What is NATURAL in sexual desires as stated in the Catechism?

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The word Natural is used every so often in the catechism as in Natural law and Natural relations, etc.

For example, ‘man has a natural sexual desire for a woman’. Natural here is used to describe a males sexual attraction and desire for a female. The catechism also says there are certain ‘natural laws’. Here the laws of thermodynamics and physics would be natural laws that God has created, and as far as we know they are absolute and unbreakable.

But can said first example of ‘man having a natural sexual desire for a woman’ also be a ‘natural law’ such that it is absolute and unbreakable? It doesn’t seem so. Some gay men have told me that they absolutely have no natural desire for a woman, but only for a man? They have said to me that it is very natural for them to have this desire for men and not women. The desire for women is very unnatural to them. It is not absolute, therefore, that all men have a natural sexual desire for woman.

The catechism also states that no one knows where the homosexual inclination comes from and that we as Catholics shouldn’t discriminate against them, but the catechism still says all gay sexual relations are immoral. This is confusing. If we don’t know where it comes from we cannot call it natural or unnatural because as stated we just don’t know. Yet the catechism still jumps to the conclusion that gay sexual relations is unnatural and more definitively always unnatural. This doesn’t make logical sense.

It is a standard truth in logic and philosophy that if an argument’s basic premise or position is wrong then any arguments and conclusions leading from it, no matter how logical, are also wrong. So if someone states the basic premise that ‘man has a natural sexual desire for a woman’, but a man, 100% gay, has no such natural desire towards any woman, and we have no knowledge of where sexual desires come from (be they natural or unnatural) then any logical arguments based on this premise, such that gay sex is always unnatural and also immoral, is also wrong.

We just can’t put the natural laws of thermodynamics and physics in the same category as sexual attractions anymore. How can we defend our position that gay sex is immoral if our basic premise about natural sexual relations is wrong? We need new words to describe a premise that would conclude that gay sexual relations is absolutely wrong. What would they be? And if we can not find such words for such a premise that is absolute then maybe we are also wrong about SOME gay sexual relations.

Yes I know we have different Bible passages against gay sexual relations, but each of these passages speaks to a specific gay sexual act, like rape, adultry or pederastry, etc. which are also stated many times in the Bible as immoral in heterosexual sexual relations as well. So what about mutual, loving, monogamous gay relationships? Nowhere in scripture does it speak against such relationships.

It is clearer and clearer to me why most gay men don’t accept the Catholic apologist defense of our position against all gay sexual relationship. They seem very illogical and untenable.
What can I say that can convince someone of our Catholic position on homosexual sexual relations that works?
 
I ahve been struggling to understand these same issues as well. I’m a girl that has always been attracted to the opposite sex. But I had recently delt with my attraction toward another femal friend of mine. And it wasn’t just physical attraction as our 2 year friendship made me really care for her. But upon learning about Mortal Sins (I’m protestant) I had to force myself to deny myself of her, for the sake of my own soul. But I’m still confused since my feelings for her felt no different than my feelings for guys.
I also used to believe that it was wrong to even think of questioning God’s ways. But later on I was told that in questions we can learn as to why God’s ways are righteous. I think it would be easier for me to accept my heartache if I can just see as to WHY I had to give her up.
 
Frankieschatz1, yours is a very well stated presentation. It is said that anything in the Bible can be used to prove anything. Yet, God is Love. I think that He is the highest standard and that we egotisticly try to rationalize our parochial beliefs that many time are unexamined unfounded, pious, emotional prejudices with no basis in Nature, only reactivism.

A very sane book that deals with the problem of how we think about these things in a religious context is Gina Cerminara’s Insights for the Age of Aquarius That is an unfortunate title, as it seems to give the book a slant, when in fact it is simply about some rules of thought that help clarify thinking in any field, including science. I recommend it highly in the way of looking at the question of Bible based moral stances, or any stance for that matter. It is a note of sanity in an emotionalized arena.

