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THE APOSTLE PAUL AND HOMOSEXUALITY: A HOMOPHOBIA BEFORE THE LETTER OR A MAN TO UNDERSTAND? (Part One)

"Make no mistake: neither fornicators, born idolatry, nor adulterers, ne prostitutes, born sodomiti, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, not cursed, nor will they extortionately inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God!» (1Color 6,9-11)

- Church news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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PDF print format article – Article print format – Article in printed format

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Homophobic St. Paul? No, but a man of his time. Who knows how many Christians, reading the passages of San Paolo, they had the impression that the Apostle of the Gentiles was a little too rigid, so much so that he has been branded - and not just now - as a misogynist and a homophobe.

Making such a disparaging judgment about a person It's completely out of place, especially if the person in question lived in the 1st century. d.C., and therefore very distant from us in terms not only of chronology, but also sociological.

Mind you, certain evaluations and expressions — including those that St. Paul uses in his Letters — must always be taken in cultural context, social, historical and theological in which they were formulated, avoiding making the mistake of reading facts and people of the past with criteria relating to modernity.

A healthy historicism is necessary to understand the issues and the men and Saint Paul, man of his time and son of his social and religious culture, he never denied his identity, indeed, if anything, he made it a point of pride even after his conversion to Christ, as is abundantly testified in the book of the Acts of the Apostles and in the Letters:

«I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but grew up in this city, trained at the school of Gamaliel in the strictest norms of paternal law, full of zeal for God, like all of you are today" (cf. At 22,3). «Then the tribune went to Paul and asked him: "Tell me, you are a Roman citizen?”. Answered: "Yes". replied the tribune: “I purchased this citizenship at a high price”. Paul said: “Io, instead, I am by birth!”». (At 22,27-28) «circumcised at the age of eight days, of the lineage of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Jew, son of Jews; as for the Law, Pharisee; as for zeal, persecutor of the Church; as for the justice that derives from the observance of the Law, irreproachable" (cf. Fil 3,5-6). “You have certainly heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I fiercely persecuted the Church of God and devastated it, surpassing most of my peers and countrymen in Judaism, as avid as I was in upholding the traditions of the fathers" (cf. Gal 1,13-14).

About, instead, to certain ideological debates on hot topics like those present in Sao Paulo, it is better to limit them only to television debates in which most of the time only noise or bacchanal occurs. Places where guests are deliberately invited to provoke mutual opposition and where a faithful Christian - especially if a priest - should never set foot because he will always be seen as a circus attraction that is intended to entertain the public and on which one can let off steam and say the worst things. Doing theology and theological reflection, starting from the fact of faith means acting with other intentions and above all with other means, and that is what this article strives to do.

But let's get to the elements for a correct understanding of some sexual aspects. In my previous article (you see WHO) I referred in a non-exhaustive way to the broad theme of homosexuality in the ancient world; and I focused in particular on clarifying the nature and type of the sin of the city of Sodom in reference to the Biblical text (Gen 19,1-28) and to what the Pontifical Biblical Commission has clarified. Sin of Sodom which traditionally - at least since the 2nd century. AD onwards - inaugurated and determined in common feeling the identification of homosexual relationships between male individuals, but which then also included a form of heterosexual anal sexual intercourse, therefore it is possible to make a subsequent distinction between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy (cf. Dictionary of Italian Treccani, voce sodomy).

Etymological clarification is necessary because it helps us to delve deeper into the fact that the sodomy it does not only concern the expression of a specifically male homosexual practice but also the exercise of a hetero-oriented sexuality. A stronger the discussion will no longer only be between a level of ethereal or homo sexual orientation but on the broader exercise of human sexuality as such and its understanding within the plan of salvation wanted by God.

Let us remember how sexuality was also created by God as an element of salvation for men and women and that in this sense abuse in the etymological sense can only generate various problems, regardless of whether it is hetero-directed or homo-directed sexuality. The foundation of this vision is clearly not a philosophical reflection on the natural order, it is rather a reflection of faith that seeks to grasp creation, and therefore sexual and sexual relationships, in the alliance plan. This requires that humanity realizes itself in the recognition of its Creator, recognition that implies respect for the differences that unite society, especially the difference between men and women (cf. Xavier Thévenot, Male homosexuality and Christian morality, Torino, 1985, SHE DI CI p. 177). When the Creator is not recognized in any way, living one's humanity in totality even if God were not given, there is the serious possibility of incurring the sin of the city of Sodom which, by not recognizing and welcoming God and the foreigner, is prey to every excess and violence, his condition is particularly serious because he is executioner and victim at the same time.

I always remember what my sexual morality teacher he warned during his courses in the theological faculty. In the pastoral care of people with homosexual orientation it is essential to broaden the field of understanding so as not to focus solely on genital practice. It is not necessary to focus immediately on genitality as human sexuality is inclusive of various factors and although certain genital acts constitute an intrinsic and objective disorder this must not be a reason for impediment to the person who wishes to follow a human and Christian journey and who realizes how a differently oriented or disordered genitality actually constitutes a reason for embarrassment and confusion. This is also true for masturbation, for premarital relations and for fornication. We understand how certain questions remain open, because the point of view of the Bible is not to address the particularities and even less the singularity of situations which most of the time are always conflictual and placed within a defined historical space.

It is more necessary than ever to recognize with serenity the not remote possibility that a man or a woman could abuse their sexual identity and genitality. The right understanding can only provide a precise theology of corporeality that combines with the specific personality of each subject, in order to suggest the best paths to follow to live well and peacefully a heterosexual or homosexual relationship with oneself with the consequent deeper understanding of one's being. The authentic hypocrisy in these sexual themes can be seen in angelism which volatilizes the obstacle or sublimates it by hiding the problem and increasing the suffering that is hidden either under a denial or under a semblance of spiritualization.

How homosexuality was perceived in Paul's time? In the Letters of the Apostle the theme of homosexuality is not a central theme, even if some people still find it hard to believe it today and perhaps will be shocked by it. The Apostle is more interested in announcing and preaching Christ crucified and risen and the salvation that comes from him to every man within a renewal of life that is not only chronological - including, that is, between a before and an after —, that is, from the passage between sin and grace. The three texts of Saint Paul's Letters in which we can recognize homosexual conduct are the following:

1Color 6,9-11: “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't fool yourself: neither fornicators, né idolatry, nor adulterers, nor depraved, born sodomiti, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor will robbers inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you! But you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God". 1TM 1,10: «We know that the Law is good, provided that it is used legitimately, in the belief that the Law is not made for the right, but for the wicked and the rebellious, for the wicked and sinners, for the sacrilegious and the profane, for parricides and matricides, for the murderers, the fornicators, the sodomites, the merchants of men, the liars, perjurers and for anything else contrary to sound doctrine, according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, that was entrusted to me". RM 1,24-27: «Therefore God gave them up to impurity according to the desires of their hearts, so much so that they dishonor their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for lies and worshiped and served creatures rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God abandoned them to infamous passions; indeed, their females have changed natural relationships into unnatural ones. Likewise the males too, leaving the natural relationship with the female, they became inflamed with desire for each other, committing ignominious acts male with male, thus receiving within themselves the retribution due to their aberration".

We will have the opportunity to comment and analyze these texts briefly in the continuation of the article but what is now most interesting to clarify is that there is no Pauline text in which the explicit reasons for blame for a homosexual relationship are found, in short, a clear moral definition. Instead, we have specific texts and terms in which homosexual acts are regarded with blame (cf. soft [soft/feminine] e arsenokoitis [have sexual intercourse with a male as well as with a female]. We will also have the opportunity to focus more specifically on these terms throughout the article, now it is necessary to grasp the demarcation between sexuality and genitality, between corporeality and personality. The difference is subtle but substantial, especially for our times when talking about homosexuality and the right of citizenship of homosexuality in the modern world, inevitably leads to political ideology. But at the time in which Saint Paul wrote this problem did not arise in the slightest, for the simple fact that it is once free from any Puritan ideology and moralism.

Many of St. Paul's contemporaries they deal with the topic of homosexuality as it was generally considered already in the ancient world. Various testimonies come to us from the Greco-Roman world, as well as those pagan Mesopotamian populations with which the Jews came into contact. In some cities, sexual freedom was so evident - think for example of the city of Corinth - that the same toponym became the synonym for libertinism. Saying that a man or a woman lived "Corinthian style" indicated fairly free and unscrupulous sexual conduct. As we can read in the essay by Eva Cantarella that bisexuality was an almost stable condition of the sexual style of ancient man; and it is precisely in this social and cultural climate that Saint Paul lives and carries out his ministry as an apostle (cf. According to Nature, bisexuality in the ancient world, 2025, Universal Economy Feltrinelli).

For Jews, the revulsion towards homosexual sexual behavior was established in several documents. It would be interesting to ask ourselves whether the written prescriptions then found an application correspondence in real life as well as in Lex Scatinia of the Roman Republican era. In Jewish society these normative positions do not in themselves establish a precise sexual ethic but are more suited to the stigmatization of the pagan world that Jewish apologetics has maintained among the fundamental themes of its identity as a people and in the effort of ethnic conservation. We find evidence of what we are saying not only from reading canonical sources (cf. Lv 18,22 e 20,13) but also from profane and non-canonical literature (cf. Testaments of the XII Patriarchs; Levi XVII, 11; Philo; Sibylline Oracles).

