Hospital em plena guerra total - por Nuno Serras Pereira

26. 09. 2013

Se a memória não me atraiçoa, é no livro de Esdras, da Sagrada Escritura, que se narra uma coisa extraordinária, sobre a qual o jesuíta P. António Vieira disserta admiravelmente, aquando da reconstrução do Templo de Jerusalém, a saber, que os construtores trabalhavam tendo numa das mãos uma ferramenta e na outra uma espada, por mor dos inimigos assanhados. 

A reconstrução do Santuário, como já mostrei em outro texto, significa o abraço “terapêutico”, a reparação interior, a cura das feridas graves, as altas glicémias provocadoras de comas diabéticos, os elados colesteróis responsáveis por uma multidão de mortes cardíacas e avc’s. A espada desembainhada significa a Palavra de Deus, o próprio Jesus Cristo, sob cuja bandeira (os Exercícios Espirituais de Santo Inácio têm uma semana inteira dedicada à meditação das duas bandeiras, sendo que uma é de Cristo e a outra de satanás. A Igreja peregrinante é uma milícia, isto é, um povo em guerra, um exército de combatentes), incutidos de Seu Espírito, ‘combatemos o bom combate da Fé’.

Como desde há mais de 3 décadas tenho estudado e andado envolvido nestas andanças da defesa da vida, do matrimónio e da família posso testemunhar que em plena guerra há hospitais de campanha que curam os feridos com uma das mãos enquanto com a outra pelejam bravamente, com uma desproporção desmesurada de forças, pela conversão dos inimigos que implacavelmente os acometem. Estes cristãos heróicos e santos são ameaçados de morte, perseguidos, espancados, injuriados, escarrados, ridicularizados, repreendidos, traídos, assediados sexualmente, abusados, enxovalhados, presos aos milhares - não invento nada, tudo isto está amplamente documentado. Esta gente abatida, como ovelhas sem Pastor, raramente encontram quem as respeite, as console, as anime, encoraje; pelo contrário, daqueles de quem seria de esperar conforto e confirmação… Jesus Cristo, esse, consolava e animava os Seus.

Quando um dia se fizer a história imparcial destes acontecimentos actualmente minimizados, ignorados e mesmo censurados, a Igreja e o mundo serão tomados de um enorme espanto. Então se saberá a quantidade de pessoas feridas e moribundas que foram atendidas e tratadas, o impressionante número de conversões de pecadores da pior espécie, a copiosa quantidade daqueles que assim se santificaram e o verdadeiramente admirável progresso ecuménico operado por esta singular e missão e apostolado. À honra glória de Cristo. Ámen.

The Sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not about “Hospitality” - by Msgr. Charles Pope

In AW 
 

Late last week on the blog the I made mention of the sins that “cry to heaven for vengeance.” The traditional list, is summarized in the Catechism which states The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner (# 1867).

It probably does not surprise you that I got push-back from certain homosexuals who wrote in to “remind” me that the sin of Sodom “has nothing to do with homosexual acts, or homosexual rape. Rather,” they said, “It is only about violations of hospitality rules of the ancient near east.”

I did not post these comments since I did not have time then to deal with this oft heard but very mistaken notion about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. But the meaning of the story is not unclear, and attempts to radically reinterpret the fundamental issue at the core of the story, tell us more about the struggle of the “interpreter” than of the story which has a rather plain, unambiguous meaning. The sin, the abomination, of Sodom, while not excluding any number of injustices, is clearly set forth as widespread homosexual practice.

When interpreting the meaning of a passage we do well to look not only to the plain meaning of the text, but also to other Biblical texts that may refer back to it and help clarify any ambiguities. In this text we can do both.

So first let’s look at the text itself as set forth:

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” The men turned away and went toward Sodom….The two arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” “Get out of our way,” they replied. And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” (Genesis 18:20-22; 19:1-13)

Now those who want to argue that this text is vague in meaning, begin by stating that the phrase “have sex with them” is more literally rendered from the Hebrew as “that we may know them.” And it is true that the Hebrew word יָדַע (yada) is rendered “know.” But this word is also a Hebrew idiom for carnal knowledge. For example in Genesis 4:1 we read: Now Adam knew (yada) Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”

That the carnal knowledge meaning is intended here is also made clear in the context of what follows. Lot first calls their proposal a “wicked thing.” But just getting to know someone, or to greet a stranger, is not a wicked thing. Further that unlawful carnal knowledge is meant is also made clear in that Lot (horrifyingly) proposes that they have sex instead with his daughters “who have never slept with a man” (i.e. his virgin daughters).

