The French government is taking legal action against a Catholic priest for describing homosexuality as a sin. While this latest attack on traditional Catholic moral teaching has little chance of success, it does demonstrate the growing animosity towards and incomprehension of the catechism of the Catholic Church by a society that has made the promotion of homosexuality one of its main battlegrounds.
Abbé Matthieu Raffray, a priest who celebrates the traditional Latin Mass and who is well known to French Catholics on social media, posted a short video on temptations on his Instagram account as part of his Lenten teachings, in which he explains that homosexuality is a “weakness”: “We all have weaknesses: the greedy, the hot-tempered, the homosexual,” he explained to his audience. He considered homosexuality to be one of “all the sins, all the vices that can exist in humanity.” Aurore Bergé, the French minister responsible for combating discrimination, described his comments as “unacceptable.”
In a message posted on X, she said that she “asked the Interministerial Delegation for Combating Racism, Antisemitism and Anti-LGBT Hatred (DILCRAH) to report the matter to the public prosecutor on the basis of article 40” of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The DILCRAH took note of the minister’s message and confirmed that it had “notified the public prosecutor of the homophobic comments made by Mr. Raffray on his social networks.” In its message, the delegation added: “To speak of homosexuality as a weakness is shameful.”
Abbé Raffray is also under attack because the minister considers that his comments indirectly promote “conversion therapies,” which have been banned in France since 2022. In January, playing on words, the priest stated on his Twitter account that “every spiritual retreat is a conversion therapy,” but his comments unleashed a wave of hostile comments from LGBT associations.
Abbé Raffray has expressed his satisfaction on X with the publicity that the “grotesque controversies” have given to his account, which has now surpassed 20,000 followers in a short space of time.
But in an interview with the Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne, the clergyman expressed his concern about this latest attempt to intimidate the Catholic Church’s traditional moral teaching: “It’s Christian morality that’s under attack,” he explained, adding that he was doing nothing more than quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and in particular §2357:
Homosexuality refers to relationships between men or women who experience exclusive or predominant sexual attraction to persons of the same sex. It has taken very different forms over the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological origins remain largely unexplained. Based on Sacred Scripture, which presents it as a serious depravity, Tradition has always declared that “acts of homosexuality are intrinsically disordered.”
This is not the first time that the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality has been brought before the French courts. In 2022, a trial was held against the association Renaissance Catholique, for comments made in an article published in 2019, which described homosexual union as a “grave sin.” The complaint was lodged by three LGBT rights associations. The ruling, later upheld on appeal, found that the comments, which echoed the teaching of the Catholic Church, were in no way discriminatory. It is therefore unlikely that the government’s report will result in a conviction. Nevertheless, the violent and disproportionate reaction of Minister Aurore Bergé proves the degree of hostility of those in power in France to Christian morality.
