How to know if sex is unitive?

[LongingSoul]

Ron can you reference a Magisterial source for this?
(ie homosexual acts cannot be unitive?)

I don’t think it can be easily disputed that gays in long term and stable relationships do appear to have a range of physical expressions of love (despite being disordered) which do seem to produce similar consequences to unitive acts of heterosexuals (who might practice contraception or be sterile).

Of course “homosexual acts” and homosexual coitus" are not exactly the same thing - so the latter (coupled with invincible ignorance over its disordered nature) may not be a “homosexual act” - so this physical expression could possibly be unitive in that case.

St JP addressed this in Theology of the body.

“The Church teaches as absolutely required that in any use whatever of marriage there must be no impairment of its natural capacity to procreate human life” (Humanae Vitae 11). “This particular doctrine, often expounded by the Magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act” (Humane Vitae 12).

1. The considerations I am about to make concern especially the passage of Humanae Vitae that deals with the “two significances of the marriage act” and their “inseparable connection.” I do not intend to present a commentary on the whole encyclical, but rather to illustrate and examine one of its passages. From the point of view of the doctrine contained in the quoted document, that passage has a central significance. At the same time, that passage is closely connected with our previous reflections on marriage in its dimension as a (sacramental) sign.

As I said, since this is a central passage of the encyclical, it is obvious that it constitutes a very important part of its whole structure. Therefore, its analysis must direct us toward the various components of that structure, even if it is not our intention to comment on the entire text.

A promised fidelity

1. In the reflections on the sacramental sign, it has already been said several times that it is based on the language of the body reread in truth. It concerns a truth once affirmed at the beginning of the marriage when the newlyweds, promising each other “to be always faithful…and to love and honor each other all the days of their life,” become ministers of marriage as a sacrament of the Church.

It concerns, then, a truth that is always newly affirmed. In fact, the man and the woman, living in the marriage “until death,” re-propose uninterruptedly, in a certain sense, that sign that they made—through the liturgy of the sacrament—on their wedding day.

The aforementioned words of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical concern that moment in the common life of the spouses when both, joining each other in the marriage act, become, according to the biblical expression, “one flesh” (Gn 2:24). Precisely at such a moment so rich in significance, it is also especially important that the language of the body be reread in truth. This reading becomes the indispensable condition for acting in truth, that is, for behaving in accordance with the value and the moral norm.

Adequate foundation

1. The encyclical not only recalls this norm, but also seeks to give it adequate foundation. In order to clarify more completely that “inseparable connection, established by God…between the unitive significance and the procreative significance of the marriage act,” Paul VI writes in the next sentence:** “The reason is that the marriage act, because of its fundamental structure, while it unites husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also brings into operation laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman for the generation of new life” (Humanae Vitae 12).**

We note that in the previous sentence, the text just quoted deals above all with the significance of marital relations. In the following sentence, it deals with the fundamental structure (that is, the nature) of marital relations. Defining that fundamental structure, the text refers to "laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman."

The passage from the sentence expressing the moral norm, to the sentence which explains and justifies it, is especially significant. The encyclical leads one to seek the foundation for the norm which determines the morality of the acts of the man and the woman in the marriage act, in the nature of this very act, and more deeply still, in the nature of the subjects themselves who are performing the act.

 

[LongingSoul]

Two significances

1. In this way, the fundamental structure (that is, the nature) of the marriage act constitutes the necessary basis for an adequate reading and discovery of the two significances that must be carried over into the conscience and the decisions of the acting parties. It also constitutes the necessary basis for establishing the adequate relationship of these significances, that is, their inseparable connection. Since “the marriage act…”—at the same time—“unites husband and wife in the closest intimacy” and together “makes them capable of generating new life,” and both the one and the other happen “through the fundamental structure,” then it follows that the human person (with the necessity proper to reason, logical necessity) must read at the same time the “twofold significance of the marriage act” and also the "inseparable connection between the unitive significance and the procreative significance of the marriage act."

Here we are dealing with nothing other than reading the language of the body in truth, as has been said many times in our previous biblical analyses. The moral norm, constantly taught by the Church in this sphere, and recalled and reconfirmed by Paul VI in his encyclical, arises from the reading of the language of the body in truth.

It is a question here of the truth first in the ontological dimension (“fundamental structure”) and then—as a result—in the subjective and psychological dimension (“significance”). The text of the encyclical stresses that in the case in question we are dealing with a norm of the natural law.

