Harlots in the Kingdom

Today while I was reading the news I received from Zenit.org I came across an article that struck me so much, "the harlots in the kingdom".

Reflecting about the seriousness of this issue it came to me that I, as a Christian, have the responsibility of witnessing the Gospel truth not only in my religious duties but also that of my social commitments.

I found the commentary of Father Cantalamesssa very challenging, provoking and very modern approach (yet well rooted in the Gospel) in explaining the issue on the harlots present in our society today.

Read the integral commentary:

ROME, SEPT. 23, 2005 (Zenit.org).- In his commentary on this Sunday's readings, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the Pontifical Household, speaks on how to confront someone in a Christian manner.

The Gospel does not push to carry out moralistic campaigns against harlots, but neither can we joke about the phenomenon, as if it were nothing at all. Today, among other things, prostitution exists under a new form which allows women to make more money with fewer risks. This is when a woman gives her body to others through photography or film. What a woman does, or is obliged to do, when she gives herself to pornography, and to certain advertising excesses, is to sell her own body. It is a worse form of prostitution, in a certain sense, than the traditional, because it does not respect people's freedom and feelings, imposing itself often publicly, without one being able to defend oneself from it.

Such phenomena would arouse in Christ today the same anger he manifested for the hypocrites of his time. It is, in fact, a question of hypocrisy. To pretend that everything is in its place, that it is innocuous, that there is no transgression whatsoever, or danger for anyone, when models, giving themselves even a certain -- studied -- air of innocence and naiveté, throw their body to the fodder of others' concupiscence.

But I would betray the spirit of the Gospel if I did not bring out into the light the hope that Christ's parable offers women who because of the most diverse circumstances (often out of desperation) find themselves on the streets, victims, in the majority of cases, of unscrupulous exploiters. The Gospel is "gospel," that is, good news, proclamation of redemption, of hope, also for harlots. More than that, perhaps first of all for them, Jesus wanted it to be this way.