Juan Carlos Cruz is a sex-abuse victim of the Roman Catholic church. He is the chief whistleblower in the Chilean Romanist sex abuse scandal and spent days with Pope Francis last month at the Vatican. During the three days with the Pontiff, Cruz discussed his sexual orientation (the Chilean man is a homosexual) and explained to Francis what it was like to have been victimized by Romanist priests. Cruz’ time at the Vatican occurred after Pope Francis made some highly controversial remarks, dismissing the severity of the sexual assaults and tacitly defending some of those who helped to cover up the crimes. According to news reports, Pope Francis told the man that God gave him his sexual orientation and that his sodomy did not matter because God loved him.
“You know Juan Carlos, that does not matter. God made you like this. God loves you like this. The Pope loves you like this and you should love yourself and not worry about what people say.”
The words were recorded by Carlos and repeated to the press, according to CNN.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to homosexuality as an “inclination that is objectively disordered” (Paragraph 2398, 1997 edition). The Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1985) cites The Vatican Council II in Dei Verbum 10, which refers to the “supremely wise arrangement of God” in heterosexual relationship, and relationship, and asserts that homosexual relationships are a deviation of God’s wise arrangement (chapter 5). The Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics (December 29, 1975) called homosexuality “intrinsically disordered.”
Francis seems to be repeatedly at odds with Rome’s official teachings on human sexuality. It’s for this reason that more than 40 Romanist leaders have officially accused the Pontiff of multiple heresies.
There has, however, been a gradual and growing progressivism in the Romanist church on the topic of homosexuality. In 1973, the first Romanist priest came out publicly as gay, Robert Carter, and he was not removed as a priest. He went on to form Dignity USA, a pro-LGBTQ organization advocating for homosexual Romanists. Beginning in the 1980s with Cardinal Cooke of New York City, Papists began to teach that it wasn’t a sin to be homosexual, so long as you practiced abstinence, the very same position now being taught by Southern Baptist Convention leaders like Russell Moore. By mid-2017, the same diocese hosted a “pilgrimage” of LGBTQ Romanists to the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart for hundreds of married homosexuals who profess Catholicism. Today, Romanists all around the world publicly call for same-sex marriage and the normalizing of sodomy-based unions, with no punitive consequences from the Romanist church.
Greg Burke, the Pope’s spokesman, was asked about the Pope’s words of affirmation regarding homosexuality and he responded, “We do not normally comment on the Pope’s private conversations.”
In the meantime, the Scripture does speak to the issue of homosexuality, and it is not in agreement with the Pope of Rome. The Bible tells us that homosexuality is a sin (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Furthermore, Romans 1:26-27 teaches specifically that homosexuality is a demonstration of human depravity and that God has given them over to this wickedness. While the Pope says that it doesn’t matter, the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 6:9, proclaims that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.
In reality, studies demonstrate that childhood sexual abuse is more likely – exponentially – to correlate with adult homosexuality, at least among men. If anyone made Carlos gay it wasn’t God, it was the Roman Catholic church.
