UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Thomas Reese | Jul. 29, 2013 NCR Today
Last Sunday I preached in San Francisco on prayer. I think that was a good pastoral decision. People said they liked the homily, but I keep wondering if perhaps it was just a copout to avoid more controversial topics.
To understand my dilemma, you have to remember that the first reading was from Genesis 18 where Abraham argues with God over the destruction of Sodom. The reading led me to think about preaching on homosexuality—for about a nanosecond. I did not think I had anything new or interesting to say. Plus there is probably not a person in San Francisco who has not made up his or her mind on this topic. O yes, did I mention that the pastor was raked over the coals in the blogosphere and reported to the archbishop for saying something nice about homosexuals last month.
Then there is the scholarly debate over whether the sin of Sodom was sexual or whether it was a sin against hospitality to strangers. Abraham and Sarah had recently shown hospitality to three strangers and were rewarded with a pregnancy. The same three men go to Sodom, where they are welcomed by Lot and his family, but the locals want to have sex with them. When Lot tries to protect his guests, the crowd turns on him since he is not a real citizen but a “resident alien.” Lot’s guests end up saving him by pulling him into the house and closing the door.
Lot is so protective of his three male guests that he offers the mob his two virgin daughters instead. You don’t have to be a feminist to think that offering your daughters to a mob to be gang raped is a horrible idea. Later, these same daughters get their father drunk and have sex with him to “ensure posterity by our father.” Maybe I should have preached on the corrupting effect of patriarchal culture.
In any case, on the topic of homosexuality, I could not have said it better than Pope Francis did on the plane on the way back from Rio to Rome. When asked about the “gay lobby” in the Vatican, he responded:
“When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem … they’re our brothers.”
Since gay priests have been falsely blamed for the sexual abuse crisis, the pope’s statement is very significant. In 2005, the Vatican issued a document saying that men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be ordained or allowed in the seminary. Most interpreted this to mean that someone with a homosexual orientation could not be a priest even if he were celibate.
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