Living Stones Built into a Spiritual House -- The Communion of Saints

by Lawrence Fox

The communion of saints is first and foremost a covenantal bond originating within the Most Holy Trinity, which then flows within the Mystical Body of Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostles’ Creed - which has its origins in the ancient Church at Rome - synthesizes the deposit of faith into twelve Articles (one for each apostle).  In the creed, there is the article of faith, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”   The intent of this document is to reflect upon the significance of the expression “the communion of saints” in the life of the apostolic Church.

Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles that after the 3000 were baptized by the apostles on Pentecost, “They (the disciples) devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, to the communion, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Act 2:42)  The Catholic Catechism identifies the “communion of the saints” as a further expression of the Church (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 949) established by Jesus Christ upon Peter the Rock (Matthew 16:18) and therefore synonymous with other expressions of the Church including, “the Mystical Body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12-30), “God’s Priestly and Holy People” (1 Peter 2:9), and “Citizens and Members of God’s Household.” (Eph. 2:19- 21)

Luke first alludes to the expression “communion of saints” in his Acts of the Apostles. With the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the 120 in the upper room, the apostles proclaimed the Good News to the Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem. They asked Peter, “Brethren what must we do?”  He answered, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Three thousand were baptized and added to their numbers to that day. Luke then identifies the catechetical form of these newly baptized members of the Church, “They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, to the communion, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Act 2:42) 

The “communion of saints” which Luke identifies has two closely linked meanings: “communion in holy things” and “communion among holy persons both living and deceased.”  (CCC 948)  The word communion comes from the Latin word communio which is itself a translation of the New Testament Greek word koinonia. Both words communio and koinonia encompass many concepts such as “shared in common,” “society,” “to communicate, participate, or partake in common.” It is also identified as a “unity of the Spirit in the bond syndesmos of peace (irene). (Eph.  4:3)

Paul invites the Church to live in communion with Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:9) and to share in the communion of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 12:14). St. John invites the Church to enter into a communion with the apostles, who are in communion with the Father and the Son by virtue of the Gospel. (1Jn. 1:3, 4)  As such, the communion of saints is first and foremost a covenantal bond originating within the Most Holy Trinity, which then flows within the Mystical Body of Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit.  The notion of Christian fellowship (English Translation) is somewhat pale in substance; which may explain while the expression is mostly dominated with the English-speaking world as “social piety.”

The communion of saints, although composed of many parts, is one body sharing in common, “one Spirit and the calling to one hope, together with one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4: 4-6)

This one body operating in brotherly charity (Augustine Faith & Creed Par 21. pg 13) is the fruit of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which increases as the Saints share in the one Altar of the Church. Paul writes, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a communion in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a communion in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Cor. 10:15)

The Communion of Saints in the Breaking of the Bread

At each Catholic Mass, the Presider (Bishop or Priest) invites the “communion of holy persons” to receive, “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit.”  This Trinitarian doxology is lifted from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 13:14). The command by Jesus to “worship God in Spirit and Truth” is manifested within the Catholic Mass which is Trinitarian Liturgy. The word liturgy leiturgos in Greek means “A minister of the sanctuary” which describes the baptized people of God – living stones, being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1Peter 2:5)

And the “communion of holy persons” responds to the Presider with the words, “With your spirit.” Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the visible authority of Jesus Christ is manifested within His one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. The exchange above between Presider and Saints objectively expresses the “bond of peace” which exists between the communion of Saints, Christ Jesus and with all those who hold and teach the Catholic Faith which comes to them from the Apostles.

That is because the sacramental life of the Church - Baptism, Confession, Confirmation, Eucharist, Orders, Marriage, and Extreme Unction - unites each generation of Catholics with the “Faith of the Apostles” so that each generation (living and deceased) shares in common the good things of the Church; everything belongs to Christ and Christ belongs to God and the communion of saints belong to Christ. (Thomas Aquinas Articles of Faith. 10 pg. 57)  Paul writes that the communion within the mystical body of Christ in will be completed at the end of time. “Your hearts will be strong, blameless, and holy in the presence of God, who is our Father, when our Lord Jesus appears with all his saints.” (1 Thess. 3:13)

As in a natural body each member works for the good of the entire body, (Aquinas Articles of Faith. 10 pg. 57) so also is it with the communion of saints; the mystical body of Christ (1 Cor. 12-30) Jesus Christ -- the principal member and head over all the Church, which is His Body (Eph. 1:22) -- establishes His communion of saints by placing them under His ordained hierarchy of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. In this way, His body grows in good works, unity of faith, and a mature knowledge of Him so as to not be deceived as infants tossed here and there by every changing wind. (Ephesian 4: 9-14)