The correct exegesis of the book of Leviticus — respectively in the Codes of Purity and Holiness — often cited inappropriately by many delicate souls who flock to our Christian communities, they prohibited various things with the sole purpose of preserving the identity of the chosen people. The preservation of purity and holiness could only be pursued at the time through a separatist attitude from everything that could stain the people's experience of salvation starting from the liberation events of Egypt and Sinai. And usually these separations included food and moral customs and practices of those neighboring peoples who did not enter into the covenant with God. With a joke we can summarize how the Levitical Fathers sent you to hell if you gorged on shrimp and lobsters - foods considered you know ―, whereas they wouldn't send you there if you had relations with a strictly prostitute kasher. Similarly, nowadays there are still Christians who see in the tattooed or homosexual individual - practices considered you know from Leviticus - the sure seal of the devil but they do not see the devil in their repeated attitude of unforgiveness and resentment towards some relative or acquaintance or in the attitude of division and scandal within the Church of God through their reckless judgments which dismember the body of Christ into its poorest members burdened by sin.

For this reason the apostolic experience of Saint Paul it is fundamental because it makes us understand that man's Promethean effort is no longer required to remain just, pure and holy before God, something that the ancient Law promised with the scrupulous observance of its innumerable prescriptions, without however succeeding. The ancient Law reveals sin and makes it aware but cannot eliminate it unless salvation is received through Jesus Christ who overcomes the Law. Now that we have fully entered into the grace that Christ deserved for us with his sacrifice on the cross, we can overflow with mercy even in the face of the superabundance of sin and the actual sins that many Christian converts had committed and of which we find a list in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

"Make no mistake: neither fornicators, born idolatry, nor adulterers, ne prostitutes, born sodomiti, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, not cursed, nor will they extortionately inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God!» (cf. 1Color 6,9-11)

Sanluri, 25 November 2025

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SAINT PAUL AND HOMOSEXUALITY: OR BEFORE THE LITERATURE OF HOMOPHOBIA, OR A MAN TO BE UNDERSTOOD? (first part)

“Do not be deceived: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6,9–11)

— Ecclesial actuality —

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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Was Saint Paul homophobic? No — he was a man of his own time. How many Christians, when reading certain passages of Saint Paul, have had the impression that the Apostle of the Gentiles was somewhat too severe, to the point of being branded — and not only in our day — as a misogynist and a homophobe. To pronounce such a disdainful judgement upon any person is entirely inappropriate, all the more so when the individual in question lived in the first century A.D., far removed from us not only in terms of chronology, but also sociological context.

Let us be clear: certain assessments and expressions — including those used by Saint Paul in his Letters — must always be read within the cultural, social, historical, and theological framework in which they were formulated, avoiding the grave mistake of interpreting the past with the conceptual criteria of modernity.

A sober historical awareness is indispensable if we wish to understand questions and persons. And Saint Paul, a man of his time and a son of his social and religious culture, never renounced his identity; indeed, he made of it a point of pride even after his conversion to Christ, as abundantly attested in the Acts of the Apostles and in his Letters:

“I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, as all of you are this day” (Acts 22:3). “The tribune went and asked him, ‘Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ The tribune answered, ‘I acquired this citizenship for a large sum.’ Paul said, ‘But I was born a citizen’” (Acts 22:27–28). “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5–6). “You have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it, and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my ancestors” (Gal 1:13–14).

As for certain ideological controversies, especially on such heated themes as those found in Saint Paul, it is best to confine them to television studios — places where noise, spectacle, and provocation prevail. There, guests are deliberately invited to create mutual opposition, and a Christian — especially a priest — should never set foot in such an arena, where he will inevitably be treated as a circus curiosity, summoned to entertain the public and become the object upon which all manner of insults may be discharged. To do theology and engage in theological reflection, starting from the datum of faith, requires entirely different intentions and entirely different instruments — and this article seeks to do precisely that.

Let us now consider the elements necessary for a just understanding of certain sexual questions. In my previous article (see HERE), I recalled — though not exhaustively — the broad theme of homosexuality in the ancient world; and I paused in particular to clarify the nature and the species of the sin of the city of Sodom in reference to the biblical text of Genesis 19:1–28 and to the explanations offered by the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The sin of Sodom, which traditionally — at least from the second century A.D. onwards — established in the common imagination the identification of homosexual relations between males, subsequently came to include also a form of heterosexual anal intercourse; hence one may distinguish between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy (cf. Treccani vocabulary, s.v. sodomy).

This etymological clarification is necessary because it helps us deepen our understanding of the fact that sodomy does not refer solely to a homosexual practice properly male, but may also involve a heterosexual misuse of sexuality. To an even greater degree, then, the discussion cannot be limited merely to sexual orientation — whether hetero- or homosexual — but must extend to the broader exercise of human sexuality as such, and to its understanding within God’s salvific design.

Let us remember that sexuality itself was created by God as an element of salvation for man and woman; and in this sense, abuse — in its etymological meaning — cannot but generate various disorders, regardless of whether it concerns heterosexual or homosexual acts. The foundation of this vision is not a philosophical reflection upon natural order; it is rather a properly theological reflection that seeks to grasp creation — and therefore sexual and sexed relationships — within the covenantal design. This requires that humanity be fulfilled in the recognition of its Creator, a recognition that implies respect for those differences that shape society, above all the difference between man and woman (cf. Xavier Thévenot, Male homosexuality and Christian morality, 1985). When the Creator is not recognised in any way — when one lives one’s humanity even if God were not given — then one runs the serious risk of falling into the sin of the city of Sodom, which, in rejecting both God and the stranger, becomes prey to every excess and act of violence — a condition particularly grave, for it renders one both executioner and victim at the same time.

I always recall what my professor of sexual morality insisted upon during our theological studies: in the pastoral care of persons with homosexual orientation, it is essential to enlarge the field of understanding so as not to focus solely and immediately upon genital practice. One must not fixate upon genitality, for human sexuality includes various dimensions; and although certain genital acts constitute an intrinsic and objective disorder, this must never become an impediment for the person who genuinely desires to undertake a human and Christian journey, and who recognises that a differently oriented or disordered genitality may in fact be a source of embarrassment or confusion. The same is true for masturbation, premarital relations, and fornication. We readily understand how certain questions remain open, because Scripture does not aim to address particularities — still less the singularities — of individual situations, which are often conflictual and always situated within a specific historical reality.

It is therefore necessary to acknowledge with serenity the not-so-remote possibility that a man or a woman may misuse sexual identity and genitality. A proper understanding cannot but require a precise theology of the body, united to the specific personality of each subject, so as to suggest the best paths by which to live well and peaceably one’s relationship with oneself — whether heterosexually or homosexually — together with a deeper understanding of one’s own being. The true hypocrisy in matters of sexuality is found in a sort of spiritualist angelism that evaporates the obstacle or sublimates the difficulty, concealing the struggle and thereby increasing the suffering hidden beneath either denial or a pretence of spiritualisation.

How was homosexuality perceived in the time of Paul? In the Letters of the Apostle, homosexuality is not a central theme — though some today may find that difficult to believe, even to the point of scandal. The Apostle is far more concerned with proclaiming and preaching Christ crucified and risen, and the salvation that flows from Him to every human being, within a renewal of life that is not merely chronological — that is, the “before and after” — the passage from sin to grace.

The three Pauline texts in which a homosexual conduct may be discerned are the following:

1 Color 6:9-11: “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 1 Tim 1,10: “We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that the law is not intended for a righteous person but for those who are lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the sexually immoral, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which I have been entrusted with.” Rom 1,24–27: “Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another, males doing shameful things with males and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

We shall have occasion to comment upon and briefly analyse these texts later in the article. What is important to clarify now is that there is no Pauline text in which we find an explicit moral condemnation of a homosexual relationship as such — no fully developed moral definition. Rather, we find specific terms and specific actions treated with moral disapproval (cf. soft, “soft, effeminate”; queer, “a man who lies with a male as with a woman”). We shall examine these terms more closely later. For the moment, it is necessary to grasp the distinction between sexuality and genitality, between embodiment and personality. The difference is subtle yet substantial — particularly in our time, when discussions of homosexuality and the supposed “right of citizenship” of homosexuality in modern society inevitably drift into ideological and political terrain.

But in the time when Saint Paul wrote, this problem did not arise in the slightest, for the simple reason that his was a period entirely free of ideological frameworks and puritan moralism.

Many of Paul’s contemporaries addressed the theme of homosexuality in the same manner in which it was generally viewed throughout the ancient world. Various testimonies come to us from the Greco-Roman world, as well as from the Mesopotamian pagan cultures with which the Jews came into contact. In certain cities, sexual liberty was so pronounced — Corinth, for example — that the very name of the city became a synonym for licentiousness. To say that a man or woman lived “in the Corinthian manner” indicated sexual conduct that was notably free and unrestrained.

We may also recall, as Eva Cantarella notes, that bisexuality was a nearly stable condition of ancient male sexuality; and it was very much in this social and cultural environment that Saint Paul lived and exercised his apostolic ministry (cf. According to Nature. Bisexuality in the ancient world, Feltrinelli, 2025).

