Peter Damian’s, The Book of Gomorrah

In the combox of the previous thread, I posted the following:

In my last comment I mentioned that I was “rereading four books on Catholic Church history that are germane to our topics at hand”—those four books are: Malachi Martin’s, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church; Peter De Rosa’s, Vicars of Christ; Philip Hughes, A History of the Church – Volume 2; and, John Rao’s, Black Legends. (I have also included germane sections from Philip Schaff’s multi-volume, History of the Christian Church and Warren Carroll’s, A History of Christendom - Volume 2.)

I am currently up to Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand)—who died on March 25, 1085—in my readings. (link)

Both Martin and Rao mentioned Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus (The Book of Gomorrah); from Martin’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, we read:

We still have documents of Byzantine ambassadors reporting on the four questions ritually put to every priest about to be consecrated as a bishop of the Roman Church: "Have you sodomized a boy? Have you fornicated with a nun? Have you sodomized any four legged animal? Have you committed adultery?" These questions accurately reflected the standard required of would be bishops. St. Peter Damian wrote a famous book, the Liber Gomorrhianus (Book of Gomorrha), graphically describing the venality, lechery, bestiality, and homicidal fecklessness of his fellow Roman clerics. (Page 131)

And John Rao:

These Tusculani, as they are generally styled, had enjoyed such a domineering position once before, and had sometimes even exercised it with more respectability than their debased predecessor. Unfortunately, they were soon to provide one of the worst of the possessors of the papal dignity, Benedict IX. Probably only twenty years old at his accession, Benedict sat three distinct times on the throne of St. Peter (1032-1044, 1045, and 1047-1048). This was due not only to political pressures but also to a corruption so great as to permit him literally to sell his own position and then try to steal it back after pocketing the dough. Vividly attacked as a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest by St. Peter Damian (1007-1072) in his aptly named Liber Gomorrhianus, Benedict was dismissed much more off-handedly by a future successor, Blessed Victor III (1086-1087), as being simply utterly unspeakable. (Page 272)

Peter Damian lived towards the end of the most corrupt and immoral period of Church history—the tenth and eleventh centuries. Accounts of simony, murder, fornication, homosexuality, and even bestiality engaged in by popes, bishops, clerics and monks were chronicled. Peter Damian’s The Book of Gomorrah, was an opusculum (little work) sent to Pope Leo IX circa A.D. 1051. It provides one of the most detailed accounts of the deviant sexual behavior being practiced by clerics and monks in his day.

Until this last week, I had not read Peter Damian’s The Book of Gomorrah. It was not available in English until 1982 (Pierre J. Payer); another English translation was published in 1990 (Owen J. Blum); and a third in 2015 (Matthew C. Hoffman). I have now read Payer’s and Hoffman's contributions. Google Books provides the following synopsis of the latter work:

"Alas, it is shameful to speak of it! It is shameful to relate such a disgusting scandal to sacred ears! But if the doctor fears the virus of the plague, who will apply the cauterization? If he is nauseated by those whom he is to cure, who will lead sick souls back to the state of health?"

With these words, St. Peter Damian introduces the Book of Gomorrah, undoubtedly the most stirringly eloquent and impassioned denunciation of sexual perversion ever penned by a Catholic saint. Although it was written almost a thousand years ago, the Book of Gomorrah in many ways seems addressed to our own times, associating the phenomena of clerical homosexual behavior and pederasty, and endorsing the imprisonment of clergy who are a danger to youth.

The Book of Gomorrah offers a scathing analysis of the evil of sodomy, while also 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 homosexual behavior and endorses the permanent confinement those guilty of child sex abuse.

This new translation by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman is the most accurate and faithful available in English, and carries a foreword by Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara. It also includes a 10,000-word biographical introduction recounting Damian's struggle against corruption in the Catholic Church, and a translator's preface that breaks new scholarly ground and resolves old controversies about the text. (link)

I found Hoffman’s book to be significantly superior to Payer's. In addition to his excellent translation (pp. 77-158), the “Introduction” (pp. 5-43) and "Translator’s Preface" (pp. 45-75) are quite informative. I especially appreciated his critique of the attempts by a number of Catholic authors to discredit The Book of Gomorrah (pp. 56-67).

Hoffman’s book is a must read for Catholics who have been appalled and scandalized by the numerous accounts of the practice of homosexuality/sodomy by a significant number of priests in the America's and Europe since Vatican II.

Grace and peace,

David