The “communion of saints” is also known as the “bond of peace.” Jesus said to his disciples, “My peace I give you...” (Jn. 14:27) The “bond of peace” that Jesus Christ desires is an objectively visible “communion of saints” extending to all humanity. Jesus prayed “Father may they all be one as You and I are one, so that the world may believe.” (Jn. 17:21) As such, the “communion of saints” living the “bond of peace” is meant to be an objective and universal visible proclamation of the Gospel to the World. As such, Paul warns the Church not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:32) by deliberately breaking the “bond of peace” through acts of immorality (1Cor. 6:9-11), divisions (1Cor. 11:19) and heresies (Gal. 5:19). To preserve this communion, sometimes a person is ex-communicated (removed from communion) as a form of medicine for the part and the whole. This ex-communication was identified as “turning the person’s body over to Satan for the preservation of his soul.”(1 Cor. 5:5, 1Tim. 1:19-20) Thus it was in the primitive Church that - when one was excommunicated - the devil physically attacked him.

The Communion of Saints Living and Gone Before Us Marked with the Sign of Faith

One of the fallouts of the Reformation has been the lost understanding of the communion of saints as something actively existing between the people of God on earth and the people of God in heaven -- who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. The Catholic experience of this bond (living and deceased) is rooted in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and the life of the Saints throughout Church History.

The Gospel writers capture the story of the Transfiguration in which Peter, James, and John are with Jesus on the mountain and they are all suddenly enveloped by a cloud and within the cloud they witness Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah and they hear God’s voice. (Matt 17. 1-6, Mark 9:1-9, Luke 9:28-33) 

Throughout Sacred Scripture an overshadowing of the Holy Spirit is depicted as a cloud enveloping persons, places, and things such as Moses on Mount Horeb (Exodus 24:16), the People of Israel (Exodus 13:21), and the Ark of the Covenant (Leviticus 16:2). The Gospel writers capture in the event the one image of the Holy Spirit, the Communion of Saints, the Church, and the Mystical Body of Christ.

Within this overshadowing a communion exists between the people of God on earth and the people of God gone before marked with the sign of faith. Luke states in the Acts of the Apostles that with Baptism, the 3000 steadfastly remained within the communion of saints. Both words communio and koinonia again encompass the concepts to communicate, participate, or to partake in common. Since Peter is the source of the Mount of Transfiguration narrative (2 Peter 1:17) and it is Peter who uses the term koinonia to mean participation in God’s Divine Life (2 Peter 1:4), it is reasonable to conclude that participating in God’s Divine Nature brings about an active communion of the saints both living and deceased.

John the Evangelist writes that he was on the

Island of Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. While there he relates that “on the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit.” (Rev. 1:10) The expression “on the Lord’s Day” means the 8th Day or Sunday. The expression “in the Spirit” is fundamentally the same “in the Spirit” which John experienced with Peter and James on the Mount of Transfiguration. It should be noted that Luke prefaces the Transfiguration with the words “about eight days” subtly implying the worship of God on the 8th Day (the Lord’s Day) is related to the events on the Mount of Transfiguration when the apostles were “in the Spirit.” The 8th day within apostolic Christianity also denoted participating in the Lord’s Supper on Sunday (Eucharistic Celebration).

John then “in the spirit” received a glimpse of eternal worship, the divinity of Jesus, and the Old Testament Prophets speaking with Jesus. John’s experience “in the Spirit” on the Island of Patmos carries with it the same distinctions. The one difference and

applicable to this topic is the fact that the angels and the saints in heaven speak with John and he speaks back to them. In other words, John is not simply a passive observer as on the Mount of Transfiguration, he is now an active participant in the whole dynamic meaning of the “communion of saints.”

John writes that he weeps and weeps because no one was found worthy to open the scrolls. His experience is real and not imagined. Then one of the elders (presbyters) – which John sees and speaks about earlier - says to him, “Do not weep! See the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has triumphed, He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Rev. 5:5) John is consoled by the words of the presbyter who is participating in Divine Worship of God as noted in the subsequent verses of the same chapter. John’s experience of consolation is not different than the Catholic experience of saints in heaven sharing with  the saints on earth their peace with Christ in heaven. It is the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God and Father working through the whole mystical body of Christ. It is not God who separates His family; only the traditions of reforming men.

This is not the only time that John while in the Spirit enters into a conversation with an elder in heaven. John sees a multitude of people of every nation, people, and language standing before the throne and in front of the lamb all wearing white robes. One of the elders asks John, “these in white robes – who are they and where did they come from?” John responds, “Sir you know.” The elder then provides the answer. It is important to notice that John – who identifies himself as an elder in his Epistles (2Jn 1:1) – is communicating with angels and elders in heaven while in the Spirit. 

Both the angels and the elders are leading the communion of saints in the worship of God. It is the angels and the elders in heaven who are offering golden bowls of incense which are the prayers of the saints on earth. (Rev. 5:8) John’s identification of the “Lord’s Day” and “in the Spirit” as a preface to the unveiling the apocalypses of Divine Worship in heaven is most deliberate. The fact that those leading the worship in heaven are angels and elders of the Church and not priests of the Old Testament is deliberate. 