It is true that Lot is further motivated by the fact that these men (angels in disguise) are under his care. But that does not change the nature of the threat that is involved, namely homosexual seduction or rape.

Being unable to dissuade “all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old” from the attempt at homosexual seduction, Lot is pulled to safety by the the two angelic visitors who tell Lot to get ready to go since they have come to destroy the city.

Now to the average reader who does not need to be defensive, the text conveys a clear message of widespread homosexuality in Sodom, a fact rather bluntly confirmed by the angelic visitors. And this is the clear emphasis of the story, not hospitality norms or other secondary concepts.

However, it may help to confirm this fact in other texts of the Bible and to legitimately ask if this is the only sin involved. Two texts are most specifically helpful in this regard. First there is a text from Ezekiel:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

Now this is the text used most often by those who deny any homosexual context in the sin of Sodom. And, to be fair, it does add a dimension to the outcry God hears. There are clearly additional sins at work in the outcry: pride, excess or greed, and indifference to the poor and needy. But there are also mentioned here unspecified “abominations.” The Hebrew word is תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה (tō·w·‘ê·ḇāh) which refers to any number of things God considers especially detestable, such as worshiping idols, immolating children, wrongful marriage and also homosexual acts. For example, Leviticus 18:22 uses the word in this context: Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.

But of itself, this text from Ezekiel does remind us that widespread homosexuality is not the only sin of Sodom. And while the abomination mentioned here may not be specified exactly, there is another Scriptural text that does specify things more clearly for us. It is from the Letter of Jude:

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. (Jude 7-8)

And thus it is specified that the central sin of Sodom involved “sexual immorality (ἐκπορνεύσασαι) and perversion (ἀπελθοῦσαι ὀπίσω σαρκὸς ἑτέρας – literally having departed to strange or different flesh).” And this would comport with the description of widespread homosexual practice in Sodom wherein the practitioners of this sin are described in Genesis 19 as including, “all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old.”

Hence we see that, while we should avoid seeing the sin of Sodom as only widespread homosexual acts (for what city has only one sin?), we cannot avoid that the Scriptures do teach that homosexual acts are central to the sins of Sodom which cry to heaven for vengeance, and for which God saw fit to bring a fiery end.

Genesis 19 speaks plainly of the sin, Ezekiel 16 broadens the description but retains the word “abomination,” and Jude 7 clearly attests to sexual perversion as being the central sin with which Sodom and Gomorrah were connected.

God the Holy Spirit has not failed to teach quite clearly on the fundamental nature of the sins involved in these ancient cities. Widespread homosexual practice is surely the keynote of condemnation received by these cities and attempts to recast the matter as a “hospitality” issue must be seen for the fanciful distortion they are.

The Key that Fits the Lock, Part Four - by Anthony Esolen

In The Catholic Thing  

In Greek mythology, Zeus is called “father of gods and men.” But even though his procreative propensities are remarkable, it is not really true. Zeus is the son of Cronus and the grandson of Ouranos, the sky-god. He is preceded by a whole generation of Titans, the brothers and sisters of Cronus, whom he thrust from power, by the aid of strategic alliances with a few of those Titans, most notably the hundred-armed Cottus, Gyas, and Briareus – a boon to have on one’s side in battle.

He is called “father” rather because of the combination of force and intelligence which has resulted in his pre-eminence. His daughters, the Muses, confer some of that savoir-faire on men whom they especially favor. These men will not only see what is to be done but will be able, with their honeyed words, to persuade others.

In other words, the Greek religious system is a mythic presentation of the polis, founded upon controlled violence and persuasion – sometimes outright deceit. I don’t wish to discount the tremendous Greek achievement. It is a deeply human thing – but also a deeply fallen thing.

