Could the Catholic Church ever change its teaching on homosexuality?

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Dakota_Roberts said:
Sodomy is a catch all for “unnatural acts” between two people.

The word you want is “homosocial” not “homosexual”. I did find that chunk of text amusing as at one point those kind of purely spiritual friendships were not just encouraged, but in medieval Christendom had it’s own sacramental (NOT sacrament, there is a difference).

Is there such a thing as a natural sexual act between two people of the same sex? Sodomy is any inherently sterile sexual act , fellatio is sodomy regardless of if it is a man and a woman or two men, cunnilingus is sodomy regardless of it being a man and a woman or two women, anal sex is sodomy regardless of if it is two men, two women, or a man and a woman, also all of those are also still sodomy if there is an animal involved. In case anyone is wondering if there is any kind of sex that is not sodomy and is not vaginal intercourse the answer is NO.

Look, Elizabeth, if I said “I am gay” I would not in fact be summing up my substance substance, but rather an accident of who I am as it would not affect my soul just like race, handedness, political affiliation, favorite food et cetera.

Indeed no orientation has more inherent self restraint than the others.
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Although I’d rather not get into the particulars, I think (think, because I know some people debate this) that, within the context of an already unitive and procreative act, if a wife does not achieve, er, the thing that she might have achieved had not her husband been overcoming by unitive and totally non-concupiscent desire and achieved a certain thing before her, he may afterward aid her in achieving this not-achieved thing - but of course, only with the unity and openness to life. But I am not the one to speak on the matter, since as a bachelor it has nothing to do with me.

I didn’t know their was a sacramental for that, though its not surprising. Having read the nonfiction book “Team of Rivals” about the Lincoln administration and reading about one of the early friendship William Seward had, I realize that male friendship went a lot deeper in the past than it does today.
 
catholic1seeks said:
I know this is a huge question. I know “change” and “teaching” in the same sentence is scary, denying infallibility at all–just questioning whether the current position of the Church is true. …
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In your opening post, you indicated you seek an intelligent discussion to a serious question on the infallibility of Church teaching on homosexuality and basis on which the Church arrived at homosexual acts as intrinsically evil and morally unacceptable.

Among 200+posts that ensued, you received many sincere and well thought out answers with explanations that
yes, it is an infallible doctrine

and

no, there is no changing homosexual actions to be considered no longer an intrinsic evil and to be morally acceptable.
But you have yet to be satisfied, going round and around technicalities. Are you putting forth an a priori type of argument, challenging the basis on which the Church arrived at the teaching, hoping that she would develop or use language minus the phrases “intrinsic evil” connected to homosexual acts, and “objective disorder” associated with the homosexual inclination?

How about asking yourself what the bottom line reason is that you remain unsatisfied?

You see, a number of homosexual theologians in the years past have already made the same or similar challenges you pose, really looking for a loophole to remove sinfulness attached to lived out homosexuality.

They sought change on Church position on homosexuality, sowing confusion in the process, and using that confusion to their advantage. If only official Church teaching would allow exceptions, to sanction homosexual relationships between loving and faithful partners of the same sex, is their lament.

With the catechism clarifying there is no sin committed by someone who has homosexual attraction, this served as a baseline to insist on a full exception and doctrinal change to deem homosexual acts as natural, ordered and morally acceptable.

Failing to secure said exception from the Church, homosexual members of the religious and academia proceeded with unauthorized ministries, forming pressure groups first operating as parallel ministries, later clearly outside Church authority. They effected no change in the teaching, just open dissent and undermining the work of the Church. Church leadership only affirmed and further underscored the sinfulness of homosexual acts, backed by Scripture, Tradition, natural law, and the wisdom and authority of Holy Mother Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Although the agitators failed to bend Church teaching, they have had success in growing resistance against Church position among Catholics tainted by secular culture. They welcomed facilitators if not collaborators from professionals in the mental health profession, in part strengthening the momentum in the legal sphere via legislation and judicial rulings that favored legalized gay"marriage."

The thing is, even if larger society deems the unchanged teaching on homosexuality as untrue, meaningless, or irrelevant, and faithful Catholics get more marginalized than they already are, with religious liberty of practicing Catholics getting more and more restricted, don’t hold your breath for the day you are hoping for, the day when the Church changes her teaching on homosexuality, and as you indicated
when I am in doubt of the truth of it and especially when the subject deals with who I am as a person.
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Dakota_Roberts said:
The word you want is “homosocial” not “homosexual”. I did find that chunk of text amusing as at one point those kind of purely spiritual friendships were not just encouraged, but in medieval Christendom had it’s own sacramental (NOT sacrament, there is a difference).
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That’s an extremely tenuous assertion. The evidence I have seen for this has been incredibly weak. I will demand references and links and quotes to back this up. I personally believe it is revisionism by the homosexualists to discredit the Church.
 
Kevin12 said:
Although I’d rather not get into the particulars, I think (think, because I know some people debate this) that, within the context of an already unitive and procreative act, if a wife does not achieve, er, the thing that she might have achieved had not her husband been overcoming by unitive and totally non-concupiscent desire and achieved a certain thing before her, he may afterward aid her in achieving this not-achieved thing - but of course, only with the unity and openness to life. But I am not the one to speak on the matter, since as a bachelor it has nothing to do with me.

