"..... feast day of St. Peter Damian, whose famous work, the Book of Gomorrah, warns against a plague of homosexuality and sex abuse in the priesthood.
Damian’s Book of Gomorrah decries the widespread sexual misbehavior, particularly homosexual sodomy, raging through the ranks of priests and monks in the 11th century Church, and asks Pope St. Leo IX to take decisive action to stop it, warning of catastrophic results should he fail to do so.
Damian noted that priests were having sexual relations with their “spiritual children,” those to whom they had given sacramental grace. He approvingly invoked a medieval ecclesiastical law requiring priests who sexually abuse minors to be publicly humiliated, imprisoned, and kept under guard in perpetuity to prevent a repetition of the crime."
