I don’t cling to my sin.
You called homosexuality a minor sin compared to the other sins of Sodom. The fact is it was one of the worst.
So in your mind, just being a homosexual person is a sin? That just by existing a celibate homosexual is committing a sin?
Then what sin is the other poster clinging to?
duck hunting.
So I gather you do hold just being homosexual is sinful. That’s not the position of the faith you belong to.
BUZZ!!! wrong again.
No not really. Also, in addition to just being homosexual not being a sin or sinful, duck hunting isn’t sinful either. Perhaps you should refresh your memory on what a sin actually is.
But think of the poor ducks.
If homosexuality was one of the worst sins of Sodom, why isn’t it mentioned in Ezekiel 16:
Homosexuality is also not mentioned as the main sin of Sodom in Luke 10:
Being inhospitable is a greater evil than homosexuality. Being inhospitable and not welcoming people with SSA who come to Catholic churches is undoubtedly a greater evil than the SSA itself.
What we know is that it happens; we don’t know why/through what mechanism. As Catholics, or “hope to become” Catholics (congratulations and best wishes Cali) we know there is no sin in the fact of such attractions, but that there is sin in lust, and there is sin in homosexual sex acts.
The apostle Paul: “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The use of this Bible verse implies a clear desire on God’s part for carrying a cross which is considered disordered and tendency toward and intrinsic evil. While one could certainly assume that every cross a person could have might somehow be ordained by God I believe there are other teachings in the Judeo Christian tradition that would clearly indicate that this is not the case:
This thread is AWFUL. It’s full of arrogance, and also full of falsehood – from both sides. Where is the love, people?
The theological facts are simple: whenever we say something is a sin, it must be the case that that thing hurts people. God does not arbitrarily make things sins. Sin corrupts us, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Traditional Catholic teaching entails that each particular sin harms people; to deny that is, so far as I can tell, heretical.
Does that mean “homosexuality” hurts people? We get into trouble here, because the word “homosexuality” is ambiguous. It could mean “the attraction to the same sex” or it could mean “sexual activity between people of the same sex”. Obviously, Catholics must say that same-sex sexual activity hurts people. It’s not as clear about the attraction, whether that hurts people.
Obviously, if the attraction often (in the real world) leads to the act, the attraction is a potentially dangerous thing. It’s not something to be happy about, just as one shouldn’t be happy that one likes to gossip, or that one enjoys watching movies about torture. Nevertheless, the attraction to the same sex can be dealt with honorably and virtuously. So I think it’s plausible to say that the attraction itself doesn’t hurt anyone, no more than the temptation to anger hurts anyone.
*How *do same-sex sexual acts hurt people? A number of ways, some of which people have mentioned. There are certain contexts – like monogamy – that restrict this harm, so that the major harm becomes an inordinate focus on pleasure, so that the harm is centrally spiritual. But other contexts make the harm physical.
I would guess that 15% or so (if not more) of same-sex attracted men engage in sex with more than four different people per month. This is what you might call the “Grindr” or “Craigslist” culture, and it is every bit as awful as people might imagine. There is no parallel population among heterosexual men, because – unless you’re remarkably attractive or athletic – there isn’t a huge population of random women willing to have sex with you. This doesn’t make heterosexual men more virtuous (they WISH they could be having sex), but it does make the homosexual “scene” MUCH more dangerous. Though many gay people stay out of that “scene”, and many people in that “scene” are people who are in denial about their attractions.
There is a way of expressing these things, though, without making gay people feel inhuman or evil. I wish people could learn that!
False. I ask God to take away the cross. I beg Him to do so, just as Paul begged to have his thorn removed. I have no desire to carry this particular cross.
If there had been evidence, it would have been removed, since homosexual temptation was so taboo. But you ought to consider St. Aelred, who clearly speaks with sympathy about homosexual temptation as an ordinary enough temptation in monastic life, and you also ought to consider Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manley Hopkins – both of whom were very holy men of God, and both of whom had SSA.
The sin here is sodomy, not homosexual attraction.
Red herring. I don’t think SSA is ordained by God, and I don’t think it’s normative or good. I reject my sins, fully and completely. That hasn’t made the SSA go away. Your suggestion that the temptation remains because I am not holy enough simultaneously (a) may be true, and (b) is highly presumptuous.
This is false. He said that “men who had sex with men” (arsenokoitai) were extremely corrupt, and he said that homosexual desire was *sometimes *a consequence of pride. He did not say that you should not associate with people who are SSA, he did not say people with SSA should be silent about it, and he did not say people with SSA were “among the most corrupt individuals.”
St. Paul would not tolerate anyone claiming SSA was normal.