You never know they may not have heard of the internet in Japan.
And a copy to the "big guy" in Rome too - I am sure he can drop the China problem and Godless Europe to deal with your "issues"
Just do it Jeff - 2000 years of Christianity demands it.
Jeff:
I very much understand that the issue at hand is a difficult one.
Some of the people I most love and trust- my parents and some of my siblings -share exactly the opinon you express. I myself 20 years ago probably shared much of your sentiments.
Today in large part due to actual interaction with SSA neighbors, friends and colleagues I sincerely believe that the unique circumstances of our time ask that we take a fresh look at the anchient prejudice against gays.
I have not enough hubris to imagine that I could come up with a really good sound argument why my current positon is the right one.
The way we work difficult issues out in our society is that we let it linger for a while and let the general public slowly form an opinion.
this happened with slavery, womens rights,racial segregation you name it.
This is IMHO exactly what is happening with this one issue right now.
I believe that Society in the end tends to take a reasoned path.
In the meantime we all have to play our parts - you have to push as hard and vigerous as you possible can your strong opposition towards any change away from the previous status quo regarding SSA.
Many as you know will have no part with your view and push something rather different -equally hard.
Let the better argument or perhaps just plain oldfashioned humanity and mercy prevail.
Now look everybody at Grega, PLEASE.
This is a decent and humble way to discuss this issue. No insistence on "leering homophobia" and stuff like that. She concedes that there are difficulties and that there is something to talk about.
I think she is wrong and wrong-headed, but there's the possibility of discussion there; she treats me as a partner in real dialogue, though she finds what I believe to be, perhaps, repulsive. She doesn't pretend that no one knows what the Church has taught and does teach.
That's the way to do it, Fr. O'Leary and Atiyah. Have a genuine discussion, no matter how offensive you find the terms. Don't talk as though the issue is settled beyond dispute and it's impossible even to entertain it.
Thanks, Grega.
Fr. O'Leary:
I am genuinely moved by the revelation that you have some kind of residual attachment to the notion that there is such a thing as 'heterodoxy' and that you are attached to and love something that you identify as 'orthodoxy.'
But I can't figure out what you are talking about when it comes to Christology. It seems as though you concede on the one hand that denial of a certain form of words is heterodox, but you appear to say that almost any conceivable actual denial might be understood as orthodox on some level.
So, I'm still left with my question. What is an example of a heterodox teaching about Christ's Divinity--a REALLY heterodox one, not just an apparently heterodox one? And preferably one that is actually held by someone who claims to be a Catholic.
I'm looking, you see, for some sort of connection--other than notional--to the Catholicism of the past. When I look to past centuries, I see many condemnations of heterodoxy; the issue is constantly arising. Rome and the bishops and even laymen never seem to be shy about the concept of condemnable heresy, they just differ on WHO is to be condemned.
Now, why on earth should the much milder and more generous disciplinary measures of today's Rome be condemned out of hand and any effort to defend them be ruled out of court ab initio with a background like this? My impression--perhaps false--is that your objection is not reallly to Rome's exercise of its duty of theological and doctrinal oversight, but simply to the fact that she won't renounce the power that she has exercised for centuries.
As to the cesspool remark, I wonder what brings you back to such unpleasant and odious company time and time again? Most of us are obviously not your intellectual equals; I daresay I am not. Nor must we seem like very nice people to you. I don't mean to say, Go away, not at all. I'm glad you are here whatever the reason.
But what is the motivation on your part? Is it just duty; the feeling that you ought to disrupt a discussion among self-satisfied wretches; you ought to be a voice for the maligned and trampled truth? Is it a desire to be understood? Or is it--I hope it is, though I don't seek to tempt an admission from you--that you sense that at the bottom of all the harsh words and the crude rhetoric, we really do care about you after all and wish you well, whatever our limitations?
Jeff, don't start playing the victim, it is embarrassing. Look at your own posts and you will see well enough why I found them offensive. Also, why do you call grega "she" -- I don't recall grega identifying him/herself as female?
Why do I linger in the damp prison of homophobic discourse? Mark Jordan asked himself the same question about his study of early medieval "theology" in The Invention of Homophobia in Christian Theology -- essential reading for those who glorify church tradition on this topic.
"But what is the motivation on your part? Is it just duty; the feeling that you ought to disrupt a discussion among self-satisfied wretches; you ought to be a voice for the maligned and trampled truth?" More or less, and also to keep reminding you that there is another point of view, that many would see as the more enlightened and future-oriented one. I fear that your are very rarely exposed to that point of view, although I have been exposed to it for a long time, notably by militant students in my university chaplaincy days back in 1980 and among Ireland's very vibrant gay rights movement led by Senator David Norris in 1979. But my basic motivation is the cult of open discussion, of free and frank speech, and I swat anyone who tries ot repress that (notable you, who implicitly threaten to report me to my poor, harried bishop...)
" Is it a desire to be understood? Or is it--I hope it is, though I don't seek to tempt an admission from you--that you sense that at the bottom of all the harsh words and the crude rhetoric, we really do care about you after all and wish you well, whatever our limitations?"
Care about me? Well, that's a gracious sentiment, but there would be no need to personalize the debate so much if we just stuck to the usual rational arguments for and against. The truth has a way of coming out when people argue rationally, instead of delving into the murky realm of the ad hominem (as in speculations about the dialogue partner's sexuality or implied threats to his livelihood or his good relationships with his ecclesiastical superiors -- particularly odious when they come from anonymi).
I guess the only reason I hang in here (until the day Blosser boots me) is that so many of you are so desperately anxious to shut me up. Obviously I must be saying something that you need to hear.
Would you keep up the argument if you did not have the same feeling?
As to your questions about christological orthodoxy, this has always been at the center of my studies; my MTh was on Athanasius, my DD on Augustine on the Trinity. At age 25 I was a zealot about Christological orthodoxy and quizzed many Dutch theologians on that point -- one of them said to me, irritably, "I think one or two "orthodox" in a diocese is all we need; the Church has other things to think about". I think there was wisdom in that. Now the Vatican has turned into an Inquisition -- the Pope, the Secretary of State, and the leaders of the CDF, Council for the Family, and Congregation for Catholic Education seem all to give the bulk of their attention to the defence of orthodoxy. Meanwhile other pastoral roles of the Church are direly neglected. To see what is happening to the liturgy, consider the new ICEL translation -- it is being put together by men who have no literary experience, have no conception of the effort it costs to write a page of beautiful, satisfying prose (especially prose destined to wear well in decades of use), and whose only concern is fidelity to a sacrosanct Latin original (actually to Latin texts of very recent composition in many cases). The faithful are not being injured by any alleged heterodoxy in the liturgy -- that is a fantasy of cranks -- but by the soulless character of liturgical language. But these orthodoxy-freaks are incapable of seeing this. They have only one medicine in their cabinet. And one reason for this is their failure to repent of the Inquisition in its historical activity, where freedom of conscience was brutally crushed, and where religious dissidence or the suspicion thereof was punished by torture, imprisonment and death.
Blosser, as we all know, is an ardent fan of the Inquisition and believes Torquemada should be canonized. That is an index that he shares, or rather maximizes, all that is myopic and counterproductive in the current Vatican dedication to inquisitorial procedure.
Chris Garton-Zavesky seems to believe that only about one theologian a year is "disciplined" by Rome. In fact the numbers who have lost their jobs or are under investigation runs into hundreds, most of which never make the newspapers, and that is not counting the many who are dissuaded at entry level or the many more who shun Catholic theology because of the atmosphere of intimidation and self-censorship that prevails -- the result being a huge brain drain in the theology faculties.
Jeff
You feign interest in open honest, humble debate yet you ask of Fr O’Leary FOUR TIMES: “who is your canonical bishop? From whom do you derive your priestly mission?” like a child stamping its foot but alas you fail to hold your breath.
When discussing human sexuality you display all the balance of the compulsive hand-washer.
So let’s give it one more try – let’s actually look at Dr Blosser’s argument. Think with me Jeff I am confident when can reason it through.
1. Dr Blosser’s claim: the vagina is immune to viruses.
2. Fact: HIV/Aids is a virus.
3. Fact: HIV/Aids comes from chimpanzees (renowned little sodomites)
4. Fact: Immunity to viruses comes from repeated exposure.
5. Conclusion: the human vagina is immune to a chimpanzee virus
Engage your brain and think closely what that actually means. And you want to pester Catholic prelates on this man’s say so!!!!!!! Please my friend do yourself a favour.
I'm sorry, Dr. B., but I could only get about half-way through this post... I just can't stomach the details, I guess. I suppose that makes me another homophobe. Maybe you could give fair warning to those who gag easily when explicit descriptions of hellishly disordered behavior are needed?
My prayers are with all those who struggle with SSA, and praise God for people like Bridget who wake up every morning and consciously choose the straight and narrow... what an example. They are saints in the making.
And the Truth will prevail.
Sorry, bridgit, I misspelled your name... apologies!
Jeff:
Thanks for the comment.
While my name 'grega' has a female ending I am a heterosexual male married with two young children.
I think you and many like-minded in our church and society should think long and hard what the fact that quite a few perfectly fine Denominations choose to allow for male and female SSA clergy means for us Catholics.
Well the Catholic Church is known to reluctantly modify its stand on issues at times - the most recent example that immediate comes to mind is perhaps the much more nuanced position regarding capital punishment.
As I said I understand that it is hard to get beyond the level of disgust for quite a few fine people.
But the majority of Moderates that after all is said and done rule our society have to insist that ALL buy into the notion to truly appreciate every human being regardless of gender, sexual orientation or race.
We decided as a society that we do not stand in the way if two SSA people choose to life together. This is in my view in principle not much different than when we decided many decades ago that person of a different race can get married to another and have kids.
Every such fundamental change in societal attitude is associated with people that feel quite hurt and misunderstood. I recognize that we will see for generations to come some that will not be able to get over the fact that we will leave our SSA brothers and sisters free to choose the partner and lifestyle.
Jeff, I am sorry to say there is no way back to the society of the 1950th.
And I believe that there is no way to prevent that our church will adopt an attitude of full acceptance of loving committed SSA relationships.
The moderates in church and society certainly seem to clearly gravitate towards full acceptance of gays and lesbians. I know this is a hard pill to swallow for many.
The OT certainly had some choice comments regarding how to deal with all those that display SSA. And as you know many conservative Muslim societies very much to this day follow that code of conduct.
We do not subscribe to that train of thought here in the West.
I am proud that we are much more enlightened and were able to get our priorities straight. Today we witness how the majority of our SSA friends, sons, daughters, neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances contribute in numerous ways to the betterment of society.
