Vatican publishes new book reducing ‘sin of Sodom’ to ‘lack of hospitality’ [LifeSiteNews]

Vatican publishes new book reducing ‘sin of Sodom’ to ‘lack of hospitality’

Diane Montagna
Thu Dec 19, 2019 - 5:55 pm EST

ROME, December 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — In what many see as an effort to normalize homosexuality in the Catholic Church, the Vatican has released a new book that reduces the “sin of Sodom” (Genesis 19:1–29) to “a lack of hospitality.”

“The story about the city of Sodom … illustrates a sin that consists in the lack of hospitality, with hostility and violence towards the stranger, a behavior judged to be very serious and therefore deserving to be sanctioned with the utmost severity,” the new book asserts.

Sources consulted by LifeSite described the book as “utter banality” and “obviously ridiculous.” One theologian exclaimed, “Thank God this stuff isn’t magisterial.”

The new volume, titled What Is Man? An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology (Che cosa è l’uomo? Un itinerario di antropologia biblica), was released on December 16 by the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) and endeavors to examine the scriptural understanding of the human person. Jesuit Father Pietro Bovati, secretary for the Pontifical Biblical Commission, said the work was carried out at the express wish of Pope Francis.

With a preface by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, S.J., prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the volume is composed of four chapters: The human being created by God (ch. 1); The human being in the garden (ch. 2); The human family (ch. 3); and the human being in history (ch. 4).

Its 10-page treatment of homosexuality comes in chapter three, in a section entitled “transgressive ways” that also includes incest, adultery, and prostitution.

The treatment on homosexuality begins by affirming that “the institution of marriage, constituted by the stable relationship between husband and wife, is constantly presented as evident and normative through the entire biblical tradition. There are no examples of legally recognized ‘unions’ between persons of the same sex.”

The commission then notes the emergence, particularly in the West, of “voices of dissent” with respect to the “anthropological approach of scripture, as understood and conveyed by the church in its normative aspects.”


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