Grace & Peace!
Unfortunately, the attitude towards homosexuality has gone in the opposite direction. 50 years ago, homosexuality was almost universally recognized as disordered (this is not to excuse the atrocities committed against homosexuals). Today, many openly support homosexuality. But the truth has always been the same - that homosexuality is disordered. The irony is that our society thinks that supporting homosexuality is “progress”, when it is actually moral regression. When a society considers drifting further and further away from Truth as “progress” (as ours generally does), one can only imagine the catastrophic outcome.
You may want to be a little more careful here, CV. The medical/psychiatric communities once viewed homosexuality as presenting a mental or physical pathology–it was considered a disorder of the mind or body just as anything thought to be a disease would be considered a disorder of the mind or body. Whether or not homosexuality constituted a moral disorder was never quite part of the medical diagnosis. However, when no evidence of mental or physical pathology could actually be found in those who experienced an attraction to other people of the same sex, and when no mental or physical pathology could be definitively linked to the mere presence of same-sex attraction in a given individual, homosexuality was subsequently no longer considered a mental or physical disorder.
The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church regarding homosexuality, however, do not address themselves to whether or not homosexuality is mentally or physically pathological. They address themselves to whether or not a particular
act is
moral, which is to say, whether or not the act is intrinsically disordered. The teachings further consider whether or not an
orientation to such an act or a *desire for *such an act can be considered analogously (in this case,
objectively as opposed to
intrinsically) morally disordered.
Do you see the distinction between the two approaches? The diagnosis of disorder from the medical/psychiatric community never actually addressed the morality of the condition, but simply took for granted that homosexuality was a mental or physical pathology or disorder. In a similar way, the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that homosexuality represents a moral disorder (either intrinsically in the act or objectively in the desire) does not depend on whether or not homosexuality is a mental or physical disorder–it depends on a particular understanding of the morality of a discrete act. Whatever the genesis of homosexuality might be–whether physical or psychological–and whether or not the presence of homosexual desire in a person is indicative of some sort of pathology has nothing really to do with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching regarding the morality of an act and the moral correctness of a disposition to that act. The catechism does not say that anyone is physically or mentally ill if they are same-sex attracted. What it says is that, in terms of morality, an attraction to an intrinsically disordered act represents an objective disorder.
Which is all to say: it doesn’t make sense to conflate a
medical diagnosis of disorder with a
moral diagnosis of disorder. They were never the same thing, and they do not currently affect each other. Moreover, the medical determination that homosexuality does
not represent a pathological physical or mental disorder is, in fact, progress because it reflects reality: there is no scientific evidence that same-sex attraction is, in itself, pathological.
The distinctions are subtle, but important and worth making if we value truth and accuracy.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
), but all are doing their best. We certainly don’t hate them, and it would be a sin if we did.