IMHO Atiyah is very right when he points out that the conservative catholic opinion ought to be to support and encourage loving, committed, livelong relationships among SSA persons.
The Spirit of Pilate, forgive me, "Vatican II" is right.
What is truth?
May the entire academic world suffer such a "brain drain".
Can you imagine the horror of idiotic, simpletons coming out of college believing the truths of the faith?
Heavens! Save us, Oh Great Spirit of Tankawanka!
I meant "Great Spirit of Vatican II"
Why in the world is it necessary for homosexuals to be in a sexual relationship in order to be happy?
Grega, what an insightful question! I've often wondered the same. In fact, the answer to this question may be a key to much of this. Hey guys, remember life before puberty? I trust you had one. You can have an adult life without sex too, you know. And be happy. Many people do. It's quite possible. Life is good. I do have five children. But I went for years without sex when I wasn't married; and I've also gone for months without sex when married, and I suspect this is true of many couples. It's not as if all of us married couples are renewing our matrimonial covenant once a day and twice on Sundays EVERY week of the year. A bit more forthrightness about this may help to counter the oppressive self-indulgent mantras of our hedonic flesh-pot culture.
Here "Spirit" often likes to raise the pitiful plight of the poor homosexual who has 'tried' hetero relationships but found that it just didn't work. First of all, I'm inclined to suspicion whenever I hear stories like this. It sounds all too much like my students who say they've tried studying and it didn't' work, so something must be wrong with my exams. Second, I'd be much more inclined to trust their reports, if they were currently leading chaste, celibate lives, but they're invariably not. But it's only through the clarity of vision furinished by chastity that one can often find his way out of the shadows and into the light on these matters. Celibacy -- whether temporary or permanent -- can be a wonderful, spiritually liberating experience. Try it. You might find yourself happy for a change.
"Dr Blosser’s claim: the vagina is immune to viruses."
Straw Man fallacy. The claim is, as cannot be disputed, the vagina is resistant to viruses, not immune to them.
Jordon
You go where Dr Blosser himself will not go.
Prey tell how does the Vagina become resistant to a chimpanzee virus?
The truth is Jordon that there is nothing about humans that this "designed" to resist a chimpanzee virus .... yet. If you think about it... that is why people are dying "like flies" with it.
But is it worth Fisking a Blosser post? It's like shooting goldfish in a goldfish bowl.
Thanks, good Father, for correcting my typos ("who's" to "whose"; "Kiemel" to "Kimel"; "Professor" to "Associate Professor" ...). If that's what you call 'Fisking,' you've done an admirable job at it. I admit I'm not as careful as I should be sometimes typing online, though I think I've caught you in several of those yourself, haven't I Father! Heh. 'Fisking'? I call it 'Copy Editing.' I always needed a good copy editor. Thanks for your help, Father.
With Tertullian, I confess that "a Christian keeps inviolably to one sex and one woman" (Apology 46).
This is not a sign of hatred or some phobia. The aforesaid position simply does justice to the God who created sexed bodies (i.e. bodies informed by genitalia, chromosomes and hormones) differentiated by masculinity and femininity.
[The] testimony [of gay Catholics] is that homosexuality is ... a capacity for love, and that within the context of a loving couple sexual activities have a unitive bonding role.
Yes, Fr. O'Leary, we've heard that. But here I think Grega's question is paramont. If homosexuality is ultimately about love, why should it always have to be also about sex? I know you wouldn't conflate the two.
'Love' is a term that has done a great deal of damage by its ambiguity. There are many kinds of love. Friendship (philia) is a kind of love, which isn't essentially sexual love (eros). Why should we assume that a heterosexual friendship needs eros to help it come into its own? This is precisely what homosexuals argue when they suggest that sodomy promotes the 'unitive good' (analogously to marriage). But why assume that? Why not assume that it corrupts the friendship, instead of 'ennobling' it by 'elevating' it to a pseudo-matrimonial plateau? Sexualizing a friendship may consummate it in the case of a husband and wife, but it could just as well pervert a relationship, as it surely does between a parent and a child.
We are capable of sexualizing just about any relationship -- in the most incredible ways. But surely you don't think we ought to do something simply because we can. Why should I believe that the animus underlying the movement to mainstream 'same-sex marriage' is ultimately about protecting the 'rights' of homosexuals, when it looks for all the world like the manic effort to implement the ancient goetic arts, whose dark goal was to acquire power by 'breaking' nature, unpatterning its patterns, uncreating creation? Having romanticized recreational sex after Griswold vs Connecticut (1965), allowing us to separate the hedonic indulgence of sexual pleasure from the natural procreational consequences thereof, we have gone on to romanticize adultery. Most recently, Hollywood tittilated itself by romanticizing a couple of homosexual sheep herders in Brokeback Mountain. And having smiled upon homosexuality, incest will be the next frontier. Anti-discrimination ordinances already forbid discrimination on grounds of generic 'sexual preference'; but what are pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia if not also sexual preferences?
You stand in a tradition of Judeo-Christian and Catholic reflection on natural law that offers clear firm ground. Step aside from these, and you have nothing but the swamp bogs, the four winds, and the harrowing Furies of avenging conscience at your back.
If the unitive good of sexual intercourse isn't found where it belongs, what's to keep it from being sought in any surrogate -- not only through the 'analogous unity' homosexual lovers might find in one another, but in pedophilia, bestiality, or even necrophilia?
Pedophilia? Not far fetched. We already have two national journals devoted to "Man-Boy Love." Bestiality? Just ask Peter Singer, Ira B. DeCamp professor of bioethics at Princeton, who says that a human being should be able to enjoy sex with a calf, so long as both enjoy it. Necrophilia? What say, Last Dance with Mary Jane?
Dr Blosser
We are making progress only one mention of sodomy and lots of talk of love. See decent with modification is indeed civilising.
1. ACCUSING THE KETTLE OF BEING BLACK
I laughed and laughed at this one:
Dr B: “If homosexuality is ultimately about love, why should it always have to be also about sex”
One word repeated Dr Blosser: “sodomy” “ sodomy” “sodomy” the ultimate redux on homosexuality.
However finally you have the point – it isn’t. There is good and bad homosexual sexual activity and good and bad heterosexual sexual activity. Circumstances are always relevant on this question.
However you assert that all homosexual sexual activity is necessarily inconsistent with love/virtue – that is where we differ. Your take on your faith and natural law precludes you from conceding that my position might be a wholly rational position to take. I concede at least the remote possibility that your position is rational – I just conclude its wrong when one takes into broader account the evidence.
2 GET YE TO A CIVIL UNION YOUNG LESBIAN
You wax somewhat lyrically about the causalisation of human sexuality, pornography, Hollywood blah blah blah. Well even more reason why homosexual men and women need a conservative model in which they can positively express their God given sexuality. In this regard you offer nothing.
The truly offensive notion to me about Brokeback Mountain (a movie I haven’t seen) was the: “to one’s self be untrue” and the damage this does to the men and others around them. But of course there is only one more offensive position which is the one that says: “homosexuals are being untrue to their true heterosexual self” this is the route to ruin and anguish.
3. THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO POLYGAMY, PAEDOPHILIA, INCEST, BESTIALITY AND NECROPHILIA
Gosh I have seen more slippery slopes and floodgates in human sexuality than one finds in the average hydro-electric scheme. People just cannot be trusted to exhibit that famed “little voice within” or common sense can they?
Firstly, we should ask: are there any more you wish to add – we shouldn’t prematurely “shut the gate” on volcanoes, tsunamis, line dancing and country music too. By goodness the same arguments where made about giving women the vote and look they finally have it in Kuwait where fundamentalists (who argued against it) must now campaign for the votes of the other 50% of the population. Isn’t it hellish – Kuwaiti society will slide into barbarism.
There is an historical basis to polygamy (Jewish/Islam). Actually I don’t have much of an issue with the law recognising these relationships however they are extremely rare largely for practical reasons. Nothing prevents men and women living in de facto polygamous relationships now in fact I saw a docco on an ex Rabbi in England who is doing just that – 6 wives no less. Most men and women aren’t interested in it.
The remaining (paedophilia, incest, bestiality and necrophilia) well not even my friend Paul (the old rocker) Borealis believes this. Inability to consent is the key here. Health and public policy issues are also relevant. Of course what has been defined as “incest” over time has changed. The basic problem with incest is that it does not add to one’s kin group.
If we are to concede that the beasts of the field can through whatever means consent to human sex then we would also have to conclude that they can demure in going to the abattoir. I doubt on the evidence either is possible.
4 THE EVOLUTION OF NATURAL LAW
From a pagan observation about the way the world is through observing patterns and mistakenly believing that the mind wasn’t part of the body, it has evolved to an assertion about how the world ought to be and a claim that where it is not, this results from irrationality. Problematically (for me) is the evolution within the Catholic Church that says I can use public power which at its origins is coercive to make others confirm to how I think they ought to be. Thus the Catholic Church in Nigeria sides with a reduction in human freedom because it serves her notion of what ought to be.
If the Catholic notion of natural law was consistent with the other Catholic creation – the separation of Church and State – then I would be more relaxed.
When I look into the face of the 33hr old baby I observe that he is born free and a necessary part of that freedom is to be consistent with his given sexuality to the extent that this is consistent with the freedom of others. I thank God that increasingly he will be judged on the content of his character and not on who he will love.
Fr. O'Leary,
I've read your snooty little comments directed at me. I'm not going to feign injury. I can take what I dish out.
Let's get the facts straight (no pun intended), though. You say that 'Dave been showing himself very concerned to get me to talk about my personal sexual feelings ...' That's bullshit, Father. The LAST thing I want to hear is you talking about your personal sexual feelings. Here's a fact: I have NOT asked you: "Are you gay?" Fisk my comments, you won't find those words anywhere. The fact is that I CALLED YOU OUT. I called you gay. I said that you were a gay priest with a radical political agenda. The funny thing is that I thought it would be the "radical political agenda" part that you would jump all over. In any case, anyone can go back and read what I wrote. I didn't ask if you were gay. I called you gay. It was a risky move, and I knew it. I knew that I would take some heat. The shit was going to hit the fan ... and boy did it ever. Now, have you noticed something since then, since your hysterical comments in response to my "vicious outing"? I have not once said: "But, Father, you haven't answered my question." THAT'S BECAUSE I NEVER ASKED THE QUESTION. The fact is that I really DON'T CARE about your personal sexual life. (Well, that's not entirely true -- I do care, if in fact you are doing things that endanger your immortal soul.) What you do in private is not what made me call you out. It's what you do in PUBLIC. All of your many posts on this issue, culminating in your wave to the Gay Pride parade, have had the effect of forming in my mind the image of a gay priest with a radical social and political agenda. Now, maybe I was wrong about the "gay" part, but I sure as hell was not wrong about the "radical agenda" part. Oh, I know, you see your agenda as liberating and humane. Well, I see it as tearing down the moral foundations of our civilization. THAT'S what drove me to my admittedly reckless "outing" the other night. It is not your defense of the humanity of gay people that bothers me. It is your open and public dissent against the truth of the Catholic Faith that bothers me. What bothers me is not your sympathy for gay people. What bothers me is your heresy. (Continued ...)
