Grace & Peace!
Nope…we mean sexuality. Many things in our culture push the idea that we are sexual beings and we “have” to have sex. Kids are given condoms because kids will be kids and we don’t want them to get hurt when they inevitably sleep with someone. We talk about sexual “needs” when really we are referring to sexual “wants”. Nobody ever died from lack of sex but our society, in many subtle and overt ways, pushes just that sort of idea.
Forgive me for barging in, but I think we need to be very clear about what we’re talking about. What you’re saying, Cecilia, makes no sense in light of the Roman catechism. In fact, even the catechism agrees that we
cannot control our sexuality, but we *can *control how we act upon it, how we express it.
The reason is this: the catechism defines sexuality as an important part of what makes us human, an integral component of our human nature because it has everything to do with our relational capacity, that is, our affective ability to relate with and to other people. (I can quote the relevant passages if you like.)
As such, sexuality is construed as a given. It is not something that you turn on or off.
Where the catechism buts heads with science and our growing understanding of human sexuality, though, is that the catechism does not believe in heterosexuality or homosexuality as those terms are generally understood. Granted, the sexuality which the catechism discusses looks most clearly like heterosexuality. But the term is not frequently used, and this can only be seen as a conscious choice.
Homosexuality, therefore, is considered a
defective sexuality–hence it is called an objective disorder. It is subject to all of the various moral strictures given in the catechism because it is understood as a rupture in the very relational capacity itself. As such, it is a moral disorder because it affects how a homosexual
wills. Their affectivity is damaged. It is nothing like a physical disorder of any sort, and it is only remotely related to other pathologies such as alcoholism or kleptomania, because while those pathologies affect the will, they do not, however, affect the relational capacity of the human being directly–an alcoholic can be sober, but can still have normal human relationships. A homosexual, however, can be chaste, but their fundamental relational capacity remains impaired.
Like it or not, this is the most reasonable conclusion one can reach given the catechism’s logic: a homosexual is someone whose relationships cannot help but be inappropriate–this inappropriateness finds its ultimate expression in what the catechism considers the evil of homosexual acts. In short, according to the catechism, a homosexual is someone whose humanity is irrevocably impaired. It’s not entirely missing. It’s just broken. That brokenness is different from the brokennes of original sin in that the catechism generally understands nature to be wounded, but not destroyed by sin. Homosexuality, being an objective disorder, however, is characterized as an impairment of basic human affectivity. Willing the good is not impossible to someone whose will is broken by original sin (as all of our wills are so broken)–that is, human desire is still capable of being influenced by grace. Homosexual desire, however, is incapable of such influence. A homosexual’s humanity is therefore impaired. To be honest, and I mean this only slightly in jest, if one is seeking a comparison, the catechism suggests it is not so much to alcoholism that homosexuality can be compared, but more to something like vegan meatloaf. It’s still meatloaf…but there’s no meat.
Which is not to say that a homosexual is
less human than a heterosexual. No. A homosexual is perfectly human. A homosexual’s humanity is simply more *inhibited *by various viccissitudes that may or may not include biology, genetics, nature and/or nurture. The solution is not to be
more human, therefore (that would be absurd)–it is, rather, to accept the limitations that have been placed on the full expression of their humanity.
To be fair, the moral conclusions that the catechism draws are not wrong or unjust given the catechism’s basic assumptions regarding sexuality.
Those* assumptions*, however,
are wrong.
Obviously, I have a problem with the Roman catechism’s construction of sexuality. I am a gay Anglo-Catholic (there are many who would say that’s redundant, but
c’est la vie). As a culture, we are in the midst of discovering that the catechism’s view of sexuality is like the Church’s embrace of geocentrism at the dawn of the Copernican revolution: simply untenable. That’s just a fact. On the ethical side of things, we have evidence that people in homosexual relationships
can in fact grow in virtue, by God’s grace: the surest sign of human flourishing. This is also an observable fact. I’ve been in a committed monogamous relationship with a lovely Christian man for almost 12 years now. I love him. I’m a better person for it, and a better Christian because of it. I am happier, not because our home is a den of insatiable homosexual orgiastic lust and because I have the tendency to confuse happiness with pleasure, be it sexual or otherwise. Like many here, I am generally suspicious of the pursuit of happiness (particularly conceived of as pleasure) as an end in itself–it is certainly a questionable moral enterprise on which to embark. I have often been heard to quote the old saying, “count no man happy 'til he’s dead.” But I cannot deny that the love and relationship I share with my partner has been a source of great peace, joy, and, yes, a vessel of grace in my life.
(CONTINUED…)
