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Catholic Church and homosexuality

Attitude of the Catholic Church to homosexuality and gay people

The Catholic Church condemns same-sex sexual activity and denies the validity of same-sex marriage. While the Church says it opposes "unjust" discrimination against homosexual persons, it supports what it considers "just" discrimination in the employment of teachers or athletic coaches, in adoption, in the military and in housing. The Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II considers sexual activity between members of the same sex to be a grave sin against chastity and sees homosexual attraction as objectively disordered. However, the Catechism also states that homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity".

Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers. ~ Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders
If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Quotes

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Exhortation to the Heathen. Translated by William Wilson. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885)
  • It were tedious to recount his adulteries of all sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not even abstain from boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, and another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be worshipped by your wives, and let them pray that their husbands be such as these — so temperate; that, emulating them in the same practices, they may be like the gods. Such gods let your boys be trained to worship, that they may grow up to be men with the accursed likeness of fornication on them received from the gods.
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher. Translated from the Syriac Version by D. M. Kay (n.d.)
  • [A]nd some polluted themselves by lying with males.
    • Aristides of Athens, Apology, VIII
The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, on the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Translated by members of the English Church, Vol. VII (1841), pp. 44–52
  • All of these affections then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonoured than the body in diseases. ... [The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men.
The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas, Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (2nd ed., 1920)
  • [W]herever there occurs a special kind of deformity whereby the venereal act is rendered unbecoming, there is a determinate species of lust. This may occur in two ways: First, through being contrary to right reason, and this is common to all lustful vices; secondly, because, in addition, it is contrary to the natural order of the venereal act as becoming to the human race: and this is called "the unnatural vice." This may happen in several ways. First, by procuring pollution, without any copulation, for the sake of venereal pleasure: this pertains to the sin of "uncleanness" which some call "effeminacy." Secondly, by copulation with a thing of undue species, and this is called "bestiality." Thirdly, by copulation with an undue sex, male with male, or female with female, as the Apostle states (Romans 1:27): and this is called the "vice of sodomy." Fourthly, by not observing the natural manner of copulation, either as to undue means, or as to other monstrous and bestial manners of copulation.
    • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, Article 11. Whether the unnatural vice is a species of lust?
  • In every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend. Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting. This may be observed both in speculative and in practical matters. Wherefore just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as determined by nature. Therefore, since by the unnatural vices man transgresses that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions, it follows that in this matter this sin is gravest of all.
    • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, Article 12. Whether the unnatural vice is the greatest sin among the species of lust?
The Totall Discourse of The Rare Adventures & Painefull Peregrinations of long Nineteene Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the most famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affrica (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906)
  • The fift day of my staying here, I saw a Spanish Souldier and a Maltezen boy burnt in ashes, for the publick profession of Sodomy, and long or night, there were above a hundred Bardassoes, whoorish boyes that fled away to Sicilie in a Galleyot, for feare of fire but never one Bugeron stirred, being few or none there free of it.
  • In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.
  • In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. 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.
  • What should be noticed is that, in the presence of such remarkable diversity, there is nevertheless a clear consistency within the Scriptures themselves on the moral issue of homosexual behaviour. The Church's doctrine regarding this issue is thus based, not on isolated phrases for facile theological argument, but on the solid foundation of a constant Biblical testimony.
    • On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), §5
  • [T]he deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgement made there against homosexual relations..
    • On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), §6
  • Paul uses homosexual behaviour as an example of the blindness which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than homosexual relations.
    • On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), §6
  • There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil-statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved.
    The Church can never be so callous. It is true that her clear position cannot be revised by pressure from civil legislation or the trend of the moment. But she is really concerned about the many who are not represented by the pro-homosexual movement and about those who may have been tempted to believe its deceitful propaganda. She is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society's understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.
    • On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), §9
  • It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs.
    • On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), §10
  • Grave sins against chastity differ according to their object: adultery, masturbation, fornication, pornography, prostitution, rape, and homosexual acts. These sins are expressions of the vice of lust.
  • It must be said forcefully that so-called homosexual persons are in the first place persons. As such, they are capable of generosity, sensitivity, tenderness. Nonetheless, never has the word "love" been used so much in ways that distort it. It is clear that just because the word "love" appears in a sentence does not mean that it is truly a question of love. All that being said, it is impossible to speak of homosexual love per se. One can have friendship for persons of the same sex, but it is important to say that the love of friendship is not necessarily conjugal love. In the strict sense of the term, conjugal love is the summit of the love of friendship. When we speak of homosexual love as though it were a form of conjugal love, it is impossible because two men or two women cannot fulfill the characteristics of conjugal
    • Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Hope for the World: To Unite All Things in Christ (2016), p. 99
  • It is necessary, therefore, to try to understand the causes for same-sex attraction: there may be difficulties in the relationship with the father, an overly possessive mother, a homosexual experience at an age when one is very impressionable, or sexual abuse. We must help young men and young women to understand better these attractions to their own sex, so that they might be convinced that they are not "born that way". The Lord did not create a "homosexual person", and therefore that cannot be someone's deepest identity.
    • Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Hope for the World: To Unite All Things in Christ (2016), pp. 100–101
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