"What's really telling to me about the attack on Terence as a 'blasphemer' is the definition of blasphemy that Paul Anthony Melanson uses: 'It consists in uttering against God...words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name' (Catholic Catechism). Melanson assumes that by speculating that Jesus might have had a same-sex inclination Terence is being hateful, reproachful, and disrespectful toward God. My question is: Why? Why is it hateful to suggest that Jesus might have been what we now term "gay"? Why is it disrespectful? It's only so if you believe that being gay is a bad thing. Terence clearly does not, and neither do I, and neither, frankly, does God.
In my own prayer life I have a sense of a Jesus who was not gay, but perhaps this is simply a failure of my own imagination. Jesus was, as Terence points out, fully human; this means that he was (and is) a sexual being and that he loved, though selflessly. To make Jesus sexless is to deny his humanity. In any case, if someone labels me as gay--which I am--I do not take this as a gesture of disrespect, hatred, or reproach. I take it as an accurate estimation and as a compliment.
Why would God be offended by being associated with gay people? He socialized during his time on earth with others seen by many as outcast and inferior--prostitutes, tax collectors, etc. Would he not now sit down for a fabulous banquet with the gays? Why not? God loves us."
Now, I never said that Jesus would not associate with persons who suffer from a homosexual inclination. So "Father John Q" is being dishonest here. But it is blasphemous to suggest that Jesus may have been a homosexual. One would think that a Catholic priest (if this individual is indeed a Catholic priest) would understand that.
Let's let Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., explain: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man. The union of his human nature and his divine nature is effected in the Person of the Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Because of the Hypostatic Union, Christ's human nature is said to be substantially holy. The reason for this is that the Word of God, who is uncreated holiness itself, imparts a special holiness to his own created human nature. Since the relationship between Jesus' human nature and the Word of God is in the substantial order by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, then it is legitimate to say that his humanity is endowed with substantial sanctity or holiness. For, it is impossible to have a more intimate union between a creature and God than the Hypostatic Union in Jesus Christ. A suggestion of Jesus' substantial holiness is given in Luke 1:35, 'And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.'..
In addition to the special 'grace of union,' as the above is called, Christ's soul is also holy by reason of the fullness of sanctifying grace with which it is endowed. By 'sanctifying grace' here is meant the created habitual grace that inheres in the soul of the justified. Jesus possesses the fullness of that grace. Thus Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical letter on the Mystical Body in 1943: 'In Him (Christ) dwells the Holy Spirit with such a fullness of grace that greater cannot be conceived.' Basing their opinion on the Gospel of St. John, all theologians ascribe sanctifying grace in its fullness to the human soul of Christ: 'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth....And of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace' (John 1: 14, 16). In Acts 10: 38 we read that 'God annointed him with the Holy Spirit'; in St. Luke we find that Jesus was 'filled with the Holy Spirit' (4: 1); he also quoted Isaiah and said, 'The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has annointed me.' (4: 18).
St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica III, q. 7, art. I), bases the sanctification of Jesus' humanity through sanctifying grace on three facts: 1) on the Hypostatic Union which demands the fullness of grace in Christ's soul according to the principle, 'The nearer an effect is to its cause, the more it partakes of its influence'; 2) on the nobility of Christ's soul which enjoys the immediate vision of God; 3) on the relationship of Christ to all men since he is the Head and source of their grace." (Fundamentals of Catholicism, Volume II, pp. 260-261).
The Council of Constantinople II condemned those who defended the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia who asserted that Christ "was troubled by the sufferings of the soul and the longings of the flesh" and declared such people anathema (excommunicated). To suggest that Jesus may have had a homosexual inclination is blasphemy because Jesus is perfect in both His natures - divine and human, He is the Head and source of all grace. The Magisterium of the Church teaches authoritatively that, "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, No. 3).
Deacon Nick Donnelly has noted in one of his Blog posts over at Protect the Pope that Mr. Weldon is an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist. Now an individual purporting to be a Catholic priest is standing with him in blaspheming against the Lord Jesus.
The Bishops need to address this most serious matter immediately.
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