Voris said that ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs are "more intimately loved by God." He thinks God
predestined them to be ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ "victim souls." Acoording to Voris homsoexuals
are "a treasure beyond compare.... specially chosen by God."
Michael Voris on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs as Victim Souls –A Response by Randy Engel
Dear Friends – Once again I must take exception to Michael Voris’ recent presentation on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs as victim souls which was released on September 24, 2010, under the heading “ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ persons ARE different, but in one way many people might not have thought about very much.”
http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/K0sILSapUUcVoris notes in his opening statement that ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity is a topical issue today that needs to be addressed from a Catholic perspective. True enough.
He then states that Catholics all know the Church’s teaching (on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity). This is not true.
Other than perhaps a vague recollection of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by brimstone and fire in punishment for the unnatural sins of their inhabitants as recorded in the Old Testament in Genesis 19:24, most Catholics are woefully ignorant of the Church’s teachings on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity (and its hand-maiden, pederasty), especially from a historical perspective.
For example, up until the summer of 2002 when Catholic Family News ran my series on St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah, an eleventh century treatise on clerical sodomy and pederasty in the Roman Catholic Church, very few Catholics were aware that such a work even existed. Since Voris has singled out the spiritual aspect of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, I think it relevant to cite a short except from St. Damian’s views on the innate malice of the vice of sodomy which he believed surpassed the enormity of all other vices:
Without fail it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. … It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise. …This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church. …This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes away with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I say more? *
One of the major themes of Voris’ presentation is that ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs not only feel different, but they are different, and that this difference, is a source of incomprehensible suffering for them. We are told that this “suffering,” this “cross” they bear, “must” engender the understanding and compassion of “non-ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ persons.”
To which I reply that the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ who, by definition, is sɛҳuąƖly attracted to and desires sɛҳuąƖ relations with his or her own sex, is indeed “different,” but in a decidedly abnormal and perverse way.
HeterosɛҳuąƖity is instinctive in man. It is the biological norm for the human species. Unless interfered with, man is heterosɛҳuąƖ in his essential nature. All men, including ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs, consciously or unconsciously, strive toward heterosɛҳuąƖity, that is to say, towards normalcy.
The real “difference” a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ experiences applies not only to his deviant choice of sɛҳuąƖ objects, but to his heavily metastasized personality which is marked by neurotic, masochistic tendencies that are manifested in an array of phobias, obsessions and other sɛҳuąƖ and emotional aberrations. The habituated ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ drowns himself in a sea of self-pity/self dramatization fed by a self-created daily ritual of “injustice collecting.” His deviant behavior is characterized by markers common to all sɛҳuąƖ perversions – compulsion, fixity, aggression, narcissism, risk-taking, unresolved conflict, fantasy and the denial and remaking of reality, strong feelings of guilt and hate, and a graduated perversity. In addition, the anti-culture in which he finds himself is dominated by illicit drugs, pornography, prostitution, ѕυιcιdє, and domestic violence including murder.
Voris goes on to lament that unlike eligible heterosɛҳuąƖs, “a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ faithful Catholic” … cannot get married because he or she desires the same level of intimacy, but cannot even entertain it.”
That’s correct. So where’s the beef?
Marriage is between one woman and one man. It was instituted by God in Paradise in order that the human species might perpetuate itself and that the husband and wife should be cooperators with God in bringing forth new life – immortal souls to populate the heavens and, thereby, give glory to the Creator. Two men or two women who wish to “marry” each other just don’t cut it. And, if they were indeed “ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ faithful Catholics” they would not even “entertain” such a perverted idea so obviously opposed to the Natural Law.
Please take note also of Voris’ erroneous use of the word “intimacy” in connection with ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity. Such usage reveals either a debilitating degree of naïveté or a deliberate attempt to deceive the listener.
ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ acts can never be described as “intimate,” nor can they ever be described in any language remotely resembling terms that are used to describe the conjugal act whereby completeness and wholeness are achieved by the reconciliation of complementary beings and “two become one flesh.”
The ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ is not a “lover.” He is a sɛҳuąƖ consumer. Homosex is profoundly narcissistic and selfish. Genital body parts are joined or stimulated, but there is no sense of communion, unity and oneness that characterizes the mature and loving marital embrace. Sodomy and fellatio are particularly degrading and violent practices.
The ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ lives in a fantasy land. He likes to play house and even pretend “marriage.” It is only when he is willing to trade in his fantasies for reality that his healing and movement toward psychic, spiritual and emotional wellness can begin. Voris’ sentimentalization of the plight of the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ contributes nothing towards this reparative process. Indeed it does just the opposite.
