Catholic's view on homosexuality?

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Just for the record, here’s what I get when I type “homosexuality” into the search feature:
Topic names:
Theology of the body (doesn’t scream “question about homosexuality” to me)
Purgatory (um, nope)
Catholic’s view on homosexuality (hey, that sounds right. Wait, that’s mine.)
Bishop something and the homosexual agenda (now, this might be sort of on target but it’s not exactly w hat I was looking for. It deals with an individual.)
There are many many more like that.
The only one that comes close is mine and “My position on homosexuality” which is not an official Catholic position, it is “my” position.

So I think I was well within the boundaries of this forum to have asked that question here.
 
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mosher:
Jaded27

if you are truly interested on what the Church teaches on homosexuality you should read the following links:

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFCERTN.HTM

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFHOMOL.HTM

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFHOMOP.HTM

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFHOMUN.HTM

I think that those sources will help to clarify what it is the Church teaches on homosexuality.
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THANK YOU
 
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about marital sexual union, and then homosexual acts:

1603 "The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage."87 The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, 88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."89

1604 God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love.90 Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’"91

1605 Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone."92 The woman, “flesh of his flesh,” his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a “helpmate”; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.93 "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been “in the beginning”: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."95

1643 "Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values."152

continued …
 
and conversely
  1. “Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, [Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10.] tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’[CDF, Persona humana 8.] 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.”
 
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Jaded27:
Are you jumping on all the people who have “take back the rainbow” in their sigs too?
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Nah, I restrain. Because that would probably turn pretty ugly.
 
To cut to the chase, it is ok to be homosexual but they have to be celibate because homosexual acts are a sin.

Michael 🙂
 
Christus Rex:
To cut to the chase, it is ok to be homosexual but they have to be celibate because homosexual acts are a sin.

Michael 🙂
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Not quite. Although is not sinful to struggle with same sex attractions (SSA) as long as one does not act on it, it is not OK to just accpet that one has SSA with no hope of recovery. Because SSA is both a psychological and moral diorder, for one to become a happy, and healthy person, one needs to work through his or her SSA. God wants us to be healty and happy.
 
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Loser:
Why do you feel a need for such denials? I’m not accusing you of being gay just it’s always puzzled me why people do stuff like that. And, as a bisexual myself, I find it rather offensive.
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Because he sincerely wants to know what the Church teaches on this subject. The issue of gay marriage and homosexuality is so pervasive in this culture right now (especially in my state of Massachusetts) that it behooves a person of faith to know the morality of these issues.
 
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Jaded27:
So what I’m reading (I just want to be clear) is that you can be gay, but you can’t act on it, right?

Because by acting on it it’s a sin, but if you are just gay and not act on it you have a mental condition or something? Is that it?
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A person struggling with homosexuality can’t help it if they are sexually attracted to members of the same sex- so the attraction can’t be a sin- a sin must be a conscious choice. All are called to be with God in heaven (whether they accept the call or not is a different story)- God would not create someone with a condition they cannot help, then damn them to hell for it. That is not reconcilable with the fact that God is all-loving. It is important to remember, though, that just because a person thinks a certain way doesn’t mean they have to act on it. Homosexual acts are mortally sinful- this is, always has been, and always will be Catholic teaching. Lust (not just noticing- it’s one thing to notice someone’s attractiveness- a different thing to objectify them and think about doing immoral things with them) is mortally sinful as well.

Here is an organization that is a support group for people who struggle with homosexuality. It is fully approved by the Church- you can find more information on Church teaching and homosexuality here.
 
My family would NEVER allow any gay and/or lesbian in their house, much less near them in the church pews.
 
The fact is that acting upon SSA is no more sinful than acting upon OSA since all are called to chastity. The SSA soul has the greater struggle perhaps since it is disordered to ever carry it out whereas there is God-given and blessed ways for OSA people to express it through marriage, an option which, because the attraction is disordered to begin with, cannot happen.
Pax tecum,
 
Jaded,

My understanding of the Church’s teachings on homosexuality is this:

Homosexual acts are grave sins. Grave matter is one of the 3 requirements for a mortal sin.

Same Sex Attraction (SSA) is considered to be intrinsically disordered. (I prefer “SSA” to “homosexual” because “SSA” doesn’t carry a hidden meaning of being actively homosexual.)

The Church doesn’t take a position on whether or not one is born with SSA. That belongs to the realm of science.

There!

In case you are interested, here’s more on the 3 requirements of mortal sins.
  1. “Grave matter” is something which breaks one of the Ten Commandments, or other things resulting in “anathema” and/or excummunication. (Or, disfellowshipping, if you will.)
Keeping the money when a cashier gives you too much change is probably not grave matter. Stealing a retired or disabled person’s pension fund would be grave, for sure!
  1. You must know for sure that what you are attempting is grave matter. A kid raised with books such as “Heather Has Two Mommies” might not know that homosexual sex was a grave matter.
  2. You must make a conscious choice to do it. So, while I know adultery is grave matter, if I was raped, I would not have consented. (And we Catholics are not required to fight back, to prove we did not consent.)
 