John is showing to the Church that the worship of God in Spirit and Truth in heaven and on earth includes: processions with priestly robes and candelabras, readings and moral instructions, golden bowls of incense, doxology, new songs, an altar holding the lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the ages and the souls of the martyrs under the altar, virgins and eunuchs for the Kingdom of God, the hidden manna, and the supper of the lamb. 

John declares in and through the Book of Revelation that liturgical worship of God on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) with the communion of saints on earth is a participation in the eternal liturgical worship of God with the communion of saints in Heaven. The communion of saints is according to Divine Revelation a communion in holy things (the

supper of the Lamb) and a communion among holy persons both living and those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. To argue there does not exist a communion of saints both living and deceased is to argue that the Church on earth has no participation in grace with the Church in Heaven. The only place such a chasm and condition exists is between those in hell and those in heaven. That seems to be the definition of reformed worship.

Communion with the Martyrs in the Early Church

John writes that he saw under the altar of the lamb, the souls of those beheaded because of their witness for Jesus Christ. This is a very graphic image of the blood of the lamb pouring off the altar and then under the altar and those beheaded are the fruit of the suffering of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ Blood is the source of their witness. Where do these saints participate in the blood of Jesus? Paul writes, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a communion in the blood of Christ?"

The apostolic Churches in the earliest records would reserve the relics of those martyred for the faith in a location where they celebrated the Lord’s Supper; sometimes literally under a fabricated table upon which they celebrated the Lord’s Supper. By doing so, the apostolic Churches in the earliest records expressed in worship the events of Revelation 6:9.

Ignatius, (107-10 AD) Martyr and Bishop of Antioch, Syria, wrote to the church in Rome, “Grant me no more than to be a sacrifice for God while there is an altar at hand. Then you can form yourselves into a choir and sing praises to the Father in Jesus Christ, that God gave the bishop of Syria the privilege of reaching the sun's setting (death) when he summoned him from its rising (birth).” The praise of God in His saints and martyrs was evidently part of apostolic worship. Ignatius wrote to the Church at Rome telling them that he would hope that the stomachs of the beast in the arena would

The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius of Antioch

become his sepulcher so that they (Christian in Rome) would not be burdened with collecting his remains. “I am writing with all the churches and bidding them all realize that I am voluntarily dying for God -- if, that is, you do not interfere. I plead with you, do not do me an unseasonable kindness. Let me be fodder for wild beasts -- that is how I can get to God. I am God's wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts to make a pure 

loaf for Christ. I would rather that you fawn on the beasts so that they may be my tomb and no scrap of my body be left. Thus, when I have fallen asleep, I shall be a burden to no one.”

Ignatius describes his impending death at the hands of the Romans as a participation in the Lord’s Supper by using the language of “God's wheat” and being ground up to make a “pure loaf for Christ.” The Lord’s Supper was to the apostolic Church not a symbol but something literal and substantial as noted earlier within the writings of Paul, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a communion (participation) in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a communion (participation) in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Cor. 10:15) Ignatius was so united within the communion of saints that he saw his death as a literal giving back to God, the Body of Christ which he received as a disciple and celebrated every Lord’s Day as a Catholic Bishop.

In 156 AD, Polycarp the Catholic Bishop of Smyrna – a disciple of John the Evangelist -- was put to death by the Roman authorities for refusing to deny Jesus Christ as “Lord and God.” Within the recorded martyrdom of Polycarp the Catholic Bishop of Smyrna, there exists the most vivid account of the apostolic Churches reserving the relics of those martyred for the faith in a location over which they celebrated the Lord’s Supper:

“So we later took up his bones (Polycarp's), more

Arm of St. Polycarp 

precious than costly stones and more valuable than gold, and laid them away in a suitable place. There the Lord will permit us, so far as possible, to gather together in joy and gladness to celebrate the day of his martyrdom as a birthday, in memory of those athletes who have gone before, and to train and make ready those who are to come hereafter. Such are the things concerning the blessed Polycarp, who, martyred at Smyrna along with twelve others from Philadelphia, is alone remembered so much the more by everyone that he is even spoken of by the heathen in every place. He was not only a noble teacher, but also a distinguished martyr, whose martyrdom all desire to imitate as one according to the gospel of Christ. By his patient endurance he overcame the wicked magistrate and so received the crown of immortality; and he rejoices with the apostles and all the righteous to glorify God the Father Almighty and to bless our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls and Helmsman of our bodies and Shepherd of the Catholic Church throughout the world.” Catholic is distinguished from other movements in the Christian world then, which were Gnostic, a movement of pre-Christian origin that taught Christ was an emissary of a divine being, which was esoteric knowledge (gnosis) and enabled the redemption of the human spirit.

