Blessing An Intrinsic Evil

 

The Argentinian apostate, Jorge Bergoglio, has effectively given incontrovertible proof of his non-papacy. According to Reuters:

VATICAN CITY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has appeared to leave open the possibility of priests blessing same-sex couples, if they are limited, decided on a case-by-case basis and not confused with wedding ceremonies of heterosexuals.

Francis made his opinion known in one answer to five questions from five conservative cardinals from Asia, Europe, Africa, the United States and Latin America.

The cardinals sent the pope a set of formal questions, known as "dubia" ("doubts" in Latin), about issues relating to a global gathering that starts at the Vatican on Wednesday. One of the questions specifically regarded the practice, which has become relatively common in places like Germany, of priests blessing same sex couples who are in a committed relationship. The written exchange took place in July and the Vatican published the pope's responses on Monday after the five cardinals unilaterally disclosed their initiative, saying they were not satisfied with Francis' answers.

The pope's nuanced response differed from an explicit ruling against such blessings by the Vatican's doctrinal office in 2021. In his seven-point response, Francis said the Church was very clear that the sacrament of matrimony could only be between a man and woman and open to procreation and that the Church should avoid any other ritual or sacramental rite that contradicted this teaching. Still, he said "pastoral charity should permeate all our decisions and attitudes" adding that "we cannot be judges who only deny, reject and exclude."

At times, he said, requests for blessings were a means through which people reached out to God to live better lives, even if some acts were "objectively morally unacceptable." The Church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but homosexual acts are. Any eventual blessings, Francis said, should not become the norm or get blanket approval from Church jurisdictions such as dioceses or national bishops conferences. Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which promotes Church outreach to LGBT Catholics, said that while the response was not a "full-fledged, ringing endorsement" of such blessings, it was very welcomed.

In a statement DeBernardo said that the pope's words implied "that the church does indeed recognize that holy love can exist between same-gender couples, and the love of these couples mirrors the love of God." (Emphasis mine). 

The importance of what happened cannot be understated. The man who claims to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth, allowed the possibility of  Vatican II sect clergy "blessing" that which is intrinsically evil (sodomitical relationships). The post will answer the following questions: (1) what does it mean when something is "intrinsically evil"?; (2) is homosexuality intrinsically evil?; and (3) what consequences result from blessing a sodomitical relationship? 

Intrinsically Evil Acts

What does the term "intrinsically evil act" mean? The most common definition put forth by the approved theologians is "a human act that can never be morally justified or permitted, regardless of the intention of the person who performs them or any circumstances within which they take place." Homosexual acts are forbidden by both the natural law and Divine Positive Law, which admits of no exceptions in this case.

Natural Law

According to the Angelic Doctor, the eminent St. Thomas Aquinas, natural law consists of the basic principles of practical reason for humans. The most fundamental of these principles is that good is to be done and evil is to be avoided. Here good means reasonable while evil means unreasonable. A second key principle of practical reasoning is that knowledge is a good to be pursued while falsehood and ignorance are to be overcome. A third principle is that you may never do evil even if you anticipate that good may come of it.

How then do we know these principles? Natural law holds that people possess a basic knowledge of these principles through their possession of reason (See ST I-II a.94, a.4). In this sense, the principles of natural law are “natural” to human beings (See ST I-II q.94, a2) not because of human biology but because they are universally knowable by human reason (See ST I-II q. 94, a.4; a.94, a.6)and universally binding because of their basis in human reason (See ST I-II q. 94, a.4). Reason thus permits us to know the truth about good and evil, even though the directedness of such knowledge can be undermined or obscured by the pull of powerful emotions, and the meaning of this information for human choice and action can be hard to determine (See ST I-II q.94, a.6).