In other words ‘unitive’ describes in the very first instance, a dynamic that serves a vital purpose to the overall reason for human sexual function. An act is unitive not firstly by the affectionate feelings it produces but by the structural function it serves. The unitive and procreative are inseparable.

Like the putting together of a house the joists, struts and beams are unified by an act that effects an internal connection between the parts for foundational soundness. The parts could be connected by external ties of some sort but the connection is not the unified one that provides the soundness.

Homosexual expression, lacking this capacity for unity in the fundamental structure, cannot be unitive in the sense that is being described as the conjugal act.

 

[fpt]

By nature, the sexed and sexual acts, the sexual intimacy, and the erotism between two men or between two women do not respect the natural constitutional structure of the marital act created and wanted by God. The meta-structure of the marital act is linked to the sexed alterity and to sexed complementarity.

The conjugal love and the marital love are, by nature, directly linked to dual humanity: soul, heart and body. The conjugal union of persons, body, soul and heart, is only possible than between two different sexes. A man with a male body, with a male soul and with a male heart is truly male,** in the natural way**, if and only if he is with a woman (a female body, a female soul and with a female heart). The same for the woman. The marriage and this effects are only for a woman with a man ot vice versa. That is not negociable. The sexual intimacy is only between different sexes. In the God’s design, it is like that.

The body of the male is done for the body of the female, the soul of the male is done for the soul of the female, the heart of the male is done for the heart of the female, and vice versa.

The conjugal love between two persons of the same sex is impossible. It is a fake, a hoax, a lie, an illusion, a deni, a denagation, a disease of the intelligence, a refusal of obeying to the nature wanted by God, a provocation, a heresy, a revolt against God…etc. IT IS AN ABOMINATION OF THE NATURE.

 

[fpt]

By nature, the sexed and sexual acts, the sexual intimacy, and the erotism between two men or between two women do not respect the natural constitutional structure of the marital act created and wanted by God. The meta-structure of the marital act is linked to the sexed alterity and to sexed complementarity.

The conjugal love and the marital love are, by nature, directly linked to dual humanity: soul, heart and body. The conjugal union of persons, body, soul and heart, is only possible than between two different sexes. A man with a male body, with a male soul and with a male heart is truly male,** in the natural way**, if and only if he is with a woman (a female body, a female soul and with a female heart). The same for the woman. The marriage and this effects are only for a woman with a man ot vice versa. That is not negociable. The sexual intimacy is only between different sexes. In the God’s design, it is like that.

The body of the male is done for the body of the female, the soul of the male is done for the soul of the female, the heart of the male is done for the heart of the female, and vice versa.

The conjugal love between two persons of the same sex is impossible. It is a fake, a hoax, a lie, an illusion, a deni, a denegation, a disease of the intelligence, a refusal of obeying to the nature wanted by God, a provocation, a heresy, a revolt against God…etc. IT IS AN ABOMINATION OF THE NATURE.

The homosexual acts are not natural and are going against the nature created by God*.

In the marital act, each member of couple has to respect t**he normal rights and the normal expectations of the other:**** a contractual obligation of means for each one, and an institutional duty of means for each one, in respecting the natural moral order. **The unity has to be physical, spiritual, sensible and affective.

 

[fpt]

The married woman is or should be the " New Eve of her Man " and the " Saint Mary Magdalena of her husband ", I mean: **the Female, the Fiancée, the Bride, the Sweetheart, the Love, the Mistress, the Lover, the Beloved, the Muse, the Friend, the Best-friend, the Girlfriend, the Helper, the Soul-Mate, the Companion, the Partner, the Associate, the Educator, the Teacher, the Professor, the Thinker, the Philosopher, the Schoolgirl, the Pupil, the Student, the Follower, the Female Opposite Number, the Alter Ego, the Alterity, the Complementarity, the Princess, the Queen, the Doctress, the Nurse, the Guide of her Husband *and the Person who reveals in him, his part of sexed feminity and helps his sexed masculinity: his Wife and the Potential Mother of their future children.
And
The married female, who is the wife, has to understand the normal sexuality of her male: wife is the teacher of the sexuality of her husband, she is also the professor of the sexuality of her husband, and then she is the doctress and the master of love of the sexuality of her husband. *