For example, Voris tells us that part of the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ’s “sufferings” include “the internal quiet pain of knowing, that in many cases, this is simply their lot.”
sɛҳuąƖ perversions, however, are no one’s “lot,” not while there exists an all powerful and merciful God who desires our salvation and offers mankind, through His One, Holy and Apostolic Church, the Sacramental means, especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, by which man can conquer his sinful passions. There is no sin, however grave, that God does not forgive, providing the penitent, by his acts of contrition, confession and satisfaction desires to be forgiven and make reparation, and he expresses his belief in the saving power of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins that we might attain eternal glory with Him in heaven.
There have also been many advances in reparative therapy in recent years which offer ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs additional hope for recovery – whole or partial – thus opening the door for a normal conjugal life for those who wish to marry and have children, or the promise of living out the single life in accordance with God’s ordinances.
Combine all these elements with the support of parents, relatives and friends who are correctly informed as to the true nature of the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ condition and struggle, and there is cause for optimism, especially when the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ himself is highly motivated.
Finally we come to the main theme of Voris’ presentation – ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs as victim souls.
Although it is not a term to be found in official Church teachings, unofficially, “victim souls” refers to souls especially chosen by God to imitate Our Lord’s Passion in a unique way, and who by their voluntary sufferings, trials and sacrifices make amends for sinners and their ingratitude in order that they, the sinners, can receive God’s mercy. In a certain sense, all baptized persons are called upon to offer up their sufferings and trials by virtue of Our Lord’s command to take up one’s cross and follow Him. But the true victim soul is special in that the specific invitation to accept this extraordinary grace is said to come directly from God.
In his opening statement, Voris selects Bl. Mother Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, and especially Our Blessed Mother, as examples of victim souls who suffered greatly in their quest for the salvation of souls.
Voris then returns to his opening theme regarding the hardships of being different, of loneliness and not belonging, the buffeting from external temptations and other “crosses” to which ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs are exposed, and he offers the following solution – become victim souls:
So he is different. He must approach life from an entirely different aspect from most others – that of the victim soul. He is different. He is a treasure beyond compare from the God who brought him forth and crafted his cross for him to the circuмstances of a fallen and sinful world. He is different. His cross if accepted, unlike that of many other people’s crosses, will draw countless souls to Christ. …
I do not know, but I suspect that some point in their lives, many such souls actually come to the intuition that God has specially chosen them to be instruments of salvation like few others have been chosen. And as a result they actually glory in their cross.
Are we to understand from Voris’ statement that he holds God responsible for laying the cross of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity on particular souls, in order that they may become victim souls and thus attain salvation for themselves and draw others to Christ? If so, then Voris is guilty of blasphemy. No man is born a sɛҳuąƖ pervert by the will of God that good may come of it.
ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, like all sɛҳuąƖ perversions, is an acquired vice the seeds of which are usually planted early in life. Probable causes include disturbed family patterns and parental psychopathology; premature sɛҳuąƖ seduction; infantile sɛҳuąƖ fixations; and gender identity conflicts. Once the individual becomes habituated to the vice and crosses over the line to the forbidden and perverse, his struggle to free himself from the vice becomes more difficult. Nevertheless, in each and every case, the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ is faced with a choice to engage in or reject deviant behavior – a moral choice to do good and avoid evil. In this, he is no “different” than any other sinner who has ever walked the face of the earth.
For the record, in the 17 years that this writer spent in conducting research for The Rite of Sodomy** which included an in depth investigation of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ “spirituality” (New Ageism, the Occult, Satanism, Theosophy, Queer Christian Theology, etc.) I never saw a scintilla of evidence to support Voris’ theories on ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs as victim souls.
I have, however, been privileged to communicate with Catholic men and women with a history of same-sex relationships, who, by the grace of God, and after a long and difficult struggle, have become models of Christian charity and humility.
From my conversations with these individuals, I know that many do, in fact, offer up their sufferings to Our Lord in reparation for the sins of the world, especially sins against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But I have yet to hear any express a desire for extraordinary divine phenomena such as becoming a true victim soul since these gifts are rare and they depend solely on the free and supreme will of God.
Voris was wrong when he sought to promote the money/power cult of Opus Dei as the answer to the Church’s problems.
I believe that he is equally ill advised in his promotion of the idea of the victim soul as an answer to Catholics caught up in the vice of sodomy who wish to extricate themselves in order to follow Christ more closely and advance in the spiritual life.
I leave the reader with this warning from the pen of Alexander Pope:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Randy Engel, Director
U.S. Coalition for Life
October 4, 2010
* CFN series on the Book of Gomorrah is available at
http://www.riteofsodomy.com/index.php?pr=eBooks.
** The Rite of Sodomy is available at
http://www.riteofsodomy.com/index.php?pr=Paperbacks.