When maybe it wasn't a sin. The Council of Nicaea and the condemnation of homosexuality
Sometimes it is thought that the condemnation of homosexuality has always been there, carved in marble from day zero of the history of the Catholic church. Yet Gianni Geraci – a statistician by training and a gay Christian who has been one of the voices of the Guado Group in Milan for years – reminds us that things went, so to speak... much less straight than they usually tell us.
Gianni is not a "professional" theologian, but as a good statistician, here he enjoys putting order between centuries of ideas, confusions, controversies and (above all) many ecclesiastical misunderstandings on the topic.
In his booklet When maybe it wasn't a sin, literally takes us on a journey into the first Christian centuries, showing that the alleged absolute condemnation was not so immediate. Already in the first pages the author reminds us that even if "it is widely believed that the condemnation of homosexuality is an undeniable constant in the history of the Catholic Church", the documents show a "much more articulated and complex" reality in which, alongside those who criminalised, "there were authors who showed themselves to be much more tolerant" when perhaps it was not a sin.
And here comes the beauty, because we enter a world where "eunuchs from birth" are not a picturesque figure from a novel, but a recognized social category. For centuries no one was very scandalized: they existed, they were in the courts, they voted, they made wills, in short they lived. Then at a certain point things changed, and this little book tries to explain when and why.
The most surprising part? The author passes through Athanasius, Gregory, Pier Damiani and arrives at a Pope who, despite receiving a very violent tirade against "sodomitic customs", decides to respond... with a certain amount of mercy.
It is an agile text, ironic already in the title, well documented but readable even after dinner, and built with the intelligence of someone who combines faith, study and shows something precious: the theme was not born yesterday, it was not born in the twentieth century or even in modernity. It is a long, layered story, full of contradictions.
Ultimately it is a booklet that invites you to breathe, to return to the sources, and even to smile in front of a history that, for centuries, was less than a penal code and much more a living and human terrain, made up of tensions, Debates and - Coincidentally - also real people.
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GIANNI GERACI
WHEN PERHAPS IT WAS NOT A SIN.
The Council of Nicaea and the condemnation of male homosexuality
* * *
«Eunuchs from birth»
Eunuchs and Arianism
Defeat of the Aryans and condemnation of homosexuality
Gregory, Ausonius and John Chrysostom
An underground reality
Pier Damiani and the birth of the "sodomites"
The response of pope Leo IX