The married man is or should be the " New Adam of his Woman " and the " Holy Beloved of his wife ", I mean: the Male, the Fiancé, the Bridegroom, the Sweetheart, the Love, the Lover, the Master, the Beloved, the Pygmalion, the Friend, the Best-friend, the boyfriend, the Helper, the Soul-Mate, the Companion, the Partner, the Associate, the Educator, the Teacher, the Professor, the Thinker, the Philosopher, the Schoolboy, the Pupil, the Student, the Follower, the Male Opposite Number, the Alterity, the Complementarity, the Prince, the King, the Doctor, the Nurse, the Guide of his Wife and the Person who reveals in her, her part of sexed masculinity and helps her sexed feminity : her Husband and the Potential Father of their future children.
And
**The married male, who is the husband, has to understand the normal sexuality of his female: Husband is the teacher of the sexuality of his wife, he is also the professor of the sexuality of his wife, and then he is the doctor and love’s master of the sexuality of his wife. **

 

[fpt]

How are we to determine if it’s unitive?

Also, if spouses are having sex, how is one to know that the other isn’t simply lusting? Can sex be unitive and lusting?

Each one has to need to see, to watch, to look at, to stare, to hear, to listen and to feel the body of the other and the reactions of this body for trying to know if the deep unity is. The inquiry, in order to know if the unity is existing, can be done by the five senses.

You can note the reactions and the movements of the body of your spouse!!!* There are many signs in favor of the unity!!! Do you know that???*

 

[Mulligan2]

The homosexual acts are not natural and are going against the nature created by God*.

And yet God made them homosexual. So how can they be going against their nature?

 

[EasterJoy]

I think you’re overthinking this.

I second this. The preservation of chastity by mutually honoring the marital obligation in a way that is open to life and to the action of the Holy Spirit is praiseworthy, even if the spouses do not reach a beatific vision of selflessness. It is also totally fine to take pleasure in doing the right thing.

What other praiseworthy act do we subject to this kind of scrutiny? Is it inherently selfish to give to the poor partly because you feel good about yourself when you do it? Does it not fulfill the 4th Commandment to honor your father and mother when you do it partly because your mother would impose a huge guilt trip if you didn’t? Is it a sin to go to Mass on Sunday when you don’t feel like going, but you go, anyway? The list could go on and on, but you all get the point. We almost always perform our good acts with mixed motives! Which of us has not been subjected to someone trying to do good for us out of total “purity” and “selflessness”? Sometimes, isn’t it far better to know they help us out partly because they get a kick out of what they’re doing than to be helped by a “martyr” who is so self-giving that watching them give takes all the pleasure out of receiving the gift? Sometimes, it would be better to go wanting than to have that sort of “self-gift” aimed at us. It lacks the self-gift of self-forgetful and unbridled pleasure in connecting with us, doesn’t it?

Yes, you should always want to do right because it is right and not because it feels good, but doing the right thing for reasons tinted with self-centeredness does not erase all merit from the act. More importantly, God often gives us consolations for performing good acts in order to sweeten virtue for us. This life is not supposed to be an unrelenting vale of tears in which we toil along at good works with no recompense of enjoyment. God made sex pleasurable so that the spouses could enjoy it together. Don’t lessen your enjoyment by overthinking whether you are “pure” enough.

 

[underacloud]

People overthink the “unitive” aspect of sex. Just look up any typical meaning of the term unitive, and it will say something like “serving to unite”.

Sex brings a married couple closer together. It can do this in a number of ways. For example, sex is fun. Sex also releases certain hormones, including oxytocin, often known as the “bonding” hormone; it chemically helps couples bond. Sex may also bring a couple together in a common cause, such as trying for a baby.

Even using sex as a cure for concusipence is unitive, since it keeps the spouses from the temptation to stray; it brings them back to their marital bond as the only appropriate context for sex.

The unitive element of sex can yes be misused, outside of marriage (as can the procreative element). Sex can bond people together who should not be bonded together, which is I think what Blue Horizon was refering to.

But at a most base level - if sex is fun (and you’re married and not contracepting) then it is properly unitive.

 

[EasterJoy]

And yet God made them homosexual. So how can they be going against their nature?

That there is an organic reason for someone’s overall make-up does not mean that every aspect of it is intended by God. We are Post-Fall Humans, after all. A great deal of what we are “naturally” inclined to do is against our human nature as we are intended to have it for eternity.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In other words ‘unitive’ describes in the very first instance, a dynamic that serves a vital purpose to the overall reason for human sexual function. An act is unitive not firstly by the affectionate feelings it produces but by the structural function it serves. The unitive and procreative are inseparable.