(Continued ...) In one of your recent comments you write:
'Obviously I must be saying something that you need to hear.'
That is possibly the most outrageous thing you have said so far. No Catholic Christian "needs" to listen to heretical doctrine. To the contrary, we need NOT to listen to it. Dr. Blosser has been generous to a fault in providing you a platform to preach your heretical views. The Apostle to the Gentiles would not be nearly so tolerant:
'I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.' (Rm 16:17-1
As for your vaunted Christology, I dare say that Arius, too, was a 'zealot about Christological orthodoxy' -- except that he was a heretic.
"Here "Spirit" often likes to raise the pitiful plight of the poor homosexual who has 'tried' hetero relationships but found that it just didn't work."
Actually I put the emphasis more on the suffering of women who are married to gay men, and often mystified by their situation.
" First of all, I'm inclined to suspicion whenever I hear stories like this. It sounds all too much like my students who say they've tried studying and it didn't' work, so something must be wrong with my exams."
Sounds like you have never come across the situation I refer to in real life.
" Second, I'd be much more inclined to trust their reports, if they were currently leading chaste, celibate lives, but they're invariably not. But it's only through the clarity of vision furinished by chastity that one can often find his way out of the shadows and into the light on these matters. Celibacy -- whether temporary or permanent -- can be a wonderful, spiritually liberating experience. Try it. You might find yourself happy for a change."
This is odd advice from a married man -- I think a wife married to a gay man is probably less unhappy than one married to a celibate!
And your insinuations about myself are the usual below the belt ad hominem (like Dave you are sniffing at my underpants) which is inaccurate as well as insulting.
Dave:
What on earth is all that. You need an early night my friend.
Dr. Blosser:
I am sorry to say but I do not recognize ever asked that question here.
"Why in the world is it necessary for homosexuals to be in a sexual relationship in order to be happy?"
"Grega, what an insightful question! I've often wondered the same."
While I imagine that a number of our catholic homosexual brothers and sisters indeed is just happy without sexual relationships - as testimony on this blog a some occasions certainly implies - I am sure the majority of humans is not cut to withstand the natural urge to engage sexually.
You Dr. Blosser all but give yourself that answer as well in my view when you refer us to days pre puberty as the innocent happy times.
I do find it utmost unrealistic to expect that the average human being can go through life without sexual contact.
As you know even the highly motivated catholic pristhood has it's fair share of breakdown in this department.
Let's all get real.
Look around even here in conservative catholic blog happy happy valley- plenty of divorcees amoung the ueberfaithful. Telling if you ask me -
perhaps some are compensating for their own shortcomings in life.
Look, I want to respect the witness to continent chastity of James Caputo, Dreadnought, Bridgit etc. But I do not like the fact that it is usually associated with contempt for the freedom of conscience of those who disagree or who find that such a life is not for them. I must say I find the tolerant attitude of Bishop Schori far more attractive: "I think it's vitally important for this church to affirm the goodness of all of God’s creation and the place of all God’s people in this church. We have been ordaining gay persons in this church for years and years -- in recent years they have been able to be open about their sexual orientation and honest about that -- I don’t see any retreat from that among deacons and priests. I think we will experience at least a pause in the consecration of bishops who are openly gay and that makes me very sad because I believe that God equally calls people of both sexual orientations to leadership in this church. I firmly believe that gay and lesbian Christians bless us all by their presence and that we need to continue to work at finding a way to include them in all aspects of the community's life.”
"Compensating for their own shortcomings" -- whenever I get into a moral frenzy I ask myself that question -- am I trying to compensate for my own moral shortcomings. I ask the same question of gay colleagues who foam at the mouth about abortion -- a safe subject for them.
'... (like Dave you are sniffing at my underpants) ...'
This recurring theme seems to have quite a hold on your imagination, Father. Talk about compulsive.
'You need an early night my friend.'
Atiyah, that is probably the wisest observation you have made.
' "Compensating for their own shortcomings" -- whenever I get into a moral frenzy I ask myself that question -- am I trying to compensate for my own moral shortcomings.'
That, too, is wise.
Thankfully there is more to "Spirit" and Atiyah than subtle heresy.
Dave, I trot out this because you keep on at it, though you said days ago that you had given it up.
What upsets you about the following:
I agree that the Church teaches that gayness is objectively disordered and gay acts objectively immoral.
I find that teaching unsatisfactory and in need of development. But even if one accepts it, its pastoral application is a very complex matter.
I call above all for DIALOGUE, for OPEN DEBATE, on the issue. At least dialogue about the pastoral practicalities and about how gay people are to be welcomed in the church.
All I am saying is banal in the extreme, and not in the least revolutionary. As Atiyah points out, I am close to extreme reactionary David Brooks!
So just practice a little tolerance.
I don't think the church has ever condemned dissenting views on sexual ethics as heresy. Can you find an official text that does so? Maybe the Molinos affair?
That sounds nice, Father, but it is problematic. For that dialogue and open debate that you call for will necessarily involve people like me defending the view of the Catholic Church 'that gayness is objectively disordered and gay acts objectively immoral'. Invariably that view is labeled by our opponents as hateful and homophobic. How do we get past that impasse?
'At least dialogue about the pastoral practicalities and about how gay people are to be welcomed in the church.'
I'm all in favor of that. Personally, I don't think that gay people should be hounded out of the Church. At the same time, I don't think that welcoming them into the Church means that we should tell them that their sexual orientation is normal and that their sexual acts are moral.
'I don't think the church has ever condemned dissenting views on sexual ethics as heresy.'
Interesting point. Heresy does seem to be more an issue of theological truth, rather than moral truth.
So is your point that the Church should be more open to debate on moral doctrine than she is on theological doctrine?
I'm not sure that the two can be so easily separated.
'But even if one accepts [the Church's teaching on homosexuality], its pastoral application is a very complex matter.'
You might recall that some weeks past I expressed interest in your essay on pastoral accomodation.
This, I think, is a potentially fruitful area of dialogue and debate.
Yet the issue of moral doctrine remains. I'm not sure how we can have an open dialogue and debate on that issue, given the "spirit" of the most recent round.
Last comment, then I am going to take Atiyah's wise advice.
This is on a different topic, which was touched upon earlier. You are right that I know very little about the Asian Bishops. Yet I do wonder what they are thinking. The issue of Catholicism in Asia (especially in India) interests me greatly. Atiyah also is interested. This could be an excellent topic of discussion. Lots of disagreement, no doubt, but maybe not quite so much "heat", if you know what I mean (wink wink, nudge nudge -- God, I am incorrigible.)
For those who might be interested, here is the full text of the Lineamenta that caused such a stir in the FABC:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curi...-
lineam_en.html
For the record I never called Dr Blosser an “ignoramus” – that is entirely is own assertion.
By all means let us have a discussion of the Asian Bishops. In fact, if anyone has a good article on them I can have it published here in Japan.
Right on, Patrick. This is what I have been saying all along.
Ah here is your anthem Fr. O'Leary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l...ch=sandi%
20thom
Last night I posed this question to Fr. O'Leary:
'For that dialogue and open debate that you call for will necessarily involve people like me defending the view of the Catholic Church 'that gayness is objectively disordered and gay acts objectively immoral'. Invariably that view is labeled by our opponents as hateful and homophobic. How do we get past that impasse?'
Shortly after, along comes Patrick with a comment that I can only describe as "hateful screed". It reflected no interest in engaging the substance Dr. Blosser's post. (Atiyah has at least engaged the biological, if not the moral, substance of the post.) The comment ended with an ugly remark about Dr. Blosser's familiarity with his own asshole. (I'll admit that I'm the last person to cast stones about making ugly remarks -- but those remarks have been more than balanced by a serious, rational engagment with the issues.) On the (w)hole, Patrick's comment was a perfect illustration of the dialogal impasse that I had described to Fr. O'Leary.
Instead of responding to my question, Fr. O'Leary signaled his approval Patrick's hateful screed:
'Right on, Patrick. This is what I have been saying all along.'
Speaks volumes, doesn't it?
In fairness, perhaps I should assume that Fr. O'Leary is still considering his response to my question. Yet I remain struck by the fact that he didn't even make the effort to acknowledge it, and instead applauded Patrick's hate-filled comment.
Also, I shouldn't make too much of my own "serious, rational engagement of the issues". Others here have shouldered much more of the burden of defending the Church's teaching than I have. My contribution has been minimal.
I've been reading a bit over at Patrick's blog. He is a much more thoughtful and intelligent person than his comment above would suggest.
Patrick has a deep-seated animus against the Catholic Church, apparently due to mean-spirited Catholics whom he has encountered along life's way.
Again, there is a dialogical impasse here that will be difficult to surmount.
Is "dialogue" really possible with regard to Catholic moral doctrine on homosexual orientation and homsexual acts? I don't think so, not if the ultimate aim of the "dialogue" is to persuade the Catholic Church to overturn 2000 years of consistent moral teaching on this matter. If the Patricks and Fr. O'Learys of the world want the Catholic Church to teach that homosexual orientation is normal and homosexual acts are moral, well, I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen.
Here's where I think dialogue IS possible: at the level of pastoral application of Catholic moral doctrine. This is the legitimate meanining of "welcoming gays into the Church". There is much room for debate in this area. One potentially contentious topic would be: what are the absolute limits for allowing an actively homosexual Catholic to receive Holy Communion? Are those limits truly absolute? What are our limits in exploring the theology of Confession? We might find that there is room for disagreement across the board in Blosserland on that question!
Hi Father,
>>Look, I want to respect the witness to continent chastity of James Caputo, Dreadnought, Bridgit etc.>>
Thanks for your commendation on my witness and for expressing respect for my continent chastity. I consider it my Christian duty. Not a particularly heroic act.
>>But I do not like the fact that it is usually associated with contempt for the freedom of conscience of those who disagree or who find that such a life is not for them.>>
Here is where I fail to understand your position. On what scriptural/historical basis is continent chastity (outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage) deemed a conscience matter or one of individual preference?
