It would appear that your desire to be “fair” to Mark Shea is blinding you to the point I am raising. You note that Mark Shea did not put Perry Lorenzo’s private life “under surveillance.” In other words, he just doesn’t know Perry Lorenzo all that well.
But this is precisely my point. How can Shea regard Mr. Lorenzo as being not only an inspiration but “very likely” a Saint?
Saints are known for holiness of life. Isn’t it a bit rash to say that someone was “very likely” a Saint when that person was publically known to have a homosexual inclination and lived with another man who professed his “love” for him?
By the way, homosexual, Pope Saint Pius X, in his 1910 Catechism, teaches us that sodomy ranks second in gravity to voluntary homicide, among the sins that ‘cry out to God for vengeance.’ According to this Catechism, these sins ‘are said to cry out to God because the Holy Spirit says so and because their iniquity is so grave and manifest that it provokes God to punish with more severe chastisements.’
The Catechism of the Catholic Church published by the Vatican in 1994 teaches clearly that homosexuality is contrary to nature and that homosexual acts are among the ‘sins gravely contrary to chastity.’ (CCC, 2396). This Catechism teaches that homosexual acts are ‘intrinsically disordered,’ ‘contrary to the natural law,’ and that ‘under no circumstances can they be approved.’ (CCC, 2357)....Now while it is true that everything must be done to help sinners, this cannot include helping them to sin or to remain in sin. Because of human frailty, every sinner deserves both pity and compassion. However, vice and sin must be excluded from this compassion. This because sin can never be the proper object of compassion. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 1).
It is a false compassion which supplies the sinner with the means to remain attached to sin. Such ‘compassion’ provides an assistance (whether material or moral) which actually enables the sinner to remain firmly attached to his evil ways. By contrast, true compassion leads the sinner away from vice and back to virtue. As Thomas Aquinas explains:
“We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written: ‘They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.’” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.6, ad 4, citing Jeremiah 15:19).
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the sentiment of compassion only becomes a virtue when it is guided by reason, since “it is essential to human virtue that the movements of the soul should be regulated by reason.” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, c.3). Without such regulation, compassion is merely a passion. A false compassion is a compassion not regulated and tempered by reason and is, therefore, a potentially dangerous inclination. This because it is subject to favoring not only that which is good but also that which is evil (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 3).
An authentic compassion always stems from charity. True compassion is an effect of charity (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.3, ad 3). But it must be remembered that the object of this virtue is God, whose love extends to His creatures. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.3). Therefore, the virtue of compassion seeks to bring God to the one who suffers so that he may thereby participate in the infinite love of God. As St. Augustine explains:
“’Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Now, you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection.” (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, No. 49).
Errata:
Scratch the word “homosexual” in the fourth sentence of my response after the words “By the way.”
And I still say that Shea's writing shows vehement opposition to gay sex acts and the Gay Pride movement/ Gay activism , while at the same time shielding individuals from the serious injustices which are known as "rash judgment, slander and detraction."
Shea sometimes expresses himself with an impetuosity that invites exasperated questions (like, "'Very likely a saint'?? Wouldn't it be more prudent to say 'a man whose public virtues I admire and love, and whose private sex practices I do not know'?)
In the matter of Mr. Perry Lorenzo, Mark Shea is extravagantly lauding his virtues, and ignoring possible sinful acts because he frankly does not know whether the man committed them or not.
Extending the greatest possible charity of judgment in this matter may strike us as being naive, but it is not a fault like “assuming the worst.”