Like the putting together of a house the joists, struts and beams are unified by an act that effects an internal connection between the parts for foundational soundness. The parts could be connected by external ties of some sort but the connection is not the unified one that provides the soundness.

Homosexual expression, lacking this capacity for unity in the fundamental structure, cannot be unitive in the sense that is being described as the conjugal act.

Ron/Longing Soul

Yes I would like to agree with this (and it may be correct) unfortunately I still haven’t found explicit Magisterial backing for this likely extrapolation to principles that have never been explicitly stated by the Magisterium (there are possibly others).

The problem is Magisterial documents seem to assume, without formal definition or close description, that we readily intuit what “unitive meaning of a conjugal act” is.

And that is true. Unfortunately that generic intuitive understanding, in my mind, seems to get a bit fluffy at the edges when we start looking at ethical cases outside the narrow area of ethical application which the unitive/procreative distinction was used to clarify.

I believe the ethical issues that this distinction was used to clarify were:
(a) use of contraceptive “technology” by fertile married couples
(b) use of procreative “technology” by less than fertile couples

The explicit principle affirmed was that when a married couple engage in an act where the procreative and unitive meanings are separated then those acts are disordered.

(As a side topic Magisterial teaching does not say that the absence of one of these meanings means the other meaning cannot remain in a weakned fashion (as some writers of Marriage Prep programmes seem to say)).

But exactly what are these “acts”.
One would think this should be fairly clear. Strangely the more one tries to discover exactly what these acts are the more confusing it gets.

Saying they are “conjugal acts” doesn’t seem to help too much.
Yes they are the acts of a married couple.
But do they have to be “fleshly” acts of a married couple? It seems not.

Most of the time they will be…yet not always it seems.e.g. Artificial insemination (which is clearly a procreative act).
AI seems to be disordered precisely because there is no human fleshly union (ie no unitive meaning) to this moral choice.

This suggests “the act” is close but something other than “becoming one flesh”.
This also seems to suggest that “unitive meaning” must at least involve physical coitus (conjugal or not seems to be irrelevent to the definition).

That is, seems “the (marital) act”, at its most minimal level, is really the interior moral decision/choice of a married couple to in some way use their reproductive potentialities - which doesn’t have to be by fleshly physical union.

If their moral choice to use their reproductive potentialities involves actual fleshly union then this marital act has unitive meaning. If it doesn’t involve fleshly union (eg artifical insemination) then the unitive meaning is absent. If the moral choice involves contracepting (this act by definition would have to be an act involving fleshly union) then this act has lost its procreative meaning though unitive remains.

Ron, your Code 1061 is just as ambiguous:
“consummatum if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring.”

The code is defining what it means to consumate a marriage.
It is very narrowly specifying the types of “conjugal acts” which makes a marriage valid.
This suggests there can also be “marital acts” which are non-procreative. It is not at all clear that a “conjugal act” has to involve fleshly union (presumably there are conjugal acts that are not performed in a human fashion … eg artificial insemination, marital rape? It is not clear whether contraception means coiotus has not been performed in a human fashion).

But the real point I think is that all this Magisterial is only about married couples isn’t it.
I am not sure how valid it is to apply these principles to faithful fornicators (ie the long term unmarried) and similar gay couples.

Things seem to sound a bit hollow when we takes these principles outside of marriage.
To say that faithful fornicators (ie the long term unmarried with kids who don’t practise contraception) cannot have “unitive sex” doesn’t seem to ring true.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I tried to slightlly edit a parahraph below but got locked out. Here it is:

The code is defining what it means to consumate a marriage.
It is very narrowly specifying the types of “conjugal acts” which makes a marriage valid.
This suggests there can also be “marital acts” which are non-procreative. It is not at all clear that a “conjugal act” has to involve fleshly union (presumably there are conjugal acts that are not performed in a human fashion … eg artificial insemination, marital rape? It is not clear whether contraception means coiotus has not been performed in a human fashion). Regardless, it seems conjugal acts are still conjugal even if contracepted.

 

[fpt]

And yet God made them homosexual. So how can they be going against their nature?