The accounting of Polycarp’s martyrdom is identified as “The letter of the Church in Smyrna to the Church in Philomelium.” This account was made by a man named Pionius, who writes, “While searching diligently for the copy of the accounts from Gaius, I was given a revelation of the blessed Polycarp, who appeared to me, as I shall explain later.” Pionius makes a “matter of fact” confession to his fellow Christian travelers that Polycarp, who was martyred, made himself present to him (Pionius). Pionius’ manner of writing about the encounter with Polycarp is a normative matter of fact. He understands and his audience understands that the communion and bond of peace which exists between the saints in heaven and saints on earth is sometimes visibly manifested.

In summary, within the Apostles’ Creed there is the article of faith which includes, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. AMEN.” 

Did you enjoy this piece. Lawrence Fox has also written: Just Discovered! The Gospel of Symbols

"Gay Parenting:" Children Raised by Unchaste Adults Lead Difficult Lives

by Susan Fox

There were two innocent-looking ceramic turtles sitting on the coffee table.

The five-year-old girl studied them. Her cousins were friends with a number of artists in the 1960s. One of their friends had sculpted the turtles.

A little child is curious. So she picked up the turtles and turned them over. To her shock, underneath, they were human with male and female genitalia and breasts. They were almost pornographic in their detail.

This happened about 57 years ago. The image intrigued and bothered the little girl for a long time. 

When she was six, she went into the towel closet and dug underneath the towels. She  came upon a picture of her father (who had died) and her  mother. They had stuck their heads into a wooden cartoon frame for the photo. It depicted an attractive lady sitting in a bathtub and a man looking at her through a window. These images had her parents’ heads.

Perhaps the 1950s images were innocent and harmless, but the girl's mother had correctly understood that they were too adult for her child. That’s why she hid it in under the towels, thinking the daughter would never find it.

What was the little girl doing, digging under the towels in the closet? She was hiding her Barbie doll from herself. She had correctly discerned the almost anatomically correct doll was a near occasion of sin. How funny that both mother and daughter thought to hide lustful images in the same place!

These childhood peccadillos were nothing compared to those of Dawn Stefanowicz, who was raised by a father who self-identified as gay, her sickly mother, and her father’s various live-in boyfriends.  Stefanowicz, author of Out From Under and one of the writers for Jephthah’s Daughters: Innocent casualties in the war for family “equality,” was raised by a weak mother and an unchaste father.

Her personal visit to the towel closet included a trip to the nudist beach at Hamlin’s Point, Toronto Island, Canada. “We were the only kids there amongst all these gay males. But there would be a few females that were topless who were female models, but they were surrounded by14-16 gay males,” she said, also telling stories of vacations in Florida where she was left alone in the hotel pool while her father cruised the local “gay” hot spots.

Author Dawn Stefanowicz

 “My father would find out about another gay cruising area, and we’d actually switch hotels 50 miles down the road,” she said. Left alone with her two brothers while her father was cruising, Dawn said,   “I loved that pool looking up at the starry night sky. (But) I didn’t realize how lonely I felt inside, how rejected and abandoned.”  

Her comments in Jephthah’s Daughter’s appeared in the midst of a discussion with other adults who had been raised by same sex partners. The book covers over 70 cases of same sex parenting.

When she turned 12, Dawn had all kinds of boyfriends but in these relationships she was looking for the kind of male-affirmation that she should have gotten from her father. Self-identified “bi-sexual” Robert Oscar Lopez, raised by two same-sex attracted females, desperately wanted a father’s attention, so much so that at the age of 13 he began to prostitute himself to older men.

Lopez was fascinated by the fact that Dawn had a father, but felt fatherless.  “His attention was always centered on the males in his life,” she responded. “There were three key males (2 brothers, one father) in my life growing up, but there were also multiple partners that my father had, and his partners had, that they were involved with sexually. So in some ways it wasn’t like a couple, it almost seemed polygamous at times because my father and his partners could be involved with 12 other men at the gay bars downtown.” (Jephthah p. 54)

Dawn currently is a wife and mother, but she had to undergo counseling in order to learn what it means to be female.  Lopez – husband and father -- also felt confused about his sexual identity growing up with two “Moms.” He had a lisp, and only knew the mannerisms of women, so as a teenager he never fit in.

“What was it like when your father exposed you to gay culture?” Lopez asked Stefanowicz. “It’s something where as a little girl growing up I didn’t feel that my own femininity and womanhood was being affirmed, and valued, and loved. In fact, I felt it was better to be a gay male, or even a transgender male, than it was to be a little girl. I always felt that I wasn’t lovable because I did not see the men in my life loving women.” (Jephthah, p. 51) 

That is the crux of the problem. Besides creating a  highly sexualized environment, same sex parents are completely unable to model normal male/female roles and respect for the opposite sex. Everyone understands their identify as a child of a mother and a father, so if you treat one or the other as contemptible, the child loses his own self-respect.

