A Queer Interpretation

 

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Here, in the People's Republic of New York, there was a note attached to the door of my office. It was Friday, October 8, 2021, and the note reminded me that October 11th was "National Coming Out Day." Attached to the note was a rainbow pin that should be worn that day. If you don't "come out" as a sexual pervert, you are encouraged to "become an ally" of sodomites. How is this accomplished? In three ways: (1) educate yourself on "LGBTQ terms," (2) de-gender your language by saying "spouses" instead of "husband and wife." "Brother and sister" should be replaced by "sibling" and "mother/father" replaced by "parent." To do otherwise, I was assured, would be offensive to "non-binary people," (3) become a "pronoun pro" by "sharing your preferred gender pronouns" and making such normal so that pronouns are not based on either biology or  appearances, but by individual choice. 

After taking a picture of the note and pin to have a record of the offensive material, I went in to see the managing partner and told him that I would not be doing any of this immoral garbage, and if I were ordered to do so, I would file a complaint with the EEOC for religious discrimination and sue for violating my Free Exercise of Religion. He stared at me with a blank expression, and I finished by ripping up the note in front of him, throwing it and the pin in his trash can, and spitting on top of it for good measure. He said nothing as I left. It is interesting October 11th is picked. It seems to be a date of importance. It was on October 11th that Vatican II began, that "St. Roncalli" was assigned that date as his "feast," and (on a good note) the birthday of Fr. DePauw. 

On Monday the 11th, I was one of only 12 lawyers who refused to wear the pin. A female attorney with whom I work asked if she could have a word with me when I was eating my lunch. She was a member of the Vatican II sect. She told me she was "concerned" that I was so vocal in my opposition to "National Coming Out Day" and wearing the rainbow pin. First, she told me the firm should be a "safe place" for all sexual orientations. I told her I opposed violence and bullying of any kind, and that no one here did that, so why the need for "safety" when things are already safe? She then argued that to be "safe" means to be "free from hatred and bigotry," clearly implying that I was a hateful bigot. I calmly told her that disagreeing with someone's lifestyle is neither hateful nor bigoted. I also disagree with heterosexual people shacking up before marriage. It doesn't follow that I hate them. As a matter of fact, I oppose homosexuality because I want homosexuals to repent, be celibate, and save their souls.

It became obvious that she had prepared to confront me over the weekend because she said that my position was "clearly against what the Bible says." She proceeded to pull out a letter and here was her "argument from Scripture:"

• Nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Romans 8:38)

• God did not make a mistake in creating LGBTQ people. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:113-14) 

• All people are justified through Christ, including LGBTQ people.  “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 3:19), therefore, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” (Romans 5:1, 2). This is not to say that being LGBTQ is a sin, but if it were, it would certainly be forgiven.

• Sodom was not destroyed for homosexuality, but for inhospitality. (Genesis 19)

To give a quick summary of my responses:

• Mortal sin separates us from the love of God, and Hell keeps us that way forever. If that Bible verse from Romans (clearly used out of context) is to be taken literally, it is a declaration of universal salvation and a license to commit sin

• God made people not homosexuality. One is a being, the other is a behavior. Even if, ad arguendo, people have a "gay gene," it does not follow that homosexuality is thereby normal or morally good. There could be a gene for alcoholism. That doesn't mean you can get drunk, or that drunkenness is a natural state, or it's not sinful. You must abstain from drinking as a moral obligation, even if you're "born that way." The same could said for a "violence gene" that predisposes one to aggression against others. There are many other behaviors that cannot be condoned even if there were a genetic predisposition. (She wasn't happy when I pointed out the Psalm is an indirect condemnation of abortion)

• Yes, homosexuality is a sin, and yes, it can be forgiven, but not without sorrow for the sin, and living celibately after a good Confession

• Sodom most certainly was destroyed for the sin that became named for it; sodomy. (It would take too long to expound on my full response here)

She grew angry and responded, "That's just your interpretation," and stormed off. She hasn't spoken to me since (Deo gratias). Her behavior shows inhospitality on her part, but I digress. The purpose of this post is to respond to what I hear a lot from members of the Vatican II sect that was--in years gone by--only heard in Protestant circles; twisting Bible passages as proof-texts for every doctrinal aberration under the sun. St. Mark 13:32 cited as "proof" that Christ was ignorant of His Divinity until after the Resurrection; St. John 3:5 cited as "proof" by Feeneyites that there is no Baptism of Desire or Baptism of Blood. 