Before all, each human being is human** who is composed by a body, by a soul and by a heart. **In addition, each one is male or female what means that each one has a male body, a male soul and a male heart, or a female body, a female soul and a female heart. Naturally speaking, each human person is sexed, the male sexuation, or the female sexuation. Each one is defined by its humanity and by its sexuation. In the God design, before all each one is female (a woman) or male (a man). Thus morally speaking, each one has to respect and assume this state of male , or this state of female. By principle, **we are not defined by the sexual orientation: that is the trap of the new philosophies and new theologies. **

In reason of the liberty of each human being and of the effects of the original sin (bad effects of the concupiscence) some persons can choose to act against the constitutional nature of the dual humanity via the homosexual acts. The homosexual acts are not natural and are going against the nature created by God, those acts are abominations. If you read me, I say “the homosexual acts”, not the sexual orientation, per se, even if that sexual orientation is* not ordered by the natural order of the Creation. * A human being having this particular orientation* has the moral obligation not to practice those acts with a person of the same sex and has the moral obligation of working on itself for trying to solving this issue (an obligation of means) *morally speaking, mentally speaking, psychologically speaking, psychically speaking, spiritually speaking, emotionally speaking, sensibly speaking, physically speaking. A inquiry for trying to understand “the why” is important.

The modern doctrine made by the homosexual movements is morally wrong. She does not help the person with this particular orientation. The doctrinal philosophies wanting to explain that the homosexual orientation is normal and is in the respect of the nature** are not in favor of the natural morality and of the moral development of future societies.** Each one has to avoid its vice. A human being with a homosexual orientation has to stay away from those acts. It is a battle of all the life.

The doctrines in favor of this orientation are errors.
The homosexual orientation is not ordered by the creation;
The homosexual acts are going against the human nature;
The homosexualistes (the thinkers who make the homosexual doctrines) are in the error, and their doctrines are morally wrong;
The so called homosexual has to battle against this orientation.

 

[LongingSoul]

Ron/Longing Soul

Yes I would like to agree with this (and it may be correct) unfortunately I still haven’t found explicit Magisterial backing for this likely extrapolation to principles that have never been explicitly stated by the Magisterium (there are possibly others).

The problem is Magisterial documents seem to assume, without formal definition or close description, that we readily intuit what “unitive meaning of a conjugal act” is.

And that is true. Unfortunately that generic intuitive understanding, in my mind, seems to get a bit fluffy at the edges when we start looking at ethical cases outside the narrow area of ethical application which the unitive/procreative distinction was used to clarify.

I believe the ethical issues that this distinction was used to clarify were:
(a) use of contraceptive “technology” by fertile married couples
(b) use of procreative “technology” by less than fertile couples

The explicit principle affirmed was that when a married couple engage in an act where the procreative and unitive meanings are separated then those acts are disordered.

(As a side topic Magisterial teaching does not say that the absence of one of these meanings means the other meaning cannot remain in a weakned fashion (as some writers of Marriage Prep programmes seem to say)).

But exactly what are these “acts”.
One would think this should be fairly clear. Strangely the more one tries to discover exactly what these acts are the more confusing it gets.

Saying they are “conjugal acts” doesn’t seem to help too much.
Yes they are the acts of a married couple.
But do they have to be “fleshly” acts of a married couple? It seems not.

Most of the time they will be…yet not always it seems.e.g. Artificial insemination (which is clearly a procreative act).
AI seems to be disordered precisely because there is no human fleshly union (ie no unitive meaning) to this moral choice.

This suggests “the act” is close but something other than “becoming one flesh”.
This also seems to suggest that “unitive meaning” must at least involve physical coitus (conjugal or not seems to be irrelevent to the definition).

That is, seems “the (marital) act”, at its most minimal level, is really the interior moral decision/choice of a married couple to in some way use their reproductive potentialities - which doesn’t have to be by fleshly physical union.

If their moral choice to use their reproductive potentialities involves actual fleshly union then this marital act has unitive meaning. If it doesn’t involve fleshly union (eg artifical insemination) then the unitive meaning is absent. If the moral choice involves contracepting (this act by definition would have to be an act involving fleshly union) then this act has lost its procreative meaning though unitive remains.

Ron, your Code 1061 is just as ambiguous:
“consummatum if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring.”

The code is defining what it means to consumate a marriage.
It is very narrowly specifying the types of “conjugal acts” which makes a marriage valid.
This suggests there can also be “marital acts” which are non-procreative. It is not at all clear that a “conjugal act” has to involve fleshly union (presumably there are conjugal acts that are not performed in a human fashion … eg artificial insemination, marital rape? It is not clear whether contraception means coiotus has not been performed in a human fashion).

