Ite ad Thomam publishes new edition of St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah

Ite ad Thomam publishes new edition of St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah

Ite ad Thomam is pleased to announce the launch of its new publishing wing, Ite ad Thomam Books and Media, and its first book, The Book of Gomorrah and St. Peter Damian's Struggle Against Ecclesiastical Corruption, a denunciation of priestly homosexuality in the 11th century by St. Peter Damian, Italian Benedictine, cardinal, and Doctor of the Church.

The Book of Gomorrah and St. Peter Damain's Struggle Against Ecclesiastical Corruption brings to the modern reader the text of St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah, the most powerful denunciation of the vice of sodomy ever penned by a Catholic saint, one that addresses the crisis of homosexuality in the priesthood of the 11th century.  The Book of Gomorrah offers a scathing and impassioned analysis of the evil of homosexual behavior, while at the same time expressing compassion for those who have fallen into such vice and the possibility of their redemption by the aid of divine grace.  It explains the devastating effects of the vice both spiritually and psychologically, and warns that such behavior, particularly among the clergy, will bring down the wrath of God. It also urges the permanent defrocking of clerics who are habituated to the sin of sodomy, and endorses the permanent confinement those guilty of child sex abuse.

This new translation of the Book of Gomorrah by Catholic journalist and scholar Matthew Cullinan Hoffman includes a foreword by Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara, and a 10,000-word biography of Damian that recounts his struggle against the rampant corruption of the clergy and laity of his time, a struggle that in many ways provides a "distant mirror" to our own day. It also contains an extensive translator's preface that addresses and resolves certain modern controversies about the Book of Gomorrah and answers historical revisionists who have sought to minimize the importance of the text.

In addition to Cardinal Sandoval's foreword, the book has received accolades from academics and clergy. Oxford professor Joseph Shaw says that Hoffman "has done a great service to his readers in preparing this edition." L'Osservatore Romano reporter Dr. Michela Ferri calls it "an excellent and accurate translation, and the most reliable English Version of the Liber Gomorrhianus of Saint Peter Damian."  Fr. Shenan Boquet, President of Human Life International, calls it "a tremendous gift to the Church, at a time when she desperately needs to hear the undiluted truth, spoken with love, even at the risk of offending."

To purchase a copy of the Book of Gomorrah and St. Peter Damian's Struggle Against Ecclesiastical Corruption, click here.