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m134e5:
God would not create someone with a condition they cannot help, then damn them to hell for it. That is not reconcilable with the fact that God is all-loving.
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Homosexuality is both morally and psychologically disordered. Therefore God cannot be the source of homosexuality; he does not create homosexauls. God does create heterosexuals but because of original sin, some of these heterosexuals can develop the psychological disorder known as Same Sex Attraction. But SSA is not intrinsic to the person. No person is homosexual intrinsically but only by the development of the disorder SSA, does one come be known as homosexual.
 
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Topher:
Homosexuality is both morally and psychologically disordered. Therefore God cannot be the source of homosexuality; he does not create homosexauls. God does create heterosexuals but because of original sin, some of these heterosexuals can develop the psychological disorder known as Same Sex Attraction. But SSA is not intrinsic to the person. No person is homosexual intrinsically but only by the development of the disorder SSA, does one come be known as homosexual.
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I’ve heard it put this way: All homosexual persons are merely latent heterosexual persons. That makes sense to me.
 
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buffalo:
Right from the Catechism:

2358. "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is 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 fulfill 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. "
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**NOT! ** - This quote is from an un-approved version of the Catechism, published in 1993 (when the USCCB was hav ing a tough time getting an approved English language version they went ahead and printed (a best seller, you may note) an unapproved version that remained quoted CONSTANTLY by homosexual advocates. The imprimatured version had approx 140 changes to it prior to becoming the infallible teaching of the church,which occured in 1997 and was published as 'Second Edition".

The above is NOT the teaching of the church - it has been dramatically changed - the "They do not choose" has been removed entirely and replaced with "This inclination, which is intrinsically disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial."

“They do not choose” could not be approved by the magisterium! It is often translated by many to mean, “It’s not their fault, they were born that way.”

I’d love to know where you got your quote (if it’s online)so it can be corrected to reflect the actual teaching of the church.

The vatican website, up until May of 2005, had this incorrect version on a search for “Catechism”. For 8 YEARS, the vatican left this incorrect info on the official website of the Catholic Church.

Hopefully those people have been removed along with the incorrect version!

Blessings,
Angel
 
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buffalo:
Right from the Catechism:

2358. "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is 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 fulfill 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. "
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**NOT! ** - This quote is from an un-approved version of the Catechism, published in 1993 (when the USCCB was hav ing a tough time getting an approved English language version they went ahead and printed (a best seller, you may note) an unapproved version that remained quoted CONSTANTLY by homosexual advocates. The imprimatured version had approx 140 changes to it prior to becoming the infallible teaching of the church,which occured in 1997 and was published as 'Second Edition".

The above is NOT the teaching of the church - it has been dramatically changed - the "They do not choose" has been removed entirely and replaced with "This inclination, which is intrinsically disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial."

“They do not choose” could not be approved by the magisterium! It is often translated by many to mean, “It’s not their fault, they were born that way.”

I’d love to know where you got your quote (if it’s online)so it can be corrected to reflect the actual teaching of the church.

The vatican website, up until May of 2005, had this incorrect version on a search for “Catechism”. For 8 YEARS, the vatican left this incorrect info on the official website of the Catholic Church.

Hopefully those people have been removed along with the incorrect version!

Blessings,
Angel
 
Angels Watchin said:
**NOT! ** - This quote is from an un-approved version of the Catechism, published in 1993 (when the USCCB was hav ing a tough time getting an approved English language version they went ahead and printed (a best seller, you may note) an unapproved version that remained quoted CONSTANTLY by homosexual advocates. The imprimatured version had approx 140 changes to it prior to becoming the infallible teaching of the church,which occured in 1997 and was published as 'Second Edition".

The above is NOT the teaching of the church - it has been dramatically changed - the "They do not choose" has been removed entirely and replaced with "This inclination, which is intrinsically disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial."

“They do not choose” could not be approved by the magisterium! It is often translated by many to mean, “It’s not their fault, they were born that way.”

I’d love to know where you got your quote (if it’s online)so it can be corrected to reflect the actual teaching of the church.

The vatican website, up until May of 2005, had this incorrect version on a search for “Catechism”. For 8 YEARS, the vatican left this incorrect info on the official website of the Catholic Church.

Hopefully those people have been removed along with the incorrect version!

Blessings,
Angel
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Yet note it wasn’t changed to say that homosexual persons choose to be same-sex attracted. In fact, the Church says that the psychological genesis is not yet known. If it were a conscious choice, then someone could decide, “Okay, I’m choosing to be straight.” I wish it were that simple, believe me, I do.
 
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