But the real point I think is that all this Magisterial is only about married couples isn’t it.
I am not sure how valid it is to apply these principles to faithful fornicators (ie the long term unmarried) and similar gay couples.

Things seem to sound a bit hollow when we takes these principles outside of marriage.
To say that faithful fornicators (ie the long term unmarried with kids who don’t practise contraception) cannot have “unitive sex” doesn’t seem to ring true.

I think you are trying to define ‘conjugal act’ in the way the blind monks were trying to define an elephant. Taking aspects and isolating them from the whole to try and make meaning won’t work because the meaning is revealed by the big picture. It’s revealed by being aware of how each part works for the whole. So the ‘conjugal act’, consists of the physical expression, as in the act… the spiritual expression, established by the vow and the intellectual expression, whereby exercising our free will we choose to love selflessly in marriage. Out of this whole process, new life blossoms naturally. Without one or the other of these elements, conjugality is impossible.

It’s sort of like equations. The formulas exist naturally waiting to be uncovered and then in following the natural process, the truth blossoms. We can arrive at answers by counting on our fingers and toes the way you would try to cheat in math as a kid… but that defies the whole purpose of the process, which is engaging the natural elements in a fruitful dialogue of creativity. The marriage, like the equation, is a dialogue of creativity that results in the blossoming of truth.

 

[fpt]

I think you are trying to define ‘conjugal act’ in the way the blind monks were trying to define an elephant. Taking aspects and isolating them from the whole to try and make meaning won’t work because the meaning is revealed by the big picture. It’s revealed by being aware of how each part works for the whole. So the ‘conjugal act’, consists of the physical expression, as in the act… the spiritual expression, established by the vow and the intellectual expression, whereby exercising our free will we choose to love selflessly in marriage. Out of this whole process, new life blossoms naturally. Without one or the other of these elements, conjugality is impossible.

It’s sort of like equations. The formulas exist naturally waiting to be uncovered and then in following the natural process, the truth blossoms. We can arrive at answers by counting on our fingers and toes the way you would try to cheat in math as a kid… but that defies the whole purpose of the process, which is engaging the natural elements in a fruitful dialogue of creativity. The marriage, like the equation, is a dialogue of creativity that results in the blossoming of truth.

I have tried to describe the marital act in respecting his material nature. **That is almost finished. **The moral theology the moral philosophy and Co are very useful.

**The male sexology, the female sexology, the male body, the female body, the male physiology, the female physiology, the teleology of male body, the teleology of female body, the theology of the male body, the theology of the female body, the metaphysics of the male body, the metaphysics of the female body, the canon law (the sexed and sexual contract, the right to the body, on the body, of the body, the conjugal sexual rights, the conjugal sexual privileges), the personalism, the phenomenology, the objective, realistic, the personalist and phenomenological philosophy, the Song of Songs and the honesty of touchings, of caresses, of massages, of suctions, of kissings and of human manners of stimulating must be used without taboo.
**
Conjugal act is in three moments.

May be, my description will be too much strange and not in link with the USA’s view for many catholics. On this forum there are many uptight lay persons, it is sad.

 

[Mulligan2]

Before all, each human being is human** who is composed by a body, by a soul and by a heart. **In addition, each one is male or female what means that each one has a male body, a male soul and a male heart, or a female body, a female soul and a female heart. Naturally speaking, each human person is sexed, the male sexuation, or the female sexuation. Each one is defined by its humanity and by its sexuation. In the God design, before all each one is female (a woman) or male (a man). Thus morally speaking, each one has to respect and assume this state of male , or this state of female. By principle, **we are not defined by the sexual orientation: that is the trap of the new philosophies and new theologies. **

In reason of the liberty of each human being and of the effects of the original sin (bad effects of the concupiscence) some persons can choose to act against the constitutional nature of the dual humanity via the homosexual acts. The homosexual acts are not natural and are going against the nature created by God, those acts are abominations. If you read me, I say “the homosexual acts”, not the sexual orientation, per se, even if that sexual orientation is* not ordered by the natural order of the Creation. * A human being having this particular orientation* has the moral obligation not to practice those acts with a person of the same sex and has the moral obligation of working on itself for trying to solving this issue (an obligation of means) *morally speaking, mentally speaking, psychologically speaking, psychically speaking, spiritually speaking, emotionally speaking, sensibly speaking, physically speaking. A inquiry for trying to understand “the why” is important.