I didn’t know their was a sacramental for that, though its not surprising. Having read the nonfiction book “Team of Rivals” about the Lincoln administration and reading about one of the early friendship William Seward had, I realize that male friendship went a lot deeper in the past than it does today.
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In Catholic teaching it’s cut and dried.
Elizium23 said:
That’s an extremely tenuous assertion. The evidence I have seen for this has been incredibly weak. I will demand references and links and quotes to back this up. I personally believe it is revisionism by the homosexualists to discredit the Church.
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I think you misunderstood me, I’m talking about purely spiritual friendship and was basically recognition as family. As for references see Alan Bray’s The Friend and Robin Darling Young’s review of John Boswell’s book
Ancient in origin, same-sex unions blessed in the Church occur quietly to this day. So says John Boswell, Professor of Medieval History at Yale University and the author of this new and lavishly publicized book. It may surprise readers of this journal to learn that he is probably right-depending on what the ceremony means.
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This is a subject about which I have the good fortune to speak not merely as a scholar or an observer, but as a participant. Nine years ago I was joined in devout sisterhood to another woman, apparently in just such a ceremony as Boswell claims to elucidate in his book. The ceremony took place during a journey to some of the Syrian Christian communities of Turkey and the Middle East, and the other member of this same-sex union was my colleague Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey of Brown University. During the course of our travels we paid a visit to St. Mark’s Monastery in Jerusalem, the residence of the Syrian Orthodox archbishop. There our host, Archbishop Dionysius Behnam Jajaweh, remarked that since we had survived the rigors of Syria and Eastern Turkey in amicable good humor, we two women must be good friends indeed. Would we like to be joined as sisters the next morning after the bishop’s Sunday liturgy in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? Intrigued, we agreed, and on a Sunday in late June of 1985, we followed the bishop and a monk through the Old City to a side chapel in the Holy Sepulchre where, according to the Syrian Orthodox, lies the actual tomb of Jesus.** After the liturgy, the bishop had us join our right hands together and he wrapped them in a portion of his garment. He pronounced a series of prayers over us, told us that we were united as sisters, and admonished us not to quarrel. Ours was a sisterhood stronger than blood, confirmed in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he said, and since it was a spiritual union, it would last beyond the grave.**
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Our friendship has indeed endured and flourished beyond the accidental association of two scholars sharing an interest in the Syriac-speaking Christianity of late antiquity. The blessing of the Syrian Orthodox Church was a precious instance of our participation in the life of an ancient and noble Christian tradition. Although neither of us took the trouble to investigate the subject, each privately assumed that the ritual of that summer was some Christian descendant of an adoption ceremony used by the early church to solemnify a state-that of friendship-which comes highly recommended in the Christian tradition (“Henceforth I call you not servants . . . but I have called you friends.” [John15:15]).
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source
 
Dakota_Roberts said:
In Catholic teaching it’s cut and dried.
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I’m not so sure about that, I believe that Theology of the Body says that the thing I said is acceptable within the context of an already unitive and procreative act. This has been endlessly debated though, and there seem to be different factions who have different interpretations. To back this up, I believe that Christopher West’s Good News About Sex and Marriage, which received the Imprimatur (take that in what sense you will), interpreted Theology of the Body as holding that what I mentioned was licit, since it specifically discussed the different rhythms with which men and women experience the physical act of love. I know that many oppose West in general because of his colorful use of metaphors comparing sexuality to divine love, but I think that his reading on this issue is defensible, principally because it does not remove the procreative nature of the act.

However, I have no desire to debate this, since it doesn’t apply to the issue, because such a thing could never be licit with homosexuals because it could not be part of a unitive or procreative act. Such a thread usually occurs every five or six days without fails, so if you want to debate that matter it should be relegated there.
 
I think we can save the “oral stimulation in marriage” debate for another thread, I would rather see this one go around and around in circles on the same topic as the OP proposed, thank you very much.
 
Elizium23 said:
That’s an extremely tenuous assertion. The evidence I have seen for this has been incredibly weak. I will demand references and links and quotes to back this up. I personally believe it is revisionism by the homosexualists to discredit the Church.
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I think you are overreacting. As the source from First Things indicates, the Adelphopoiesis had/has nothing to do with homosexuality. It seems to have been a brotherhood sacramental - which, if you have read some medieval romances about knights, doesn’t seem that strange at all. You may be right, though, that such a thing is being misused by those with a homosexual-normalization agenda.
 
Yes, I probably misunderstood. When I first heard about this ceremony, it was being used by homosexualists to trumpet the “fact” that the Medieval Church had sanctioned “homosexual marriage” all along. A blessing of spiritual friendship sounds perfectly good and plausible. Sorry for overreacting.
 
Kevin12 said:
Although I’d rather not get into the particulars, I think (think, because I know some people debate this) that, within the context of an already unitive and procreative act, if a wife does not achieve, er, the thing that she might have achieved had not her husband been overcoming by unitive and totally non-concupiscent desire and achieved a certain thing before her, he may afterward aid her in achieving this not-achieved thing - but of course, only with the unity and openness to life. But I am not the one to speak on the matter, since as a bachelor it has nothing to do with me.

I didn’t know their was a sacramental for that, though its not surprising. Having read the nonfiction book “Team of Rivals” about the Lincoln administration and reading about one of the early friendship William Seward had, I realize that male friendship went a lot deeper in the past than it does today.
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Congratulations on taking 27 words to create a euphemism for “orgasm”.
 
PRmerger said:
How do you know? She lists her religion as Catholic. 🤷
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Have you been reading the thread? How can you not follow Catholic teachings and call yourself Catholic? You can’t actively support homosexuality and call yourself a Catholic.
 
Catholic13 said:
Even when that person has been given answers to their questions, that person ignores every point made and starts their argument over again?
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I haven’t found the OP to be ignoring every point. 🤷

There’s nothing wrong with questioning and trying to work through the problem here on the forum.
 
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