... I saw these video interviews of Joseph Sciambra and felt compelled to share them. For those who do not know, Joseph Sciambra was deeply involved in the perverse lifestyle of men using other men for sexual gratification for a number of years. He went so far as to become involved in extreme acts I won’t go into, as well as prostitution and, I believe, appearing in some pornographic films. But, through a miracle of Grace, he was able to escape his sins and develop a life of virtue and continence. He has a website here.
The interviewer is a priest, Fr. Peregrino, who features in a number of sermons on Sensus Fidelium, who also posted this excellent interview.
Mr. Sciambra raises a number of excellent points. One of the key themes is for fathers to love their sons in an appropriate, demonstrative, supportive way. Hugging your son, letting him know that he always has your love and support, and demonstrating through frequent involvement in numerous activities, not only “manly” ones but even simple things like playing with him or reading to him, are hugely important for helping insure your son does not become one of the few who may fall into this most destructive, most difficult to escape lifestyle. He rightly notes that not all boys who grow up with absent/distant or any other kind of “problematic” father will fall into this lifestyle, but some will, and that at root the problem of male homosexuality is one rooted in failed father-son relationships (the causes of the female variety are more varied). Interestingly, however, Mr. Sciambra does not believe anyone is “born gay.” He also rightly states that the true number of male “homosexuals” is 1-2% of the male population, and that many of these men, including himself, are at varying times and under different circumstances attracted to, and have relationships with, women. But this we already knew.
Another point I found illuminating was the role the traditional practice of the Faith played in Mr. Sciambra’s conversion. The Traditional Mass was very important in this, with its structure and its clear communication of numerous aspects of our belief, but the entire traditional practice of the Faith was instrumental in his conversion. First of all – and I mentioned this interview was both inspiring and heartbreaking – it is in the TLM environment that Mr. Sciambra most found those priests who were willing to call the sins he had spent decades ensconced in just that – sins. He relates that on many occasions he had gone to Confession at Novus Ordo parishes and was told by priests that his inclination towards and commission of sodomy and other gravely immoral acts constituted no sin at all. He was just “being himself.” They might gently nudge him towards finding “one partner” to settle down with – apparently ignoring the fact that even “monogamous, committed” relationships between men almost invariably feature constant sex acts with others – but that was the most he would hear. One must wonder how many of these priests were justifying their own sins and inclinations in this refusal to call sodomy, one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, what it is.
It is also in the TLM and in the traditional practice of the Faith that Mr. Sciambra found a philosophy, a moral code, and a set of practices that were rigorous enough to satisfy his craving for masculine affirmation, a sort of set of rubrics for conducting oneself as a moral man. This need is, when not totally ignored, almost always disparaged as “toxic masculinity” and other epithets in this sick and twisted age, but it is a real and important factor. This huge craving for a firm moral order and the assertion of responsibility and duties over rights and unfulfilling, hedonistic “pleasure” is a major reason for the phenomenal success of Dr. Jordan Peterson, but he, sadly, only gives part of the truth almost all of us, but especially young men, need to hear these days (and it is also a truth mixed in with a certain measure of error, error that has the potential to derail Peterson’s followers off the road of upright living and back into the endless cul de sac of humanistic self-seeking.
Of course, scores of preceding generations of Catholics completely understood that the traditional, defined, orthodox practice of the Faith was absolutely necessary and vital for the right conduct of life and for the good of society generally, and that even slight deviations therefrom could, and almost certainly would, rapidly and quickly lead to disaster. I would add my personal opinion that the deviations seen in the Faith at, and since, Vatican II are far, far more substantial than many that were rightly and violently decried as heretical in previous generations of the Church.
The interviews do deal with subject matter that is not fit for children or those with particularly delicate consciences. While Fr. Peregrino does an able job steering a fine line between too much detail and descent into prurient matter, and making the interview so bland and anodyne as to diminish its effect, it still deals at root with a subject matter that may be inappropriate for some adults and certainly younger children.
Joseph Sciambra is an excellent witness to our glorious Faith and gives great testimony to the destructiveness of the barbaric hedonism running rampant in our culture today. May he continue to cooperate with Grace and do greater work to help souls lost in this intoxicating lifestyle (not least of which stems from the adulation the mass media and many cultural elements bestow on those within it) return to the practice of virtue and unity with the will of our Lord as revealed through Holy Mother Church.
Part 1:
Part 2:
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