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HOMOSEXUALITY AND LESBIANISM IN SAINT PAUL’S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS Folks, Over the past several days and throughout the remainder of this week the first readings of the Scripture selection for Daily Mass come from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. You can read my notes on the first two chapters in the attached photos. I have found it ever fascinating that the readings always omit verses 26 through 32 in chapter 1, the very verses that explicitly condemn homosexual and lesbian behavior. Now think about this. St. Paul who had never travelled to Rome and thus had never had any party in establishing a Christian Church in Rome writes a letter to Christians in Rome, and after a few paragraphs of introduction and well-wishes, he launches into a tirade against the unnatural passions of same-sex behavior. Now imagine this: what would happen if a Catholic or Orthodox priest, or a Protestant preacher did the same thing? Why is this subject avoided? Why are all manner of concessions made to the LGBTQ culture to accommodate sexual perversion, and few if any stand up to speak out against such immorality? Oh yes, adultery and fornication are likewise idolatrous sexual sins against God and humankind, and with equal studiousness religious clerics avoid the subject of pre-marital cohabitation and sexual dalliances between persons married to others. For the record, none of us is without sexual sin. Scripture says that all have come short of the glory of God. That is why after St. Paul finishes condemning homosexuality and lesbianism in Romans chapter 1, he launches into another tirade in chapter 2, this time against those who sanctimoniously sit in their ivory towers looking down on others in self-righteousness judgment. The point is that we all must straighten up and fly right. God is an impartial judge in all this. Indeed, Romans 2:6 and say, “He will render to every man according to his works…. for God shows no partiality.” Homosexuality, lesbianism, adultery, fornication – in a word, any sexual activity outside the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony between one man and one woman – is forbidden whether one is under the Law or not. What St. Paul writes about Gentiles without the law become a law to themselves when they do by nature what the law requires reflects what Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote some 100 years previously in his work, De Re Publica: Est quidem vera lex recta ratio naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium iubendo, vetando a fraude detereat. Indeed, true law is right reason congruent with nature, diffused into everything, constant, perpetual, which calls to duty by command, it deters from fraud (trickery, deceit, crime) by prohibition. Note that word which Cicero uses to describe from what natural law deters us: fraus (nominative), fraudis (genitive). It means fraud; trickery, deceit; imposition, offense, crime; delusion. Now look at how St. Paul describes LGBTQ people and those who aid and abet them in Romans 1:29-31: 29 They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. This is the end-result of living contrary to natural law: the breakdown of society by fraud; trickery, deceit; imposition, offense, crime; delusion. And that is sadly the current state of these once formerly United States of America.