Dang, I hate it when I’m right.
*Declaration
On Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics
Persona Humana
GIVEN BY
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
ON DECEMBER 29, 1975*
VIII
At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people.
A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable;
and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.
In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life.
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.[18] 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.
XIII
It is up to the Bishops to** instruct the faithful in the moral teaching concerning sexual morality, however great may be the difficulties in carrying out this work in the face of ideas and practices generally prevailing today. This traditional doctrine must be studied more deeply. It must be handed on in a way capable of properly enlightening the consciences of those confronted with new situations and it must be enriched with a discernment of all the elements that can truthfully and usefully be brought forward about the meaning and value of human sexuality. But the principles and norms of moral living reaffirmed in this Declaration must be faithfully held and taught. It will especially be necessary to bring the faithful to understand that the Church holds these principles not as old and inviolable superstitions, nor out of some Manichaean prejudice, as is often alleged, but rather because she knows with certainty that they are in complete harmony with the Divine order of creation and with the spirit of Christ, and therefore also with human dignity.**
It is likewise the Bishops’ mission to** see that a sound doctrine enlightened by faith and directed by the Magisterium of the Church is taught in faculties of theology and in seminaries. Bishops must also ensure that confessors enlighten people’s consciences and that catechetical instruction is given in perfect fidelity to Catholic doctrine.**
…edited due to space constraints…
All lay people, for their part, by virtue of their rights and duties in the work of the apostolate, should endeavor to act in the same way.
…once again edited to fit the 5000…
At the audience granted on November 7, 1975, to the undersigned Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Sovereign Pontiff by Divine Providence Pope Paul VI approved this Declaration “On certain questions concerning sexual ethics,” confirmed it and ordered its publication.
*Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 29th, 1975.
Franjo Cardinal Seper
Prefect
Most Rev. Jerome Hamer, O.P.
Titular Archbishop of Lorium
Secretary*
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19751229_persona-humana_en.html
