I will point out that Camille Paglia has gone on record, repeatedly, as condoning child sexual abuse & child pornography. She changed her mind later, but -- who cares? Being pro-pedophilia is the #1 flag that a person should be ignored completely, especially on matters of sexuality. I find it odd that her thought is so influential to Mr. Adubato, who is writing from an explicitly Catholic perspective. I would expect references to the ideas of saints, uncanonized Catholic thinkers, non-Catholic Christian theologians -- Paglia is none of these. She is also not a non-Christian who has achieved great things in her own field as, say, Einstein or Sigmund Freud did. What exactly does she have to offer, again? Besides a legitimation of vile crimes which she herself will later recant?
I've noticed an odd thread where people (not just Paglia) who pathologize adult homosexuality, or who link it with pedophilia, will (at best) endorse CSA or (at worst) enable or actually commit it. In some cases, the response toward homosexuality is actually *harsher* than toward child molestation. Off the top of my head: Br. John Harvey, Dan Mattson (who sexually abused a boy for years), Br. Tony Anatrella (who also abused teenagers), Paul McHugh. I'm reminded of how people who believe in conspiracy theories usually don't stop at one. (Also: I really, really object to your use of the term "boylover" for exactly this reason. This is a pedophile term, and websites with this term in the URL have been taken down in anti-child porn raids.)
Mr. Adubato has elsewhere noted a "vibe shift" where, unlike the Courage vs Dignity and Spiritual Friendship vs Crisis Magazine tugs-of-war of yore, nobody...really went into a tizzy about his article. Gen Z Caths don't have the same battles about "gay" self-description or "intrinsically disordered" of generations past.
I think this is because nobody really cares about what First Things Magazine puts out anymore.
In the USA, the gay culture war has been won. The Gen X gay/SSA crowd, for all their failings, were adults (as old as we are now) in a legal regime far more hostile to them. A lot of these back-and-forths took place, as well, before the 2018 PA report with the ensuing collapse of what remained of Catholic credibility. Queers just don't care about conservative Christian opinion the way they used to. They don't *have* to. Being a Catholic in the year 2025 is as much an "alternative lifestyle choice", a hobby, as anything else these days. We're "vegan gamers" with Hildegard of Bingen's music and Cologne Cathedral as cool bonuses. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is offering an *eighty percent* discount on its magazine, for crying out loud.
I think that there's a category error wrt eros/philia/romantic love/platonic love in a lot of Christian talk about romance and desire. My soul is slothful and my feeble mind quails before the glory of the Infinite One, and so I am unable to either remember or go searching for this [academic] article I was reading on Augustine's views of sexuality. The author summarized ancient views of love by saying something like:
"Eros is self-serving, and finds its end in intercourse. Philia serves the Other, and finds its end in discourse."
I thought: aha! so, properly speaking, I *don't* experience Eros for women. (I am very close to being asexual, btw.) I want to Discourse my beloved all night long. It is a homo...philic desire.
But in gay Christian talk, "eros" gets easily equated to "romance", and "philia" to "platonic love". Despite the fact that the desire to be someone's #1 Discourser can easily be a romantic one. Philia is broader than either romance or platonic friendship; both fit into it.
Also, if we take this view, technically Eros is not love at all, since "Love seeks the Other's good", and Eros is about getting yourself off.
In short, homoEros can be condemned under a Pauline framework. HomoRomance...not so much. (WHY DO YOU HATE PHILIA???) Even "finding someone hot" is not the same thing as Eros.
Thanks for this, Matt.
I will point out that Camille Paglia has gone on record, repeatedly, as condoning child sexual abuse & child pornography. She changed her mind later, but -- who cares? Being pro-pedophilia is the #1 flag that a person should be ignored completely, especially on matters of sexuality. I find it odd that her thought is so influential to Mr. Adubato, who is writing from an explicitly Catholic perspective. I would expect references to the ideas of saints, uncanonized Catholic thinkers, non-Catholic Christian theologians -- Paglia is none of these. She is also not a non-Christian who has achieved great things in her own field as, say, Einstein or Sigmund Freud did. What exactly does she have to offer, again? Besides a legitimation of vile crimes which she herself will later recant?
I've noticed an odd thread where people (not just Paglia) who pathologize adult homosexuality, or who link it with pedophilia, will (at best) endorse CSA or (at worst) enable or actually commit it. In some cases, the response toward homosexuality is actually *harsher* than toward child molestation. Off the top of my head: Br. John Harvey, Dan Mattson (who sexually abused a boy for years), Br. Tony Anatrella (who also abused teenagers), Paul McHugh. I'm reminded of how people who believe in conspiracy theories usually don't stop at one. (Also: I really, really object to your use of the term "boylover" for exactly this reason. This is a pedophile term, and websites with this term in the URL have been taken down in anti-child porn raids.)
Mr. Adubato has elsewhere noted a "vibe shift" where, unlike the Courage vs Dignity and Spiritual Friendship vs Crisis Magazine tugs-of-war of yore, nobody...really went into a tizzy about his article. Gen Z Caths don't have the same battles about "gay" self-description or "intrinsically disordered" of generations past.
I think this is because nobody really cares about what First Things Magazine puts out anymore.
In the USA, the gay culture war has been won. The Gen X gay/SSA crowd, for all their failings, were adults (as old as we are now) in a legal regime far more hostile to them. A lot of these back-and-forths took place, as well, before the 2018 PA report with the ensuing collapse of what remained of Catholic credibility. Queers just don't care about conservative Christian opinion the way they used to. They don't *have* to. Being a Catholic in the year 2025 is as much an "alternative lifestyle choice", a hobby, as anything else these days. We're "vegan gamers" with Hildegard of Bingen's music and Cologne Cathedral as cool bonuses. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is offering an *eighty percent* discount on its magazine, for crying out loud.
I think that there's a category error wrt eros/philia/romantic love/platonic love in a lot of Christian talk about romance and desire. My soul is slothful and my feeble mind quails before the glory of the Infinite One, and so I am unable to either remember or go searching for this [academic] article I was reading on Augustine's views of sexuality. The author summarized ancient views of love by saying something like:
"Eros is self-serving, and finds its end in intercourse. Philia serves the Other, and finds its end in discourse."
I thought: aha! so, properly speaking, I *don't* experience Eros for women. (I am very close to being asexual, btw.) I want to Discourse my beloved all night long. It is a homo...philic desire.
But in gay Christian talk, "eros" gets easily equated to "romance", and "philia" to "platonic love". Despite the fact that the desire to be someone's #1 Discourser can easily be a romantic one. Philia is broader than either romance or platonic friendship; both fit into it.
Also, if we take this view, technically Eros is not love at all, since "Love seeks the Other's good", and Eros is about getting yourself off.
In short, homoEros can be condemned under a Pauline framework. HomoRomance...not so much. (WHY DO YOU HATE PHILIA???) Even "finding someone hot" is not the same thing as Eros.