Father Corapi on homosexuality

While sifting through my parents’ library of propaganda I came across a 2002 DVD called " Contemporary Attacks on the Family: A powerful sermon by Fr. John Corapi"

I was familiar with him from (before the anti-gay movement kicked into overdrive) when I saw one of his inspiring sermons (on TV).

The second time I ran across him, he basically said that the root cause of same-gender attraction is the result of confusion. Which I take to mean that every gay person on the planet is just to stupid to see that they are attracted to the opposite sex.

So this time, I was naturally curious to see if he’d broach the subject. And broach he did.I’d add a caveat about the age of this DVD, and how his views may be different now, but the video is still for sale on his website.

Father John Corapi: So the P squad, that’s an attack--a contemporary attack on the family. The attack of the P squad: permissiveness, promiscuity, potions [drugs], pornography, prostitution and progressivism.

Homosexuality. So called alternative lifestyles. Whenever I have talked about this, someone always misunderstands me, even though I do take great pains to try clarify what I’m saying. But I always begin by saying “Look, we are called all people. You can’t hate any class of persons. Everyone is to be loved as God loves them. A person may have a particularly loathsome---to you---habit, persuasion, be in a certain class, maybe ethnics.

You know, when I was a kid, it wasn’t fashionable, yet, to be Italian. I remember being called those names, derogatory names, when I was a little kid. I kinda hurt me. And Irish people were discriminated against. In my home area in upstate New York, it was settled by the Dutch, and the English--Protestant. And in the 1850’s the Irish came, and they were persecuted by the Protestants--Christians. And then the Italians came and low and behold, the Irish persecuted the Italians. And then the Polish came, and low and behold the Pols were persecuted by the Italians and the Irish. And then the Hispanics came, and the Hispanics were looked down upon by the Pols, the Italians and the Irish, and everybody.

So I think we’re getting better. I think there’s less of that kind of thing. But we’ve got to be careful, we don’t want to look down. We don’t want to be derisive, we don’t want to be hateful, we don’t want to be bigoted--for whatever reason a person has that sexual orientation toward a person of the same sex, we don’t quite understand it yet.

It may be a variety of environmental, and societal things. It may even have a genetic component, I don’t know, but you want to know what I tell gay people? And I don’t hate them. Many of the very creative, sensitive--beautiful people. I’m not homophobic, at all, I’m not afraid of them. I say, you know what, you’re just like me---no, not that way---you’re just like me because like me, you’re called to celibacy.

That’s the answer. For whatever reason you are the way you are, and I sympathize, with being the way you are. It must be tough--It must be tough. But if you are in fact that way, then you are called to celibacy, just like me. I am human, there are days when I might be tempted to this that or the other thing. I’m called to celibacy, and I don’t question it, and I don’t doubt it, I know it. And may I die having been faithful to it, all the days of my priestly life--I don’t mess with that, that’s a fact. And I tell them, same for you until you can resolve that, or maybe you never will, you’re called to be celibate.

That’s an attack on the family. This nonsense of giving legal recognition to samesex partners. It’s a terrible contemporary attack on the family.

It will undermine society, and society will go from bad to worse. And it will unravel, it will crash, and it will burn.

First time I’ve ever heard this one:

“…you want to know what I tell gay people? …I say, you know what, you’re just like me, you’re just like me because like me, you’re called to celibacy.”

Alan Chambers of Exodus: This is why I believe that it is so important to clarify that just living a celibate gay life is just as sinful as living a sexually promiscuous one. The sin is in identifying with anything that is contrary to Christ, which homosexuality clearly is. (218)

So, every same-sex attracted human being on the earth is not just “called” to a life of celibacy, but "called" to hate themselves on top of it.

It also goes to show the disingenuousness of those who so rabidly condemn the symptom: "homosexual behavior,” rather than the so-called "cause" of the problem: “identifying with anything that is contrary to Christ”

“…you’re just like me because like me, you’re called to celibacy.”

Calling: impulse to follow particular job: a strong urge to follow a particular career or do a particular type of work

Impulse? Urge? That which one is drawn to most? Seems to me that homosexuality would fit more in line with the definition of "calling" than does celibacy, besides, human sexuality is not a "calling," it's an empirical fact.

“…you’re just like me because like me, you’re called to celibacy.”

First of all, who the hell are you to decide what another person's calling is, especially when it is based, arbitrarily, on an unverifiable third party source?

Secondly, I was supposedly “called” to celibacy AGAINST MY WILL---the very antithesis of what it means to be "called."

Third, what do you say to those who tell you that their “calling” is to fall in love? Oh that's right:

"This nonsense of giving legal recognition to samesex partners."

"Nonsense" being code for 'their love is fake, and their relationships irrelevant.'
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We are NOT just like you, Fr. Corapi, there’s quite a difference between “a calling” and the perversion of its meaning.

We are called, by you (et al), to rebel against our own human-nature, yet no Golden Rule has been broken. Which puts your moral credibility into serious question.
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Celibacy is not a “calling” for homosexuals any more than lefties are "called" not write with their left hand. In this case, it's a "calling" to a life sentence of solitary confinement. The kind of "calling" you suggest is IMMORAL.

And for the record, I don’t recall him having said anything about the effect of violence---and the promotion of it---as being an attack on the family (but he had plenty to say on the evils of birth control).
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And then there's this:

Fr. Corapi: “we’ve got to be careful, we don’t want to look down. We don’t want to be derisive, we don’t want to be hateful, we don’t want to be bigoted.”

Father Corapi, I have no respect for those who preach that I'm too stupid to know what love is, or to recognize intentionally veiled condescension.

Until you can decipher the true meaning of right and wrong, you’re "calling" will remain as an atheist generator.