Among the Jews, rejection of homosexual conduct was firmly established in various documents. It would be interesting to ask whether written prescriptions actually found concrete application in daily life — as in the case of the Lex Scatinia in the Roman Republic. In Jewish society these normative positions did not in themselves constitute a fully developed sexual ethic; rather, they served primarily to mark a boundary against the pagan world, a boundary that Jewish apologetics had long upheld as essential to its identity and to the preservation of the people. Testimonies of this attitude may be found not only in canonical sources (cf. Lev 18,22; 20,3) but also in non-canonical Jewish literature (cf. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi XVII, 11; Philo; the Sibylline Oracles).

A correct exegesis of the Book of Leviticus — particularly with regard to the Codes of Purity and of Holiness — often quoted with little understanding by the more delicate souls who populate our Christian communities, reveals that many prohibitions had one principal aim: the preservation of the identity of the chosen people. Purity and holiness could, at that time, be safeguarded only through a stance of separation from anything capable of contaminating the experience of salvation — an experience rooted in the events of the Exodus and Sinai. This separation included dietary and moral practices of neighbouring peoples who did not belong to the covenant with God.

In a somewhat humorous summary, one might say that the Levitical Fathers would send you to hell for feasting on prawns and lobsters — foods considered ṭarèf — but not for visiting a prostitute, provided she was rigorously kasher. Likewise, even today there are Christians who see in a tattooed or homosexual person — practices deemed ṭarèf by Leviticus — the unmistakable mark of the devil, yet fail to recognise the presence of the devil in their own repeated refusal to forgive, in longstanding resentment towards relatives or acquaintances, or in the divisive and scandalous attitudes within the Church expressed through rash judgments that tear apart the Body of Christ in its poorest and most burdened members.

For this reason the apostolic experience of Saint Paul is crucial: it shows that the Promethean effort of human beings to keep themselves righteous, pure, and holy before God — something the Old Law promised through meticulous observance of innumerable prescriptions, yet could never accomplish — is no longer required. The ancient Law reveals sin and makes one conscious of it, but cannot remove it, unless one receives salvation through Jesus Christ, who surpasses the Law. Now, having entered fully into the grace Christ has gained for us through His sacrifice on the Cross, we may abound in mercy even in the face of an abundance of sin — including the sins formerly committed by many Christian converts, enumerated in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

“Do not be deceived: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6,9–11)

Sanluri, 25 November 2025

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THE APOSTLE PAUL AND HOMOSEXUALITY: A HOMOPHOBIA BEFORE THE LETTER OR A MAN WHO MUST BE UNDERSTOOD? (first part)

And if we still have some hair left on our stomachs, we would come to discover that even Holy Scripture seems to be obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. We found out, For example, that David and Jonathan may have been more than just friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah are the capitals of LGBT+ love, and that even Jesus, with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany, I had something to hide; in summary, absolutely no one is saved anymore.

- Ecclesial news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

.

PDF print format article – article print format – article in printed format

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Saint Paul, homophobic? No: simply a man of his time. How many Christians, when reading certain passages from Saint Paul, They must have had the impression that the Apostle of the Gentiles was too rigid, to the point of being pointed out — and not only today — as misogynist and homophobic. Issuing such a disparaging judgment about a person is totally inappropriate., especially when said person lived in the 1st century AD., so distant from us not only chronologically, but also sociologically and culturally.

It is worth clarifying: certain evaluations and expressions — including those that Saint Paul uses in his Letters — must always be read within the cultural context, social, historical and theological in which they were formulated, avoiding the error of judging events and people from the past with the criteria of modernity.

A healthy historical sense is essential to understand the issues and the men. and Saint Paul, man of his time and son of his social and religious culture, he never denied his identity; it's more, made her a source of pride even after her conversion to Christ, as the Acts of the Apostles and their Letters abundantly testify:

«I am Jewish, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict observance of the Law of our fathers, full of zeal for God, "as you all are today" (cf. Hch 22,3). "The tribune appeared and told him: “Dime, are you a roman citizen?”. He responded: "Yeah". replied the tribune: “I obtained that citizenship for a large sum of money”. Paul said: “Well, I have it from birth” (Hch 22,27-28). «Circumcised on the eighth day, of the lineage of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew son of Hebrews; regarding the law, Pharisee; regarding zeal, persecutor of the Church; regarding justice based on the Law, irreproachable" (cf. Flp 3,5-6). "You have certainly heard of my conduct in the past in Judaism.": how he furiously persecuted the Church of God and devastated it, surpassing many of my compatriots of the same age in Judaism, extremely jealous of my parents' traditions." (cf. Ga 1,13-14).

As far as, instead, to certain ideological debates — especially on hot topics such as those appearing in St. Paul —, It is better to leave them limited to television debates, where noise and spectacle almost always reign. They are places where certain participants are deliberately invited to provoke confrontations, and where a faithful Christian - and even more so a priest - should never set foot, because it will always be seen as a circus attraction intended to entertain the public and on which all kinds of insults are unleashed. Doing theology—true theology—starting from the data of faith means acting with other intentions and with other means., And that is precisely what this article tries to do..

Now let's move on to some necessary elements for a correct understanding of certain aspects of sexuality. In my previous article (see HERE) I recalled — although without pretensions to exhaustiveness — the broad topic of homosexuality in the ancient world, and I stopped in particular to clarify the nature and type of sin of the city of Sodom according to the biblical text of Genesis 19,1-28 and the details offered by the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The sin of Sodom, that traditionally — at least since the 2nd century AD. (C). from now on — inaugurated in the common imagination the identification of homosexual relationships between men, It later came to also include certain heterosexual practices, specifically anal intercourse; hence it is possible to distinguish between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy (cf. Dictionary of the Italian language Treccani, voice sodomy).

This etymological clarification is necessary because it helps us delve deeper into the fact that sodomy does not refer only to the expression of a male homosexual practice in the strict sense., but also to the abuse of sexuality exercised in a heterosexual manner. A fortiori, The debate can no longer be limited to a question of sexual orientation — homo or heterosexual — but must be expanded to the broader exercise of human sexuality as such., and its understanding within the plan of salvation wanted by God.

Let us remember that sexuality has also been created by God as an element of salvation for men and women, and that in this sense the abuse — in its etymological meaning — cannot but generate various problems, regardless of whether it is a sexuality oriented towards the other sex or towards the same sex. The foundation of this vision is not a philosophical reflection on the natural order; is, rather, a properly theological reflection that seeks to understand creation — and, therefore, sexual and sexual relationships — within the design of the Alliance. This requires that humanity realize itself in the recognition of its Creator, recognition that implies respect for the differences that sustain society, especially the difference between man and woman (cf. Xavier Thévenot, Male homosexuality and Christian morality, 1985).

When the Creator is no longer recognized in any way, when you live your own humanity even if God were not given, there is a serious possibility of incurring the sin of the city of Sodom that, by not recognizing or welcoming God and the stranger, remains prey to all excess and violence: an especially serious condition, because it makes the person both executioner and victim at the same time.

I always remember what my sexual morality teacher warned during courses at the theology faculty. In the pastoral care of people with homosexual orientation, it is essential to broaden the field of understanding so as not to focus immediately, nor exclusively, in genital practice. You should not stop looking at the genitals, since human sexuality includes various factors; and although certain genital acts constitute an intrinsic and objective disorder, This should not become an impediment for the person who wishes to follow a human and Christian path., and that recognizes that genitalia oriented in a diverse or disordered way can constitute a real cause for shame or confusion. This is equally true for masturbation., for premarital relations and fornication. We thus understand that certain questions remain open, because the point of view of the Bible is not to address the particularities — and even less the singularities — of situations that, most of the time, They are conflictive and are located within a precise historical context.

It is necessary, well, calmly recognize the possibility — not at all remote — that a man or a woman could abuse their sexual identity and their own genitalia. Adequate understanding cannot dispense with a precise theology of corporeality, linked to the specific personality of each subject, to be able to suggest the best possible paths that allow you to live well and serenely in a relationship with yourself - whether heterosexual or homosexual - along with a deeper understanding of your own being.. The real hypocrisy in these sexual themes is found in the angelism that evaporates the obstacle, sublimates it, hides the problem and increases the suffering that remains hidden either under denial or under an appearance of spiritualization.

How was homosexuality perceived in Paul's time?? In the Letters of the Apostle homosexuality is not a central theme, although some – still today – refuse to believe it and perhaps even become scandalized. The Apostle is much more interested in announcing and preaching Christ crucified and resurrected, and the salvation that reaches every human being from Him within a renewal of life that is not merely chronological — from before to after —, that is to say, from sin to grace.

The three texts of the Letters of Saint Paul in which we can glimpse homosexual behavior are the following:

1 Corinthians 6,9-11: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool them: nor the immoral, nor the idolaters, nor adulterers, not even the effeminate ones (malakoí), nor the sodomites (Arsenocites), not even the thieves, nor the misers, not even the drunks, Neither slanderers nor raptors will inherit the Kingdom of God. And this was some of you; but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, "You have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.". 1 Timothy 1,10: «We know that the Law is good, as long as it is used legitimately, considering that the Law is not established for the righteous, but for transgressors and rebels, for the wicked and sinners, for the sacrilegious and profaning, for parricides and matricides, for murderers, the fornicators, the sodomites (Arsenocites), human traffickers, the liars, perjurers and everything that opposes sound doctrine, according to the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which has been entrusted to me.. Romans 1,24-27: "Therefore God gave them over to impurity according to the desires of their hearts.", so that they dishonored their bodies among themselves, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator, that is blessed forever. Amen. That is why God gave them over to vile passions: His women changed natural relationships for those that are against nature. Likewise men, abandoning the natural relationship with the woman, they burned with desire for each other, "committing shameful acts man with man and receiving in themselves the payment they deserve for their error.".

