The Saints Were Not Politically Correct

The Saints Were Not Politically Correct On Many Things

A lot of Catholics criticize me for being hateful and not being politically correct.

My response is this: I am in good company. The Saints were not politically correct.

Lets go over many examples, which will hammer this point home, shall we?

The Saints Were Not Politically Correct On Homosexuality

What did the Saints say on homosexuality? Were they politically correct? Let’s find out!

Saint Paul

Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Saint Basil of Caesarea

The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship … with young people.
St. Basil of Caesarea, in St. Peter Damien, Liber Gomorrhianus, op. cit. cols. 174f.

Saint Augustine

Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed. If all nations committed them, all alike would be held guilty of the same charge in God’s law, for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust.
St. Augustine, Confessions, Book III, chap. 8

Also:

Your punishments are for sins which men commit against themselves, because, although they sin against You, they do wrong in their own souls and their malice is self-betrayed. They corrupt and pervert their own nature, which You made and for which You shaped the rules, either by making wrong use of the things which You allow, or by becoming inflamed with passion to make unnatural use of things which You do not allow.
ibid.

Saint John Chrysostom

All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men…. The sins against nature are more difficult and less rewarding, since true pleasure is only the one according to nature. But when God abandons a man, everything is turned upside down! Therefore, not only are their passions [of the homosexuals] satanic, but their lives are diabolic….. So I say to you that these are even worse than murderers, and that it would be better to die than to live in such dishonor. A murderer only separates the soul from the body, whereas these destroy the soul inside the body….. There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.
St. John Chrysostom, In Epistulam ad Romanos IV, in J. McNeill, op. cit., pp. 89-90

Saint Gregory the Great

Brimstone calls to mind the foul odors of the flesh, as Sacred Scripture itself confirms when it speaks of the rain of fire and brimstone poured by the Lord upon Sodom. He had decided to punish in it the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment emphasized the shame of that crime, since brimstone exhales stench and fire burns. It was, therefore, just that the sodomites, burning with perverse desires that originated from the foul odor of flesh, should perish at the same time by fire and brimstone so that through this just chastisement they might realize the evil perpetrated under the impulse of a perverse desire.
St. Gregory the Great, Commento morale a Giobbe, XIV, 23, vol. II, p. 371, Ibid., p. 7

Saint Peter Damian

Just as Saint Basil establishes that those who incur sins [against nature] … should be subjected not only to a hard penance but a public one, and Pope Siricius prohibits penitents from entering clerical orders, one can clearly deduce that he who corrupts himself with a man through the ignominious squalor of a filthy union does not deserve to exercise ecclesiastical functions, since those who were formerly given to vices … become unfit to administer the Sacraments.
St. Peter Damian, op. cit., cols. 174f

Also:

This vice strives to destroy the walls of one’s heavenly motherland and rebuild those of devastated Sodom. Indeed, it violates temperance, kills purity, stifles chastity and annihilates virginity … with the sword of a most infamous union. It infects, stains and pollutes everything; it leaves nothing pure, there is nothing but filth … This vice expels one from the choir of the ecclesiastical host and obliges one to join the energumens and those who work in league with the devil; it separates the soul from God and links it with the demons. This most pestiferous queen of the Sodomites [which is homosexuality] makes those who obey her tyrannical laws repugnant to men and hateful to God … It humiliates at church, condemns at court, defiles in secret, dishonors in public, gnaws at the person’s conscience like a worm and burns his flesh like fire…

The miserable flesh burns with the fire of lust, the cold intelligence trembles under the rancor of suspicion, and the unfortunate man’s heart is possessed by hellish chaos, and his pains of conscience are as great as the tortures in punishment he will suffer … Indeed, this scourge destroys the foundations of faith, weakens the force of hope, dissipates the bonds of charity, annihilates justice, undermines fortitude, … and dulls the edge of prudence.

What else shall I say? It expels all the forces of virtue from the temple of the human heart and, pulling the door from its hinges, introduces into it all the barbarity of vice … In effect, the one whom … this atrocious beast [of homosexuality] has swallowed down its bloody throat is prevented, by the weight of his chains, from practicing all good works and is precipitated into the very abysses of its uttermost wickedness. Thus, as soon as someone has fallen into this chasm of extreme perdition, he is exiled from the heavenly motherland, separated from the Body of Christ, confounded by the authority of the whole Church, condemned by the judgment of all the Holy Fathers, despised by men on earth, and reproved by the society of heavenly citizens. He creates for himself an earth of iron and a sky of bronze … He cannot be happy while he lives nor have hope when he dies, because in life he is obliged to suffer the ignominy of men’s derision and later, the torment of eternal condemnation.
Liber Gomorrhianus, in PL 145, col. 159-178