Also, I'd appreciate it if you would deal with the matter of feminine restraint and the legalization and social acceptance of homosexuality as ennobling factors among the homosexual community. I had written:
"The folks I made mention of lived in San Francisco just ten or so years ago. They were part of a totally open community wherein homosexuality was celebrated. They outnumbered heterosexuals in their chosen field of work. (i.e. the performing arts). Hence, I don't see this abuse and sexual fixation as a result of prohibition. Rather, it's the natural outworking of an unrestrained perversion."
And:
It's legalization will never quell the immorality, however. The "gay" culture is about experiencing multiple men, open-relationships, promiscuity. Turn on MTV and watch their various dating games wherein they set-up homosexual men. The banter and actions between the men are wholly pornographic. True, their heterosexual counterparts are not reflections of the Blessed Mother. But the women counterbalance the innate lust of the men in almost every case. Therein lies the impossibility of the homosexual community ever lifting itself out of the dung. The general disposition of women, their need for love and affection before they give their bodies to a man is the general restraint to man's fallen sexual nature. Such a restraint is lacking among homosexual men. Making same-sex "marriage" legal will never alter that reality. I cannot walk down the street and pick a woman up and take her to my apartment. Not even the best-looking and most successful men can pull that off in broad sober daylight. But I most certainly can do that in any "gay" community in the United States. Any good-looking man can. That's a reality. To what do you attribute such a phenomenon?
Thanks,
James P. Caputo
Notice how Father O'Leary responds to the suggestion that he drags the discussion into the gutter. He puts up a link to some photos of a half-naked man, which I would never have seen were it not for his link, and he writes:
"How strange to find Philip Blosser claiming that these photos, of a near naked man in sm poses on a rooftop, are what Dreadnought claims them to be -- comparable to the Ignudi on the Sistine Chapel roof!"
Notice where he takes the discussion: what he calls the "sm [sado-masochistic] poses." Further, notice the attribution of a claim to me. When and where have I ever made such a claim? I had not even seen these photos until he provided the link, though I had read about them often enough in his previous prurient comments.
Again he writes:
"Here's that pic again, that Philip seems to like so much (the randy old dog!)."
I'm glad Father O'Leary appears to have a sense of humor. However, what I'm asking you to notice here is the subject of that sense of humor and what it illustrates. He's trying to draw me into that circle of 'randy' ol' Peeping Toms who take a prurient delight in this sort of thing. I don't. I have no interest. So I'm not a Peeping Tom. And I know better than to peep at female bodies of the sort that might arouse an interest in me. I've been down that road before. It doesn't lead anywhere I would want to go, so I've learned not to peek. You draw your conclusions about who enjoys the gutter.
Notice, too, Father's considered and well-informed responses to the statistics I culled from various sources for this post. I quote:
"Piffle..." "Talking through your hat!"
Admirably well-grounded in empircal research, those responses!
Again, in response to the description of the mixture of saliva and its germs, artificial lubricants, feces, and infections the penis may have on it during rectal intercourse, Father writes:
All intimate contact, including kissing, involves risk of germ transmission. Differences here are in degree not kind.
Notice the complete leap here from one category or genus to another -- what the Greeks would call a metabasis eis allo genos. He starts with rectal-anal sex, ends with talking about kissing and suggesting that the differences in germ transmission are in degree, not kind. But that's beside the point, isn't it. The point is not that homosexual rectal-anal sodomy is bad because it's consequences are dangerous. The point is that these consequences only declare wrong and discipline those who commit these acts because they involve an unconsciounable perversion of our nature and design.
Then there's Father's astute chronological observation regarding the date of some of the journal articles I referenced:
1984 is a long time ago; I doubt if anyone would claim this today.
First of all, how would you know? Second, why would you ask us to take your word for it? Third, what makes you think that the pathologies of homosexuality are necessarily any different today than they were in Roman times, when they also reported the scourge of mysterious diseases, which wiped out large numbers of homosexuals? Fourth, if you have fresh empirical data that would change our findings, report them.
Father's response to the topic of "fisting" and the use of bottles, dildos, vegetables, even rodents in anal sex is to say:
" ... these bizarre practices are not confined to gay men.
As much as I hate to ask this, Father, do you have anything more than your bald opinion to back this up? Do lesbians "fist"? Do lesbians use sex toys -- not for clitoral and vaginal stimulation -- but for anal sex? Facts please.
Father responds to the journal's statistic reporting the practice of 'rimming' among 80% of homosexuals, by writing:
"... complete nonsense! Even if -- on the quite implausible supposition that 80% of the world's same-sex attracted men are into "rimming", the idea that they would then "admit" it is a further implausibility. Your sources stink."
Again. Are you simply expecting us to trust your judgment as an authority in this field, Father? Wouldn't it help if you had some research of your own to cite? You pooh-pooh the idea that homosexuals would 'admit' to 'rimming' as implausible, yet this study is based on a six-month long sexual diary study. This is reported by the homosexuals involved in the study themselves
Bias and prejudice are patent in Philip Blosser's choice of "authorities" ...
But of course there are NO biases or prejudices in the Catholic dogmas we both profess, are there, Father?
And of course his source associates homosexuality and pedophilia ...
You wouldn't? You find no association between these phenomena?
But I am tired of plunging my hands into the cesspool of Dr (!) Blosser's mind...
The dual-pronged tactic of shaming and snob-appeal: attempting to shame the opponent into the liberal 'courtesies' of winking at sin against nature by appealing to the snobbery of his academic title.
Apologies, I cited 'Gregg' as 'Grega' once or twice. Mea culpa!
Well, Philip Blosser wants a legal ban on contraceptives and I suppose on divorce as well.
I want this? Father, reign in yourself! This is the first I've heard of this. I believe what the Church teaches on both these matters, but please cease and desist attributing to me legal and political views that are not mine.
You claimed that the vagina was immune from viruses. If you were a real Doctor you would be struck off.
Atiyah, is your hand immune from viruses?
I would actually like to respond to your serious reply to my basic outline of the development of natural law – some of which I agree with. Instead we must dwell on sodomy. Again!
Atiyah, I actually have very little quarrel with your bird's eye sketch of the history of the development of western theoretical reflection on natural law. My basic caveat would be that I don't think what you've sketched is an "outline of the development of natural law," because I don't believe natural law develops. I believe that only our thinking about naural law develops; and on this latter phenomenon, I think your sketch isn't too bad.
Well Dr Blosser if you didn't have Fr. O'Leary you would have to invent him.
I do enjoy your sense of humor, most of the time. This is an amusing twist on Dostoevsky, which I find quite charming, though I don't especially like putting the good Father in the position of God!
You claim the purpose of the post is to consider the relative risks of sexual behaviour in relation to viral diseases. Is that so?
No, I don't think I claim that, though the data may seem to focus on risks. But as an early comment of mine clarifies, these relative medical risks and consequences of homosexual sodomy are not what makes it fundamentally objectionable. Rather, they are symptomatic of its abominable goetic subversion of our natural design, which is what makes it objectionable.
Atiyah,
You say that the really offensive notion for you about Brokeback Mountain is the: "to one's self be untrue" victimization theme, surpassed only by the offensiveness, you say, of homosexuals being untrue to their 'true' heterosexual 'selves.' Later on you suggest that the essential thing objectionable about pedophilia, bestialisty, and necrophilia is the "inability to give consent." These assertions are related by the assumption that the ability to give consent would presumably presuppose some self-understanding of consenting agent to which he could be 'true.' This presupposes, of course, the fact of our having an objective design according to nature and nature's God.
But what interest's me is the contortions of denial individuals slip into when confronted with the resistance of reality, which invariably resists our efforts to bend it to our recalcitrant wills. I don't have the time to go into this exhilarating subject at the moment, but I'm thinking of how a New York Times reviewer of But What If She Wants to Die? by George E. Delury. You may recall, Delury killed his wife who has M.S., after writing her a letter in which he declared: "You are sucking the life out of me like a vampire ... I no longer believe in you." Then the NY Times reviewer could bring himself, on the pinions of soaring pro-euthanasia hype, to refer to Delury's book as a "memoir that professes to be about death but is actually about love," saying that "his portrait of a marriage is close to inspirational." We can say and do what we will do domesticate same-sex partnerships and their heart-felt loves, which are indeed very real. This does not mean there is not a profoundly de-naturing goeteia undertaken in their support.
I think it's vitally important for this church to affirm the goodness of all of God's creation and the place of all God's people in this church.
Notice how Bishop Schori shifts from the goodness of (a) ontological diversity ("all God's creation") to that of a selective inclusiveness of (b) diversity of value-orientation ("the place of all God's people in the church"). The former has to do with being (color, gender, age, etc.) The latter has to do with chosen values (sexual preference, in particular, though implicitly being open to other sorts of 'diversity'). But notice also the tacit exclusion of certain types of value-orientation. I bet she wouldn't be particularly eager to celebrate the place in God's church of George W. Bush supporters, or those in conscience dead-set against the ordination of homosexuals, for instance. (Somethin' quite defective with those folk!)
I know that this is way off topic, but here is an excerpt from Papa Ratzi's _Spirit of the Liturgy_ (recently posted at Ignatius Insight) on the subject of sacred music:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/
f...usic_jun06.html
What can I say? I'm in a prissy Brideshead Revisited mood!
Again, for whomever might be interested in the topic of Catholicism in Asia, here is the Instrumentum Laboris for the Asian Synod:
http://www.vatican.va/
roman_curi...trlabor_en.html
Question: will there be celebration of the place in God's Church of those who support the intentions of the Roman organizers of the Asian Synod?
I'm supposed to give sources to refute Pb's wildly counter-intuitive claims based on fetid decades-old documents from a tricky source?
These documents come from the time when certain people were still clinging on to the definition of Aids as "the gay disease" -- thus contributing to the spread of the disease by putting heterosexuals off their guard.
My point in backing Patrick above was a very simple one: obsession with butt sex is a specialty of homophobes -- they give the rest of the world a chance to look into their closet.
Gay men sometimes talk of or practice this kind of sex, but as any visit to any gay forum will show (unless it is to some pornsite specifically devoted to this practice) it is by no means an overwhelming preoccupation of gay men.
The topic is raised again and again here as a knockdown answer to reasonable arguments. Outrageously, those who upheld those arguments are then accused of an anal obsession etc. Patrick made a perfectly valid point about who it is that returns again and again to the alleged horrors of sodomy (in the process reducing the entire sexuality of gay men to a single abhorred act).
"He starts with rectal-anal sex [correction, You do], ends with talking about kissing and suggesting that the differences in germ transmission are in degree, not kind."
Yes, that is what I said -- and where it is incorrect? You say there is a difference in kind not degree between anal and vaginal as regards transmission of HIV virus for example, but this is clearly false.
