What do you think about homosexuality and why the Church does not accept it?

Good evening Father Angelo,

my name is Carlo.

I was wondering what you think about homosexuality and why the Church does not accept it?

Thank you good evening, I await your response.

Kind regards

Answer from the priest

Dear Carlo, 

1. When talking about homosexuality, it is necessary to distinguish between homosexual inclination and homosexual practice.

However, before giving an answer it is necessary to be clear about the meaning of sexuality.

2. It is before everyone’s eyes that the sexes are similar and dissimilar at the same time.

Similar because the scope is identical. In the study of anatomy they have to do with the reproductive system.

At the same time, they are dissimilar because they are not identical, although they are equal in the dignity of the person.

They are made to complement each other.

3. This complementarity is certainly physical, but it is also psychic.

One could go even further and say on a deeper level that male and female people are complementary.

In the same gender theory, despite the fact that sex is said to be amorphous, one ultimately defines oneself as male or female.

4. Returning to our discourse, namely on the Church’s thinking on homosexuality, it is said that homosexual inclination does not conform to the intrinsic meaning of sexuality, which by its nature is bipolar.

This is something that is not normal because the sexes are made to complete themselves first and foremost from a biological perspective.

For this reason, the Church recognizes that there is a disorder in this inclination.

Mind you: it does not say it is a sin or that you are in a state of sin because of that inclination.

It is only the person’s acts, actions, not inclinations that are a sin: these can be ordered or disordered.

In its magisterium the Church says that homosexual inclination is disordered.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church writes in this regard: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition” (CCC 2358).

As you can see, in the language of the Church there is no blaming and dealing with these people. Indeed, it says that they should be welcomed with respect, sensitivity, and an understanding of their discomfort or suffering. This is the meaning of the word compassion. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to use another term because the word compassion in Italian and Latin does not have the same meaning. In Latin it indicates participation in suffering, closeness.

5. As regards homosexual acts, the doctrine of the Church is expressed as follows: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, 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 approved” (CCC 2357).

6. It is worth noting the first expression used by the Church in giving moral evaluation: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture”.

The Church knows that its task is to transmit to men the truth revealed by God and in this task it must be faithful.

Moreover the Church knows that its task, equally identical to that of Holy Scripture, is to teach God’s ways to the holiness of life.

Here are some important statements from Sacred Scripture on this matter:

“This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality” (1 Ts 4,3); “Avoid immorality” (1 Cor 6,18); “ I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people” (1 Cor 5,9); “Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones” (Ef 5,3); “ Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6,9-10).

7. In its magisterium, the Church does not limit itself to presenting what God has said, but also tries to present the reasons for it.

The Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “Persona Humana” states: “For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality” (PH 8). In fact, they lack the complementarity of the sexes and the associated ability to arouse life.

Equally it remembers that “ the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal conjugal relations essentially contradicts the finality of the faculty” (PH 9). Therefore a person who behaves homosexual acts immorally.

It also says that “the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion” (CCC 2390). It then adds that “homosexual activity reinforces a disordered sexual inclination, for itself characterized by complacency” (HP 7, t.n.).

Here is the doctrine of the Church, derived from what God said and which has as its purpose to lead to the holiness of life.

I bless you, wish you well, and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo

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