New preacher to Papal Household promotes homosexual reading of Scripture and Christ

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The newly appointed preacher to the papal household has a record of downplaying the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, saying that the Bible condemns homosexual acts only because the Scriptural authors could not view homosexuality as an “orientation,” a concept that did not exist “in the culture of that time.”

On November 9, the Holy See press office announced the change of an era in the Vatican with Father Roberto Pasolini, O.F.M. Cap appointed as preacher to the papal household, and thus replacing Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa.

Cantalamessa, now aged 90, arrived as preacher to the Pope in 1980 and has remained in this position during three pontificates, gradually becoming an internationally recognizable figure and having more recently joined attacks against the traditional Mass.

However, his successor appears set to usher in an era of preaching to the Vatican which questions the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

Earlier this year, Pasolini delivered a talk on the topic of homosexuality and Christian life in which he echoed much of the confusing rhetoric currently emanating from the Vatican on the question.

Informazione Cattolica opined that “we suspect that in the Vatican they have chose Frater Pasolini as the new preacher of the Papal Household to promote him as the new lecturer of the Pontifical Institute of John Paul II for the Study of Marriage and the Family at the Lateran University so that Frater Pasolini’s personal ideas regarding the interpretation of some biblical passages relating to homosexuality become the subject of official teaching …”

Scriptural hypotheses

The Catholic Church has clearly, consistently, and firmly condemned the practice of homosexual actions from Her earliest days. One such Scriptural example is in the first letter to the Corinthians, where St. Paul states that homosexual actions are sinful, explaining that “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers” will “inherit the kingdom of God,” but rather, according to his letter to the Romans, those who practice homosexuality will receive “in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

But speaking in February, Pasolini rejected this, saying: “Let us ask a question, because the question is legitimate: but is there any form of approval of same-sex relationships in Scripture? And the answer is not easily no, because in fact there are stories.”

He proceeded to work through passages from Scripture, highlighting certain ones which he suggested could be evidence of homosexual relationships. (Italian blog Messa in Latino has compiled a literal transcription of the friar’s talk, which though in Italian, can be easily translated.)

READ: Pope Francis welcomes transgender activist ‘hermit’ ‘Brother Christian Matson’ at Vatican audience

Pasolini pointed first to Jonathan and David, noting how it is “often invoked as a story of homosexual love,” but adding that to say they had a “homosexual relationship is a stretch to the text.”

But despite this, he encouraged Catholics to “imagine” and “think” that Jonathan and David were actively homosexual, since “surely there were at the time stories of homosexual love, that is evident, so nothing prohibits us from being able to think it, from being able to imagine it.”

Roberto Pasolini

Pasolini also pointed to the Centurion who approached Jesus on behalf of his sick servant, and whose faith Christ greatly praised. The friar questioned why the Centurion was so devoted to a mere servant, positing that perhaps “as some say, maybe there was a relationship between the two of them.”

To imagine this “is not unseemly” said Pasolini, adding that if this were the case, then Christ would have heaped praise upon an active homosexual. “… Just think if that were the case: Jesus gave the highest praise to whom?”

This scenario would mean “that we have to revise all the opinions we have,” he continued, “or rather we have to ascertain that Jesus was actually not so afraid to speak well of people – to go back to the benediction {Fiducia Supplicans} that the Pope wrote recently and that raised a hornet’s nest.”

Pasolini expanded on his hypothesis of the centurion receiving Christ’s praise as a homosexual, saying that “to speak well of someone is not to approve of their whole life: who among us has a life that is 100 percent all integrally perfect or ordered? And yet we receive blessings, we seek blessings all the time, because we all need to feel looked upon with respect, with trust and with love, because that eventually moves us towards 100 percent, to be looked upon with respect even when we are a little bit strange, a little bit erratic, a little bit not on the piece completely, that’s it.”

READ: Many of Pope Francis’ new cardinals support his homosexual ‘blessings’ document Fiducia Supplicans

Not content with the above points, Pasolini made further reference to the argument made by homosexual activists that Christ and Lazarus had a homosexual relationship, or that there was such a relationship between Christ and the disciples. While not rejecting the idea, he described such a theory as “a way of trying to project into Scripture our own questions, our own curiosity, that is, we want to find something that is not written: it is a bit like if you read the wedding at Cana and you want to find out how the bride was dressed: it is not written, the Gospel does not tell you, so the Bible does not give us all the answers, because they are not necessary.”

Bible shows mercy and does not condemn homosexual inclinations

Appearing to criticize those who firmly uphold the Church’s clear teaching on homosexuality, Pasolini commented that Christ showed “mercy toward people in the area of sexuality, or in the area of those things that socially put people on the margins,” thus echoing one of Pope Francis’ regular themes from the Synod on Synodality.

Reaching the culmination of his argument, Pasolini argued that the Bible has “a certain condemnation of what we might call homosexuality.” But he said that linguistically, the word “homosexuality” has become a noun to refer to things that in the Bible are condemned, such as “homosexual acts, passive and active.”

“The Bible never speaks of homosexuality in general terms,” he said. “It deplores some concrete attitudes, some episodes, some actions, not the person. Here, there is no word against inclination, but against homosexual acts, what we might call ‘homogenitality,’ that is, according to Scripture a same-sex genital act has potentially active significance.”

This, Pasolini argued, meant that there is no Scriptural judgement “on the homosexual condition or orientation, what we today might call homosexuality as a psychological orientation or existential condition, that is, there is no word that goes to this category of people – that is, those who wake up and look at a person of the same sex and feel attraction to them – because these are the ones we are talking about today: not the people who have episodes of homosexuality, but the people who are experiencing something on an emotional, psychological level from which they cannot and do not want to find a distance.”

Furthermore, he argued that “the Bible does not even assume a world in which there is a tendency other than heterosexual: in the culture of that time, the only tendency that existed in the eyes of the authors and the people they saw was the heterosexual one.” Whilst modern society includes the concept of “homosexual people,” in the Biblical times “there was no talk about that, that’s why they were also stigmatized with that force of homosexual acts: they were acts that were immediately categorized as something that did not exist, like a woman putting on pants.”

Catholic teaching

With such arguments, Pasolini employs the classic move of mixing different terms to ultimately express an openness to homosexual activity. He says the Bible condemns homosexual actions but not the inclination. But then he attests that there is no Scriptural condemnation against desiring to remain in the state of being attracted to a person of the same sex.

The Catholic catechism teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” The catechism is very clear that homosexual activity can never be approved, and repeats that “[h]omosexual persons are called to chastity.”

READ: Fiducia Supplicans is ‘crowning achievement’ of ‘LGBT lobby’ in the Church

Under the leadership of Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a document instructing bishops on the pastoral care of homosexual persons. The CDF admonished bishops to ensure they, and any “pastoral programme” in the diocese are “clearly stating that homosexual activity is immoral.”

The CDF further noted that a homosexual inclination is not a sin in itself; however, the Vatican warned that such an inclination is nevertheless “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Consequently, for an individual to take delight in such a inclination and not want to distance himself from it – the scenario Pasolini praises – would be to will a sinful action.

In contrast to modern moves to “accompany” all and not to convert people’s lives, the CDF stipulated in 1986 that an authentic pastoral approach would “assist homosexual persons at all levels of the spiritual life: through the sacraments, and in particular through the frequent and sincere use of the sacrament of Reconciliation, through prayer, witness, counsel and individual care.”

Authentic pastoral care would clearly warn about the evil of acting in accordance with homosexual inclinations, as the CDF stated:

But we wish to make it clear that departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral. Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church’s position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.