About 30 percent of kids raised by same-sex parents self identify as bi-sexual or homosexual, while the number is only 2 percent in the general population. (Jephthah, p. 53) In fact, persons who self identity as homosexual are generally understood to be a small percentage of our population, but on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex “marriage,” giving same sex couples de facto rights to raise children. Therefore, the number of people, who self-identify as homosexual, is bound to grow in the future as a percentage of our population.

Stefanowicz, having interviewed and emailed numerous other kids raised by unchaste adults, believes that all of them experience some gender confusion growing up. “Almost all of us have had some level of sexual confusion. Not that we came out and labeled ourselves. But we struggled. A number of us ... there was sexual abuse. It’s a very sexualized environment (growing up with same sex parents) – not just within the home, but within the subculture that I was exposed to.” (Jephthah p. 53)

Raised by a single parent, who clearly understood her sexual identity as a woman, and exposed to the Catholic culture which esteems chastity, I personally have never suffered any gender confusion or insecurity in my entire life, but individuals like Dawn and Robert had the normal problems of growing up compounded by a sexual identity crisis. They had to face the question: “Who am I sexually?”

A Canadian economist Douglas Allen used Canada’s 2006 census to discover that young adult children of same-sex couples are 35 percent less likely to graduate from high school than young adult children of traditionally married opposite-sex couples. Daughters of same-sex couples do considerably worse than sons. They were 85 percent less likely to graduate than their counterparts raised in a traditional household.  Canada Study: Kids in Gay Families Hampered in School  

 “What is known from decades of research on family structure, studying literally thousands of children, is that every departure from the traditional, stable mother-father family has severe detrimental effects upon children; and these effects persist not only into adulthood but also into the next generation,” Dr. Jeffrey Satinover was quoted in the book Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior is Changing Everything by Robert R. Reilly.  “In short, the central problem with mother-mother or father-father families is that they deliberately institute, and intend to keep in place indefinitely, a family structure known to be deficient in being obligatorily and permanently either fatherless or motherless.” 

The American College of Pediatricians in 2012 echoed Satinover’s findings: “Clearly apart from rare situations, depriving a child of one or both biological parents -- as same-sex parenting requires -- in every case is unhealthy.”

Some years ago, Robert Lopez had a column in his Children’s Rights blog, the English Manif, where he linked to two Disney movies that he felt clearly depicted the behavior of controlling same-sex parents. One was the suffocating “lesbian” mother in Tangled  (think Rapunzel – literally taken

Suffocating mother in Tangled 

from her rightful parents and raised alone by a witch in a tower) and the other is the foster father of the hunchback Quasimodo, Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo’s “foster father” attempts to keep him hidden and controlled by saying he would frighten people by his appearance.

When I watched those cartoons that Lopez identified as modeling gay parenthood, I realized that the characters were acting like they had stolen the children -- like they really had no right to the kids they were raising. That’s why I titled this piece: “Children Raised by Unchaste Adults” instead of “Children Raised by Unchaste Parents.” On a very deep level, even same sex couples understand they are not the rightful parents of the children they are raising. This makes sense since they had nothing to do with conceiving them. They used illicit means to get them: a sperm donor, an incubator or they got some idiot adoption agency to hand over a helpless child. The children in same-sex households have literally been stolen.

Understanding who is and who is not your father can bring great healing. My mother re-married when I was 18. She dated my stepfather two years before that. It probably sounds whiney -- in light of the horrors Lopez and Stefanowicz suffered -- to say my stepfather never fathered me, but my mother and I tried to shoehorn him into that relationship anyway. “Daddy” treated me like the dirt under the carpet. I no longer felt welcome in my own home despite the fact that my mother was my best friend. But by the grace of God I came to understand that my stepfather was NOT my father. He was actually my brother in Christ; I was healed of the pain caused by that relationship. God is my Father. He is the only Father, who ever welcomed me into His home. He promised to kill the fatted calf, put a ring on my finger and throw a party for my friends. Such an approach could help others saddled with "step-parents."

The American Psychological Association -- in contrast with   the viewpoint of Jephthah’s Daughters -- has a number of studies which finds same sex households are equally nurturing as traditional married households. The organization was taken over by the LGBT movement in the late ‘70s. Because the courts have largely adopted the APA propaganda, it is not unusual to find people who self-identify as homosexual naively believing that others within their same sexual lifestyle can be good parents.  But Professor Loren Marks of Louisiana State University debunked the APA myths when he pointed out that “not one of the 59 studies referenced in the 2005 APA Brief compares a large, random representative sample of lesbian or gay parents and their children, with a large random, representative sample of married parents and their children.”

