As I sit down to write this today, I feel my brain grasping to make sense of what I’m seeing. I literally don’t know how to process or adequately explain what appears to be a full court press to push acceptance of homosexuality by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church herself. But I would be remiss in not drawing the reader’s attention to this, so here goes.

In yesterday’s 1P5 Minute, I talked about the insane apostasy of the German bishops on sexual teaching. They’ve gone completely out of bounds, and they’re not even being coy about it anymore. After consultations with “experts” last month, Archbishop Heiner Koch, in conjunction with the German Bishops’ Conference itself, came out with a statement in which they sought to promote the idea that the homosexual orientation is “normal” and that those afflicted with it should not even seek to change it — and further, questions whether Church teaching on this topic, along with contraception, is sufficiently “up to date.”

Here’s a paragraph lifted straight from the German bishops’ statement, translated by Google:

The Chairman of the Family Commission, Archbishop Dr. Heiner Koch, emphasized that the Synodal Path should be started impartially and without any fixed positions, but by no means without knowledge of the state of the art. There was consensus on the question that human sexuality encompasses a dimension of lust, reproduction and relationship. There was also agreement that the sexual preference of humans is expressed in puberty and assumes a hetero- or homosexual orientation. Both are normal forms of sexual predisposition that cannot or should not be changed by any specific socialization. In the Church’s deliberations, this means that any form of discrimination against homosexual people must be rejected, as has been required for a long time as a teacher and is also explicitly emphasized by Pope Francis in the post-synodal letter Amoris laetitia. However, the question of whether the teaching ban on practiced homosexuality is still up-to-date, as well as the question of the permissibility of using artificial contraceptives in marriage and in the case of unmarried couples, was controversial. [emphasis added]

A little farther down, Amoris Laetitia, which now exists as a logical framework for much of the rest of the work of destroying Catholic teaching — recall how Fr. Chiodi of the Pontifical Academy for Life said the logic of A.L. at times requires the use of contraception — rears its ugly head in the German bishops’ statement justifying the reduction of adultery to something less than a mortal sin and the subsequent (false) permission for those engaging in it to receive Holy Communion:

Two members of the German language group of the Roman Synod of Bishops in October 2015, Archbishop Koch and Bishop Bode, emphasized the importance of a solid discussion supported by human sciences and theology and emphasized the developments that can already be seen in Amoris laetitia. For example, a sexual relationship after divorce and remarriage is no longer generally classified as a serious sin, and thus no more general exclusion from reception of the Eucharist is provided. [emphasis added]

This push to deconstruct sexual morality — taking particular aim at the integrity of the family — has been suspected by many Catholics over the past few years of being a Trojan horse for the ultimate normalization of homosexual behavior. This is, it’s tragic to say, a major wish list item for many homosexual clerics.

Think about it: combine the normalization of homosexuality with the attack on priestly celibacy, and you open a path to “married” gay clergy.

Is this really what they’re gunning for? I can’t say it with certainty, and in the past, I admittedly wondered if they’d be so bold. But the German bishops are not even alone here. In several foreign language outlets, we are seeing news of a new book called What Is Man, put out by the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The text is evidently an exploration of a rather large question, but it draws critical attention insofar as it apparently seeks, once again, to find a new interpretation of homosexual behavior, this time through scriptural eisegesis. Google translate comes to the rescue again this morning as I seek to get my thoughts written down before they lose force and focus:

We know that various biblical affirmations, in the cosmological, biological and sociological field, have gradually been considered outdated with the progressive affirmation of the natural and human sciences; similarly — deduced by some — a new and more adequate understanding of the human person imposes a radical reservation on the exclusive enhancement of the heterosexual union, in favor of a similar acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual unions as a legitimate and worthy expression of the human being. More — sometimes it is argued — the Bible says little or nothing about this type of erotic relationship, which should not therefore be condemned, also because it is often unduly confused with other aberrant sexual behaviors. [emphasis added]

I’m certain we’ll be seeing more analysis of this PBC document, but it is noteworthy that no less of a figure than the prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, is aware of its content. In the Aleteia article I cite above, he is quoted as stating that What Is Man is a “novelty, both for the content and for the way it is exhibited.”

The author of the Aleteia piece, Giovanni Marcotullio, writes:

For truth’s sake it must also be acknowledged that the same sub-paragraph “homosexuality,” with the aforementioned 9 pages, exceeds all other sub-paragraphs of the book, on average confined between two or three pages, and sometimes summarized in less than a page. If therefore it is dishonest to say that homoeroticism is the theme of the book, it would also be minimizing its specific weight: without a doubt it is a major theme, as well as one of the motives of the entire documentary/editorial operation.

If indeed we are seeing a co-ordinated and open push to normalize homosexual behavior in the Church — a push coming from her own bishops and Vatican officials — things are escalating beyond what many of us, even those who have incredibly low expectations, expected to witness.

UPDATE – 12/19/2019: There was pushback from some Catholic journalists on the early coverage of the PBC document, but my attempt to write an update here quickly turned into a full-length post. You can see that article right here.