New Vatican Book Claims that Sodom and Gomorrah were Punished for Inhospitality, not Homosexuality
The news broke this week that the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Commission has just published a new book, titled What Is Man? An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology, which now reduces the ‘sin of Sodom’ to ‘lack of hospitality.’ https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-publishes-new-book-reducing-sin-of-sodom-to-lack-of-hospitality
According to Vatican experts who oversaw its publication, Sodom and Gomorrah were not punished for engaging in lewd acts with the same sex but were punished for closing their borders and failing to “welcome the foreigner.” The claim is brazenly made that Scripture does not indict homosexual acts but rather indicts those who are “inhospitable” to foreigners.
Concerning the destruction of Sodom, the Biblical Commission asks: “But what was Sodom’s sin, that deserved such an exemplary punishment?” The authors observe that “in other passages of the Hebrew Bible which refer to Sodom’s guilt, there is no allusion to a sexual transgression practiced against people of the same sex.”
The Pontifical Biblical Commission goes on to say that the Biblical account of Sodom “is not intended to present the image of an entire city dominated by irrepressible homosexual cravings; rather, it denounces the conduct of a social and political entity that does not want to welcome the foreigner with respect, and therefore claims to humiliate him, forcing him to undergo an infamous treatment of submission.”
The authors make clear their view that the punishment of the Sodomites was “motivated by the fact that they had shown a deep hatred towards the foreigner.”
The Biblical Commission concludes:
“We must therefore say that the story about the city of Sodom (as well as that of Gabaa) illustrates a sin that consists in the lack of hospitality, with hostility and violence towards the stranger, a behavior judged very serious and therefore deserving to be sanctioned with the utmost severity, because the rejection of the different, of the needy and defenseless stranger, is a principle of social disintegration, having in itself a deadly violence that deserves an adequate punishment.”
So according to Francis’ “reformed” Vatican, patriots who courageously guard their borders against Communists and Jihad invaders are now “sodomite offenders” who deserve punishment while those who offend God by engaging in a terrible sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance (homosexuality) can now be acceptable persons whose lifestyle is “legitimate” and “dignified.”
Consider the following from the authors:
“A new and more adequate understanding of the human person imposes a radical reservation on the exclusive value of heterosexual unions, in favor of a similar acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual unions as a legitimate and worthy expression of the human being. What is more — it is sometimes argued — the Bible says little or nothing about this type of erotic relationship, which should therefore not be condemned.”
Had the authors ever read St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans wherein he criminalizes those men who “have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error?” According to the Apostle, “They who do such things are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.” (Romans 1: 27, 32)
Hence we see how Vatican progressives are skillfully using this new book to not only normalize homosexuality in the Catholic Church but to help advance the globalist plan for a borderless one-world government.
The problem with the book is that there is nothing in the Bible that suggests that lack of hospitality had anything to do with God’s verdict against the Sodomites or that homosexuality may be hospitably welcomed by the Christian. It rather is condemned from the beginning. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22) It was the sin of homosexuality that brought the fierce punishment of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but it appears that Rome is in denial of this Biblical fact.
And why? Because Rome today is infested with gay sympathizers like Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga who heads the pope’s “Council of Nine” or Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia who heads the new Pontifical Academy for Life. Not to mention the many others that are part of this Vatican “gay lobby” that Pope Francis works closely with. Unfortunately, this latest Vatican publication is among the key “fruits” of their labors.
It was reported recently that Pope Francis had requested the Pontifical Biblical Commission to reevaluate the Biblical teaching on homosexuality, apparently in preparation for the new book. We pray that the book quickly be condemned, lest souls be sent down the path to perdition because of it.