Regarding a Post that Disappeared: The New Study on Man by the Vatican Biblical Commission

A necessary retraction

Regarding a Post that Disappeared:
The New Study on Man by the Vatican Biblical Commission

Well, folks, sometimes it’s just too “good” to be true: We had to quickly remove a post a few minutes after publication earlier today after it became known that all the sources we had relied on to write it — from multiple sites and in different languages — were incorrect, that is, they had misunderstood an essential part of the story.

In a nutshell: The so-called Pontifical Biblical Commission, of which the current head is the Jesuit “Cardinal” Luis Ladaria Ferrer in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Destruction of the Faith, just recently published a study commissioned by Francis entitled Che cosa è l’uomo? Un itinerario di antropologia biblica (“What is man? A roadmap of biblical anthropology”). Although the document is referenced on the Vatican web site, a link to its electronic version has not yet been posted. So far it has been released only in paperback.

Some reports by otherwise reliable sources were saying that this study explicitly endorses sodomy as a legitimate and respectable practice among human beings, essentially no different from natural sexual relations between the married. Since they provided quotes to support that claim, the matter seemed clear. However, it turns out that the quotes in question were simply summarizing what “dissenting voices” were saying and did not reflect the position of the authors.

For the time being it looked as though the whole study was perhaps a trial balloon to test the reaction among Novus Ordos to see how far Francis can push the envelope. In the face of strong and vociferous resistance, Francis could reject the study and portray himself as the great heroic savior of orthodoxy (as he did in the closing speech of the 2014 Synod). His useful idiots, such as Jimmy Akin, would waste no time pointing out that, after all, this was merely a study by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which has no magisterial weight, so there is really nothing to get worked up about.

On the other hand, if resistance should be minimal or ineffective, Francis could use the study as the impetus needed to “update” doctrine to agree with the latest “scientific” discoveries and cutting-edge “exegetical” findings. This is what he did, more or less, with his recent change to the teaching on capital punishment, with what he’s announced he’s pondering with regard to “ecological sins”, and with what he’s been trying to do with the issue of “women deacons” in the early Church. For the latter, the commission hasn’t yet produced the desired result, so he tells them to study more, presumably until they “discover” what will enable him to have ordained deaconettes in the future.

Besides — had the facts been as reported by the mistaken news sources and by our own original post — the grossly misnamed Pontifical Biblical Commmission would have happened to be in line with “Abp.” Charles Scicluna’s recent observation that same-sex attraction doesn’t really predispose one to sin, with Hellboy James Martin’s blasphemous questioning of the inerrancy of Scripture on that very topic, and with “Cardinal” Christoph Schonborn’s feeling “touched” by sodomites wanting to “marry” their partners.

At a time when blatant theological inanities, doctrinal errors, and frightful blasphemy and impiety are part of the daily Novus Ordo news cycle, especially pertaining to the Vatican, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the true from the false, especially when more than one source is mistaken. There went hours of work!

The following reports give an accurate overview of the PBC’s study, which is troubling enough without any misrepresentations:

• “Pontifical Biblical Commission examines question: What is man?”
• “Book explores what Bible says about being human”
• “Pontifical Biblical Commission study puts man in new light”

Please excuse the error.