The first chapters of Genesis will have none of it. I am struck by the utter insouciance of the account of the Fall, which in so few words aims right at the heart of any attempt, ancient or modern, to raise political structures, and the violence they presuppose, to the status of idols.  

I’ve already noted the terrible change that sin works in Adam and Eve, replacing their nakedness with cunning. Now let us examine their response to the questions that God poses to them, starting with, “Where art thou?”  

God does not need to ask, “In what location may I find you?” In the psalms, to “dwell in the house of the Lord” or “to behold the countenance of God” is to dwell in a relationship of love. “Where are you?” is then an existential question. “Why have you not met me? Why do you hide from me? Why have you rejected me?”

Adam’s response is a childish dodge. He is hiding, he says, because of his nakedness. Again, we have been told that the nakedness is not a just cause of shame. It is rather shame that is the cause of Adam’s embarrassment. He is already alienated from his body and from the body of his wife. Nor can he be frank with his Maker. He is passing the blame.

Then God asks, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”

What Adam then does should be seen as undermining the possibility of lasting communion and peace upon earth: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

It’s Eve’s fault. No, rather it’s God’s fault. We may well embellish the response in the fashion of Milton’s Paradise Lost. “The woman – you know, that woman that you gave to me for my companion, so perfect, so acceptable, so wise – that woman gave me the fruit,” and now the voice drops to a grumble, “and I did eat.” In this one sentence, Adam sets himself at enmity with both God and Eve – never so guilty as when he ducks his guilt.

Eve, “not so loquacious,” as Milton shrewdly notes, gives us her version: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Hers is but half a dodge. The blame is placed on the serpent – on a creature beyond Eve’s control; and yet a beguilement requires someone to be beguiled, a fool, someone who places more trust in his or her own evaluation of things than in the commands of God. So Eve also suffers alienation in the very act of setting God aside.

I will treat of God’s judgment upon them at more leisure, in the next essay. For now, consider how much light these few verses shed upon the book of b’reshith – in Hebrew, “In the beginning.” For Genesis is, to the eye and ear of this reader accustomed to ancient poetry, a work of astonishing unity: I might say crushing and disillusioning unity, sparing no illusions of human greatness.  

Adam and Eve, cast forth from Paradise, beget two sons, Cain and Abel. Each son plies a trade without which there can be no human civilization: Cain is a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Of the two, the one most obviously necessary for cities is the farmer. There can be no city without a supply of dry storable grain.  

That, for the ancients, is what a city is: a place of granaries, protected by walls, political organization, and armies. It is no accident that when Cain is driven forth from his family, he “builded a city” and named it for his son. Cain is the elder son, the one who should principally benefit from inherited property.  

Yet we do not remember Cain for his seat on the chamber of commerce, but for his villainy. God rejects his half-hearted sacrifice, and Cain, seething with envy of his brother Abel, murders him. “And Cain talked with Abel,” says the verse – he “talked.” He used the medium of human intercourse – the verse does not say that they fought. Perhaps he took Abel aside, in a brotherly fashion but with evil intent. Then he slays his brother.

When God asks Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” the son dodges – as his father had. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asks, casting God’s question back in his teeth. The malice that was skulking and ducking in Adam is now shameless.  

Cain’s rhetorical question, implying that it is absurd to believe that we are our brother’s keepers, is not only a sign of alienation. It is a celebration of it. A first fruit of the builders of cities everywhere.

The Key that Fits the Lock, Part Three - By Anthony Esolen

In The Catholic Thing 

On the Fall of Man, recounted in but a few verses in the third chapter of Genesis, one might well fill many shelves full of books, so rich is the mythic presentation of what Newman called the aboriginal calamity, a disastrous turning away from God wherein we are all involved.  

All I hope to do here is to point out one feature wherein the nature of sin is seen as it were in the evil kernel, and therefore also the contradictions inherent in the unredeemed human condition.

The sacred author is careful to tell us that Adam and Eve were naked, and were not ashamed. Here we would do well to recall the Greek myths of the so-called Golden Age, when Cronus (Saturn) ruled, before his son Zeus seized his empire.

During that time, human beings lived in peace, but also in rustic barbarity – a not-quite-human innocence, or rather innocuousness, a life of gathering acorns and drinking from the streams. They were not holy, godlike, or naked.