Let us remember that sexuality has also been created by God as an element of salvation for men and women, and that in this sense the abuse — in its etymological meaning — cannot but generate various problems, regardless of whether it is a sexuality oriented towards the other sex or towards the same sex. The foundation of this vision is not a philosophical reflection on the natural order.; is, rather, a properly theological reflection that seeks to understand creation — and, therefore, sexual and sexual relationships—within the design of the Alliance. This requires that humanity realize itself in the recognition of its Creator, recognition that implies respect for the differences that sustain society, especially the difference between man and woman (cf. Xavier Thévenot, Male homosexuality and Christian morality, 1985).

When the Creator is no longer recognized in any way, when you live your own humanity even if God were not given, there is a serious possibility of incurring the sin of the city of Sodom that, by not recognizing or welcoming God and the stranger, remains prey to all excess and violence: an especially serious condition, because it makes the person both executioner and victim at the same time.

We will have the opportunity to comment and analyze briefly these texts in the continuation of the article, but what is important to clarify now is that there is no text in Saint Paul where an explicit condemnation of a relationship homosexual as such, that is to say, a fully developed moral definition in the modern sense. What we do find are concrete terms that describe acts considered with disapproval: — malakoí (soft), literally “soft”, “effeminate”; — Arsenocites (queer), “those who have sexual relations with men as with a woman”. We will also have the opportunity, in the course of the article, to dwell on these terms more precisely; now it is necessary to grasp the distinction between sexuality and genitality, between corporeality and personality. The difference is subtle, but substantial — especially in our time —, where talking about homosexuality and the “right of citizenship” of homosexuality in the modern world inevitably leads to political ideology. But at the time when Saint Paul writes, this problem simply does not exist: It is a time free from any ideology and any puritan moralism.

Many contemporaries of Saint Paul They address the issue of homosexuality in the same way it was generally understood in the ancient world.. Numerous testimonies come from the Greco-Roman environment, as well as the pagan Mesopotamian peoples with whom the Jews came into contact. In some cities, sexual freedom was so widespread — let's think, For example, in Corinth — that the same place name became a synonym for debauchery. Saying that a man or woman lived “in the Corinthian way” meant describing fairly free and unscrupulous sexual behaviors.. And as we can read in Eva Cantarella's study, Bisexuality was an almost stable condition in the sexual style of ancient man; and it is precisely in this social and cultural environment where Saint Paul lives and develops his ministry as an apostle. (cf. Eva Cantarella, Second nature. Bisexuality in the ancient world, Feltrinelli, 2025).

For the Jews, the repulsion towards homosexual sexual behavior was well established in various documents. It would be interesting to ask ourselves if the written prescriptions later found a concrete application in real life., in the same way that happened with the Lex Scatinia of the Roman republican era. In Jewish society, These normative positions do not in themselves constitute a fully developed sexual ethic.; rather they correspond to the stigmatization of the pagan world, that Jewish apologetics maintained among the fundamental pillars of its identity and its effort to preserve its ethnic specificity.

The testimonies of what we say are found not only in canonical sources (cf. Lv 18,22; 20,13), but also in secular and non-canonical literature (cf. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi XVII, 11; Philo; Sibylline Oracles).

The correct exegesis of the book of Leviticus — in the calls Purity Codes and of Holiness —, to which many delicate Christians appeal without knowledge, prohibited various practices with a single objective: the preservation of the identity of the chosen people. Purity and holiness had to be preserved through ritual separatism from everything that could “contaminate” the salvation experience of the people., from the founding events of the Exodus and Sinai. Normally, These separations included dietary and moral practices of neighboring peoples who did not participate in the alliance with God..

We can sum it up with a very precise irony: The Levitical Fathers sent you to hell for bingeing on shrimp or lobsters — foods considered ṭharèf —, but they didn't send you to hell if you had sex with a prostitute as long as it was strictly kasher.

In the same way, Today there are still Christians who see tattooing or homosexuality - practices that Leviticus classified as ṭharèf - an infallible sign of the devil., but they are unable to see the devil in his permanent lack of forgiveness, in his resentment, or in its division within the Church, through reckless judgments that tear apart the Body of Christ, especially in its poorest members and wounded by sin.

That is why the apostolic experience of Saint Paul is fundamental: makes us understand that the Promethean effort of human beings is no longer required to remain just., pure and holy before God, something that the old Law promised through the scrupulous observance of innumerable prescriptions, without ever managing to bring it to its fullness. The Old Law Reveals Sin and Makes It Conscious, but not able to delete it, unless salvation is received through Jesus Christ, that surpasses the law.

Now, having fully entered into grace that Christ has deserved for us with his sacrifice on the cross, we can overabound in mercy even in the face of the overabundance of sin and the concrete sins that many converted Christians had committed, and of which we find a list in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

«Do not deceive them: nor the immoral, nor the idolaters, nor adulterers, not even the effeminate ones, nor those who sleep with men, not even the thieves, nor the misers, not even the drunks, nor the defamers, nor will the rapacious inherit the Kingdom of God. And this was some of you; but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, "You have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Color 6,9-11).

Sanluri, 25 November 2025

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THE SIN OF SODOM AND THAT UNEXPRESSED DESIRE TO GAIZE THE HOLY SCRIPTURE AND CLEAR HOMOSEXUALITY WITHIN THE CHURCH AND THE CLERGY

If we still have enough hair left on our stomach, we come to discover that even the Holy Scripture is obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. Let's find out, eg, that David and Jonathan were perhaps a little more than just friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah are the capitals of LGBT+ love, and that even Jesus with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany had something to hide, in short, no one can be saved anymore.

- Church news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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Ivano Liguori – PDF print format article – PDF article print forma – PDF article in printed format

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An Italian priest, John Berti, famous cartoonist, published a few days ago on his website a cartoon in which the good Lord threatens to incinerate the priests who still teach that the sin of Sodom consists in homosexuality.

In schizophrenic times like ours we have to witness these little theaters in which there are more priests who talk and worry about homosexuality, with the desperate aim of clearing it within the Church and its clergy, more than the activists of the most famous homosexual culture club in Rome talk about it, which are much more coherent and therefore respectable, in their free and unquestionable choices. Homosexuals have always been better, on a human and social level, they are those who, by their unquestionable choice of life, live their homosexuality in the light of the sun, in freedom and coherence, without worrying about the Catholic Church and its morality, because it doesn't concern them. Instead, the absolute worst are the clerical parakeets, also called "sacristy homosexuals", who would like to bend the principles of Catholic morality to their whims, in a desperate attempt to introduce LGBT+ claims into the Church and the clergy as a real Trojan horse.

These subjects should be sent to lessons by Tomaso Cerno, who was national president of Arcigay (gay association of the Italian left), later elected to the Senate of the Italian Republic, splendid figure of a free and intellectually honest homosexual intellectual, author of clever and hilarious phrases like:

«Being a serious homosexual, certi fags repressed and certain queers I've never tolerated them when they went crazy".

One would have to reply to him: tell that to our hysterical gay sacristy acids! E, with an irony and unparalleled freedom, to those various television and radio programs where more colorful language is permitted — which, however apparently trivial, in certain contexts it can also be effective and even useful on a socio-communicative level - he begins by continually referring to "faggots" and referring to himself by saying "I've happily been a faggot since I was a child" (see WHO, QUI, WHO, WHO, WHO, etc. ..).

Like this, if we still have enough hair left on our stomach, we come to discover that even the Holy Scripture is obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. Let's find out, eg, that David and Jonathan were perhaps a little more than just friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah are the capitals of LGBT+ love, and that even Jesus with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany had something to hide, in short, no one can be saved anymore.

But let's go back to the cartoon of this Italian priest. What is really the sin of Sodom that scandalizes certain priests on page? The text of Genesis says so:

«They hadn't gone to bed yet, when behold the men of the city, that is, the inhabitants of Sodom, they crowded around the house, young and old, all the people as a whole. They called Lot and told him: “Where are those men who came to you this night? Get them out of us, because we can abuse it!”» (cf.. Gen 19,4-5).

The Italian translation uses the verb «abusare», which already says something a little more precise for a correct exegesis (to use: go beyond the permitted use). The original Hebrew text instead uses the expression "that they might know them". The Hebrew term is failʿ (knowledge) and it means “to have complete knowledge” — not always of a sexual nature — but in many cases it indicates carnal knowledge, specificity of the unitive act between man and woman. If so, and that's how it is, more than a homosexual act, the biblical story would testify to the attempt at gang violence, used as a sign of subordination and submission for those foreigners considered hostile and dangerous.

The rest, in many populations — and history bears witness to this — the supreme act of greatest contempt towards an individual or an ethnic group has often coincided not with murder but with the violation of the body through an act of sexual abuse. And when it was women who were abused, the consequent pregnancy resulting from the act of violence reaffirmed a desire for submission and domination also in the child who would be born from it.

To proceed with more information, I report what the Pontifical Biblical Commission says in reference to this passage from Gen 19,4 in the document «What is man?» (Shall 8,5). An itinerary of biblical anthropology: «It should be noted immediately that the Bible does not speak of erotic inclination towards a person of the same sex, but only homosexual acts. And he deals with these in a few texts, different from each other in literary genre and importance. Regarding the Old Testament we have two stories (Gen 19 e Gdc 19) which inappropriately evoke this aspect, and then the rules in a legislative code (Lv 18,22 e 20,13) who condemn homosexual relationships" (PCB 2019, n. 185).