The study of natural law consequently involves identifying and applying the principles of rational thought to how we know and choose the good, right, and just when we make free choices. Natural law maintains that for us to be rational in the fullest sense is to choose and act in accordance with what our reason tells us is the truth about the right course of action. Aquinas defined truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei [i.e., conformity between the intellect and reality] (See ST I, q.21, a.2c). What Aquinas meant by “reality” is the truth about something as it is in itself: that, for instance, the content of the most basic principle of justice is to give others what they are owed, and not something else; or that the content of the virtue of courage is not the same as being reckless or being a coward.

Natural law is thus neither social science nor political theory. Instead, natural law is primarily ethics insofar as it is concerned with practical reasoning about how individuals and communities do good and avoid evil when making choices and acting.

How, then, does natural law understand the nature of evil actions? Human actions, from the standpoint of natural law, can go wrong in several ways. An act might be wrong, for example, simply because it involves directing oneself against a good like truth, for instance, by lying (See ST II-II q.110, a.3).There is, however, another dimension to natural law theory that shapes its understanding of free choice, morality, and virtue. This is its insistence that there are certain choices which may never be made; that is, certain actions that are never acceptable, regardless of the circumstances or the nobility of the intention, because such actions are always seriously wrong by reason of their object: that is, what we are choosing to do.

An example of what the theologians and natural law scholars call an "exception-less norm" is the direct killing of an innocent person: in other words, directly choosing to violate the fundamental good of life. Even if an act of directly killing an innocent person might save an entire city from destruction, such an act remains intrinsically wrong by reason of its object. It is always irreconcilable with the choice of the good. There is never a good reason to make murder the deliberate object of our act. It follows that, in accordance with the principle that good is to be done and evil avoided, such an act can never be freely chosen. There are no exceptions.

To this extent, natural law is grounded on a commitment to moral absolutes. Examples of other acts that would meet the same criteria are lying (which violates the good of truth), theft (which violates the good of property), and homosexuality (which violates the good of human procreation). 

Homosexual activity is therefore an intrinsically evil act under the natural law.

Divine Positive Law

Homosexual activity is also intrinsically wrong by Divine Command of God, and it admits no exception. Here's what the Bible, Church Fathers/Doctors/Theologians, and Magisterial teaching have said on the subject.

Old Testament:

Genesis 19:7-8: "I beg you, my brothers, not to do this wicked thing [sodomy] I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please. But don't do anything to these men."---The very term "sodomy" comes from the city of Sodom, destroyed along with the city of Gomorrah because of rampant homosexuality.

Judges 19:23-24: "No, my brothers; do not be so wicked. Since this man is my guest, do not commit this crime.[sodomy]. Rather let me bring out my maiden daughter or his concubine. Ravish them, or do whatever you want with them; but against the man you must not commit this wanton crime."[sodomy]

Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination."

(All emphasis mine).  N.B. Some wonder how Lot could be considered a good man when he offered his daughters to be raped. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) answers: "Lot interceded in behalf of his guests in accordance with his duties as host, which are most sacred in the East, but made the mistake of placing them above his duties as a father by offering his two daughters to the wicked designs of the Sodomites..." Lot tried to spare his guests (which he did not realize were angels disguised as men) from being sodomized and failing his duties as a host. The evil of sodomy was known even then, and duties of hosts were considered sacred. In his zeal to prevent this dual evil, he committed a sin in offering his daughters to be raped. However, even in this, his sin did not even come close to the savage brutality and iniquity of the Sodomites.---Introibo

New Testament:

1 Corinthians 6:9: "Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

1 Timothy 1:10: "... law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly ... the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching."

Romans 1:26-27: "Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."

St. Jude 1:7: "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

(All emphasis mine).

Church Fathers and Doctors:

St. Augustine: “[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way." 

St. John Chrysostom: "But if thou scoffest at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration!…Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time!… For that rain was unwonted, for the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who hath pandered himself, or what more execrable?"

Pope St. Gregory the Great: "Sacred Scripture itself confirms that sulfur evokes the stench of the flesh, as it speaks of the rain of fire and sulfur poured upon Sodom by the Lord. He had decided to punish Sodom for the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment he chose emphasized the shame of that crime. For sulfur stinks, and fire burns. So it was just that Sodomites, burning with perverse desires arising from the flesh like stench, should perish by fire and sulfur so that through this just punishment they would realize the evil they had committed, led by a perverse desire."