The modern doctrine made by the homosexual movements is morally wrong. She does not help the person with this particular orientation. The doctrinal philosophies wanting to explain that the homosexual orientation is normal and is in the respect of the nature** are not in favor of the natural morality and of the moral development of future societies.** Each one has to avoid its vice. A human being with a homosexual orientation has to stay away from those acts. It is a battle of all the life.

The doctrines in favor of this orientation are errors.
The homosexual orientation is not ordered by the creation;
The homosexual acts are going against the human nature;
The homosexualistes (the thinkers who make the homosexual doctrines) are in the error, and their doctrines are morally wrong;
The so called homosexual has to battle against this orientation.

I am confused by your post. Are you saying that God made some people homosexuals because of Original Sin? And that God is somehow punishing them for something that someone else did (Adam and Eve). Or are you saying that God made a mistake by creating some people as gay?

 

[EasterJoy]

I am confused by your post. Are you saying that God made some people homosexuals because of Original Sin? And that God is somehow punishing them for something that someone else did (Adam and Eve). Or are you saying that God made a mistake by creating some people as gay?

First of all, the Fall is not a punishment for a single sin. It is a state of humanity; that is, the state of preferring our own desires over the will of God and, as an inevitable consequence, the state of being heir to death, disease, corruption, deluded self-centeredness, and so on. We are not being punished, but we are born deprived and wounded, weakened and inclined towards evil, although each in different ways. Those with same-sex attraction are not unique in this regard. Therefore, it cannot be automatically assumed that their every inborn impulse is a just or holy impulse, any more than the same could be assumed of any of us. We are made to live as the image and likeness of God, but by the power of free cooperation with the grace of God. We are meant to be animated by the life of God Himself. Deprived of the inclination to submit ourselves to what is our true life, true nature, and true driving force, we cannot but suffer until we are reconciled and placed into full and free submission to God. To be anything else is to be submerged in unreality, to be chasing the mirage of our self-sufficiency, which is of course impossible.

From the CCC:

***The consequences of Adam’s sin for humanity **

402 All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."289 The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."290

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”.291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.292

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297 *

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I think you are trying to define ‘conjugal act’ in the way the blind monks were trying to define an elephant. …

I agree LS.
Unfortunately we are condemned to using terms (unitive, procreative conjugal-act) that have a very strong monkish (at least celibate philosophic and legalistic) pedigree.

To side-step that reality is to really condemn ourselves to talking past the Church’s very nuanced and well thought out insights with our shallower modern-day definitions and meanings.

This confusion is well demonstrated on this forum in the area of “unitive sex” as the wide and at times irreconcilable understandings seem to show.

 

[fpt]

I am confused by your post. Are you saying that God made some people homosexuals because of Original Sin? And that God is somehow punishing them for something that someone else did (Adam and Eve). Or are you saying that God made a mistake by creating some people as gay?

After the Fall, the human beings are always free to choose to do good acts or wrongs acts: the liberty and the freedom of each human being is still existing, but with the bad effects of the concupiscence, the natural choosing for the Goodness is more complex, thus we need to agree with the reception of graces coming from some Sacraments in order to respect the natural order and in order to please God in our actions.

In sus, after the Fall, there were many effects in our lifes of human beings : physical diseases, mental diseases, death, a form of wife’s seduction on her husband, a form of husband’s domination on his wife, the difficult work…etc.

Some people can be touched by issues about the sexual orientation, it is their cross, it is a mystery. The mystery of the Evil, it is very difficult to understand!!! But, those persons do not have to practice those homosexuals acts because these acts are totally not in link with the design invented by God.

Those people are not homosexual, per se, this vocabulary is a reduction. They are male or female with a sexual orientation that does not respect the natural order. They have to battle against. The acts are sinful not the orientation, per se. This orientation is a disorder that does not have to be activated by some material acts.

 

[fpt]

How are we to determine if it’s unitive?

Also, if spouses are having sex, how is one to know that the other isn’t simply lusting? Can sex be unitive and lusting?

A conjugal talk between husband and wife could be useful. Each one is the conjugal lover of the other, thus *why not a great marital discussion about this topic. *

Do you know that the couple has the right to debate on their conjugal sexual life, in the details with all subtleties: body, soul and heart.

It is a right for solving issues. The simple fact of not wanting to talk or not being able to is an issue!!!