The passage is very clear and the Bible's concern refers only to the homosexual act and not to homo-affective relationships and implications, as we know and theorize them today. Which means introducing a substantially different reflection, as much as the analysis of a case of moral theology in the light of anthropology alone. The Bible sees and reads the homosexual act within a well-defined sexuality and a relationship established by God between man and woman, between male and female, which establishes an order and a plan of salvation (although these categories too, by some biblical scholars of Protestant origin, have been demolished). In this sense also human sexuality, for God, it was conceived as an instrument of salvation and must also be exercised in this sense.

The biblical man, who is essentially a man of antiquity, considers homosexual acts as they were considered and known in ancient times. Just as Paul of Tarsus considered homosexual acts in those people who, having joined Christ, they also rediscovered sexuality as a saving novelty (cf.. RM 1,26-27; 1Color 6,9-11; 1TM 1,10).

But what were homosexual acts for the ancients? Substantially the reversal of the natural order of union and procreation, which assigned an active-giving role to man and a passive-receptive role to woman. A perhaps archaic vision, but borrowed from observation of the natural world, whereby: «It was believed that sexual intercourse required one active partner and the other passive, that nature had assigned these roles to male and female respectively, and that homoerotic acts inevitably created confusion in these roles, thus confusing what is natural. In the case of relationships between two males, one was believed to be degraded by taking on the passive role, considered naturally reserved for women. In the case of two women, one of the two was believed to usurp the dominant role, active, considered naturally reserved for man" (B. (J). Bread, Paul’s Views on the Nature of Women and Male Homoeroticism, in AA. VV., Bible and homosexuality, claudian, Torino 2011, p. 25).

So, for these natural reasons, Sexual relations of this type were not contemplated between two men or two women. However, this did not imply a judgment of merit extended to people: the discussion was about the act, not on emotional relationships as we understand them today, it is worth hypothesizing generalized historical homophobia.

Historians and scholars of the ancient world they also agree in indicating the existence of prohibitions and penalties to regulate homoerotic practices in some civilizations and circumstances, but there is no certainty of their actual application, except for certain cases which we do not deal with here and which may be the subject of a subsequent article.

Returning to the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, can be specified even better:

«But what was Sodom's sin in reality?, deserving of such an exemplary punishment? …» (PCB 2019, n. 186).

The sin of Sodom it is a sin deriving from the substantial contempt of God which generates proud rejection and oppositional conduct towards men outside Sodom - not only Lot's guests, but also Lot himself and his family. Sodom is the evil city where the stranger is not protected and the sacred duty of welcome is not respected, because we stopped welcoming God a long time ago. Something similar can be deduced from some evangelical passages (cf.. Mt 10,14-15; LC 10,10-12), where it speaks of the punishment for the rejection of those sent by the Lord: a refusal that will have more serious consequences than those that befell Sodom. In classical culture this attitude is the hybris (insult): violation of divine and natural law resulting in unfortunate consequences, desecrating and inhumane acts.

Yup, but where has homosexuality gone?? Starting from the second century of the Christian era, a habitual reading of Gen's story has established itself 19,4 in light of 2Pt 2,6-10 and Gd 7. The story is not intended to present the image of an entire city dominated by homosexual lust: rather, it denounces the conduct of a social and political entity that does not want to welcome the foreigner and seeks to humiliate him, forcing him by force to suffer shameful treatment of submission (cf.. PCB 2019, n. 187). If we wanted to be more precise, we could limit the attempted violence as rape, which in Roman law defined illegitimate sexual intercourse, even without rape: rape with a virgin or a widow O rape with males (cf.. Eva Cantarella, According to nature, Feltrinelli, Milan, edition consulted, pp. 138-141).

But then the inhabitants of Sodom were homosexuals yes or no? The Bible doesn't say that, and this invites us to reflect on how the sacred text highlights more important issues than a single conduct. Analyzing the history of the ancient world and the moral customs of the time, we can assume that in Sodom as in Persia, in Egypt, in Jerusalem, in Athens and Rome there were people who practiced acts of a homosexual nature and acts of a heterosexual nature in equal measure. People aware of their biological sex - they knew they were male and female - and who lived these practices with greater freedom and lightness than we imagine. Perhaps the century of sexual liberalization should be sought in antiquity, do not (solo) after 1968.

These themes allow us to talk about acts rather than homosexual relationships. In Greece they had a defined political-civil function; in Rome other meanings and purposes. Many of those engaged in homosexual acts, at a certain age and for similar purposes, they returned to heterosexual acts and got married to a woman.

For the ancient world and for the philosophy of the Greeks, marriage was the only institution that guaranteed the continuation of the family and civil society, something that a community of only men or all women could not have supported, as the classical poems attest, in which female communities, so as not to become extinct, they are looking for men.

The ancient world knew a still primitive anthropology of sexuality, based on natural instincts, and was unable to fully define the greatness of human sexuality as Christianity has proposed it over the centuries - sometimes with questionable tones - nevertheless arriving at a theology of corporeity in view of a salvation that includes, does not mortify, sexuality.

Maybe it's us modern people to have categorized and defined sexuality so precisely — thanks to the human sciences and neuroscience. The concept of homosexual orientation is modern. According to scholars, sexual activity in ancient times could resemble conscious bisexuality exercised in different contexts and for different purposes. Also because the concept of nature/against nature was understood differently from how Christian morality would understand it.

Now that we know the identity of Sodom's sin, we understand that in the narrative traditions of the Bible there are no precise indications - at least as we would like - on homosexual practices, nor as behavior to blame, nor as an attitude to be tolerated or encouraged (cf.. PCB 2019, n. 188). Simply, the Bible speaks of the salvation that God brings about in the history of man: a pedagogical salvation that holds together opposites and apparent contradictions. In Christ salvation is revealed and refined, introducing a change not only internally into the heart of man, but also structural, that affects human relationships, and therefore also sexuality. More fundamental than an act considered sinful is the human person, greater than his act or his orientation. A faith lived and welcomed with joy involves a liberating educational journey that re-establishes and redefines relationships in a new way, so as to perceive the beauty of what has been given to us - including sexuality and its exercise - so that it may be an instrument of salvation for me and for others.

Sanluri, 18 October 2025

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THE SIN OF SODOM AND THAT UNEXPRESSED DESIRE TO “GAY-IZE” SACRED SCRIPTURE AND LEGITIMIZE HOMOSEXUALITY WITHIN THE CHURCH AND THE CLERGY

So then, if we still have enough stomach hair left, we come to discover that even Sacred Scripture seems to be obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. We learn, for instance, that David and Jonathan may have been somewhat more than simple friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah were the capitals of LGBT+ love; and that even Jesus, with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany, had something to hide — in short, it would seem that no one is left innocent anymore.

— Ecclesial actuality —

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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An Italian priest, John Berti, well-known as a cartoonist, recently published on his website a cartoon in which the good Lord threatens to incinerate those priests who still teach that the sin of Sodom consists in homosexuality.
In these schizophrenic times of ours, we are forced to witness such little shows, where there are more priests speaking about and worrying over homosexuality — desperately trying to normalize it within the Church and her clergy — than there are activists at Rome’s most famous Homosexual Cultural Circle, who are far more consistent and therefore more respectable in their free and unquestionable choices.

The best homosexuals, humanly and socially speaking, have always been those who, by their own unquestionable life choice, live their homosexuality openly, in freedom and coherence, without worrying about the Catholic Church and her moral teaching — because it simply does not concern them.

The worst, instead, are the clerical parakeets, also known as “the camp priests of the sacristy” who would like to bend the principles of Catholic morality to their whims, in the desperate attempt to introduce LGBT+ claims into the Church and the clergy as a true Trojan horse.

These individuals should be sent to take lessons from Tommaso Cerno, former national president of Arcigay (Italy’s major left-wing gay association) and later elected to the Italian Senate — a brilliant figure of a free and intellectually honest homosexual, author of witty and sharp remarks such as: “Since I am a serious homosexual, I have never been able to stand certain hysterical queens”. One would be tempted to reply: go tell that to our acidic sacristy queens! And, with his unmatched irony and freedom of spirit, in various television and radio programs where a more colorful language is allowed — which, although apparently coarse, can in some contexts be effective and even socially useful — he often opens his remarks by repeatedly referring to “faggots” and by saying of himself: “I have been a happily queer man ever since I was a child” (see WHO, QUI, WHO, WHO, WHO, etc..)

So then, if we still have enough stomach hair left, we come to discover that even Sacred Scripture seems to be obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. We learn, for instance, that David and Jonathan may have been somewhat more than simple friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah were the capitals of LGBT+ love; and that even Jesus, with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany, had something to hide — in short, it would seem that no one is left innocent anymore.

But let us return to the cartoon by this Italian priest. What, in truth, is the sin of Sodom that so scandalizes certain on page priests? The text of Genesis says:

“They had not yet gone to bed when the townsmen, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. They called to Lot and said, ‘Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may abuse them’” (cf. Gen 19:4-5).