St. Peter Damien: "Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices.… It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth.…"

(As cited in the pamphlet The Sin of Homosexuality, [1949], Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, no author given). 

Approved Theologians:

Prummer: "Sodomy is a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance." (Handbook of Moral Theology, [1957], pg. 236).

Jone: "Sexual paresthesia is had when sex life is not affected by venereal matters, but by objects all together foreign to sex life. The following are forms of this perversion: (a) Sadism...(b) Masochism...(c) Fetishism...(d) Homosexuality..."(Moral Theology, [1961], pg. 151). 

McHugh and Callan: "Worst among the sins of impurity, as such, are crimes of unnatural lust...For procreation requires heterosexual intercourse, a condition disregarded by sodomy, which is the lustful commerce of male with male...or of female with female (tribadism, sapphism, lesbian love)." (Moral Theology, [1930], 2:543). 

Cronin: "The sexual function can only be exercised in a way consonant with the generation of offspring. Any other use of it would be a perversion of the natural order and, therefore, a violation of the natural law." (The Science of Ethics, [1939], 2:63). 

(All emphasis mine).

Magisterium:

Pope St. Pius V: "Having set our minds to remove everything that may in some way offend the Divine Majesty, We resolve to punish, above all and without indulgence, those things which, by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures or by most grievous examples, are most repugnant to God and elicit His wrath; that is, negligence in divine worship, ruinous simony, the crime of blasphemy, and the execrable libidinous vice against nature. For which faults peoples and nations are scourged by God, according to His just condemnation, with catastrophes, wars, famine, and plagues… Let the judges know that if even after this, Our Constitution, they are negligent in punishing these crimes, they will be guilty of them at Divine Judgment and will also incur Our indignation… If someone commits that nefarious crime against nature that caused divine wrath to be unleashed against the children of iniquity, he will be given over to the secular arm for punishment; and if he is a cleric, he will be subject to analogous punishment after having been stripped of all his degrees.” (Emphasis mine)

1917 Code of Canon Law: Canon 2357, section 1: "Lay persons who have been legitimately declared guilty of the commission of crimes against the sixth commandment with minors under sixteen years of age, or of rape, sodomy, incest, or traffic in vice, are automatically branded with infamy, besides incurring the other penalties which the Ordinary may think proper to impose.”

The Divine Positive Law prohibits homosexual acts without exception. Ergo, homosexual acts are intrinsically evil.

Blessings of the Church

There are two types of blessings given by the Church: invocative and constitutive. Invocative blessings "are those in which the Divine benignity is invoked on persons or things, to bring down upon them some temporal or spiritual good without changing their former condition. Of this kind are the blessings given to children, and to articles of food." Constitutive blessings " permanently depute persons or things to Divine service by imparting to them some sacred character, by which they assume a new and distinct spiritual relationship." (See The Catholic Encyclopedia, [1913]). Invocative blessings are what sodomites seek.

What are the benefits conferred by blessings? 

1. Excitation of pious emotions and affections of the heart and, by means of these, remission of venial sin and of the temporal punishment due to it.

2. Freedom from power of evil spirits.

3. Preservation and restoration of bodily health.

4. Various other benefits, temporal or spiritual. (Ibid). 

How does this apply to sodomitical relationships like "same-sex marriage"? 

In brief: IT CANNOT AND DOES NOT APPLY. Note well that the sodomites who want their perverted relationship "blessed" are asking for approval to commit homosexual acts which are intrinsically evil. As such they are not seeking remission of sin, freedom from the power of evil spirits, preservation/restoration of bodily health, or any other benefit for their soul. They want God, through His One True Church, to acknowledge intrinsically evil acts as worthy of respect, special recognition, and not to be condemned. This is an approval of something for which no approval can ever be given for any reason. 

