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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.
