Grace & Peace!
Some people do indeed have an inborn vulnerability to alcohol that is absolutely overwhelming.
I also find the alcoholism analogy a bit troublesome. It conflates a potentially crippling addiction with a very human desire to form a deep, affective or romantic relationship with another human being–and I’m not talking about having sex, I’m talking about basic same-sex attraction. I think we assume too quickly that same-sex attracted people just want to have sex with whomever they fancy. If we assumed the same for heterosexuals, all dating would be banned as being, at best, a lust-addled near occasion for sin.
A man who has never had sex in his life but who expresses that he’s attracted to other men is said (at least in these fora) to be
suffering from the *affliction *of SSA; his affections are objectively disordered. But it would be unreasonable to tell a mixologist that they’re an alcoholic because they make terrific cocktails. It would be ridiculous to tell someone who enjoys a glass of wine with their dinner that their enjoyment constitutes a disorder. It would be absurd to tell someone who doesn’t drink but enjoys parties that they’re addicted to alcohol.
Alcoholism is characterized by a compulsive desire to engage in the ultimately self-destructive behavior of uncontrolled drinking. Being attracted to the same sex is characterized by being attracted to the same sex–elements of compulsion, self-destruction or engaging in the sexual act are no more a
definitive characteristic of such an attraction than they are
definitively characteristic of opposite sex attraction.
I would argue that it’s the language of “objective disorder” that invites such comparisons. And I and others would further argue that that language is problematic, to say the least.
The catechism’s discussion of sexuality should lead us to the understanding that the sexual appetite is geared toward the marital act, and that heterosexuality and homosexuality are aspects of human concupiscence.
Concupiscence, as we know, is not sin, but can lead to sin. One of the terrific things about the Catholic understanding of human desire is that it says that we desire things that are good for us, that is: the things we desire are not contrary to our nature as human beings. However, we do not always desire these good things in appropriate ways. As one thoughtful cathoic
wrote:
Of course, on the level of the lower appetite, we are not drawn by the holistic object of an appetite, but merely by this or that sensory “fragment” of the appetite. Only Reason can make sense of these fragments by uniting them into the proper “whole picture” of the correct object.
The complete object with regard to the sexual appetite, is, again, the marital act: male+female+marriage+sex. That’s the whole picture according to the RCC moral teaching. And neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality in themselves construct the whole picture.
And that
should be the end of it. That’s all that
should need to be said. But the catechism unfortunately goes further: it says that a homosexual inclination represents an
objective disorder. Which is to say, the object of the inclination is
wrong according to the nature of the one so inclined. But this is problematic. Why? Because it introduces the idea that the sexual appetite is geared not toward a holistic act, but is geared toward specific sensual fragments: a male desires a female’s body and vice versa. How is this problematic? It says that the sexual appetite is binary, not unitary, and relative: that the good sought by one person (a male), is definitively
not the good sought by another (a female). And this begins to suggest that there is a fundamental difference between the
nature of how males and females desire, which is to ultimately posit that males and females have different kinds of concupiscence, different kinds of wills, and, in the end, different human natures. Naturally, that sounds absurd. But that’s where the logic leads us. Why else would it be objectively wrong for a man to find another man attractice unless the sensual data involved were evil relative to the man’s maleness?
In other words, in such an understanding:
…]homosexuality is “intrinsically or objective disordered” because it cannot, …]merely be considered a case of “the right pieces being assembled the wrong way” but of wrong pieces (on the level of the sensitive appetite) period.
…]
In other words, homosexuality isn’t considered just a case of fallen concupiscence like any other (ie, a mis-assembling of good fragments, of “pieces” that can, by Reason, be assembled into the holistic good “whole picture”)…but rather something utterly disordered.
This is theologically problematic, to say the least, because the idea that the Fall could have caused any sort of total depravity is not in the Catholic notion. The lower appetite now acts independently of Reason, but the things it is attracted to are still ultimately “good pieces” even if they can be assembled incorrectly. To posit a species of creature attracted to pieces that are not even part of the good for its nature…is to posit a monster.
Source.
There is, naturally, no problem with the RCC saying that certain actions are intrinsically disordered because they represent a grave moral evil (such as any form of sex outside marriage). But to take an extra step to an understanding that some people’s concupiscence is
completely corrupt…I think there are problems with that. Comparisons to alcoholism are symptoms of those problems.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