The Italian translation uses the verb “to abuse”, which already says something a bit more precise for a proper exegesis (to use: to go beyond the permitted use). The original Hebrew text, however, uses the expression “so that they might know them”. The Hebrew term is yādāʿ (knowledge) and means “to have complete knowledge” — not always of a sexual kind — but in many cases it indicates a carnal knowledge, specific to the unitive act between a man and a woman. If this is so, and it is so, more than describing a homosexual act, the biblical account would bear witness to an attempted act of group violence, used as a sign of subordination and humiliation toward those foreigners considered hostile and dangerous.

Indeed, in many peoples — and history bears witness to this — the supreme act of contempt toward an individual or an ethnic group has often consisted not in murder but in the violation of the body through an act of sexual abuse. And when the victims of such abuse were women, the consequent pregnancy resulting from the act of violence reaffirmed a will of subjugation and domination even in the child who would be born of it.

To proceed with greater precision, I shall report what the Pontifical Biblical Commission says in reference to this passage of Gen 19:4 in the document “What is man?” (Ps 8:5), A Journey of Biblical Anthropology: “It must immediately be noted that the Bible does not speak of an erotic inclination toward a person of the same sex, but only of homosexual acts. And these are mentioned in only a few texts, which differ from one another in literary genre and importance. With regard to the Old Testament, we have two accounts (Gen 19 and Judg 19) that improperly evoke this aspect, and then certain norms in a legislative code (Lev 18:22 and 20:13) that condemn homosexual relations” (PBC 2019, n. 185).

The passage is very clear, and the concern of Scripture refers solely to the homosexual act, not to the relationships and affective implications between persons of the same sex as we know and conceptualize them today. This means introducing a substantially different reflection, namely the analysis of a case in moral theology in the light of anthropology alone. The Bible perceives and interprets the homosexual act within a sexuality clearly defined and within a relationality established by God between man and woman, male and female, which determines an order and a salvific plan (although even these categories, according to some Protestant biblical scholars, have been dismantled). In this sense, human sexuality itself, in God’s design, was conceived as an instrument of salvation and must be lived accordingly.

The biblical man, who is essentially a man of antiquity, viewed homosexual acts as they were understood and regarded in ancient times. In the same way, Paul of Tarsus considered homosexual acts in those persons who, having embraced Christ, rediscovered even their sexuality as a new dimension of salvation (cf. Rom 1:26–27; 1 Color 6:9–11; 1 Tim 1:10).

But what were homosexual acts for the ancients? Essentially, they were seen as the overturning of the natural order of union and procreation, which assigned to the man an active-donative role and to the woman a passive-receptive one. A vision perhaps archaic, yet derived from the observation of the natural world, according to which: “It was believed that the sexual act required one active and one passive partner, that nature had assigned these roles respectively to male and female, and that homoerotic acts inevitably produced confusion in these roles, thereby confusing what is natural. In the case of relations between two males, it was thought that one of them was degraded by assuming the passive role, considered naturally reserved to the woman. In the case of two women, it was thought that one of them usurped the dominant, active role, considered naturally reserved to the man” (B. (J). Bread, Paul’s Views on the Nature of Women and Male Homoeroticism, in Bible and homosexuality, claudian, Turin 2011, p. 25).

Therefore, for such reasons of nature, sexual relations of this kind were not contemplated between two men or between two women. However, this did not imply a moral judgment extended to the persons themselves: the discourse concerned the act, not the affective relationships as we understand them today, otherwise we would have to hypothesize a generalized historical homophobia.

Historians and scholars of the ancient world agree in noting the existence of prohibitions and penalties intended to regulate homoerotic practices in certain civilizations and circumstances, but there is no certainty as to their actual application, except for specific cases that will not be treated here and may be the subject of a future article.

Returning to the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the matter can be clarified even further: “But what was in fact the sin of Sodom, deserving of so exemplary a punishment? …” (PBC 2019, n. 186).

The sin of Sodom is a sin arising from a fundamental contempt for God that generates a proud rejection and an oppositional attitude toward those who are strangers to Sodom — not only Lot’s guests, but also Lot himself and his family. Sodom is the wicked city in which the stranger is not protected and the sacred duty of hospitality is no longer respected, because long ago its people ceased to welcome God. Something similar can be deduced from certain Gospel passages (cf. Mt 10:14–15; Page 10:10–12), where reference is made to the punishment for rejecting those sent by the Lord — a rejection that will have consequences more severe than those that befell Sodom. In classical culture, this attitude corresponds to hubris (insult): the violation of divine and natural law, leading to disastrous consequences, sacrilegious and inhuman acts.

Yes, but where did homosexuality go? Starting from the second century of the Christian era, a customary reading of the account in Gen 19:4 took shape in the light of 2 PT 2:6–10 and Jude 7. The narrative does not intend to present the image of an entire city dominated by homosexual desires; rather, it denounces the behavior of a social and political entity that refuses to welcome the stranger and seeks to humiliate him, forcing him by violence to undergo a degrading treatment of subjugation (cf. PBC 2019, n. 187). If we wished to be more precise, we could describe the attempted violence as rape, which in Roman law defined an illicit sexual act, even without physical violence: rape with a virgin or a widow or sbad with males (cf. Eva Cantarella, According to nature, Feltrinelli, Milan, consulted edition, pp. 138–141).

But then, were the inhabitants of Sodom homosexual or not? Scripture does not say so, and this invites us to reflect on how the sacred text places the emphasis on themes far more important than a single behavior. By analyzing the history of the ancient world and the moral customs of the time, we may presume that in Sodom, as in Persia, Egypt, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, there were people who practiced both homosexual and heterosexual acts in equal measure. They were persons conscious of their biological sex — they knew themselves to be male or female — and who lived these practices with a freedom and lightness greater than we might imagine. Perhaps the true century of sexual liberalization should be sought in antiquity, not (only) after 1968.

Such themes allow us to speak of homosexual acts rather than homosexual relationships. In Greece, these acts had a specific political and civic function; in Rome, they bore other meanings and purposes. Many of those who engaged in homosexual acts, at a certain age and for similar reasons, returned to heterosexual acts and contracted marriage with a woman.

For the ancient world and for Greek philosophy, marriage was the only institution that guaranteed the continuation of the family and of civil society, something that a community made up solely of men or solely of women could not sustain, as attested by the classical poems in which female communities, in order not to die out, seek men.

The ancient world possessed an anthropology of sexuality that was still primitive, based on natural instincts, and it was unable fully to define the greatness of human sexuality as Christianity has proposed it throughout the centuries — at times with debatable tones — yet ultimately arriving at a theology of corporeality aimed at a salvation that includes rather than mortifies sexuality.

Perhaps it is we moderns who have categorized and defined sexuality so precisely — thanks to the human sciences and to neuroscience. The concept of homosexual orientation is modern. According to scholars, sexual activity in antiquity could resemble a conscious bisexuality practiced in different contexts and for different purposes. This was also because the concept of nature and against nature was understood differently from the way it would later be interpreted by Christian morality.

Now that we know the true identity of the sin of Sodom, we understand that in the narrative traditions of the Bible there are no precise indications — at least not as we would wish — concerning homosexual practices, neither as behaviors to be condemned nor as attitudes to be tolerated or favored (cf. PBC 2019, n. 188). Quite simply, Scripture speaks of the salvation that God works in the history of humanity: a pedagogical salvation that holds together opposites and apparent contradictions. In Christ, salvation is revealed and refined, implanting in the human heart a change not only interior but also structural, which touches human relationships and therefore also sexuality. More fundamental than an act considered sinful is the human person, who is greater than his or her act or orientation. A faith lived and received with joy entails a liberating educational journey that restores and redefines relationships in a new way, so as to perceive the beauty of what has been given to us — including sexuality and its exercise — that it may be, for me and for others, an instrument of salvation.

Sanluri, 18th October 2025

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THE SIN OF SODOM AND THAT UNEXPRESSED DESIRE TO MAKE THE HOLY SCRIPTURE GAY AND LEGALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY WITHIN THE CHURCH AND THE CLERGY

And if we still have some hair left on our stomachs, we would come to discover that even Holy Scripture seems to be obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. We found out, For example, that David and Jonathan may have been more than just friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah are the capitals of LGBT+ love, and that even Jesus, with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany, I had something to hide; in summary, absolutely no one is saved anymore.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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An Italian priest, John Berti, famous cartoonist, published a few days ago on its website a cartoon in which the good Lord threatens to incinerate priests who still teach that the sin of Sodom consists of homosexuality.

In schizophrenic times like ours We must attend these little theaters in which there are more priests who speak and care about homosexuality — with the desperate goal of normalizing it within the Church and its clergy — than the activists of the most famous Circle of Homosexual Culture in Rome, who are much more coherent and, for it, more respectable in their free and unquestionable decisions. The best homosexuals, from the human and social point of view, have always been those who, for his free and unquestionable choice of life, they live their homosexuality in the sunlight, with freedom and consistency, without worrying about the Catholic Church or its morals, because the matter does not concern them. Instead, The worst ones at all are the hysterical crazy women in the sacristy., who wanted to bend the principles of Catholic morality to their whims, in the desperate attempt to introduce LGBT+ demands within the Church and the clergy through a true Trojan horse.

These guys should be sent to take lessons from Tommaso Cerno, who was national president of Arcigay (homosexual association of the Italian left) and later elected senator of the Republic, a splendid figure of a free and honest homosexual intellectual, author of intelligent and hilarious phrases like: “Being a serious homosexual, “I have never tolerated certain hysterical crazy women.”. It would make one want to respond: tell that to our hysterical gay sacristy acids!