Robert Lerner and Althea K Nagai in reviewing the same homosexual parenting studies for the Ethics and Public Policy Center reached the same conclusion: “The methods used in these studies are so flawed that these studies prove nothing. Therefore they should not be used in legal cases to make any argument about ‘homosexual vs. heterosexual’ parenting. Their claims have no basis.”

Professor Mark Regnerus, University of Texas, in his New Family Structures Study, managed to completely blow the APA studies out of the water for he used a large study sample that met the standards for research in social science. He found that children are more apt to succeed as adults “on multiple counts across a variety of domains” when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, especially when the couple remains married to the present day. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly rare.

Children raised in same-sex households therefore are more likely to suffer outcomes similar to those from heterosexual stepfamilies and single parents. Specifically, they are more likely to be sexually abused, to be unemployed, less healthy, more depressed, more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, smoke more pot, have trouble with the law, have more male and female sex partners, and are more likely to reflect negatively on their childhood. (Regnerus)

Rivka Edelman also discusses some of the creepiness of her upbringing in a same-sex household in Jephthah’s Daughters. What most bothered her the most was her mother’s obsession with her own daughter’s sexuality.  

“A boy would be over and she’d be like, ‘you know, I think he wants to kiss you.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, so what? He can go kiss a doorknob,’” she said, “I literally just completely closed down that way. I was just completely androgynous. I never flirted with a boy ever, in my life.”

Edelman really brings the point home that children of same sex relationships are trophies in a same-sex union. They have as their primary purpose making their parents look good and normal. For the kids, there is no freedom to regret the lack of a relationship with a father or a mother.

“Children learn to role play the part of living dolls,” said Edelman, “Our parents used us as little display objects. We existed only to make our parents look good, to feed the insatiable egos that were our parents. Does that sound like a happy childhood?”

“Looking back over the past 65 years of my life, I have come to understand that child abuse is not about parents who consciously want to do irreparable damage to their children,” said Lee Taylor, who was raised by a “gay” man. His comments appeared in Jephthah’s Daughters, p. 73.  “It’s not as if they plan ahead to turn their children’s world into a living hell. That comes quite naturally as they do their best to give what is truly theirs to give, all of the unconscious toxins which motivate their blinded lives.”

“There is not even the slightest doubt in my mind that my parents consciously wanted the very best in life for me and my brothers and sisters. There is also not the slightest doubt in my mind that they were among the most dangerous and destructive parents that any child could survive. Their lack of conscious awareness of their own psychic demons did nothing to assuage the pain and suffering of my physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuse. It would’ve been no less painful if they’d planned it,” Taylor concluded.

Pope Francis weighed in on the issue in a weekly papal audience: “Children also pay the price for immature unions and irresponsible separations: they are the first victims; they suffer the outcome of a culture of exaggerated individual rights, and then the children become prematurely precocious. They often absorb the violence they are not able to ‘ward off’ and before the very eyes of adults are forced to grow accustomed to degradation.” He has spoken out repeatedly against genderless “marriage” and the rights of children to have both a mother and a father wherever possible.

The American College of Pediatricians summarized the risks to children raised in same-sex households:

•  Violence between same-sex partners is two to three times more common than among married heterosexual couples.
• Same-sex partnerships are more prone to dissolution than heterosexual marriages with the average homosexual relationship lasting only two to three years.
• Homosexual partners are promiscuous with serial partners even in loosely termed “committed” relationships. 
• Individuals who practice the homosexual lifestyle are more likely to suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, suicide and have shorter lifespans.

In short the ACP believes that it is very hazardous for children to be raised by same-sex couples whether by adoption, foster care or artificial reproduction. (Making Gay Okay)

I met a self-identified homosexual man on Twitter, who  thought I was very naïve to raise questions about the success of “gay” parenting.  “We don’t have sex in front of our kids,” he said. But one divorced mother, whose husband dragged their kids into a homosexual household, said it was a shock to her son to see his father go into his bedroom with another man. This example alone is much more serious than a five-year-old turning over an obscene ceramic turtle lying on the coffee table.

But that’s not the worst that the children suffer when  they end up under the thumb of an unchaste parent in a divorce. “Their father moved into his new (male) partner’s condo, which is in a complex inhabited by 16 gay men. One of the men has a 19-year-old male prostitute who comes to service him. Another man, who functions as the father figure of this community, is in his late ‘60s and has a boyfriend in his ‘20s,” the man’s ex-wife reported. She says her kids are taken to transgender baseball games, gay rights fundraisers and LGBT film festivals, while on Halloween their father wears make-up and sex bondage straps. For her daughter it’s a very bad environment as the walls of the condo are adorned with large framed pictures of women in provocative poses. “Her father should be protecting her sexuality. Instead he is warping it,” the children’s mother said. It is no better for her son, who in interested in girls, but all the men around him seek sexual gratification with other men. (Jephthah, p. 92)

Hidden in the heart of this story is the issue of the dangers of pornography for little children.  Like the mother hiding the mature image in the towels, some same sex adults do try to hide their porn. But others just leave it carelessly lying around. Robert Lopez spent a lot of time reading his mother’s porn when he was growing up. Edelman and Stefanowicz discovered the same thing in their homes. Stefanowicz’s father moonlighted as an underground male model for underwear in a community magazine. Of course, for her that was a drop in the bucket given that her father and his male partner tried to solicit her 14-year-old boyfriend into a three-way relationship, and then dressed her up and used her as “gay bait” in public places.

