My email to the one-man "Catholic Action League"

[rayvaillancourt]

Mr. Doyle,

I find your comments in today's Globe troubling.

C.J. Doyle, executive director of Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called upon the archdiocese to “vigorously defend’’ the school’s decision to revoke admission to the youngster.

“The real question here is why two people who radically repudiate the moral teachings of Catholicism

Comments

[rayvaillancourt]

As for the dietary restrictions, why do Catholics not keep Kosher? In the early church, it was decided that those laws no longer applied in the New Covenant. It is a theme in Hebrews and Galatians, and made explicit in 1 Cor 8 and 1 Cor 10: 25-26.

As to the sexual sins, WHY were they so abhorrent? Because they were pagan customs and rituals. Look especially at the beginning and end of Leviticus 18, and it should be clear that the context of forbidding the sexual sins is idolatry. This also comes through in Romans 1.

There are also prohibitions against certain grooming practices and tattooing in the same context of forbidding pagan customs. Some modern Christian monks shave the crown of their heads (tonsure), a practice that is expressly forbidden in Lev 21:5. There are plenty of other prohibitions in the Mosaic law to which we no longer bind ourselves: charging interest, weaving two kinds of thread into a cloth, working on the Sabbath, etc.

Further, we certainly disregard today many Biblical rules pertaining to the role of women. Leave aside the OT laws about putting rape victims to death, allowing the rape of women captured in war, and specifically allowing fathers to sell their daughters as sex slaves. Women fare only a little better in the NT. cf. 1 Cor 14: 34-35, 1 Tim 2: 11-12.

The question becomes whether the Bible passages about homosexuality reflect the culture of the time, in the same category as the role of women or the Bible's acceptance of slavery and polygamy; or a universal moral truth for all time, like "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The Gospels give us no clarification. Jesus spoke out against fornication and adultery in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, and very strongly against divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. But nothing about homosexuality. And it's important to contrast the way he treated *sinners* with the way he spoke about the *sins*: consider the woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman at the well, etc.

The bottom line on homosexuality in the Bible is that it is as clear or as fuzzy as one wants it to be.