A Retraction
One duty an honest man, especially one who brags he is a philosopher, dare not shirk is to admit he is wrong with the humility of a philosopher when proven wrong. In a posting today, I expressed misgivings about letting my kids read all about Lavender Dumbledore.
The reader deiseach heroically steps forth to drive away the harpies of error preying on my feast of thought.
No disagreement there.
And I do agree that the revelation of Dumbledore as gay did feel tacked-on and clumsy, a propaganda point rather than an integral part of his character.
However – we don’t know that Albus was unchaste (the only jokes that could be applicable about the Dumbledore brothers’ putative love lives were those about Aberforth being arrested for "performing inappropriate charms" on a goat."
Quote from Wikipedia:
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." 141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."
Indeed, I think this is a great opportunity to teach your children the Christian and Catholic approach. If we tell our children that all gays are evil, wicked, horrible people, as soon as they get older and go into the world and meet gay people who are not evil, wicked, horrible people, they will almostinevitably think we are full of nonsense and all our attitudes and beliefs about the sinfulness of the actively homosexual lifestyle are equally dunderheaded. And that’s where we will have failed to teach them properly about the reasons for the Church’s teachings and the nature of sin.
Teaching our children that it is not because the person is him- or herself evil, horrible, nasty and mean but that it is all about sin, our fallen nature, and the proper relationship of the soul to God is a different matter.
My comment:
Well, who am I to argue with the Catechism? I owe Rowling an apology. She is not an agent of the darkness at all, but of the light, since she is showing both the harm that disordered appetites can cause, and displays clearly the correct and moral duty of a man suffering such disorder, which is to be chaste.
I must laugh at myself, and not because I am funny, but because I am wrong.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