Many researchers wondered why the outcomes for kids raised in same sex households were so much worse than for children raised in traditional homes. They theorized that it was the instability and volatility of the same sex relationships.  That undoubtedly had an effect.

Her mother and a succession of lovers raised Edelman. She remembers standing in the driveway when one of the more stable lovers was leaving her Mom: “She put plates on a table, with a glass, with food on the plate,” Edelman recalls. “She was leaving, and I was like in the driveway, saying, ‘Don’t go.’ And she said, ‘In a few years you’ll be able to get out of here.’ I was in sixth grade. It was a long few years.” Edelman  was grateful when someone called Child Protective Services, and she and her siblings were removed from their home.

But something that is not often alluded to by the researchers is the sexualized atmosphere children endure in “homosexual” homes.  No one seems to see that adult chastity is a necessary component of a healthy childhood.   

I began writing this post on the Feast of St. Maria Goretti, the 11-year-old Italian girl, who was stabbed 14 times by

St. Maria Goretti, murdered at age 11 by a man
obsessed with porn

Allesandro Serenelli. He had become obsessed with reading pornography, and Maria refused to have carnal relations with him. That ended in her murder July 6, 1902, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. She forgave Allesandro before she died.

Serenelli testified in relation to her canonization that Maria’s concern during her stabbing was for his own salvation. “No, no it is a sin. God does not want this. If you do this, you will go to hell,” she repeated.

One hundred and thirteen years later, young children are exposed carelessly to pornography in the home, and at school their innocence is violated by “education” -- sex education. They are growing up in highly sexualized environments, exposed to lustful images and activities long before they are able to cope. Fr. John F. Harvey, O.S.F.S., who researched homosexuality and its causes, found early porn exposure in children as young as eight contributes to homosexual lifestyle choices later in life.

Ex-gay porn star Joseph Sciambra confirmed this in his book Swallowed by Satan. As a practicing homosexual, he thought he was “born” that way. But he came to understand that early porn viewing contributed to his choice to self-identify as a homosexual later in life.

This evil infiltrated our children’s lives in the 1950s. My uncle  had a Playboy calendar in his workspace in the garage. My innocent cousin was a little girl when she walked into the garage and looked at her father’s calendar. “Dad,” she said, “That lady doesn’t have any clothes on.” As an afterthought, she added, “Daddy, she ain’t got no pants either.”

In the 1990s, I had my son in a parent-run pre-school. In connection with this, my husband and I had to take a class once month in childcare. Well, one month – when my husband couldn’t attend -- the topic was self-abuse. The teacher was trying to tell us not to disturb our children if they began to play with themselves.

Everyone appeared to be accepting what she was saying so I raised my hand, and asked the elderly teacher, “If we don’t tell them to stop now, when do we tell them to stop?”  She said, “Why never! It’s an excellent practice for relieving stress even for married couples when one is away for a business trip.”

I looked at the shocked faces of the 40 couples in the room with me, and said, “Do you understand what she is recommending you do?” Then I turned to the woman and said, “Madam, I am not an animal.”

Now those kids are adults. They have been taught to indulge their sexual whims without restraint.  Sadly, the next generation faces further onslaughts of filth in their young lives because the U.S. Supreme Court has introduced them to same-sex households. The manure is hitting the fan. The consequences for the human race are catastrophic.  

“Our culture no longer corners us into virtue,” said author Robert R. Reilly (Making Gay Okay) “but impels us into vice. Almost every contemporary cultural signal militates against chastity, which is why the fabric of society is falling apart.”  

Did you enjoy this post? We have more! 

Same Sex Marriage, Natural Law and the New Apocalypse

Genderless "Marriage" Threatens the Foundation of Civilization

A Child's Right to Mom and Dad: Why Kids of Gays Oppose Gay Adoption

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Become a Prophetic Voice in the Heart of a Rebellious People

Sermon by Rev. John Paul Shea

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 5, 2015

Saints Peter and Paul Parish, Tucson, AZ

"And he said to me: Son of man: All these bones are the house of Israel: they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off. Therefore prophesy, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchers, O my people: and will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 37:11-13)

Ezekiel prophesizing over the dry bones
of Israel 

We are all called to be a prophet!

