Q. At Mass this morning, the priest said that the sin of the people of Sodom in the Bible was not homosexuality, but rather injustice. What do you say? — M.N., Florida.
A. We have heard this refrain before, and its variation that the sin was inhospitality to the angelic visitors, but this is just wishful thinking promoted by those who are trying to mask the abomination of homosexual behavior. Read the Sodom story in chapter 19 of Genesis and see if it sounds like unjust or inhospitable conduct to you. In fact, so aggressive was the desire of the men of Sodom to have “intimacies” with the visitors that Lot offered the men his two virgin daughters, knowing that the men were not interested in females.
In a 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that “in Gen. 19:1-11, the deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgment made there against homosexual relations” (n. 6). The Letter goes on to say that similar condemnations of homosexual behavior can be found in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, in Romans 1:18-32, and in 1 Tim. 1:10.
Not mentioned and often overlooked is the following passage from Jude 7, which reads: “Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” No mention there of injustice or inhospitality.
Q. Several months ago, I came across an article about a eucharistic miracle that took place in Argentina in 1996 in the diocese of Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. I felt astounded and full of joy in realizing that in modern times a Host had turned into the Body of Christ. My assumption was that the article was credible and that this miracle should have been propagated to all Christians, but this has not been done. Do you have some knowledge of this event? — A.C.R., Pennsylvania.
A. Yes, we have seen it mentioned in several places in recent years. According to articles we have read, on the evening of August 18, 1996, after Fr. Alejandro Pezet had finished distributing Communion at a 7:00 p.m. Mass, a woman told him that she had found a discarded Host on a candleholder at the back of the church. Fr. Pezet collected the Host, placed it in a container of water, and put it in the tabernacle. Returning to the tabernacle eight days later, the priest found that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Archbishop Bergoglio, who arranged to have the Host professionally photographed.
The photos showed that the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown significantly in size.
The whole thing was kept secret for three years until Archbishop Bergoglio decided to have the Host scientifically analyzed. It was sent to New York, but the team of scientists was not told the background of the fragment. One of the scientists, the well-known forensic pathologist Dr. Frederic Zugiba, determined that the substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA. He testified that “the analyzed substance is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body.”
He said that “the heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken…since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.”
On being informed that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host, Dr. Zugiba replied: “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science, a mystery totally beyond her competence.”
Q. I was just reading the front page of the February 11 Wanderer and have a comment. In the piece written by Dexter Duggan, he quotes Bishop Daniel Flores as saying that the day’s Gospel reading is “about Jesus’ mother and brothers looking for Him.” In my old Douay-Rheims version of the Bible, I looked up Luke 2:43-48 and saw no mention of “brothers.” If this is a correct quote, is this something put into the new version of the Bible or is it from a Protestant Bible? — P.J., Massachusetts.
A. There’s nothing in chapter two of Luke about Jesus’ mother and brothers looking for him. Bishop Flores was referring to the Gospel of the day (January 26), which was from chapter three of Mark. In the Douay translation, verse 31 says that “his mother and his brethren came; and standing without, sent into him, calling him.” The word “brethren,” of course, is an old expression that is now translated “brothers.” So verse 31 in the New American Bible reads: “His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word and called him.”
The Church has always understood the “brothers” of Jesus to be His cousins because there was no word for cousins or other relatives in Hebrew and Aramaic, languages that Jesus and the disciples spoke. So cousins, and friends, were often referred to as brothers and sisters, as when Jesus told Mary Magdalene to “go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).
But Magdalene went not to any blood brothers of Jesus, but rather “to the disciples” (John 20:18). Or when Peter addressed the 120 disciples gathered in the Upper Room as “my brothers” (Acts 1:16).
Q. I recently got into a discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness about eating/drinking blood because of Jesus’ command to drink His Blood in the Eucharist. She brought up the ruling sent out from the Council of Jerusalem to abstain from blood and numerous Old Testament bans. It is her conviction that we Christians are still bound by that ruling. Has this ruling ever been changed or is the reason for the ruling (the spirit of it) being misinterpreted? — B.R. New York.
A. As explained by Fr. William S. Kurz, SJ, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (cf. pp. 238-239), the Council of Jerusalem (circa AD 49) approved a letter that was to be read to Gentile converts, stating that they must avoid four sources of defilement: pollution from idols, unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood.
Pollution from idols meant eating meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods. Unlawful marriage meant engaging in any kind of sexual immorality, including incest, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality. The meat of strangled animals meant eating meat not properly drained of blood. And blood meant consuming anything with blood in it since, from the time of Moses, blood was seen as the seat of life, as something sacred. Gentile converts were expected to break away from these pagan practices so that Jewish and Gentile Christians could socialize with each other and share a single Eucharist.
According to the Council of Florence in 1442, the food restrictions were only a temporary measure to facilitate unity between Jews and Gentiles in the early Church. Once Jews were no longer a significant part of the Church, the council said, the prohibition was lifted. Here is what the Council of Florence said (cf. Kurz, p. 243):
“The apostolic prohibition, to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled (Acts 25:29), was suited to that time when a single church was rising from Jews and Gentiles, who previously lived with different ceremonies and customs. This was so that the Gentiles should have some observances in common with Jews, and occasion would be offered of coming together in one worship and faith of God, and a cause of dissension might be removed, since by ancient custom blood and strangled things seemed abominable to Jews, and Gentiles could be thought to be returning to idolatry if they ate sacrificial food.”
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