Of course we must follow the Magisterium in authoritative interpretations of Scripture, but are there Catholic rules the Church follows in determining the authentic interpretation of Holy Scripture? Yes, there are such rules, and even most Traditionalists are ignorant of them. Since not every single verse of the Bible has been given a definitive interpretation by the Church, we would all do well to learn and remember these Catholic rules for discerning the true meaning of Bible passages. [The rest of this post is condensed from theologian Rooney, Preface to the Bible, (1952)---Introibo]. 

General Rules of Interpretation

There are six general rules for properly interpreting the Bible. The first three deal with context, and the second set of three rules deal with the actual text under discussion. 

RULE 1.  Establish the Remote Context. Every Biblical author is molded by his environment. Hence, into his mode of thought and expression flow in a vital fashion the religious, cultural, political, economic, and geographic influences, all of which constitute the world in which the author lived. Therefore, to properly understand an author who lived in a very different world than ours, we must try to understand the historic background. God, indeed, is the Author of the Bible, but He used humans as His instruments. They wrote to humanity according to the laws of human language, and the authors must be placed in their proper setting. God is the principal Author of the Bible, but the men who wrote the Bible under Divine Inspiration, were true, yet instrumental authors. 

As Pope Pius XII teaches:

  Let the interpreter then, with all care and without neglecting any light derived from recent research, endeavor to determine the peculiar character and circumstances of the sacred writer, the age in which he lived, the sources written or oral to which he had recourse and the forms of expression he employed...What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use.

 For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East. The investigation, carried out, on this point, during the past forty or fifty years with greater care and diligence than ever before, has more clearly shown what forms of expression were used in those far off times, whether in poetic description or in the formulation of laws and rules of life or in recording the facts and events of history. The same inquiry has also shown the special preeminence of the people of Israel among all the other ancient nations of the East in their mode of compiling history, both by reason of its antiquity and by reasons of the faithful record of the events; qualities which may well be attributed to the gift of divine inspiration and to the peculiar religious purpose of biblical history.  (See Divino Afflante Spiritu, para.# 33, 35, and 36). 

RULE 2. Establish the Complete Context. Just as you cannot understand what a quarterback is apart from a football team, so too, you cannot understand single verses apart from the book of the Bible in which the author wrote them. The whole message of the book must be considered. You must consider the purpose of the author who wrote because it determines his choice of material. St. Matthew wrote his Gospel to meet the religious needs of the Christians in Palestine, and defend the Faith against the attacks and lies of the perfidious Jews. Next, you must consider the audience for whom the author wrote. This will also determine the material chosen, just as a lawyer will speak to a jury much differently than to another lawyer. St. Matthew wrote for Palestinian Christians, and references the culture and morals of those people. 

Pope Pius XII teaches:

There is no one indeed but knows that the supreme rule of interpretation is to discover and define what the writer intended to express, as St. Athanasius excellently observes: "Here, as indeed is expedient in all other passages of Sacred Scripture, it should be noted, on what occasion the Apostle spoke; we should carefully and faithfully observe to whom and why he wrote, lest, being ignorant of these points, or confounding one with another, we miss the real meaning of the author." (See Divino Afflante Spiritu, para. #34).

RULE 3. Establish the Immediate Context. Just as a man who tries to insert himself in the middle of a conversation without having heard all that transpired usually makes a fool of himself, the same holds true for not taking a Bible passage within its surrounding context. For example the second chapter of Wisdom reads:

The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell:

For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our heart,

Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof:

And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works.

For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth.

Come therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.

Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us.

Sounds like good advice to the modern heathen. However, that's not the advice of the author. The sentence immediately preceding these verses states, "For they [the wicked] have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right:" (Emphasis mine).

RULE 4. Always Make Sure You Understand What The Author Wrote. This is done by consulting a competent commentator, such as theologian Haydock, to explain difficult verses. They are experts in textural criticism, as it is called. 

Pope Pius XII teaches:

 It is scarcely necessary to observe that this criticism, which some fifty years ago not a few made use of quite arbitrarily and often in such wise that one would say they did so to introduce into the sacred text their own preconceived ideas, today has rules so firmly established and secure, that it has become a most valuable aid to the purer and more accurate editing of the sacred text and that any abuse can easily be discovered. Nor is it necessary here to call to mind - since it is doubtless familiar and evident to all students of Sacred Scripture - to what extent namely the Church has held in honor these studies in textual criticism from the earliest centuries down even to the present day. (See Divino Afflante Spiritu, para. #18).