In today’s first reading, we hear from the Prophet Ezekiel 2:2-5. Ezekiel lived about 600 years before the birth of Jesus, and he was called by God to be a prophet… 

As we know, there were many prophets in the Old Testament such as the Prophet Jeremiah, the Prophet Samuel, the prophets Jonah or Elijah… The last prophet in the Bible was John the Baptist who proclaimed the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Most often, God called prophets in times of crisis to direct the people in the path of righteousness. This was the role of Ezekiel. 

Like most prophets, Ezekiel was called not simply to proclaim God’s message to the society he lived under at the time, but he was particularly called to proclaim God’s message to his own people, the Israelites, who had rebelled against God. “I am sending you to the Israelites who have rebelled against me."

Ezekiel incessantly prophesied the destruction of  Jerusalem and its temple. Like  the Prophet Jeremiah, who was living in Jerusalem at that time, Ezekiel would witness the fulfillment of the prophetic message of God when Jerusalem was finally sacked by the Babylonians in 587 BC.

My brothers and sisters, just as God called Ezekiel to proclaim His Word in the time of

Baptism of Jesus. Our Baptism imposes an
obligation on us to proclaim the Truth. 

the Israelites who had turned from God, He is calling each one of us to proclaim His truth today. We are each called to be a prophet for Our Lord by virtue of our Baptism.

Being a prophet doesn’t mean that we are called to go out into the desert and live on locusts and honey. Nor does it mean that we must walk around the streets yelling, “Repent!” No. To be a prophet simply means that we learn God's law and His word and proclaim it by the ways in which we live our lives.

Being a prophet for Our Lord is not easy. In fact, most of the Old Testament prophets did not want to speak God’s word because they knew it would bring enemies.

But, we are reminded that our faith is not about being liked. It is not about saying what others want to hear. Our faith is not about being popular. In fact, our Lord Jesus Himself,

Christ Beaten, Scourged &
Crowned with Thorns

who was the greatest prophet, says that we will be hated on account of His name. And, of course, we all know what happened to Jesus for proclaiming the truth.

Our call as a prophet for God demands that we recognize the times in which we live. We are called to understand current society in light of God’s Word. 

As the Prophet Ezekiel was sent to the Israelites by God to denounce their godless ways, we, too, by our Christian life are called to denounce the godlessness of the culture we live in today.

This weekend, our country celebrates Independence Day. The United States began only 239 years ago with the understanding that our nation is  a blessing from God! For most of our history, we lived under God’s law. But it is no longer so. We have now become a nation that has turned away from God and His Law!

Pope Francis just came out with an encyclical on the environment. He urges the nations of the world to “build a better future” by seeking common solutions to environmental problems. Yes, God wants us to take care of the environment, but that requires what is most important for our world today -- conversion of heart.

We can strive to cut down on carbon emissions and reduce pollution, but if this country and world does not strive to radically eliminate personal and social sin with its multitude of rotten addictions, then our society will not be able to avoid the impact of the impending train wrecks that are already upon us! 

Just the fact that more than one million babies are legally murdered in the womb in this country each year is enough to bring about chastisement upon our nation! And now the courts have made same sex "marriage" the law of the land. Legalization of same sex "marriage" will have a disastrous effect because it is a decision that rebels against God! This decision will also be a litmus test for every Catholic: do we follow God’s prophetic message to be a witness for holy matrimony, or do we go along to get along? 

Every time the Israelites rebelled against God they suffered defeat. Our country will suffer the same if we do not let God lead us. History repeats itself. 

Fr. John Paul Shea 

My brothers and sisters, our country, our people, our world needs to turn back to God! Today’s Psalm 123 says, “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord pleading for His mercy.”

Fix your eyes on the Lord. Plead for God’s mercy. We have become a rebellious nation!

But what is even worse is that rebellion has infiltrated the Church itself. As the Israelites turned form God to follow the false gods of their neighbors, many in our Church have abandoned the teachings handed down to us from the apostles to follow the false gods of our culture: materialism, sex, and pleasure. More than 80 percent of American Catholics use contraception even though our Church teaches that it is wrong, according to statistics.  And according to the same surveys, 54 percent of Catholics favor the legalization of same sex "marriage"!

Pope Saint John Paul II, who is one of the greatest prophets of our current era, warned us about the state of our Church today.
When he came to the United States in 1976, as then Cardinal Wojtyla, he said, “We are NOW standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are NOW facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla who
was later elected Pope John
Paul II

Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence.”

My brothers and sisters, God is looking for faithful Catholics today. He is looking for prophets to proclaim the truths of our faith to a godless society and generation. Let us recognize the seriousness of the times we live in today and turn to the Lord. Let us be His prophetic voice of truth in our homes, our families, our work places and wherever He may send us. May God bless us and help us!

The people are waiting for your words #Speak 

Did you enjoy this homily? Fr. John Paul Shea has published many more on this blog. Visit How Desperate Are We For God? to hear last Sunday's sermon.