The early Christian Church existed in an era of paganism. And the pagans had all the perversions of nature, being pagan. They had slavery, killing of babies, homosexuality, lesbianism, adultery, drunkenness, and many other vices.
Christianity came with emphasis on virtues that should replace the pagan vices. But in the process of conversion, the first Christians saw that it was impossible to practice the teachings of Christ amidst an environment of pure paganism. The two, Christian virtues and pagan vices were completely at odds. They found it necessary to fly away from the pagan environment. But there was still the flesh to overcome, aside from the devil and the world. The flesh had the defects that fallen nature have left in our souls. To overcome our fallen nature amidst a pagan environment would be impossible. So the first Christians embraced the ascetical practice called “Fuga Mundo,” flight from the world. You did’nt have to do this if you lived in a Catholic environment; it is needed if you live in a pagan environment.
If we live in a pagan ambiance, which seems to be the case at the time of St. Benedict, and which modern spiritual writers as Coleridge, Chesterton, Belloc described as the state of our present era, we would succumb to the pagan perversion like abortion and homosexuality.
Our priests and seminarians have been exposed to such an environment for the last two generations. Most of them had entered the seminary bitten by that pagan virus.
But in the early Christian times, St. Benedict, by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had devised a manner by which this perversion could be cured. It was the Gospel, presented in a concise form adapted to the simple minded, like the peasants of his time. Like the Gospel, its focus is in the development of virtues as cure for the perversion of pagan vices.
History tells us that the practice of slavery, common among the pagans, disappeared when the first Christian masters loved their slaves and Christian slaves honoured their masters. Christian love removed all borders that separated slave from master. The other pagan perversions, like homosexuality, lesbianism and adultery were replaced with Christian virtues.
Monasticism, i.e., living the Gospel, dispelled the vices by developing the virtues. And so even if these perversities were mentioned in the Old Testament, it was hardly mentioned in the early monastic history of the Catholic Church. The early Christians did not have these vices, neither among the lay nor the priests.
Why did it suddenly re-appear? Because our civilization had returned to paganism. Pope Benedict called it the dictatorship of relativism. He also referred to it as forgetting God. Pope Pius X called it the heresy of Modernism. Spiritual writer noticed it around the 1800 and it never left us.
What’s the point? The Catholic Church had corrected these pagan perversions when she first came in contact with paganism. How come the Bishops do not know how to cure these now? Their solutions, like “one strike and you’re out” and other solutions show ignorance of the Church’ s traditional solution to a problem that was cured and non-existent during the advent of monasticism. Why don’t they apply the solution well known within the Church and used with great success in her history . . . monastic life?
These priests are sick spiritually. The Church, as usual, knows the medicine. She had tried the solution before and found that it worked. Why don’t they try it now? Just to throw these priests away while they are sick and need spiritual help, goes against the spirit of Charity. Why not rehabilitate them in the way the Church had done to pagans all these centuries. This is not the first time that the Church had met this problem. It was prevalent at the time of St. Benedict. And she solved it.
Now that we lack priests, would not saving them by rehabilitating them an easier way of maintaining the parishes with priests?
The monastic life is a remedy, not a punishment. The monastic life is meant for the extirpation of vices, like homosexuality, says St. Benedict, and the preservation of charity. Imagine, not only healing the sickness of homosexuality but in addition to it making those priest saints. What else do you want? But nobody seems to know this answer. And those bishops plan to spend millions of dollars just for a study to find out the cause and attempt an answer? Don’t we say “Christ is the answer.” Why are we looking for other answers?
The cause of this perversion is deficient knowledge of Catholic truths and total ignorance of the spirituality of the Gospel…which is one and the same thing. In theological parlance, they lack knowledge of ascetical theology, which is the application of dogmatic and moral theology in everyday life. And Pope Benedict is telling us that the so-called Holy Rule of Saint Benedict is the application of the entire Gospel in everyday life “…for the extirpation of vices and the preservation and development of Charity.”