In the mean time, Love is the light of our lives. I know that there is God’s business, other people,s business, and my own business. Unless I am invited into someone elses for the sake of Love, I’m wasting energy being anywhere but in my own.

Once again, thank you for an even handed and compassionate statement.
 
Christine, you are yet young. You will painfully discover that some claims that something, even dogma, is “God’s way” is little more than personal legitimizing of a private prejudice, unexamined and often handed down over generations. Don’t be too quick to label and pigeonhole your sincere feelings on somone else’s opinion. God loves you as you are. We, as humans, cover our Natuiral possibilities with false assumptions, even in the name of religion. Be careful, sincere, and honest with yourself and with others. You will do well.
 
You can have intense love for someone like that of the opposite sex…there is nothing wrong with that…look at David and his friend in the Bible. They were very, very close. But they did not have a romantic relationship.

Romance leads to marriage, whose purpose is to produce offspring by being open to life being created during sex. That’s why you have to consummate a marriage. This is also why gay marriage can’t happen in the Catholic faith. Marriage is a sacrament that has specific requirements to be valid, much like the confection of the Eucharist…you can’t just do any old thing and make it happen. It has to happen the proscribed way to be valid.

You can intensley love someone of the opposite sex. You just can’t have a ‘sexual’ relationship with them. It’s pretty obvious the body was designed for male/female copulation for production of offspring. Anything else is disordered. I don’t mean that in a deroggatory way…but it’s the truth. It’s like using a pipe wrench for a hammer. It’ll work, kind of, but it’s not what it was designed for.

That isn’t the pastoral approach, but it’s the deep reasoning on why the church teaches what she does.
 
Dear FF: Have you read the story of David?

Is marriage solely a biological function as you seem to imply?

“confection of the Eucharist…” (your words)

confection: –noun 1. a sweet preparation of fruit or the like, as a preserve or candy.
2. the process of compounding, preparing, or making something.
3. a frivolous, amusing, or contrived play, book, or other artistic or literary work.
4. something made up or confected; a concoction: He said the charges were a confection of the local police.
5. something, as a garment or decorative object, that is very delicate, elaborate, or luxurious and usually nonutilitarian.
6. Pharmacology. a medicated preparation made with the aid of sugar, honey, syrup, or the like.
–verb (used with object) 7. Archaic. to prepare as a confection.

“the proscribed way” (your words)

pro-scribed: -1. to denounce or condemn (a thing) as dangerous or harmful; prohibit.
2. to put outside the protection of the law; outlaw.
3. to banish or exile.
4. to announce the name of (a person) as condemned to death and subject to confiscation of property.

“You can intensley love someone of the opposite sex. You just can’t have a ‘sexual’ relationship with them.” So you are saying we should only have sex with somone of the same sex???

Your reply certainly reflects “deep reasoning.” Thanks for being an example of why people leave the church.
 
Sorry newbie user…no need to get ugly. I meant same sex, and misused the word ‘proscribed’…should have been prescribed…I think my point is well made.
 
Detales said:
Christine, you are yet young. You will painfully discover that some claims that something, even dogma, is “God’s way” is little more than personal legitimizing of a private prejudice, unexamined and often handed down over generations. Don’t be too quick to label and pigeonhole your sincere feelings on somone else’s opinion. God loves you as you are. We, as humans, cover our Natuiral possibilities with false assumptions, even in the name of religion. Be careful, sincere, and honest with yourself and with others. You will do well.
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I’m sorry but I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe because I wasn’t too clear on my part. When refering to me questioning God’s ways I ment the scripture. If, for example, I recently learned that steeling was a sin I would automaticly accept the fact, no questions in trying to understandy why it is a sin. “God is almighty and just, who am I to question the scripture?” WAS my mentality. But now I try to find WHY a sin is a sin (Plus it’s a bonus for when I am trying to witness to a non-believer).
ForwardProgress said:
You can have intense love for someone like that of the opposite sex…there is nothing wrong with that…look at David and his friend in the Bible. They were very, very close. But they did not have a romantic relationship.

