Poor Dark Africans
The global furor over Fiducia Supplicans, as I write these words, shows no signs of abating; and Pope Francis, who is ultimately responsible for this problematic document, shows no sign of conceding that it was—shall we say—inappropriate. At the very least, it is a solution in search of a problem: as I have said in another context, in 50 years of faithfully attending Mass in the Catholic Church, I have never once heard a homilist offer a vigorous exposition and defense of Catholic teaching about sodomy, much less call to account the numerous Catholic politicians and celebrities of one sort or another who condone, nay, encourage it. On the other hand, I have not infrequently heard anyone favoring, say, the death penalty, restrictions on immigration, or nuclear weapons, denounced from the pulpit. The pope, however, dismisses those who question the wisdom of Fiducia Supplicans as members of “small ideological groups.”
He does allow, however, that Africa is a “special case”: “For them,” he says, “homosexuality is ‘bad’ from a cultural point of view; they don’t tolerate it.” One might begin by noting that disapproval of and refusal to tolerate sodomy is not peculiarly African; it is, rather, a feature of Sacred Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian moral tradition. The implied contrast between backward, benighted Africans and enlightened, sophisticated Europeans seems to tell us less about the shortcomings of the former than the failure of Christian integrity among the latter.
Even more dismaying, however, since “pastoral sensitivity” is a vociferously trumpeted priority of this pontificate, is the tone of condescension and the failure to consider why Africans might find sodomy a particularly serious sin. Surely someone among the brilliant circle of advisors with whom Pope Francis has surrounded himself ought to have had the wit to point out how toxic homoerotic inclinations have been in the history of African Christianity. In 1886, for instance, 22 young Catholic men were burned alive by King Mwanga for refusing to renounce their faith and submit to the demands of his lust. May we suggest that, perhaps, African Christians have a more realistic assessment of where sodomy leads than, say, the current head of the Dicastery for the Faith?
R. V. Young is Professor of English Emeritus at North Carolina State University, a former editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review, and the author of Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization (Catholic University of America Press, 2022). He and his wife are parishioners at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in Tarpon Springs, Florida. They have five grown children, fifteen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
21.6—July/August 2008
Benedict XVI on the Crisis of Faith & Reason by Samuel Gregg
31.4—July/August 2018
The Difficulty of Apologetics for Dead Souls in the Real World by R. J. Snell
32.4—July/August 2019
on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