RULE 5. Make Sure You Understand The Exact Sense Of The Words Of The Text. Unless you know the exact meaning of the words in a particular text, you can hardly expect to understand the whole statement. Words can mean different things in different times and places. Words can also have multiple meanings depending on usage. In the United States, the word gentleman, now means a man of good manners and character. In the 19th century, it meant a man who owned land. In the Bible, we read in St. Matthew 22:16, "Neither carest Thou for any man," while 1 Peter 5:7 states, "He hath care of you." A contradiction? Hardly. The statement in St. Matthew was made by the Pharisees who paid Our Lord an accurate compliment that He spoke only the Truth and was not swayed by the consideration of fear or favor of men. In 1 Peter, care has its usual meaning. The word "spirit" has multiple meanings in the Bible. When in doubt as to how a word is used, consult a good commentary by an approved theologian. 

RULE 6. Determine The Literary Mode Of Expression Used By The Sacred Author. 

Pope Pius XII teaches:

Nevertheless no one, who has a correct idea of biblical inspiration, will be surprised to find, even in the Sacred Writers, as in other ancient authors, certain fixed ways of expounding and narrating, certain definite idioms, especially of a kind peculiar to the Semitic tongues, so-called approximations, and certain hyperbolical modes of expression, nay, at times, even paradoxical, which even help to impress the ideas more deeply on the mind. For of the modes of expression which, among ancient peoples, and especially those of the East, human language used to express its thought, none is excluded from the Sacred Books, provided the way of speaking adopted in no wise contradicts the holiness and truth of God, as, with his customary wisdom, the Angelic Doctor already observed in these words: "In Scripture divine things are presented to us in the manner which is in common use amongst men." (See Divino Afflante Spiritu, para. #37).

In these words, Pope Pius XII admonishes the interpreter of the Bible that he is likely to find any mode of speech except indecent or erroneous language.

Special Rules of Interpretation

RULE 1. To Be Properly Understood, The Bible Must Be Read In A Spirit Of Living Faith. A man and a dog can both listen to musical notes, but the former will hear music while the latter hears only sound. The person devoid of Faith can read St. Luke 23:33, "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, they crucified Him there; and the robbers, one on the right hand, and the other on the left." That person will understand the historic Person, Jesus of Nazareth, was crucified, but only the person of Faith will understand why He is the Christ and why His Crucifixion and death set us free and gave us a chance to gain Heaven.

RULE 2. Always Bear In Mind The Analogy Of Faith. God is Truth and His Revelation is a beautiful whole. Consequently, Scripture must never be interpreted in such a way that it would contradict Church teaching, or in such a way that one passage contradicts another. For example, St. John 14:28, "The Father is greater than I," does not contradict St. John 10:30, "I and the Father are One." God the Father is greater with respect to Our Lord's Human Nature, yet this is no denial of the Trinity, and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being One God. 

RULE 3. Refuse To Admit Any Interpretation Which Would Suppose Error In The Bible. Always remember God is the primary and real Author of the Bible. To ascribe error in the Bible is to ascribe error to God Himself which is both impossible and blasphemous.

RULE 4. Explain Scripture By Scripture. Since God is the Author, the Bible has magnificent unity. What is said not so clearly in one place may be stated much more explicitly in another place. Explain Scripture by Scripture whenever possible.

RULE 5. Whenever The Church Gives An Authentic Interpretation of Scripture, The Catholic MUST Accept It. In St. Luke 10:16, Our Lord said, "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me." The One True Church of Jesus Christ in infallible in Her solemn decrees concerning Faith and/or Morals. She alone can give the true meaning of Scripture without the slightest error, and should She do so, no Catholic can deny the interpretation or willfully call it into doubt without falling into heresy.

 As for the Fathers of the Church, when they are morally unanimous in the interpretation of a certain passage that is at least closely connected with matters of Faith and Morals, then the Catholic should follow that interpretation; for they were learned and devout witnesses to the mind of the Church. The decrees of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, although not infallible, must be accepted with both exterior and interior assent by the faithful.

Conclusion

The Church has definitive rules for discerning the true meaning of the Bible. Hence, there is no multiplicity of interpretations as in the false Protestant sects and their damnable doctrine of sola scriptura. Never abandon the Church's teaching and rules on Biblical interpretation. The encounter I had with my "gay affirming" colleague in using the Bible to "justify" one of the Four Sins That Scream To Heaven For Vengeance brought to mind the aphorism of William Shakespeare, "Even the devil can quote Scripture."