Jesus tells us that every extramarital and premarital
sexual union is a grave violation of the virtue
of chastity; this is also true in the case of homosexuality.
In its Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral
Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith states that although the particular inclination of
the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong
tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination
itself must be seen as an objective disorder.
Therefore, special concern and pastoral attention should be directed
toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe
that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is
a morally acceptable option.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and teaches within the Church,
clearly states what the aims of the sexual act must be. Natural
law, Holy Scripture and Tradition insist on two inherent aims of
the marital act: namely, the unitive (i.e. the inseparable bond
between the man and woman) and the procreative (the bearing of children).
To exclude one of these fundamental aims is morally impermissible.
Since homosexual acts do not meet either of the two aims of the
conjugal act, all such acts are contrary to natural law and immoral.
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture – states the Catechism
of the Catholic Church – which presents homosexual acts as
acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual
acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the
natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They
do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.
Under no circumstances can they be appoved (2357).
Holy Scripture lists homosexual acts among the sins that exclude
people from salvation. Do not be decieved; neither idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor
6:9; cf. 1 Tim 1:9-11).
St. Paul deplores homosexual behavior as a grave depravity: women
exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise
gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion
for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving
in their own persons the due penalty for their error (Rom 1:26-27).
In Leviticus we read that if a man lies with a male as with a
woman, both of them have committed an abomination (Lev 20:13; cf.
18:22).
Thus, Holy Scripture condemns all extramarital, including homosexual,
sexual acts as a depravity contrary to the natural law. Any attempt
at a moral justification of homosexual acts and homosexual marriages
constitutes action against the Divine Law.
Human beings are either male or female in every cell of their
bodies from the moment of birth until death. Homosexuality, however,
is an acquired orientation, not unlike other personality traits
such as trust or lack of trust, sense of inferiority or superiority,
emotional dependence or inner freedom. These attitudes take shape
through the individual’s personal interaction with his parents,
peers and other people. Homosexuality is a disorder, apeculiar developmental
anomaly. Claims that homosexuality is an innate tendency have absolutely
no scientific basis. God created us as heterosexual beings. The
homosexual orientation is a psychosexual deviation acquired through
the negative influence of the environment.
Our hedonistic culture of death is blind to the objective evil
of homosexual acts. The best way of dealing with the orientation
– it claims – is to find a partner and live with him.
The Church founded by Christ, however, teaches that only in matrimony
between a man and a woman can sexual acts be moral. Thus, the person
who engages in homosexual behavior commits immorality.
To chose someone of the same sex for one’s sexual acivity
is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals,
of the Creator’s sexual design. Homosexual activity is not
a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so its thwarts
the call to a life of that form of selfgiving which the Gospel says
is the essence of Christian living (Letter to the Bishops of
the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,7).
The homosexual act achieves little more than mutual masturbation.
The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!"
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