" But that's beside the point, isn't it."
How? You made the point that anal sex is dangerous and you suggested, or even stated, that vaginal sex is not.
" The point is not that homosexual rectal-anal sodomy is bad because it's [recte: its] consequences are dangerous. The point is that these consequences only declare wrong and discipline those who commit these acts because they involve an unconsciounable [unconscionable] perversion of our nature and design."
I got that point: rectal sex is more dangerous and this is the punishment for doing it. Again, I would point out that this is primitive reasoning. Vaginal sex is dangerous if your husband is infected with HIV. Fundamentally all sex is dangerous, as is all intimate contact, and the danger increases with the degree and duration of intimacy. Gay marriage is based partly on the idea that monogamous sex reduces these dangers very much. Just as your quoting of one kind of propaganda above would lead heterosexuals into danger, so your discouragement of stable gay unions leads homosexuals into danger.
"1984 is a long time ago; I doubt if anyone would claim this today." Remind us of the claim. Wasn't it that most Aids is transmitted by rectal intercourse?
"First of all, how would you know?" I read the newspapers.
" Second, why would you ask us to take your word for it?" I don't.
" Third, what makes you think that the pathologies of homosexuality are nece
" Third, what makes you think that the pathologies of homosexuality are necessarily any different today than they were in Roman times, when they also reported the scourge of mysterious diseases, which wiped out large numbers of homosexuals?" According to your quotes from Juvenal? But can you name a single sexual disease that is confined to homosexuals or even that is transmitted uniquely by rectal intercourse?
" Fourth, if you have fresh empirical data that would change our findings, report them." OUR FINDINGS? Such junk is not in possession of the stage and should not act as if it was he heavyweight champ of scientific insight. If you want your findings to be respected, why not quote from an objective source of recent vintage?
"Father's response to the topic of "fisting" and the use of bottles, dildos, vegetables, even rodents in anal sex is to say: " ... these bizarre practices are not confined to gay men. As much as I hate to ask this, Father, do you have anything more than your bald opinion to back this up? Do lesbians "fist"? Do lesbians use sex toys -- not for clitoral and vaginal stimulation -- but for anal sex? Facts please."
I was not thinking of lesbians but of heterosexual men. Anal sex is reported in the newspapers to be very popular among heterosexual youth in England today.
"Father responds to the journal's statistic reporting the practice of 'rimming' among 80% of homosexuals, by writing: "... complete nonsense! Even if -- on the quite implausible supposition that 80% of the world's same-sex attracted men are into "rimming", the idea that they would then "admit" it is a further implausibility. Your sources stink."
"Again. Are you simply expecting us to trust your judgment as an authority in this field, Father?"
No, I am expecting you to trust your common sense.
"Wouldn't it help if you had some research of your own to cite? You pooh-pooh the idea that homosexuals would 'admit' to 'rimming' as implausible, yet this study is based on a six-month long sexual diary study. This is reported by the homosexuals involved in the study themselves" -- Have you ever heard of "representative samples" -- don't you know the problems of all such polls? If I quoted Kinsey or Masters/Johnson at you you would pour scorn on them, claiming they were biased weirdos, pedophiles etc. If you really want scientific findings, surely you are capable of finding them for yourself?
" I think it's vitally important for this church to affirm the goodness of all of God's creation and the place of all God's people in this church." Bp Schori.
Pb: "Notice how Bishop Schori shifts from the goodness of (a) ontological diversity ("all God's creation") to that of a selective inclusiveness of (b) diversity of value-orientation ("the place of all God's people in the church"). The former has to do with being (color, gender, age, etc.) The latter has to do with chosen values (sexual preference, in particular, though implicitly being open to other sorts of 'diversity')."
Sexual preference is an inborn disposition or at the very least a disposition acquired before the age of conscious choice. People do not choose their sexual make-up, and it is not a value but a given of their temperament.
" But notice also the tacit exclusion of certain types of value-orientation." Not so tacit -- she is attacking manicheanism, that disvalues the goodness of creation, and bigotry, that disvalues the otherness of my neighbor.
" I bet she wouldn't be particularly eager to celebrate the place in God's church of George W. Bush supporters, or those in conscience dead-set against the ordination of homosexuals, for instance." Did you not notice that -- with some coaching from Rowan Williams -- she got the ECUSA to sign a document making extreme concessions to the latter group?
Here is a piece that greatly relativizes your insistence on the uniquely germ-plagued nature of the anus: http://www.mypleasure.com/educat...d/
analingus.asp
Center for Disease Control reports that 19577 cases of HIV transmission in the USA in 2002, of which only 8691 were male-to-male sexual tranmission (not necessarily rectal). The world statistics would probably show a still lower proportion of gay sex related transmission. Of course it is true that gay men are the category most exposed to HIV risks, in the US, but if you interpret this as Punishment, then you must regard the least exposed category, gay women, as angels!
But do you really want to get involved in arguments from statistics and science. I am quite happy with that, though of course I am only an amateur like yourself.
Only if you do want to argue, please tone down the emotive rhetoric, and please resist the temptation to shift into a mode of shrill moralism whenever any facts or arguments seem to you to be leading to conclusions not necessarily confirmatory of your positions.
If "the vagina is virtually impermeable to viruses" as you claim, how come that Aids is the major cause of death among African American women aged 25 to 34, and how come that half the world's HIV carriers are women? Are you saying that they are all practicing anal intercourse?
for the data see
http://www.thewellproject.org/Di...V7JN0!-
94790604
Dr Blosser
You ask: “Atiyah, is your hand immune from viruses?”
Well, it really depends on the virus since they evolve faster than the human hand does. Immunity to viruses = genetics + time + exposure. The key defence to viruses is our genetic inheritance and immune system not the “design” of any particular part of the body. Since the HIV/Aids virus only jumped into the human species about 75yrs ago I would argue that little has changed about our genitals in that time. Thus the only way a human vagina could be resistant to this virus was from ongoing repeated exposure to it previously. This cannot come from the human male. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Let’s birds-eye it.
The HIV/Aids virus is a chimpanzee virus passed primary by sexual activity and prevalent through that species. Most chimps have a genetic and immunological resistance to it of say an average factor of 10 and it is therefore non lethal to them in most cases. The reason is that 1000+yrs ago when it jumped into this species it killed those who could not resist it. Most Africans have an immunological resistance of an average of say 6, most non-Africans of 3. Let use assume that we don’t change behaviour or apply our intellect to defeating it. In 1000+ years it is likely that the only humans that survive will be those who have a genetic and immunological resistance to it, irrespective of our sexual behaviour.
You must then conclude that because all our descendents will either have HIV/Aids (it’s non lethal) or that their immune systems can defeat it they we are “designed” to do so. But from this one cannot draw anything about the form and function of the genitals or our sexual behaviour.
To be a bit provocative viruses and bacteria are a bit like Christianity. It wants to spread and initially it can be lethal. But as it spreads down the generations it evolves and becomes more benign less lethal and ubiquitous and as a result I would argue more civilised.
As you might also be aware some argue there is a genetic predisposition to religious belief itself. An interesting concept.
Consider the moral dilemma. You link to your employer and tell use about your role as a teacher and your students. Should I contact your employer to raise my concern about the scientifically questionable assertion in your original post, given that it could also be deadly if relied upon. You of course would think less of me. Your employer might regard my case as arguable and at any rate they might hold that the matter is best left to free contest of ideas – for such ideas stand or fall on their own merit. Which is the moral course of action: appeal to authority or contest the idea here and seek common understanding in this forum?
I will reply to your other questions but alas I have chores to do.
'Gay men sometimes talk of or practice [anal] sex, but as any visit to any gay forum will show (unless it is to some pornsite specifically devoted to this practice) it is by no means an overwhelming preoccupation of gay men.'
Vaginal intercourse is not an "overwhelming preoccupation" of married men and women, yet it is certainly a significant aspect of their sexual life. Are you suggesting that anal intercourse is not a significant aspect of the sexual life of homosexual couples?
Here is the larger issue, Father: in defending and approving homosexual acts, you destroy the unity of the Church.
'Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.' (CCC 2357)
This is the teaching of the Catholic Church. This is the tradition that has been handed down to us. This is our faith. You argue with it, fisk it, and deny it. You call this "dialogue". I call it dissension. Again, I will quote the Apostle Paul:
'I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.' (Rm 16:17-18 )
Duly noted.
'Did you not notice that -- with some coaching from Rowan Williams -- she got the ECUSA to sign a document making extreme concessions to the latter group?'
Extreme concessions? I'd like to see them. Details, please.
'I agree that the Church teaches that gayness is objectively disordered and gay acts objectively immoral.'
What kind of slippery language is that? Who doesn't "agree" with the mere FACT that the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral? The problem is that you AGITATE against what the Church teaches. That is what St. Paul condemns.
All of this discussion about anuses, vaginas, and the mucous membranes therein has been quite an education. Yet all of it is quite beside the point, isn't it? Here's the point. The Lord Jesus, working through his Church, establishes the boundaries of Christian moral life. It is up to us to try to live within those boundaries, as best we can, and with the help of the Lord. It is not up to us to question the boundaries established by the Lord through the ministers of his Church, i.e., through the Popes and Bishops of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The Gospels suggest to us that Jesus has little patience with disciples who question and second-guess him. When Peter rebuked Jesus for intending to obey the Father even unto death, Jesus called him "Satan". Jesus loves those who follow him like obedient lambs. He gives us shepherds, in whose person we are called to follow Jesus in a very concrete and sometimes painful way.
In place of this, Fr. O'Leary offers us tips and techniques from the pleasuredome (see the link that he provides with information about "rimming") and asserts the moral goodness of acts that Jesus forbids through the voice of his legitimately appointed ministers.
This is not "dialogue". It is madness.
Spirit of Vatican II,
“The female reproductive tract is a specialized mucosal surface that has the dual tasks of facilitating the growth of an allogeneic fetus while still providing protection against potential pathogens. These diverse needs are met, at least partially, by precise regulation of immune responses in the genital tract by ovarian sex hormones, estradiol and progesterone. A number of clinical and epidemiological studies illustrate that sex hormones influence genital tract infections in women. The stage of the menstrual cycle and/or oral contraceptives are known to affect infection with candidiasis, gonorrhea, HSV-2, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), and Chlamydia in women. In rhesus macaque models, subcutaneous implants of progesterone made the monkeys more susceptible to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) vaginal transmission, while estrogen was able to protect against SIV infection.” http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/f.../full/79/5/
3107
Further: “HIV is much more efficiently transmitted (approximately 20 times greater) from men to women than from women to men. This may be linked to the fact that the surface area of the mucosal tissues in the female reproductive tract that are exposed to virus is significantly grater than that of the male urethra exposed to infected vaginal fluids. Also, the duration of exposure to virus-containing fluids is greater for women.“
http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AI...59880.html?
h28o
Given that a human female’s genital system has a risk 20 times greater, perhaps your question should be why so few women in Africa have HIV compared to men.
