Before I started this outreach, I thought my struggle would be with the secular gay community. No, that has not been the battle front. There is a gay civil war in the Church. Those that stand up for truth are few and ill-equipped; we have almost no support from the hierarchy. Meanwhile the gay-affirmative side controls entire parishes and LGBT ministries in almost every major archdiocese…

Joseph Sciambra is an angry man. He has plumbed the depths of the homosexual subculture. He has suffered for his involvement in promiscuity, pornography, drug abuse and self-abuse. He is still paying the price, in physical and psychological suffering. He has watched one friend after another die of AIDS. Now, having rediscovered his Catholic faith and reformed his life, he watches in frustration as Catholic priests encourage young men to explore the same path that nearly led him to ruin, and Catholic bishops refuse to intervene.

In his book Disordered [Amazon carries only the Kindle version; hard copies are available through the author’s web site], Sciambra tells how he became immersed in the reckless life of San Francisco’s notorious Castro district. In sometimes graphic detail he describes the degrading sexual practices that were accepted there — practices that were driven by emotional desperation. (This book will stay on a high shelf; I would not want impressionable young people to discover this sort of moral squalor.) In full confessional mode, Sciambra does not spare himself; he details his own sins. At the same time he manages to give the reader a strong sense of how horribly unhappy he was. This book vividly illustrates how serious sin leads to a life of desolation.

Finally this self-destructive young man reaches a point of no return. His health breaks down completely; he is near death, and not terribly interested in staying alive. But he calls out for help, his mother responds, and he begins the long road to physical recovery and moral reform.

For this reader, the spiritual conversion came just in time; I could not have stomached much more of the gut-wrenching tour through a world of joyless perversion and exploitation. But Sciambra’s story is not over by any means.

For one thing there is the story of the conversion itself. It is always fascinating to see how the “Hound of Heaven” chases down an errant soul. In Sciambra’s case, there is the gradual realization that for all of his life he has longed for an intimate relationship with a man he can admire and trust, until at last he encounters the God-Man who alone can fill that aching need.

But there is more to it, unfortunately. Sciambra cannot forget that when he first began to explore the homosexual life, he was encouraged by Catholic priests.

I will never forget how, during a failed dinner party intervention organized by my parents, the habitually happy priest they invited to set their wayward son on the right path — patted me on the back and said I was doing just fine; I belonged in the Castro with those who understood me.

This was not an isolated incident. On several occasions, priests to whom young Sciambra turned for counsel gave him the same sort of advice: to embrace his homosexuality, to continue doing the very things that were torturing and corrupting his soul.

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