Can you help with the Catholic teaching on homosexuality?

[Aldaris19]

Hi, I am having a discussion with an Atheist. One of the point that he keeps throwing at me is Catholic Church’s opinion on homosexuality. He seems to be making the claim that the RCC says that gays cannot possibly experience love. I have never heard this before. I always knew that the RCC opposed homosexual acts, but had never heard that we taught that homosexual are “faking” their love. So, I asked him for proof and he gave me this quote from the catechism:

“[Homosexual acts] do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.”

I noticed that this sentence is a little pedantic, so, could you explain what this means. Does it really mean that gay people “cannot possibly experience love”.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

The Church is not saying that people with same sex attraction cannot experience the emotional high that comes from the desire to be one with another (what our culture calls “falling in love”). Such an experience can be an effective instigator of a deeper love that draws the person out of the self and into an unselfish desire for the good of the other. This latter development is the only thing that can keep a man and woman faithful to each other until death. The “falling in love” mechanism without such development remains a self-centered infatuation that leads nowhere and eventually dies. We have seen this played out ad nauseum in Hollywood.

The key to understanding the sentence you quote is “complementarity.” Their very bodies are not complementary and require much adaption by using organs in a manner for which they are not designed. This seems to be the elephant in the room. To ignore this is to also ignore that such a configuration cannot produce new life which is an essential element in marriage and the maintaining of the human race. This is what the Church calls disordered.

What is really significant here though, is the hope that such persons who bare this cross will come to the experience of the only love that can truly satisfy all persons, regardless of their sexual attractions. It is through His cross that we know who we are and are truly complete. But I don’t expect most atheists to understand this.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.