But Adam and Eve are, in the beginning, all these things. They have been made in the image and likeness of God; Adam has exercised the divine power of the intellect in naming the beasts; and he has burst into praise upon seeing the goodness and the rightness of his wife Eve, brought to him by God.  

Eve is not a Pandora visited upon mankind by a malevolent Zeus. Adam and Eve are naked, implying that they belong to one another frankly and freely, with nothing to hide from one another or from God, because as Adam says, “a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”  

God is the first in Scripture to command:  He spoke, and they were made, as the Psalmist says. But Adam is the first to prophesy, and that too is a godlike act.

So the nakedness is not a symbol of foolishness. A remarkable pun in the original Hebrew text is of tremendous consequence. Adam and Eve were naked, ’erom, but the serpent was the subtlest beast of all the field, ’erom, pronounced with a glottal opening before the initial vowel.  

Milton seems to have caught the pun and made it one of the central dramatic motifs in Paradise Lost. So Satan, on the fateful morning of the temptation, appears in the body of that subtlest beast, “in whose mazy folds / To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.”  

Satan is always hiding, from God, the loyal angels, his fellow demons, Adam and Eve, and himself; even his initial plan of rebellion against the Son is couched in terms of secrecy and duplicity, as he whispers to his bed-mate Beelzebub:  “More in this place / To utter is not safe.”

And Adam and Eve, after they have eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, and made love in the fury of first licentiousness, find themselves not clad “in naked majesty,” as before, but cloaked in confusion and shame:

Up they rose
As from unrest, and each the other viewing,
Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds
How darkened; innocence, that as a veil
Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone,
Just confidence, and native righteousness,
And honor from about them, naked left
To guilty shame; he covered, but his robe
Uncovered more.

Those last words ending in the broken line, with their astonishing reversal of images, are among the saddest in all of literature.

Sad because true, as the sacred author means to show us. We are compelled by the pun to set the cunning against the nakedness. The telltale of sin is the need to hide, or, to put it another way, to present a false front, to cloak nothingness in a pretended glory.  

Adam and Eve in their nakedness are for one another and are free to speak with God as friend with friend. It is not subhuman but perfectly human and therefore divine. But the cunning, the subtle cloaking of the serpent is meant to spoil that nakedness.  

His lie about the forbidden fruit is a lie about God and about the love that God has showered upon the human couple – the lords of Paradise. “God doth know,” he says, “that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”  

He is calling God a liar and a concealer:  as if Adam and Eve do not already enjoy the knowledge of good as such. That includes the goodness of marriage itself. For, after all, if Adam and Eve are to fulfill the command, “Be fruitful, and multiply,” and if they are to cleave to one another, bone of bone and flesh of flesh, then they must know one another in the powerful sense of the Hebrew verb, so often and so stupidly obscured by bad modern translations.

After the sin, Adam and Eve require the pathetic fig leaves to hide their nakedness, and when God approaches them in the garden, they are still in hiding. In other words, they are no longer ’erom, naked, but ’erom, cunning, subtle – and foolish.

For who can hide from God? God probes the inmost heart, and sheds light upon those dark corners of the heart where we huddle, trying to hide our eyes from Him and from our own selves.  

Adam and Eve hide “from the face of the Lord,” another verse now stupidly translated so as to remove the Hebrew word for face:  because to face someone is to look upon him openly. So the Psalmist cries out:  “When shall I come and appear before the face of God?” And Saint Paul looks forward to that time when we will know, even as we are known, because we will see God “face to face.”  

Then will the original lie be undone forever.

Nueva hipótesis sobre uno de los grandes misterios del Nuevo Testamento

In Religión en Libertad

Durante siglos, los exégetas y estudiosos de las Sagradas Escrituras se han tropezado con un misterio sin aparente solución: los Evangelios sinópticos (San Mateo, San Marcos y San Lucas) incluyen un relato de la institución de la Eucaristía, y sin embargo el de San Juan no, a pesar de que dedica cinco capítulos -mucho más que los otros evangelistas- a la Última Cena y al sermón de Nuestro Señor en ella.

