Originally published at crisis magazine
The newly appointed archbishop of Washington, D.C., Robert McElroy, says that the Church has learned more about human sexuality since the days of St. Paul and that, armed with this knowledge, we can now interpret Paul’s strictures against homosexual behavior as applying only to its abusive forms in ritual prostitution and pederasty but not to people who are committed to loving one another till death should part them.
I once believed the same thing and argued along the same lines; but that was 35 years ago, when I was relatively young and more than relatively stupid, and when I had not yet shaken off the assumption, prevalent among liberal theologians and exegetes, that the Scripture contains, as Hans Kung put it, a lot of “trash.” I had not yet studied the Old Testament in Hebrew or the New Testament in Greek, nor had I come to terms with the systematic coherence and interdependence of the Church’s teachings on sex, marriage, and the bearing and raising of children.
I was, effectively, a heretic. I will not get into the details of what persuaded me to give up the heresy and obey, except to say that it took a little time. I