The qualifiers offered by Bergoglio are easily seen as ludicrous. Let me analogize. What if Bergoglio had said "priests can bless abortion providers if they are limited, decided on a case-by-case basis and not confused with bringing the fetus to term." Abortion is the murder of an innocent unborn human being and is an intrinsic evil. Every case of abortion, like every case of sodomite "marriage" is always wrong. Period. Being in a "committed relationship" founded on unnatural, intrinsically evil acts is no less evil than those performed by strangers who hook-up. 

Bergoglio said, "pastoral charity should permeate all our decisions and attitudes" adding that "we cannot be judges who only deny, reject and exclude." Does "pastoral charity" allow a so-called doctor to murder an unborn child? No. Nor does it permit perverts to commit acts of homosexuality. Exclusion by excommunication can cause someone to realize their sin and repent. Christ Himself excludes people from Heaven: "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Apocalypse 21:8). 

Moreover, we should judge as Christ commanded: "Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly." (St. John 7:24). "Those homosexuals look nice and seem to be in love," is to be rejected by correct judgement based on Church teaching. The statement by New Ways Ministry, that homosexual acts committed by two perverts pretending to have a "marriage" are such that they "mirror the love of God," is so blasphemous it could only have come from one doing the work of Satan himself. 

Consequences Considered

Bergoglio has opened up the possibility that an intrinsic evil could be "blessed." Roncalli (John XXIII) did the same thing by calling a Commission to "study" artificial contraception. Contraception is also intrinsically evil so what was there to "study"? The result? Just by giving people the idea it could be permissible has lead to only 13% in the Vatican II sect (in the U.S.) considering it sinful as of 2016. In that same year, 64% of sect members see nothing wrong with homosexual behaviors. Can you imagine how much that will now increase? 

(See americamagazine.org/faith/2016/09/28/poll-finds-many-us-catholics-breaking-church-over-contraception-abortion-and-lgbt). 

The Sin of Scandal:

According to theologian Prummer: "Scandal is some word or deed (whether of omission or commission) that is itself evil or has the appearance of evil and provides an occasion of sin to another." (See Ibid, pg. 102). Bergoglio has claimed that it may be possible to "bless" an intrinsic evil, something which is impossible. What he spoke was evil, and will give others the idea that sexual perversion is "not that bad," or even a positive good. That is scandalous. 

Sodomite "marriage" is evil for at least the following reasons:

1. It makes a mockery of the Sacrament of Matrimony which is meant for the procreation and education of children. It builds up the Mystical Body of Christ. 

2. Marriage is no longer seen as being about procreation, but about hooking-up.

3. It makes the unnatural and perverted seem acceptable and normal.

4. Children will be more likely to experiment with perversions and become perverts themselves. 

5. Children raised via adoption (or conceived by surrogate mothers for same-sex "marriages") will be heavily influenced by the perverts. Many will be molested. Moreover, with women willing to sell their bodies as surrogates for different men, don't be surprised if unintended incest spikes when half-siblings marry, not knowing their background, and an increase in special needs children spawned by them, will result.

6. Blessing same-sex marriage will give homosexuals validation, that their destructive and intrinsically evils acts are in some way good, or can be acceptable in certain circumstances. This will confirm them in their sin.

All the above will lead countless souls to eternal damnation. 

Conclusion: The Other "S-Word"

By claiming that it is even permissible to bless that which is intrinsically evil, Jorge Bergoglio's nod towards homosexuality and sodomitical relationships means he is giving evil to the Church. However, the Church is Indefectible, i.e., She cannot give what is evil or erroneous to Her children. Ergo, the idea that intrinsic evil could be blessed could not come from a true pope protected by the Holy Ghost. Instead, it comes from a false pope who leads a false sect pretending to be the Roman Catholic Church. Will the "recognize and resist" SSPX and "conservative" Vatican II sect members wake up to the fact of the other "s-word"? Sedevacantism is the only logical conclusion.