Ahora parece que la solución ha sido encontrada o, al menos, una hipótesis verosímil. Sintetiza 35 años de estudios de monseñor Anthony La Femina, canonista y teólogo que trabajó durante años en el Pontificio Consejo para la Familia, y que ha escrito un libro, Eucharist and Covenant in John’s Last Supper Account [Eucaristía y Alianza en el relato de Juan de la Última Cena], reseñado por National Catholic Register. La legitimidad de la hipótesis viene avalada por el prólogo que presta a la obra el cardenal Raymond Burke, prefecto del Tribunal Supremo de la Signatura Apostólica y uno de los más leales representantes de la "línea Benedicto XVI" en la Curia.

La tesis de La Femina es que también San Juan relata la institución de la Eucaristía, pero de forma analógica en la acción de Jesús de lavar los pies a los apóstoles. San Juan "utiliza el recurso de la analogía para transmitir verdades sobre la Eucaristía que no son evidentes en otros relatos de la Última Cena", afirma.

Para demostrar este aserto recurre a un estudio filológico griego y hebreo y a las conclusiones de otros estudios que han precedido al suyo, sobre el sentido teológico de las ceremonias de alianza de Dios con su pueblo.

Según La Femina, el lavatorio incluye en el Evangelio de San Juan idénticas circunstancias, atributos y efectos que la Eucaristía en los sinópticos, incluida la orden de repetir la acción, signo de la muerte de Jesús, así como el entorno físico y teológico, el orden de los hechos y la secuencia de las palabras.

En su opinión, todo el relato de San Juan de la Última Cena remite a las tradiciones del Antiguo Testamento para el establecimiento de una alianza y eran reconocibles por los contemporáneos de Jesús. La Femina estudia esa correspondencia versículo a versículo.

Hay una continuidad, pues, entre la Antigua Alianza y la Nueva Alianza, y en ese contexto el mandamiento nuevo ("amaos los unos a los otros como yo os he amado") tiene una implicación eucarística directa: "Además de ser apostólico, el mandamiento nuevo es esencialmente eucarístico: no sólo supone la alianza cristiana con el Padre en la vida y actividad del Hijo, sino también la unión con la vida y actividad de Jesús en el seno del sacrificio eucarístico", concluye La Femina.

La idea de que, mediante el lavatorio de pies, San Juan pretende iluminar la naturaleza de la Nueva Alianza instituida por la Eucaristía, y lo que esto signfica (a través del mandamiento del amor) para todos los cristianos, es "sorprendente", subraya la editorial dominica que ha publicado el libro; es "atractiva e innovadora, pero absolutamente compatible con la doctrina católica", según el prestigioso teólogo dominico Aidan Nichols, profesor en Oxford y Cambridge y autor en 1988 de un estudio sobre la teología de Joseph Ratzinger; y es "un regalo para la Iglesia", en palabras
del cardenal Burke. Toda una invitación para la reflexión escriturística y teológica de los especialistas.

Can Immunology Corroborate the Two-in-One-Flesh Image in Genesis?

by Donald Demarco

In CERC

Science, which is immune to political or fashionable trends, bears witness to the unique nature of the conjugal bond between a man and a woman.

Our immune system, certainly one of the great marvels of nature, equips us with 100 billion (100,000,000,000) immunological receptors. Each of these tiny receptors has the uncanny natural capacity to distinguish the selfnonself.[1] Consequently, they are able to immunize or protect our bodies against the invasion of foreign substances that could be harmful to us.[2] from the

Marvelous as nature is, it is never extremist. From a purely immunological point of view (from the standpoint of an all out defensive strategy), a woman's body would reject the oncoming sperm, recognizing it as a foreign substance. But this is precisely the point at which nature, we might say, becomes wise. If our immune system regards sperm as a potential enemy, then fertilization would never take place, and the human race would have come to an early demise with the passing of Adam and Eve.

But something extraordinary occurs that makes fertilization and the continuation of the human race possible. Traveling alongside the sperm in the male's seminal fluid is a mild immunosuppressant. Immunologists refer to it as consisting of "immunoregulatory macromolecules." This immunosuppressant is a chemical signal to the woman's body that allows it to recognize the sperm not as a nonself, but as part of her own self. It makes possible, despite the immune system's usual preoccupation with building an airtight defense system, a self-to-self union or, from an immunological perspective, a "two-in-one-flesh" intimacy.