Dr. Blosser’s description of vaginal immunity, while not medically accurate, is accurate enough for this comment box.
Good luck.
Trog
Good to see you outta the cave. The two links you provide make it worse for Dr Blosser.
“Dr. Blosser’s description of vaginal immunity, while not medically accurate, is accurate enough for this comment box”
Consider the first study you cite:
“The effect of sex hormones in the reproductive tract appears to be tissue and pathogen specific”
This is my point in the post above. It all depends on the pathogen and I would argue that the pathogens change more quickly that does the design of any particular tissue. The study itself is about the role of sex hormones actually. What on earth does “accurate enough” mean….. the vagina can either acquire viruses or it can’t. Since the claim is that it can’t - evidence suggests this to be utterly wrong – deadly if relied upon by a woman with an HIV positive husband.
Dr Blosser’s long bow is that resistance to viruses indicates purpose and design. There is little evidence to support this. Consider another example. The bird flu virus kills healthy vital humans because their immune systems over-reacts and destroys healthy cells. Does this tell us more about the design of the human or the virus?
I do not like the fact that it is usually associated with contempt for the freedom of conscience of those who disagree or who find that such a life is not for them.
I always know when I'm dealing with a "progressive". They trot out the old "primacy of conscience" canard.
Having some action validated by your conscience does not magically turn sin into virtue. You need to have a Catholic informed conscience.
Shoot, Adolph Hitler was following his conscience.
BTW, father. What ever happened to your "Rise of the Neocaths" page? There seem to be hundreds if not thousands of broken links now.
'Dr Blosser’s long bow is that resistance to viruses indicates purpose and design.'
No, it's not. Here's what Dr. Blosser writes:
'The rectum was designed for the absorption of nutrients from digested food before its excretion, and clearly not for introducing anything from the outside. Hence, the use of the anus for intercourse is quite simply unnatural, contrary to nature, counter to the purposes for which human anatomy was naturally designed.'
With the exception of invasive procedures for medical purposes (thermometers, suppositories, enemas, colonoscopies, etc.), Dr. Blosser's observation stands to reason. The anus is not made to receive a penis. Anal intercourse is unnatural, disgusting, and immoral -- including when performed by a man upon a woman. This is one of those things that we simply cannot not know. St. Paul had it right. The Catholic Church has it right. Atiyah and Fr. Joe have yet to demonstrate that the Church is wrong on this issue by any objective standard.
Dr. Blosser's apparent mis-statement about vaginal immunity is the ultimate red herring.
Fr. O'Leary makes much of the (alleged and unsupported) fact that homosexuals are not fixated on anal sex. Yet this is to overlook the full scope of the problem. St. Paul writes:
'[T]he men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another ..' (Rm 1:27)
Does Fr. O'Leary mean to suggest that a homosexual couple are NOT "consumed with passion for one another"? Please.
Even within the context of so-called "gay marriage", it is wrong for a man to be consumed with sexual passion for another man. This is the word of scripture and the constant teaching of the Catholic Church. That is what really bugs Atiyah and Fr. Joe, not Dr. Blosser's apparent missteps in the realm of biological fact.
Mark well that Fr. O'Leary has constantly reiterated in these pages his opinion that it is a blessing from God for two "married" men to indulge their sexual passion for one another. He cannot deny this. Yet his opinion is in stark contradiction to the Word of God and the teaching of the Catholic Church.
That is the issue, not the relative viral immunity of anuses and vaginas.
Atiyah,
The comparison was between the relative immune qualities of a rectum versus a vagina. Clearly, the vagina has mechanisms to resist infection [non-specific immunity] beyond the mechanisms of a rectum.
You can duplicate the results yourself by introducing some amount of the virus of your choice subcutaneously and, in the same sitting, introduce the same amount of virus to a mucous membrane of your choice. You will be able to verify, via your own experimentation, that the mucous membrane encapsulates and expels viral bodies at a rate that far exceeds the non-mucous membrane site. Depending on the quantity of virus you use, the encapsulation and expulsion of the viral bodies may be 100%.
Estradiol levels peak just prior to ovulation making the female reproductive system the most immune [non-specific] at about the same time that successful reproduction may occur (i.e. fertilization and implantation).
Dr. Blosser still stands correct: the mucous membrane of the female reproductive system provide immunity [non-specific] superior to a male rectum or a female rectum.
Finally, given the passion for evolutionary biology, should homosexuality been a facet of human sexuality for as long as advocates say, would not some humans have been selected with immune rectums? Would not that show a historical basis for homosexual activity? Unfortunately for advocates we find nothing of the kind just as we find no historical record of thriving (or otherwise) homosexual communities either historic or prehistoric.
The Church speaks in wisdom when she says that a homosexual act is a disordered act. She also speaks in wisdom when she says that those persons who engage in such acts are to be treated with the respect and dignity due a brother or sister in Christ but homosexual acts are not to be countenanced.
"Vaginal intercourse is not an "overwhelming preoccupation" of married men and women, yet it is certainly a significant aspect of their sexual life. Are you suggesting that anal intercourse is not a significant aspect of the sexual life of homosexual couples?"
It is much less significant for many homosexual couples than vaginal intercourse is for most heterosexual couples. I seem to recall reading in C. A. Tripp, The Homosexual Matrix (a book that seemed enlightening back then) that only 4% of gays practice anal intercourse (not that much weight can be attributed to such a statistic. Anyway, I accept that for many of the gay couples who do have this practice in their repertoire it gives them as sense of being "one body" and has a cementing role in their relationship.
You may say that vaginal intercourse has the same role, or a stronger version thereof, for straight couples in immoral liaisons; I would not contest this.
Dave, if you stand by St Paul's aitiology of homosexual feelings you are in contradiction of all of modern science -- which is the price of biblical fundamentalism.
A homosexual couple do not "burn with lust" for one another, they love one another.
The vagina is virtually immune to viruses is what Blosser claimed; no one is disputing that it is more immune to viruses than the rectum is.
To call Blosser's outrageous howler a red-herring misses the point. His posting is full of wild claims, and yet it was swallowed as Gospel by gullibles here, who will use any old stick to beat down gays.
Spirit of Vatican II,
“Anyway, I accept that for many of the gay couples who do have this practice in their repertoire it gives them as sense of being "one body" and has a cementing role in their relationship.”
Children playing at being adults, in other words. I hope you catechize the individuals concerning “the two shall become one” as referring less to the act of coitus and more to the progeny produced by the act and the grace of God, a bit of wonder amplified by an understanding of meiosis.
“. . . yet it was swallowed as Gospel by gullibles here, who will use any old stick to beat down gays.”
You are right, I’ve been duped: the Gospel I swallowed said something along the lines of “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Of course, I understand how that is unpopular with the “To thine own self be true” crowd making them so cross-eyed with madness they see sticks were there are none.
Homosexual acts are not indicated biologically or morally.
Personally, I find you quite silly—I’m afraid you’ll need to mark me in your book as another “stupid breeder” who refuses to be dazzled by your attempt at “dialogue.”
Good luck.
Trogie
You have me salivating like Pavlov’s dog with all this talk of science and evolution. I thought Dr Blosser’s post was about the relative risks of sexual behaviour but that is not the case.
His argument is this: resistance to viruses in a particular part of the body indicates a design for that part of the body and by extension a “designer” although he doesn’t say this explicitly. So to use that part of the body contrary to design is unnatural and against the wishes of the “designer.” Thus he would argue even if there were no health risks associated with sodomy it is contrary to design. Dr Blosser is of course conflicted and deliciously so. As a booster of Natural Law he should never admit any scientific evidence on human sexuality post Aquinas. But as a booster of Intelligent Design he cannot resist it.
My response is that resistance to viruses is not a good indicator of design of a particular part of the body. First off the claim that the human vagina cannot acquire viruses per se is false … and dangerously so. Always look at the particular virus – its design will largely determine the transmission issue. Most of those viruses infecting humans and resulting in death come from animals like HIV/Aids or the Bird Flu. The bad news is that we die because our bodies are unfamiliar with them. The good news is that they evolve over time to less lethal and our immune systems learn how to combat them. Consider 150,000 yrs ago the human vagina was probably much the same as it is today and this is likely to be the case 150,000yrs hence. What will have changed is our immunity which evolves. In turn the HIV/Aids virus will probably be unrecognisable and assuming it still infects us probably harmless.
Trog goes on to say “given the passion for evolutionary biology, should homosexuality been a facet of human sexuality for as long as advocates say, would not some humans have been selected with immune rectums”
Oh dear Trog as I have said immunity is not a characteristic of particular body parts. The passing of immunological resistance in homosexuals to successive generations is problematic as most don’t have children. Most sodomy in absolute terms has occurred between heterosexuals where immunological resistance or weakness is passed on to successive generations. Interestingly it is not the pristine nature of the vagina but the “muck of life” that aids new born babies born naturally. The immunities they inherit from mother are given an early test run and supported by breast milk. That is why they on average they enjoy an advantage over babies born by caesarean and not fed on breast milk.
“we find no historical record of thriving (or otherwise) homosexual communities either historic or prehistoric”
I laughed and laughed at this. Prey tell how would a “homosexual community” reproduce itself? The incidence of homosexuality seems to be randomly spread across any population but at a very low consistent rate.
Keep with the science my friend you will get there in the end.
Atiyah,
Your argument with Dr. Blosser is your argument with Dr. Blosser.
The mucous membrane is consider a non-specific immune response. An antigen is considered a specific immune response.
I’m not sure why you are arguing that a human has a only non-specific immunity to HIV as I’ve not read anyone assert it.
For your information: http://www.dcp2.org/pubs/DCP/18/...P/18/Table/
18.2
Good luck.
Atiyah,
Look at the previous post: you are focusing solely on specific immunity and ignoring non-specific immunity.
No one, but you it seems—and contrary at that—has posited that specific immunity is a function of an organ rather than of a cell.
Glad you found humor in the hyperbole: my return for the humor you’ve presented.
As it stands, there have no new arguments in the past 5,000 years concerning homosexual acts: the language and detail have changed but the arguments have not; homosexual acts are deviant within a population. Those acts are met with disapprobation. The person, on the other hand, is treated with compassion even when that person cannot separate “thine own self” from “thine own acts.”
Good luck.