Y, with irony and unparalleled freedom, on various television and radio programs where more colorful language is allowed — which, although apparently vulgar, In certain contexts it can be more effective and even useful on a socio-communicative level — it usually begins by constantly referring to “faggots” and saying about oneself: “I have been happily a faggot since I was a child.” (see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, etc..).

And if we still have some hair left on our stomachs, we would come to discover that even Holy Scripture seems to be obsessed with homosexuality and homosexuals. We found out, For example, that David and Jonathan may have been more than just friends; that Sodom and Gomorrah are the capitals of LGBT+ love, and that even Jesus, with his apostles and with Lazarus of Bethany, I had something to hide; in summary, absolutely no one is saved anymore.

But let's go back to the vignette of this Italian priest. What really is the sin of Sodom that scandalizes certain priests? on page? The Genesis text says this::

“They had not yet gone to bed when the men of the city, the inhabitants of Sodom, They crowded around the house, young and old, the entire town. They called Lot and told him: 'Where are the men who entered your house tonight? Get them out so we can abuse them.’” (cf. Gen 19,4-5).

The Italian translation uses the verb “abuse”, that expresses something a little more precise for a correct exegesis (to use: go beyond permitted use). The original Hebrew text, instead, uses the expression “so that they could know them”. The Hebrew term is yādāʿ (knowledge) and means “to have complete knowledge”, not always sexual, although in many cases it indicates carnal knowledge, typical of the unitive act between man and woman. If it were so—and so it is—, more than a homosexual act, The biblical story would bear witness to an attempt at collective violence, used as a sign of subordination and humiliation towards those foreigners considered hostile and dangerous.

In fact, in many towns —and history proves it—, the supreme act of contempt towards an individual or an ethnic group has not coincided with homicide, but with the violation of the body through an act of sexual abuse. And when the victims of such abuse have been women, The pregnancy resulting from the act of violence reaffirmed a will to submit and dominate even over the child that was to be born..

To proceed with greater precision, I quote what the Pontifical Biblical Commission in reference to this passage from Gen 19,4 in the document what is man? (Shall 8,5). An itinerary of biblical anthropology: “It should be noted immediately that the Bible does not speak of the erotic inclination towards a person of the same sex, but only of homosexual acts. And it deals with these in a few texts., different from each other by literary genre and importance. Regarding the Old Testament, we have two stories (Gene 19 and Jue 19) that inappropriately evoke this aspect, and then some rules in a legislative code (Lv 18,22 and 20,13) "that condemn homosexual relations" (CBP 2019, n. 185).

The passage is very clear, and the concern of the Bible refers only to the homosexual act and not to the relationships or emotional implications between people of the same sex, as we know and theorize them today. This means introducing a substantially different reflection, as the analysis of a case of moral theology in the exclusive light of anthropology. The Bible perceives and reads the homosexual act within a well-defined sexuality and a relationality established by God between man and woman., between the male and the female, that establishes an order and a plan of salvation (although these categories, according to some biblical scholars of Protestant origin, have been dismantled). In this sense, also human sexuality, for God, It was intended as an instrument of salvation and should be exercised in that way..

The biblical man, who is essentially a man of antiquity, considers homosexual acts as they were known and understood in ancient times. Likewise, Paul of Tarsus considered homosexual acts in those people who, having adhered to Christ, they rediscovered even sexuality as a salvific novelty (cf. Rom 1,26-27; 1 Color 6,9-11; 1 Tim 1,10).

But what were homosexual acts for the ancients?? In essence, the reversal of the natural order of union and procreation, that assigned an active-donative part to men and a passive-receptive part to women.. A perhaps archaic vision, but derived from observation of the natural world, according to which: “It was believed that the sexual act required an active partner and a passive partner.”, that nature had assigned those roles respectively to men and women, and that homoerotic acts inevitably generated confusion in those roles, thus confusing what is natural. In the case of relationships between two men, one of them was thought to be degrading by assuming the passive role, considered naturally reserved for women. In the case of two women, one of them was thought to usurp the dominant role, asset, considered naturally reserved for men." (B. (J). Bread, Paul’s Views on the Nature of Women and Male Homoeroticism, in Bible and homosexualityat, claudian, Turin 2011, p. 25).

For such reasons of nature, between two men or between two women, sexual relations of this type were not contemplated. However, This did not imply a moral judgment extended to people: the speech focused on the act, not in emotional relationships as we understand them today, under penalty of imagining a generalized historical homophobia.

Historians and scholars of the ancient world They also agree in pointing out the existence of prohibitions and sanctions intended to regulate homoerotic practices in certain civilizations and circumstances., although there is no certainty of its effective application, except in some specific cases that we do not discuss here and that may be the subject of a later article.

Returning to the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, can be specified even better: “But what really was the sin of Sodom?”, deserving of such exemplary punishment?…” (CBP 2019, n. 186).

The sin of Sodom It is a sin derived from fundamental contempt for God, which generates proud rejection and oppositional behavior towards those who are foreigners in Sodom: not only Lot's guests, but also Lot himself and his family. Sodom is the evil city in which the stranger is not protected and the sacred duty of hospitality is not respected., because for a long time they had stopped welcoming God. Something similar can be deduced from some evangelical passages. (cf. Mt 10,14-15; LC 10,10-12), where the punishment for rejecting the Lord's messengers is spoken of, a rejection that will have more serious consequences than those that fell on Sodom. In classical culture, This attitude corresponds to the hybris (insult): violation of divine and natural right that leads to dire consequences, sacrilegious and inhuman acts.

Yeah, but where has homosexuality gone?? From the second century of the Christian era, a habitual reading of the story of Gen was consolidated. 19,4 by the light of 2 Pe 2,6-10 y Jud 7. The story is not intended to present the image of an entire city dominated by homosexual desires.; rather, it denounces the conduct of a social and political entity that does not want to welcome foreigners and seeks to humiliate them., forcing him by force to suffer defamatory treatment of submission (cf. CBP 2019, n. 187). If we wanted to be more precise, we could circumscribe the attempted violence as rape, which in Roman law defined an illicit sexual relationship, even without carnal violence: rape with a virgin or a widow O rape with males (cf. Eva Cantarella, According to nature, Feltrinelli, Milan, consulted edition, pp. 138-141).

So, Were the inhabitants of Sodom homosexuals?, yes or no? The Bible doesn't say it, and this invites us to reflect on how the sacred text emphasizes much more important issues than a single behavior.. Analyzing the history of the ancient world and the moral customs of the time, we can assume that in Sodom, like in persia, in Egypt, in Jerusalem, in Athens and Rome, There were people who practiced acts of a homosexual nature and acts of a heterosexual nature in equal measure.. People aware of their own biological sex — they knew they were men and women — and who lived these practices with greater freedom and lightness than we imagine.. Perhaps the true century of sexual liberalization should be sought in antiquity, no (solo) after 1968.

These topics allow us to talk about acts more than homosexual relationships. In Greece they had a defined political-civic function; in Rome, other meanings and purposes. Many of those who practiced homosexual acts, at a certain age and for similar reasons, returned to heterosexual acts and married a woman.

For the ancient world and for the philosophy of the Greeks, Marriage was the only institution that guaranteed the continuity of the family and civil society, something that a community made up of only men or only women would not have been able to sustain, as attested by classic poems in which female communities, so as not to become extinct, looking for men.

The ancient world had a still primitive anthropology of sexuality, based on natural instincts, and it failed to fully define the greatness of human sexuality as Christianity has proposed it throughout the centuries—sometimes with debatable tones—, arriving, however, at a theology of corporeality oriented towards a salvation that includes, not that mortifying, sexuality.

Maybe it's us, the modern ones, those of us who have categorized and defined sexuality in such a precise way, thanks to human sciences and neurosciences. The concept of homosexual orientation is modern. According to scholars, Sexual activity in ancient times could be similar to conscious bisexuality exercised in different contexts and for different purposes.. Also because the concept of nature/against nature was understood differently from how Christian morality will interpret it..

Now that we know the identity of the sin of Sodom, We understand that in the narrative traditions of the Bible there are no precise indications - at least not as we would like - about homosexual practices., nor as behavior that should be censored, nor as an attitude that should be tolerated or favored (cf. CBP 2019, n. 188). Simply, The Bible talks about the salvation that God accomplishes in the history of man: a pedagogical salvation that holds together opposites and apparent contradictions. in Christ, salvation is revealed and perfected, instilling in the human heart a change not only internal, but also structural, that touches human relationships and, therefore, also sexuality. More fundamental than an act considered sinful is the human person, bigger than your act or your orientation. A faith lived and welcomed with joy involves a liberating educational path that restores and redefines relationships in a new way., allowing us to perceive the beauty of what has been given to us—including sexuality and its exercise—so that it can be, for me and for others, instrument of salvation.

Sanluri, 18 October 2025

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FROM PROFESSOR ALESSANDRO BARBERO A SAINT FRANCIS "UNDER THE CRUST". WHEN HOLINESS IS COMBINED WITH HISTORY

The historian Alessandro Barbero is not a Catholic, he is a layman, but it tells more truths about Saint Francis than have been heard by devout Catholics about the life of the Poverello. This in the same way as, in cinematography, the director Liliana Cavani represented the Francesco closest to reality, atheist is communist, through a young and virile Mickey Rourke. With all due respect to the talent and memory of director Franco Zeffirelli, who instead represented a saccharine and completely de-virilized Saint Francis.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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For a few days I started reading the new book on Saint Francis of Assisi by Professor Alessandro Barbero, a face now known and appreciated not only in the academic field.