What is well known is that male semen carries spermatozoa that have the capacity to fuse with the nucleus of the woman's egg (fertilization). What is less known is the presence of the mild immunosupressant it carries that allows the woman's immune system to welcome the male sperm as part of her own flesh. Nature is congenial to heterosexual procreativity.

With regard to sodomy, on the other hand (whether hetero-or homosexual), a pertinent question can be raised: What happens when semen is deposited in the rectal area rather than in the vaginal tract? How do the spermatozoa and the immunosuppressant function when they are placed in this particular bodily environment?

1. Sperm have the capacity to penetrate the nucleus of cells. While the physiological target of a sperm cell is the oocyte (egg), they can penetrate somatic cells as well. When this occurs with a somatic cell, this fusion of sperm with somatic cells may result in oncogenesis (the development of cancerous malignancies). In an article entitled, "Sexual Behaviour and Increased Anal Cancer," authors Richard J. Ablin and Rachel Stein-Werblowsky, report that "anal intercourse is one of the primary factors in the development of cancer."[3] They make the following observations: a) Spermatozoa are capable of penetrating somatic cells and fuse with their nuclei. b) Nuclear fusion, other than in normal fertilization, can result in malignant transformation in the invaded tissue. c) Immunoregulatory macromolecules may directly and/or indirectly contribute to an immunopermssive environment favourable for the perpetuation of spermatozoa (or otherwise)-induced tumours and/or be a factor for tumorigenic-associated infectious agents.[4] Daling et al., writing for the New England Journal of Medicine, state: "Our study lends strong support to the hypothesis that homosexual behaviour in men increases the risk of anal cancer."[5] In addition, Melbye et al., reporting in the International Journal of Cancer find that "Being single and having practiced anal intercourse appears to be associated with anal cancer and case reports have suggested a recent increase in the number of cases of anal cancer."[6] The medical literature on this point is extensive.
   
   
2. Scientists have confirmed that when the male immunosuppressant is deposited in the rectal area an "immunopermissive environment" is created. This environment, in which the immune system is not working as it should, is favorable for the perpetration of spermatozoa-induced tumors and other pathologies. It is as if, in this instance, the immune system becomes confused and welcomes its enemies. Researchers have documented a decreasing immunocompetence in a substantial proportion of HIV-positive homosexual men, particularly those with a history of intraepithelial abnormalities.[7] It has been shown in a number of studies that, unlike all sexually transmitted disease, where both partners are equally susceptible to the disease, in homosexual males, immunosuppression appears in the anal sperm recipients but not in the partners who deposit the sperm.[8]

Nature does not make accommodations to politically based ideologies or individual preferences. This is a point that Dr. Jeffrey Satinover makes throughout his book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth.[9] Heterosexual intercourse is biologically completely distinct from male homosexual intercourse, and the consequences of these acts are similarly divergent.

Furthermore, the vagina is an effective biological barrier against viruses. By contrast, the distal colon and rectum, which are designed to absorb water and nutrients in the final stages of the digestive process, possess a rich lymphatic network within the rectal mucosa (the lining of the rectum). Therefore, the distal colon and rectal area is designed to facilitate absorption, including absorption of the immunosuppressive components of male semen, if exposed to them.[10]

One researcher states that, "The risk of anal cancer soars for those engaging in anal intercourse. According to one report, it rises by an astounding 4,000 percent, and doubles again for those who are HIV positive."[11] Despite the well-documented adverse medical consequences associated with sodomy, this damaging practice has been strongly supported in certain influential circles. Indeed, even the Supreme Court (in Lawrence et al. vs. Texas) has specifically upheld male to male sodomy. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes ['The right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe'], just as heterosexual persons do."[12] In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia saw the Lawrence decision as allowing politics to usurp law:

Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.[13]

Science in itself, like nature, is immune to political or fashionable trends. Politicians and lawyers, however, are more vulnerable to the seductions of the Zeitgeist. But in looking closely and carefully at what the science of immunology can tell us about the natural functioning of spermatozoa and the male immunosuppressant, we have even more reason for upholding and honoring the wisdom of marriage as the potentially procreative union of a man and a woman. In this regard, we have added reason to feel awe when we re-read the passage in the first chapter of Genesis that refers to marriage as a union of "two-in-one flesh." Immunology gives us reason to believe that this phrase is not a mere metaphor, but is descriptive of a reality unique to the conjugal bond between a man and a woman.

