The Romans and Barbarians had some bizarre "families" as well

Rorate Caeli ^ | 1/19/14 | Antonio Socci

[BlatherNaut]

Main excerpt of Antonio Socci's latest column on the papal declaration that seemed to leave the door open for the "normalization" of "same-sex parents" in Catholic schools:

Jesuit Antonio Spadaro intervened in “Corriere della sera” to explain that “the Pope ‘is not open to homosexual couples’ as some agencies headlined. The Pope is not legitimizing anything at all: not any law nor behavior that does not correspond to Church doctrine.

Finally, some clear words. In fact, it is Jesus, Himself in the Gospel, Who teaches His apostles to say yes if something is yes, and no if it is no: “all the rest comes from the Evil One” (Mt. 5,37).

However, if continuous precisions and denials are needed, it means that the yes and the no are vague and something has to be adjusted. Also because many are ‘are attaching themselves to the cassock'* of our dear Pope Francis (Scalfari for example) and too many are distorting the message.

Spadaro, after having given the salutary denial, tried to give his own interpretation of the Pope’s teaching in order to avert other misunderstandings. Did he succeed? No, he didn’t. Here is why.

[BlatherNaut]

Full title: The Romans and Barbarians had some bizarre "families" as well - no reason to dilute the Christian message

[BenLurkin]

Gee...who do I want America to be like?

Barbarians?

Or an decaying empire populated by deviants?

[ClearCase_guy]

Human Nature. It doesn’t change. But we try to do what we can with it.

[Moltke]

“the Pope ‘is not open to homosexual couples’ as some agencies headlined. The Pope is not legitimizing anything at all:

Well, then, time for him to state that in clear, unequivocal terms. Then there wouldn't be the need for hundreds of articles explaining "what he really said/means." Simple, no?

"Sodomites are perverts who will spend eternity in hell." (Feel free to use this for starters, your holiness.)

[Hugin]

Confronted with ancient customs,

The fact that two emperors may have engaged to same sex marriage hardly makes them customs. Caligula named his horse a Senator; that doesn't mean having horses as senators was customary. It just means that emperors could flaunt custom and declare their own perversions "normal".

[ExCTCitizen]

Caligua named his horse a senator? That’s nothing, we got Senators and Representatives who are Jackasses.

[Politicalkiddo]

Yeah worked out well for both groups, didn’t it? Just like how people say that it’s okay to be Homosexual because tribes of American Indians were. Same thing with killing babies, I suppose.

[john drake]

Yes, Caligula’s favorite horse, Incitatus.

[tbw2]

LOL!

[ReformationFan]

Obviously the whole tribe couldn’t have been. Otherwise, it would have died out within one generation.

[Lurker]

Times change. People don’t.

[ReformationFan]

I don’t think those “marriages” were actually recognized by the state. Weren’t they just activities they engaged in at one of their decadent orgies?

[Hugin]

I don’t know, it’s the first I heard of it. I was just making the point that the emperors weren’t restricted by custom, so just because they did something doesn’t make it one.

[Tax-chick]

There’s a description of a homosexual marriage ceremony in one of Juvenal’s satires. It’s possible Juvenal described a real event. It’s also possible he made it up.

Anyway, any such relationship would be a matter of private contract, just as normal marriages and divorces were. “The state” would be involved only if a contract was challenged in court, in a matter of inheritance for example.

[ReformationFan]

‘The state” would be involved only if a contract was challenged in court, in a matter of inheritance for example.’

I doubt there is historical evidence that any of them (if they did exist) even went as far as to go to court for inheritance reasons. If they had, the homoleft gang would be citing it like crazy.

Also, I learned it was illegal in Ancient Rome for a Roman citizen to allow himself to be(I’ll try to put this as tastefully and euphemistically as I can) the “passive” partner in a homosexual relationship-

http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=34693

Under Thesis #2.

[Tax-chick]

I doubt there is historical evidence that any of them (if they did exist) even went as far as to go to court for inheritance reasons.

Certainly much would be made of such an event, if it were known.

Roman traditional culture took sexual morality very seriously, although there's no doubt that the reality fell short of the ideal. There were penalties for the seduction of minors, both in opposite-sex and homosexual relations.

They knew a strong state was built on strong families, and they recognized that decadent relationships and low birthrate would bring them down ... which is what happened. Tacitus was talking up the Germans for their traditional and prolific families long before Rome fell.