Saint Albert the Great

They are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another.
St. Albert the Great, In Evangelium Lucae XVII, 29, in J. McNeill, op. cit., p. 95

Saint Thomas Aquinas

However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas Sancti Pauli Ad Romanum I, 26, pp. 27f

Saint Bonaventure

Seventh prodigy: All sodomites—men and women—died all over the earth, as Saint Jerome said in his commentary on the psalm ‘The light was born for the just.’ This made it clear that He was born to reform nature and promote chastity.
St. Bonaventure, Sermon XXI—In Nativitate Domini, in Catolicismo (Campos/Sao Paulo), December 1987, p. 3; F. Bernardei, op. cit., p. 11

Saint Catherine of Siena

They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] … but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…. It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.
St. Catherine of Siena, El diálogo, in Obras de Santa Catarina de Siena (Madrid: BAC, 1991), p. 292

Saint Bernardine of Siena

No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God….. Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor…. Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than any one else, because this is the worst sin that there is.
St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche volgari (Milan: Rizzoli, 1936), pp. 869ff., 915, in F. Bernadei, op. cit., pp. 11f

The Saints Were Not Politically Correct On Feminism

What did the Saints say on feminism? Were they politically correct? Let’s find out!

St. Paul

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as it behoveth in the Lord.
Colossians 3:18

Also:

Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ.

Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord:

Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body.

Therefore as the church is subject to Christ: so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it:

That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life:

That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church:

Because we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh.

This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church.

Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And let the wife fear her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33

Also:

The aged women, in like manner, in holy attire, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teaching well:

That they may teach the young women to be wise, to love their husbands, to love their children.

To be discreet, chaste, sober, having a care of the house, gentle, obedient to their husbands: that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:3-5

Also:

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.

For Adam was first formed; then Eve.

And Adam was not seduced; but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression.

Yet she shall be saved through child bearing; if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.
1 Timothy 2:11-15

Also:

But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ: and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God.

Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered disgraceth his head.

But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered disgraceth her head: for it is all one as if she were shaven.

For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame to a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head.

The man indeed ought not to cover his head: because he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man.

For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.

For the man was not created for the woman: but the woman for the man.

Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels.

But yet neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord.

For as the woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman: but all things of God.

You yourselves judge. Doth it become a woman to pray unto God uncovered?

Doth not even nature itself teach you that a man indeed, if he nourish his hair, it is a shame unto him?

But if a woman nourish her hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.

But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God.
1 Corinthians 11:3-16

Also:

Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak but to be subject, as also the law saith.

But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35

St. Peter

In like manner also, let wives be subject to their husbands: that, if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives,

Considering your chaste conversation with fear.

Whose adorning, let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel:

But the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and a meek spirit which is rich in the sight of God.

For after this manner heretofore, the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands:

As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well and not fearing any disturbance.

Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered.
1 Peter 3:1-7

St. Ignatius

…and one Church which the holy apostles established from one end of the earth to the other by the blood of Christ, and by their own sweat and toil; it behooves you also, therefore, as ‘a peculiar people, and a holy nation,’ to perform all things with harmony in Christ. Wives, be ye subject to your husbands in the fear of God; and ye virgins, to Christ in purity, not counting marriage an abomination, but desiring that which is better, not for the reproach of wedlock, but for the sake of meditating on the law.
Ignatius, To the Philadelphians, Ch 4 (c. A.D. 100)

St. Clement of Alexandria

The ruling power is therefore the head. And if ‘the Lord is head of the man, and the man is head of the woman,’ the man, ‘being the image and glory of God, is lord of the woman.’ Wherefore also in the Epistle to the Ephesians it is written, ‘Subjecting, ourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the Church; and He is the Savior of the body. Husbands, love your wives, as also Christ loved the Church. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies: he that loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh.’ And in that to the Colossians it is said, ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as is fit in the Lord.’
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Bk 4, Ch 8, (c. A.D. 200)

St. Epiphanius

And the apostolic word has also escaped their notice: ‘I do not permit a woman to teach in such a way as to exercise authority over men. She is to preserve the virtue of quietness.’ And again, ‘For man is not from the woman, but woman from man.’
Epiphanius, Panarion, 49, 3 (c. A.D. 380)

St. Augustine

For the man is the head of the woman in perfect order when Christ who is the Wisdom of God is the head of the man.
Augustine, Against the Manichaeans 2, 12, 16 (A.D. 391)