Immunology, of course, does not tell us what marriage is. But it does underscore the radical importance of the body and the fundamental importance for life of the distinctiveness of the sexes. On the other hand, Al and Tipper Gore's book Joined at the Heart (2002), to take but one example among many that represent a growing trend,[14] by employing a metaphor, fails to appreciate the corporeal solidity of marriage.[15] It is difficult to see how, by missing what is elementary to marriage, one could properly appreciate the subsequent psychological, spiritual, personal, and religious levels of marriage for which the body has prototypic significance.

Immunology, on a scientific level, corroborates the notion of the "two-in-one-flesh" meaning of marriage as recorded in Genesis. It offers yet another example of the compatibility of science and faith.

Endnotes:

1. Daniel E. Koshland Jr., "Recognizing Self from Nonself," Science 248 (1990): 1273; F.M. Burnet, "Immunological Recognition of Self: Such Recognition Suggests a Relationship with Processes Through Which Functional Integrity Is Maintained," Science 133 (1961): 307-311.
   
2. These include prostaglandins of the E series, complement inhibitors, transforming growth factor-beta receptors for Fc fraction of gamma-globulin and the more recently described glycodelin-A. See R.W. Kelly, "Immunosuppressive Mechanisms in Semen: Implications for Contraception," Human Reproduction 10 (1995):1686–1693; W.S. Yeung et al., "Glycodelin: A Molecule with Multi-Functions on Spermatozoa," Society of Reproduction and Fertility Supplement 63 (2007): 143–151.
   
3. Richard J. Ablin and Rachel Stein-Werblowsky, "Sexual Behaviour and Increased Anal Cancer," Immunology and Cell Biology 75 (1997): 181–183.
   
4. Ibid., 182.
5. J.R. Daling at al., "Sexual Practices, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the In-
   cidence of Anal Cancer," New England Journal of Medicine 16 (1987): 937–973.
   
6. M. Melbye et al., "Immune Status as a Determinant of Human Paillomavirus Detection and Its Association with Anal Epithelial Abnormalities," International Journal of Cancer 46 (1990): 203–206.
   
7. M. Melbye et al., "Changing Patterns of Anal Cancer Incidence in the United States, 1940–1989," American Journal of Epidemiology 139 (1994): 777–780.
   
8. G.M. Maviigit et al., "Chronic Immune Stimulation by Sperm Alloantigens," Journal of the American Medical Association 251 (1984): 237.
   
9. Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Hamewith Books, 1996).
   
10. T.C. Quinn et al., "The Polymicro Origin of Intestinal Infections in Homosexual Men," New England Journal of Medicine 309 (1983): 573–582; D.C. William et al., "Sexually Transmitted Enteric Pathogens in Male Homosexual Population," New York State Journal of Medicine 77 (1977): 2050–2051.
    
11. M.A. Melonakos, R.N., "Why Isn’t Homosexuality Considered a Disorder on the Basis of Its Medical Consequences?" National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) (May 15, 2004), 2, http://www.leaderu. com/orgs/narth/medconsequences.html.
    
12. Lawrence et al. v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). The purposes Justice Kennedy had defined just prior to this quote by quoting himself from Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
    
13. Lawrence et al. v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
    
14. Two examples are: 1) Mother Outlaws: Theories and Practices of Empowerment Mothering, ed. Andrea O’Reilly (Toronto, ON: Women’s Press, 2004), 126, where the author extols the "new" family in which "gendered demarcation and embodiment is forever displaced"; 2) Margaret A. Farley, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (New York: Continuum, 2006), 288: "the justice ethic appropriate to heterosexual relationships is the same justice ethic appropriate to same-sex relationships."
    
15. Al and Tipper Gore, Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002).