Mickey Rourke plays Francis of Assisi in director Liliana Cavani's film (Italy, 1989)

As a historian has successfully undertaken a good activity of dissemination of that subject - history - which has always been a subject of boredom for many during their school days, perhaps more for the methodology with which it was explained and posed to the students than for the object of its study itself.

The merit of this popularizer is undoubtedly that it has brought a large audience closer to history and historical topics, just as the journalist Indro Montanelli did with his books and interviews on the history of Italy which we could define as an investigative story, as only a skilled and expert journalist can do.

The story is teachers of life and learn about the history, the one without ideological coloring, which has many contradictions and black holes, the one not written by the winners alone, that of facts and sources is extremely useful for getting to know ourselves and for knowing how to orient the future and perhaps also to avoid making huge mistakes. But unfortunately this is not always the case.

Until this speech it applies to world wars, we may all agree on the facts of recent history and antiquity, but when the story touches on more particular topics and themes such as hagiography or theology, what happens? well, you have to know how to maintain the right balance between the parts and the disciplines but personally I believe that knowing how to make a good story, and start from a good historical basis regarding the themes covered by hagiography and theology, is extremely important to understand how God is capable of operating in the lives of men, precisely in that human way that is not without contradictions, of slowness, of surprises that apparently contradict a certain devout idea of ​​divine action and sanctity.

Regarding the life of Saint Francis, this reality was evident immediately after his death and in view of his rapid canonization. We, his friars and continuers of his ideals, we perhaps had too much of a conservative concern that led us to see (and to show) Brother Francis as an unattainable model, to the point of considering him - as iconography will then have the opportunity to explain better - a new Christ on earth and this not only because of the gift of the sacred stigmata which were the last seal that the Word of God gave him (cf. Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, XI canto) but also thanks to some biographical colors that the official versions have presented.

Mind you, as moderns we don't want to do any trial Larger caption of Saint Bonaventure who contributed to fixing in the collective memory the image of Saint Francis as essentially mystical and protagonist only of fabulous events which reaffirmed his resemblance to Christ. In that historical moment in the broadest possible sense - for medieval society, for the Catholic Church, for the very survival of the Order of Minors - a hagiographic rather than biographical procedure such as that carried out by Saint Bonaventure was almost obligatory.

Security and stability were sought and with his cunning and intelligence he succeeded in the task. Above all, a model was sought and often this desire led to the deeds of a "holy man" being perfectly described., omitting those parts of normal fragility and humanity which are instead the first to testify to the sanctity of a person if we take into good account the teaching of Saint Gregory the Great: «miracles which do not make holiness but show it» (miracles do not create holiness, however, they are a manifestation or demonstration of it)

Trace a figure of Saint Francis so noble and unattainable it perhaps constituted an unattainable goal for many, plus one legend what a real life; a story that had to be read to warm the heart with good and holy inspirations and moral and religious teachings that are not always truly practicable, distant from the ordinariness of his friars and his devotees.

I think this also contributed to proliferate in the following centuries, of those visions of life of Saint Francis, more accommodating and practicable that have become so dear to an ideological and aligned modernity like ours: the pacifist Francis, ecologist, animal rights activist, vegan, precursor of accommodating interreligious dialogue, pauperist, communist before letter. Visions that are perhaps more viable today but totally false and distant from the real intentions of the Poor Man of Assisi.

As I already had the opportunity to underline in another article of mine (you see WHO) Saint Francis is a person, before a saint, extremely complicated, within an equally complicated historical and ecclesial period, therefore only objective and healthy historical research can reconstitute it within a discourse that tends as much as possible to the truth, to that Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone zero, what can be glimpsed under the crust of many amenities to which it has been owed, obtorto neck, seraphically submit and perhaps even endure.

The merit of the historian Barbero - as well as others who were interested in Saint Francis, I think of Franco Cardini and Chiara Frugoni - it is to describe him as a man inside a very specific story, a tormented man, Lasted, capable of very sweet gestures and unexpected harshness, a man open to transcendence and the contradictions of his time.

The historical reading of Saint Francis it also allows us to grow in the knowledge of a medieval Church which for the Poverello does not constitute a source of scandal unlike the many contemporary movements that fell into heresy and schismatic violence. Pulling Saint Francis by the jacket as a scourge of the customs of the Church - and of the Church as an institutional body - is extremely inappropriate. Others did this and if anything with reason but Saint Francis did not do it, nor did he desire it, for him the Church was that, the best possible existing one because it was so wanted by Christ, therefore not a utopian re-foundation from the bases but a renewal in the inner man who will then have his heart on his side form of life which is expressed with all the passion in the extension of the Regola non bullata.

Saint Francis loves the Catholic Church, his, the one that gives 1182 onwards it will accompany him from his baptism to his burial in the small church of San Giorgio, not another ideal Church. He loves and respects the hierarchy of the Church, from the poorest and morally fragile priests to his bishop of Assisi (Guido) who will witness his undressing, to reach the bishop of Rome (Innocent III and Honorius III) who will confirm him in his intention to live without gloss the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ approving the form of life. Francis is not blind to the facts but has understood that the most effective renewal is personal, it starts from within and that is why he does not judge but lets him and his friars be and become that sign of real change - that good leaven of the Gospel - which is capable of improving the entire Catholic Church. A methodology of ecclesial renewal like that of Saint Francis is still difficult to find in pastoral plans and programs today.

Saint Francis is a lover and lover of adventurous life of the Middle Ages, he dreams of being a knight and sees his friars as knights of Christ without blemish and pure of heart. He knows the amazing and fascinating adventures of Gesture Song and is at the same time a witness to the political-ecclesiastical events that led to the crusades. We note how Francis is not critical of the Church even for calling the crusades. However, he remains a man of the Middle Ages and knows that despite their tragedy, even the Crusades have meaning and merit.. There were several saints who followed him who considered the crusades and their reasons legitimate, they preached to her, among them another famous Franciscan, Bernardino degli Albizzeschi of Massa Marittima, known as San Bernardino da Siena. However, having personally known the cruelties of war, of the battle, of imprisonment, of the wounds and mutilations of his companions, Saint Francis chooses to go to the Sultan by opting for a different choice, not that of weapons but of the Word.

In Egypt before Al-Malik al-Kāmil announces Christ and the Gospel, a very different and more powerful weapon than the sword, a dialogue that does not fall into political correctness but into a decisive invitation to the conversion of the Sultan of Egypt and Syria to let reign that God who brings peace and who gives the peacemaker par excellence. It is not surprising that the Sultan does not feel offended by the words of Saint Francis, we remember that Coptic Christians were already present in Egypt and the Sultan and his court were used to seeing Christians and ministers ordained in the land of Egypt and arguing with them. The act of Saint Francis is not vulgar political propaganda for the Catholic Church but a real invitation to conversion and salvation as several members of the Order of Minors did in Morocco and in other territories of Islamic faith, very often finding martyrdom in the following centuries.

Professor Barbero's book deals with these and other topics, bringing to light an image of Saint Francis that overcomes ideology and makeup from a hagiographic image. The merit is undoubtedly that of being able to get to know an uncomfortable Saint Francis who cannot be categorized within a single vision, its story within the story allows us to appreciate it even more and to return a concrete and vivid image of it.

To conclude, the same theme of poverty that Saint Francis dreams of, marries and recommends is the one that was first achieved with one kenosis of himself as a man who discovers his limit and knows his shaky heart. Material poverty is not the end but the consequence developed over the years of a truer and deeper poverty. In this way we can assimilate Saint Francis to Christ in the humiliation-stripping of a life that apparently seems like a failure in the eyes of the world. After the death of Saint Francis, it is precisely on the theme of spiritual poverty that his sons discuss and begin with the first controversies that will arise in the subsequent reforms.

The poverty of Saint Francis it is taking shape within various real facts of its history: in his physical and mental exhaustion after his imprisonment at the Battle of Collestrada in 1202 which resizes him in his ideals of knighthood. In the encounter with the leper who is the concrete example of the deprivation that every disease imposes on the sick person but is also the clear sign that conversion requires determination and violence to be implemented (cf. Mt 11,12). Until he was rejected and no longer recognized as head of his Order which, extending in prestige to a large part of Europe at the time, could do without him. The modern man who appreciates holy poverty in Saint Francis should be reminded that this is achieved by taking several steps backwards, nullifying itself, looking at one's limits and accepting them with the perfect joy of someone who has been able to put everything in the hands of God.

The historian Alessandro Barbero is not a Catholic, he is a layman, but it tells more truths about Saint Francis than have been heard by devout Catholics about the life of the Poverello. This in the same way as, in cinematography, the director Liliana Cavani represented the Francesco closest to reality, atheist is communist, through a young and virile Mickey Rourke. With all due respect to the talent and memory of director Franco Zeffirelli, who instead represented a saccharine and completely de-virilized Saint Francis.

We wish Alessandro Barbero, secular and non-Catholic, in the wisdom of the passing age, Saint Francis was also an accomplice, can get closer to God and find himself in him, source of all wisdom, all good.

Sanluri, 9 October 2025

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The books of Ivano Liguori, to access the book shop click on the cover

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