What does the catholic catechism say about homosexuality
II. The Vocation to Chastity
Chastity means the prosperous integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the bond of one person to another, in the finish and lifelong mutual present of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The morality of the person
The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and adore placed in him. This integrity ensures the cohesion of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.
Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human autonomy. the alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds accord, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free option, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in
A few years before lgbtq+ marriage became the statute of the land, I was in a Baltimore pub having dinner with a Jesuit priest. We were talking about vocation, and I was telling him I wanted to go to graduate academy so I could absorb how to offer theological arguments in favor of homosexuality.
“And you know”, I told him, “the story of Sodom and Gomorrah isn’t about homosexuality per se, but rape. Even Jesus interprets the cities’ downfall in terms of their inhospitality.”
“Sure”, he said, taking another drink.
“And the biblical laws prohibiting same-sex activity were intended to maximise the population”, I added.
He nodded.
“And Paul’s rhetoric about what goes against nature …”
He trim me off. “Why are you so obsessed with this? You want to focus all your graduate work on this?”
I didn’t understand the question. I had to focus all my attention on this. These were the so-called “clobber passages” that Catholics and Protestants alike include used to marginalise queer people for centuries. I couldn’t just leave them be. I couldn’t just let them go unchallenged.
“Taking on these passages is important to me because I’m gay. And I want to get married.”
“OK, then get married.”
“And I
What the Church teaches about homosexual inclinations
Reason, Faith and Homosexual Acts
John Finnis
Oxford University and University of Notre Dame
The Church “refuses to consider the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and insists that every person has a fundamental identity: the creature of God and, by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.”[1] Each person also has a “sexual identity”: either male or female, guy or woman.[2] The Church does not use the term “sexual identity” as some people do, who claim that people hold “sexual identities” as homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, and so forth. Instead, the Church teaches that each male should accept his sexual identity as a guy, and each female her sexual identity as a woman; and that means accepting that one is different from and complementary to[3] – and same in dignity with[4] -- persons of the contrary sex (gender).
The Church has sometimes spoken of “homosexual persons.” Anyone who has a “more or less strong tendency towards” sexual activity with a person or persons of the same sex can be so described. Of course, as is well established, most such persons are also “heterosexual persons.”&
Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives
Catholic Catechism on Homosexuality
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Over the centuries, the Church has often issued pronouncements defending Catholic morality. Among these decrees more than one has condemned the practice of homosexuality. Until recent years, however, the more common term used by the Church was &#;sodomy&#; and not homosexuality.
The reason for the change in vocabulary has been mainly the widespread denial that sodomy is anywhere formally condemned by Consecrated Scripture. Another reason is that homosexuality has turn into so prevalent in the modern world that one psychological science after another has developed a library of literature defending the practice of homosexuality.
This catechism is an in-depth investigation of the Catholic Church&#;s teaching on homosexuality as found especially in two Vatican documents on the subject. The first was issued in under the authority of Pope Paul VI; the second was published in under the authority of Pope John Paul II.
Our catechism will follow this chronological sequence of the two documents. The first document is called the &#;Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Se
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