Ralph Martin and the Crisis of Clarity
The straying sheep you have not recalled; the lost you have not sought; the injured you have not bound up; the strong you have not guarded; and even what was sound, you have destroyed. (St. Augustine, Sermon on the Shepherds, Sermon 46)
There is a particular cruelty in offering welcome without truth. It is the cruelty of the smiling gatekeeper who opens the door to a collapsing house. For many, this is no abstraction. It is the lived story of men and women like Joseph Sciambra, who endured the hellish aftermath of ecclesiastical neglect—wounded not only by sin but by the silence of those charged to proclaim the Word.
Sciambra’s life once embodied what the world calls liberation: sex, affirmation, indulgence. In San Francisco’s Castro District, he was celebrated—and destroyed. He tells of priests who encouraged him, of parishes adorned with rainbow flags, and of a Church that smiled gently while he bled. Only when he encountered those faithful to Tradition—priests who spoke clearly of Heaven and Hell, sin and grace—did his descent stop. Their fidelity, not their softness, saved him.
So, when Pope Francis called for the Church to apologize to homosexuals, Sciambra responded with a profound yes—not for past harshness but for the Church’s failure to speak the truth in love. “When I hear Catholics say ‘you were born gay,’ I think: My God, they are killing us.” He meant it literally. His friends had died. He had nearly died. What he needed was not affirmation but salvation.
This is not a footnote. It is a hea
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