5000 years? Hmm, many cultures have not regarded "homosexual acts" as the end of the world. I need only point to the initiation rituals of Melanesia that involve ritual sodomy, or to the generally tolerant attitude of the Japanese for 5000 years.
“the two shall become one” as referring less to the act of coitus and more to the progeny produced -- Really? But Paul uses the one-body analogy to describe having sex with a prostitute -- so clearly for Paul, and I think for most readers of Genesis over the last 2500 years, the one-body theme refers to the unitive rather than the procreative dimension.
“. . . yet it was swallowed as Gospel by gullibles here, who will use any old stick to beat down gays.”
You are right, I’ve been duped: the Gospel I swallowed said something along the lines of “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” YES, THAT IS THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE INACCURATE "INFORMATION" VOUCHED FOR BY BLOSSER AND SWALLOWED BY OTHERS HERE OUT OF PREJUDICE.
"Personally, I find you quite silly—I’m afraid you’ll need to mark me in your book as another “stupid breeder” who refuses to be dazzled by your attempt at “dialogue.”" I WOULD NEVER CALL ANYONE A "STUPID BREEDER".
Good luck.
Trog | 07.02.06 - 11:06 pm | #
Hi there Atiyah, I loved that "anthem".
In any case when I mentioned the "one body" theme I was not referring to the "one flesh" of Genesis particularly. The phrase was used by a non-Christian Japanese man describing his relationship with his lover. Again, I want to point out that we are dealing here with sexual phenomenology rather than ethics. I am contesting the phenomenology offered by Blosser in his "reading" of acts detached from context. I am pointing out that -- as a bisexual student in University College Cork put it at a meeting in the chaplaincy -- "I am here to tell you that there is no difference between the experience of sex with a man and that of sex with a woman". What he meant, I guess, is that the unitive (or pseudo-unitive, if you view both as parodies of marriage) dimension of both experiences is experienced in the same way. This is very far from Blosser's portrayal of gay sex as focused on demonic acts of death.
Trog
Thanks for the link on the relative risks of sexual behaviour. I thought this bit was interesting in relation to HIV/Aids:
"Abstinence-only education is not effective in promoting healthy sexual behaviors. Programs that promote both postponement of intercourse and contraceptive use were more effective in changing behaviors than those that stressed abstinence alone. None of the abstinence-only programs that have been evaluated demonstrated an overall positive effect on sexual behavior, nor did they affect contraceptive use among sexually active participants"
http://www.dcp2.org/pubs/DCP/18/Box/18.2
Tony
"Shoot, Adolph Hitler was following his conscience"
True strongly shaped by his Catholic upbringing. He was an unhappy altarboy.
Trog
Tell me how long would it take for the mucous membrane in the human vagina to evolve so as to resist (or not accquire) all known viruses both current and future.
That is a little unfair - lets just try the HIV/Aids virus?
Atiyah,
Perhaps we are not involved in the same conversation.
Here’s a bit of a refresher concerning specific and non-specific immunity: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec16/...183/
ch183a.html
Good luck.
Trogie
I certainly hope we are not having different conversations.
Thanks for the link of the immune system – let’s hope Dr Blosser takes a look ah.
I must say I never knew that the human vagina cannot acquire viruses although the record in regard to sexually transmitted viral diseases does not support this.
However as you say its accurate enough so I suggest we deploy the vagina as our first line defence against bird flu originating as it does in the mass buggery committed by our fine feathered friends.
“There have no new arguments in the past 5,000 years concerning homosexual acts: the language and detail have changed but the arguments have not; homosexual acts are deviant within a population. Those acts are met with disapprobation. The person, on the other hand, is treated with compassion even when that person cannot separate “thine own self” from “thine own acts.”
Well of course this sweeping summation of human history ignores major advances in our understanding of the biological sciences and the natural sciences. This has allowed human civilisation to move forward as they did when your near and dear discovered stone tools. Luckily the Catholic Church moves little weight on matters of human sexuality. Her own faithful have also cast their vote on the issue as well.
To make a distinction between homosexuality and homosexual acts which one makes morally illicit is about as coherent as the practice of worshipping the divine foreskins. It is ignorance simpliciter just dressed up.
Atiyah:
You just shot Father O'Leary in the face:
"To make a distinction between homosexuality and homosexual acts which one makes morally illicit is about as coherent as the practice of worshipping the divine foreskins."
He, himself, makes the difference between SSA persons and sexual intercourse. The whole question must be one of actions (which have moral value, positive or negative) and personal attributes. That I wear glasses [I don't] is neither morally right or wrong. That I have dreadful hearing isn't morally wrong or right. That I choose to shoot someone at close range because he is black is, manifestly, morally wrong or right -- unless you're a relativist, in which case it can be both at the same time.
Of course sexual orientation and sexual acts are different things.
Maybe what Atiyah is getting at is those people who say "I condemn gays for what they do, not for what they are".
If heterosexuals were forbidden all physical expression of their sexuality, would it be acceptable to say: "We do not stigmatize their sexuality, only its physical expression".
I mean there is a kind of problem telling your gay son, "you are not to blame for your sexuality, but it is seriously disordered, and any sexual act you happen to commit is illicit; your straight brother, on the other hand, is free to kiss the girls and build his way to full sexual life as a married man. Too bad, son, but I love you all the same." Many a son would hate a daddy who talked to him like that!
What I am getting at is the notion that all homosexual sexual activity is morally illicit in all circumstances. It’s very primitive notion and thankfully in this regard the view of the Catholic Church is simply ignored in most civilised nations.
I of course don’t reduce people to their rutting - I leave that to the radtrads here.
I just love the fact that a Republic Governor sacks a bigoted Catholic (or anyone else) for spouting this sort of nonsense about sexual deviancy publicly. I admire the subtlety and intelligence of Cardinal McCarrick in handling Catholic legislators but that sort of common sensed smart Catholicism is pretty rare on this blog.
The Catholicism here is shrill and desperate like the drowning man and his life preserver. And it fusses over homosexual sex to a degree that is odd.
In my Country the Catholic Church wisely keeps a low profile on the homosexuality issue and the contraception issue. She did campaign against civil unions (a free vote in Parliament) and made no impact. She is slightly higher profile on abortion where our law allows this on health reasons. But even then there is no popular mood for changing the law.
Atiyah,
You wrote: “I must say I never knew that the human vagina cannot acquire viruses although the record in regard to sexually transmitted viral diseases does not support this.”
I would say you are being disingenuous here—the first line of defense against a sexually transmitted disease is “No.” Of course, as the world allegedly has been filled and is still filled with evil patriarchs, the female body produces a “NO” when the verbal fails. In your grasping at a scientific method, you have failed to quantify the viral sample required to penetrate a body’s various mucous membranes; as you are the budding scientist, I’ll leave that task for you.
Further, you wrote: “To make a distinction between homosexuality and homosexual acts which one makes morally illicit is about as coherent as the practice of worshipping the divine foreskins. It is ignorance simpliciter just dressed up.”
It is true, from a biological point of view, there is no difference in the neural activity or physical response when a male’s penis is stimulated by insertion to a rectum versus insertion into a vagina. Likewise, there is no difference when the person is a child, actively dissents from the action, is an elder, is mentally disabled, or is not even a human at all. To base one’s moral underpinnings on the biological response of genital stimulation seems to be rather immature: “I orgasm, therefore I am!”
The “debate” is not at all about love—we’ve been shown an example of supreme love and that example has no orgasm involved and, interestingly, walked the path of self-reduction much as the mark of Abraham’s understanding is a physical self-reduction.
Trog
Sorry mate but it's you guys who are biological reductionists when it comes to both hetrosexual and homosexual love. But alas the biology is always centred around genitals and never around the role the brain plays in physical attraction. But I should not be surprised as the radtrads tend to have brain bypasses.
You guys have a total inability to concieve that two women can love each other as deeply and meaningfully as your love your significant other. But then sometimes I wonder about your love for another as you guys whip yourselves up over the sexual behaviour of others. It's frankly very odd to be so interested in the mechanics of sodomy. There seems to be a deep seated fear of homosexuality which in supposedly hetrosexual men is usually a sign of sexual insecurity or prior molestation.
Thankfully as you radtrads have a brain by pass so the civilised world by passes the Catholic Church on the decriminalisation of homosexuality and civil unions/marriage open to same sex couples. Watch it happen people. Not that I actually believe legal formalisation makes much difference to the basic relationships, however it does get up your noses which pleases me no end.
Atiyah,
You wrote: “Sorry mate but it's you guys who are biological reductionists when it comes to both hetrosexual and homosexual love. But alas the biology is always centred around genitals and never around the role the brain plays in physical attraction. But I should not be surprised as the radtrads tend to have brain bypasses.”
Then your understanding of biology is skewed: is not the processing of neural data regulated by the brain and spinal cord? Just what is it that you think monitors those dopamine levels of yours to summarize them as feelings of love? Perhaps I was being too subtle in my point: biology, evolutionary or otherwise, explains human phenomenon in new terms rather than discovering new human phenomenon.
You wrote: “You guys have a total inability to concieve that two women can love each other as deeply and meaningfully as your love your significant other.”
Inconceivable? Rather not: I know perfectly well that one woman can give up her life to will the good of another woman. What does that have to do with sexual intercourse?
Further, you write: “But then sometimes I wonder about your love for another as you guys whip yourselves up over the sexual behaviour of others.”
Admittedly, I am attracted to members of the same-sex. We’re rather old-fashioned as we call our relationships “friendship” and there is no endless discussion that “physical intimacy” in the form of mutual masturbation would deepen or somehow extend the love we hold for one another.
Moreover you write: “It's frankly very odd to be so interested in the mechanics of sodomy. There seems to be a deep seated fear of homosexuality which in supposedly hetrosexual men is usually a sign of sexual insecurity or prior molestation.”
Typical Kirk & Madsen cant has been adequately responded to elsewhere.
Finally you write, among other things: “Not that I actually believe legal formalisation makes much difference to the basic relationships, however it does get up your noses which pleases me no end.”
And I think that is the entire point of the exercise: a homosexual is unhappy if someone somewhere thinks same-sex sexual activity is morally wrong and, at the same time, is happy if their own display of same-sex sexual activity shocks someone.
Trog
“Inconceivable? Rather not: I know perfectly well that one woman can give up her life to will the good of another woman. What does that have to do with sexual intercourse”
See see you cannot conceive two women loving each other in a sexual way. I can. It is not compulsory Trog….. if it really upsets you that much you do not have to have sex with anybody. Unless its joyous and you love the person – don’t do it.