Also:

For the name of Christ is on the lips of every man: it is invoked by the just man in doing justice, by the perjurer in the act of deceiving, by the king to confirm his rule, by the soldier to nerve himself for battle, by the husband to establish his authority, by the wife to confess her submission, by the father to enforce his command, by the son to declare his obedience, by the master in supporting his right to govern, by the slave in performing his duty…
Augustine, Letters, CCXXXII (A.D. 410)

Also:

Nor can it be doubted, that it is more consonant with the order of nature that men should bear rule over women, than women over men. It is with this principle in view that the apostle says, ‘The head of the woman is the man;’ and, ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.’ So also the Apostle Peter writes: ‘Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.’
Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, Bk 1, Ch 10 (A.D. 419-420)

Also:

Nor can it be doubted that it is more consonant with the order of nature that men should bear rule over women than women over men. It is with this principle in view that the apostle says, ‘The head of the woman is the man’ [1 Cor 11:3]; and ‘Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands.’
Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 9, 10, NPNF1 5:267 (A.D. 419-420)

St. John Chrysostom

“Wives be subject to your husbands” he writes to wives: That is, be subject for God’s sake, because this adorns you, Paul says, not them. For I mean not that subjection which is due to a master nor yet that alone which is of nature but that offered for God’s sake.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians, NPNF1 12:304 (A.D. 404)

Also:

Observe again that Paul has exhorted husbands and wives to reciprocity…To love therefore, is the husband’s part, to yield pertains to the other side. If, then, each one contributes his own part, all stand firm. From being loved, the wife too becomes loving; and from her being submissive, the husband learns to yield.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians, NPNF1 13:304 (A.D. 404)

Also:

‘Subjecting yourselves one to another,’ he says, ‘in the fear of Christ.’ For if thou submit thyself for a ruler’s sake, or for money’s sake, or from respectfulness, much more from the fear of Christ…rather it were better that both masters and slaves be servants to one another…Thus does God will it to be, for he washed his disciples’ feet.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, Homily XIX, NPNF1, 142 (A.D. 404)

Also:

Then after saying, ‘The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is of the Church,’ he further adds, ‘and He is the Saviour of the body.’ For indeed the head is the saving health of the body. He had already laid down beforehand for man and wife, the ground and provision of their love, assigning to each their proper place, to the one that of authority and forethought, to the other that of submission. As then ‘the Church,’ that is, both husbands and wives, ‘is subject unto Christ, so also ye wives submit yourselves to your husbands, as unto God.’ For she is the body, not to dictate to the head, but to submit herself and obey.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 5:22 (A.D. 404)

Also:

Wherefore, saith he, ‘Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’…For if it is their duty to be in subjection ‘as unto the Lord,’ how saith He that they must depart from them for the Lord’s sake? Yet their duty indeed it is, their bounded duty…For he who resists these external authorities, those of governments, I mean, ‘withstandeth the ordinance of God (Rom 13:2), much more does she who submits not to her husband. Such was God’s will from the beginning.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, NPNF1, 143-144 (A.D. 404)

St. Theodoret

Paul is particularly concerned here with believing women who are married to unbelieving men: thus, their subjection is in service to the Lord, that is, as the Lord commands.
Theodoret, Interpretation of the Letter to the Colossians PG 82:621A (A.D. 435)

Also:

Man has the first place because of the order of creation.
Theodoret, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 234 (A.D. 435)

St. Thomas Aquinas

For though the wife be her husband’s equal in the marriage act, yet in matters of housekeeping, the head of the woman is the man, as the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 11:3).
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Treatise on the Theological Virtues, Question 32, Article 8

Also:

For the higher reason which is assigned to contemplation is compared to the lower reason which is assigned to action, and the husband is compared to his wife, who should be ruled by her husband, as Augustine says (De Trinitate xii,3,7,12).
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Treatise on Gratuitous Grace, Question 128, Article 4

Also:

The Apostle says (1 Corinthians 14:34): ‘Let women keep silence in the churches,’ and (1 Timothy 2:12): ‘I suffer not a woman to teach.’ Now this pertains especially to the grace of the word. Therefore the grace of the word is not becoming to women. I answer that, Speech may be employed in two ways: in one way privately, to one or a few, in familiar conversation, and in this respect the grace of the word may be becoming to women; in another way, publicly, addressing oneself to the whole church, and this is not permitted to women. First and chiefly, on account of the condition attaching to the female sex, whereby woman should be subject to man, as appears from Genesis 3:16.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 177, Article 2