“Admittedly, I am attracted to members of the same-sex. We’re rather old-fashioned as we call our relationships “friendship” and there is no endless discussion that “physical intimacy” in the form of mutual masturbation would deepen or somehow extend the love we hold for one another”
That is excellent Trog - just like homosexual men who are not sexually attracted to every male in their orbit. Excellent news for if you were you would never get anything done. Again the simple point is that men can love each other in a sexual way. There is no big deal to it really. I would prefer that to be in monogamous relationships civil unioned/married if they think that helps them.
“There seems to be a deep seated fear of homosexuality which in supposedly hetrosexual men is usually a sign of sexual insecurity or prior molestation.”
You don’t think this is relevant – look at your comments. HELLO women do have sex with each other as do men. And by any measure these relationships can be loving. You seem oddly blind to this – it’s inconceivable in your world view and yet it happens, and as far as we can tell it’s been happening forever.
Trog
“a homosexual is unhappy if someone somewhere thinks same-sex sexual activity is morally wrong and, at the same time, is happy if their own display of same-sex sexual activity shocks someone”
Really are you the Sun around which all the worlds revolve. Truthfully most homosexuals are probably getting on with life and not worry too much about whether you are happy or not. They are out there paying bill, raising kids, working a job, going to church, worrying about the price of gas, trying to find someone right for them - gosh when you look at it they look a bit like you. But I would certainly agree with them that for you to focus so much of your energy on their sexual activity in a world where so much can be done to make it better, is odd in the scheme of things. I don’t know what get’s your goat about the “display of same-sex sexual activity.” Where are you going and why are you looking? Or are you referring to handholding and kissing? Do you care what others think when you show affection in public to your wife or girlfriend? I see people showing affection between each other all the time some of it based in sexual attraction, love, affection, or friendship. I find it heartens me - the world would be better if we had more of it. Your happiness or unhappiness is your responsibility – it is not down to the sexual behaviour of others.
Atiyah,
You’ve been misinformed: sex is not love. Above there is a valid definition of love, one that is appropriate for this blog.
Good luck.
Trog
No sex is not love (who said it was) but nor is sex between women always the absence of love. Look to the relationship – the sex finds meaning within context. Don’t be intellectually lazy and not examine context on the basis of inherited pagan belief systems on human sexuality.
We know is that one of the ways humans express their deepest heartfelt regard for one another is sexually – it’s our thing. I don’t view sexual expression as somehow a contaminant in true love between individuals. Whereas I pick this up from your comments.
I am not saying there are not other species of love and I guess as a Catholic you would hold love of the Divine to be utmost among them. But love is a funny thing one finds it in the strangest places including between men and women who are attracted to their own sex.
The true conservative response to this is to develop a morality that says all human sexual activity should occur in monogamous relationships were both individuals are publicly committed to the welfare of the other.
"The true conservative response to this is to develop a morality that says all human sexual activity should occur in monogamous relationships were both individuals are publicly committed to the welfare of the other." This is a good summary of what I see as the developing Catholic position. It includes marriage, betrothal and civil gay unions.
Sexual activity outside these approved and covenanted relationships falls short of the ideal and is likely to be immoral (that is as far as I can go, as a liberal who refuses the manichean rhetoric of stigmatization). Even here we should learn to stress first the goodness of sexual attraction and pleasure, and present the ideal as a goal of growth and as perfecting the natural values that are latent also in much uncovenanted sexual activity.
Atiyah,
Context is always good: what is the biological basis for a human male orgasm? And what is the biological basis for a human female orgasm? And the basis for the increase in dopamine in both the male and the female for a period of time? Biologically, those traits have been selected by successful reproduction for a continuance of successful reproduction.
Homosexual acts, in a biological context, consist of one body lying to another. Hardly the basis for love or even an act of love.
Oddly, the concept of using one’s reproductive system to not reproduce seems incredible rational whereas using one’s ear to nourish one’s body is greeted with puzzled and bemused stares. Why is that?
You wrote: “The true conservative response to this is to develop a morality that says all human sexual activity should occur in monogamous relationships were both individuals are publicly committed to the welfare of the other.”
I would read the word “monogamous” more along the biological lines of “hetero-gamete” rather than “homo-gamete” as well as the social meaning; the Church’s teaching indicates that sexual activity is ordered within a sacramental marriage and disordered outside of a sacramental marriage. Likewise, solo sexual activity is disordered.
Be my guest—rather be Dr. Blosser’s guest—and write the last word.
Good luck.
Trog
When I speak of sexual activity within context you reduce this to a matter of neuroscience or physiology. I think you need to be much broader if you truly want to understand human sexuality. You have to dwell on the mind.
I am pleased you have discovered the orgasm and dopamine – the physiology of sexuality is indeed relevant – you are many steps ahead of Aristotle and a few ahead of Dr Blosser who can prove that philosophically there are no such things.
Consider the following mind exercise. Focus intently on what you find attractive about those you to which you are sexually attracted. You have some biological inheritances here: symmetry for example. Without any conscious reasoning your mind equates symmetry in faces and bodies with health. Thank your Neolithic relatives for that trog. But socialisation and culture builds on this. Are you seriously attempting to argue that what you find sexually attractive is not part of the context of human sexuality? Your sperm doesn’t have a tiny brain but you have mind and it is every bit part of your biology as your sperm is. Well it is the same regarding the gender of who you are attracted to.
However if we are all hardwired for beauty why is it that beautiful women can love ugly men and handsome men can love ugly women, and plain Lesbians can be happy together. Well we know there is much more to sexual attraction than beauty seeking behaviour. As H.L. Menken observes: “we must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
In short we have substantially built on to human sexuality. It is a far more social behaviour than in any other species. Consider the reproductive rules for our species compared to the chemically determined behaviours in other species. Few species use it as part of long term pair bonding for example. To reduce the desire for monogamy which is largely a social construction to gametes is reductionism in the extreme.
Human sexuality is complex and that has resulted in an ever higher functioning species. As with everything else in human civilisation the human mind has long been the major driver of our evolution.
The problem for the Church is that she correctly holds at most sexual behaviour is chosen but WHO we want to be sexually active with including gender is not entirely chosen – it appears in some part imprinted into our basic selves. And the sexual behaviours chosen by heterosexuals and homosexuals are remarkably similar everywhere. This is extremely problematic for the Church and thus radtrad Catholic who must deny any genetic or hormonal role in gender attraction and scoff at any insight offered by psychology.
Again I make the basic point Trog – you cannot conceive two sexually active Lesbians loving each other. I can. And evidence suggests they can.
"The problem for the Church is that she correctly holds that most sexual behaviour is chosen, but WHO we want to be sexually active with including gender is not entirely chosen – it appears in some part imprinted into our basic selves. And the sexual behaviours chosen by heterosexuals and homosexuals are remarkably similar everywhere. This is extremely problematic for the Church and thus radtrad Catholics who must deny any genetic or hormonal role in gender attraction and scoff at any insight offered by psychology."
Yes, church teaching originated in a context where understanding of the complexity, subtlety and beauty of human sexuality was very slight. Indeed, early Christianity could enthuse only for virginity -- with some slight nods to marriage from Clement of Alexandria -- rarely viewed sex as anything other than vice. "Christianity gave Eros poison to drink" -- burying the relatively rich erotic psychology developed in ancient Greece.
Today the Vatican upholds its rigid views purely by an appeal to biology (not too far from Blosserian crudities about where the semen -- or as Michael Liccione prefers to call it, the "ejaculate" -- happens to fall) and has contibuted much to making Catholics stupid about sex and about psychology. Tony Anatrella, a homophobic Jesuit psychoanalyst, who is regarded as a disaster by my Parisian psychoanalyst friends, is the Vatican's favorite "expert".
Bias and distortion and bad faith are evident in the Vatican's handling of psychology and anthropology -- they only want to hear what can prop up their authority.
And they are not above appealing to crude equations of gays and sodomites a la Blosser, since they decree same-sex attraction to be an "anomaly" and an "objective disorder" solely on the basis that it is ordered to certain acts -- by which they probably mean exactly what Blosser means.
The stilted Vatican discourse on sex has become so ridiculous that the faithful have tuned out long ago. Its only function is as a stick to beat "suspect" theologians and to measure the "orthodoxy" of the duds and dullards thought worthy of elevation to the episcopate.
At the recent Conclave the Cardinals presented a gallery of really stupid, uncultivated faces -- and they elected a creation of Paul VI, knowing their own low caliber and the poor judgment of John Paul II.
Has Tony Anatrella actually been published in a peer reviewed scientific journal on the issue of homosexuality. I can't find anything on the net.
I think Anatrella is mostly published in religious reviews.
In "La Documentation Catholique", Sept 2003, Anatrella is described as consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health, and as a psychoanalyst specializing in social psychiatry. Presenting a Vatican document against gay marriage, Anatrella writes, in tones closely anticipating Cardinal Grocholewski's mortally embarrassing gay seminarians document of 2005 and his own quasi-official commentary on it in L'Osservatore Romano:
"We are faced with an anthropological 'heresy' comparable to Arianism and a new conflict of ideas that will be more costly than Marxism.
"This form of sexuality is not to be socially organised since it contributes nothing to social values and the development of society... The banalisation of homosexuality is all the more disquieting in that it remains a minority and marginal phenomenon... We are in a society of appearances in which it is claimed that in the name of tolerance and the prevailing superficiality, everything has the same value and the same meaning
"Homosexuality does not share in the good or the development of the person or society... It is not possible to be socialized on the basis of a tendancy unless it is done in violence, blackmail and perpetual complaint... The wish to contest the norms and invariants of society in the name of homosexuality shows plainly that it is a social dissolvant. Homosexuality cannot be a political issue as currently suggested unless it is demagogic and suicidal in a depressive society ignorant of its basic landmarks.
"The Church can accept for training or ordain as priests only men capable of loving a woman, marrying, conceiving and educating children. One must be in the common condition of humanity to be called to the priesthood... Sexual aggressions against minors of less than 15 (especially boys: it is a matter of homosexual pederasty) remains a minority phenomenon among priests. Nevertheless one notes in certain countries homosexual practices with young adults and attitudes of mind developed in extension of a homosexual psychology, even without homosexual experience, which are incompatible with priesthood. One must have attained affective and sexual maturity to be able to live priestly celibacy authentically in the image of Christ's humanity, giving oneself to God and his Church for the spiritual good of humanity and renouncing conjugal love and human paternity. The homosexual person is not in this condition of gift and renunciation.
"We have reached an absurd situation in which not only is homosexuality made a norm but, in addition, it is proposed to make an offence of homophobia. A fluid and perverse notion that means it zill no longer be possible to express a criticism or indulge in humour on homosexuality without being taxed with homophobia, recognized as a legal offence whereas it is above all a projective interpretation.
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