Romance leads to marriage, whose purpose is to produce offspring by being open to life being created during sex. That’s why you have to consummate a marriage. This is also why gay marriage can’t happen in the Catholic faith. Marriage is a sacrament that has specific requirements to be valid, much like the confection of the Eucharist…you can’t just do any old thing and make it happen. It has to happen the proscribed way to be valid.

You can intensley love someone of the opposite sex. You just can’t have a ‘sexual’ relationship with them. It’s pretty obvious the body was designed for male/female copulation for production of offspring. Anything else is disordered. I don’t mean that in a deroggatory way…but it’s the truth. It’s like using a pipe wrench for a hammer. It’ll work, kind of, but it’s not what it was designed for.

That isn’t the pastoral approach, but it’s the deep reasoning on why the church teaches what she does.
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Your reference to a pipe wrench used as a hammer did bring a smile to my face. But when I say that I love someone I always mean it in a romantic way. And I loved her on the level which I would love a potential husband, with the means to “marry”. Maybe a history on how my feelings came about would help. -
My female friend has been dating the same guy for 3 years now. In February of this year they got into a big fight in which she almost left him. We had a few discusions about it, we are practicly best friends after all, and she said she could never see herself being with any other man. She mentioned that she might consider asking another one of our female friends to be her girlfriend. Something about that talk made me think a little too deep on the issue “Maybe I could be her girlfriend” was my thinking. I have always ended up falling for my male friends in the past and the only difference in this current situation was that the one I loved was a girl. She never left her boyfriend but my feelings were so strong I just waited less he made any more mistakes to jeapordize their relationship (I only waited, I never tried to break them apart). But upon learning that us being together in a romantic and sexual relationship would be a grave sin, I had to force myself from ever seeing myself with her as a “mate”. I know my feelings aren’t a mortal sin in itself, but it can lead to one.
 
But can said first example of ‘man having a natural sexual desire for a woman’ also be a ‘natural law’ such that it is absolute and unbreakable?
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Yes. The “natural” desire of a man for a woman is part of how God designed us for procreation. Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies. Because we have immortal souls, there is more to it for us humans. But first and foremost, it is to make babies. Same-sex attraction (SSA) is, in that sense, unnatural. It is not part of the natural order of things. That is why the Catechism calls it “disordered.”

SSA may feel completely natural to those who experience it, but it is not in line with the natural order.

There is also the natural moral law, which is written on our hearts. I believe that the high rate of mental illness, suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse among those living the “gay lifestyle” is due to the conflict between what they feel is “natural,” and the natural moral law.

SSA is a heavy cross to carry, especially in today’s over-sexualized culture of death. My compassion runs deep; I owe a lot to some of my homosexual friends, including my life and sanity. I’d love to say, “Go! Marry! Be free!” but I’d far rather see them in Heaven.

God be merciful to me a sinner,

Ruthie
 
Theology of the Body, by Christopher West is an inexpensive, very readable, and (to me) mind-blowing description of God’s plan for us as male and female. Not to mention that it ties together several “threads” of Catholic / Christian thought that I previously had no appreciation for.

I highly recommend that anyone with “sexual” questions read this book. It is not long, or difficult to read.
 
Ruthie said:
Yes. The “natural” desire of a man for a woman is part of how God designed us for procreation. Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies. Because we have immortal souls, there is more to it for us humans. But first and foremost, it is to make babies. Same-sex attraction (SSA) is, in that sense, unnatural. It is not part of the natural order of things. That is why the Catechism calls it “disordered.”

SSA may feel completely natural to those who experience it, but it is not in line with the natural order.

There is also the natural moral law, which is written on our hearts. I believe that the high rate of mental illness, suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse among those living the “gay lifestyle” is due to the conflict between what they feel is “natural,” and the natural moral law.

SSA is a heavy cross to carry, especially in today’s over-sexualized culture of death. My compassion runs deep; I owe a lot to some of my homosexual friends, including my life and sanity. I’d love to say, “Go! Marry! Be free!” but I’d far rather see them in Heaven.

God be merciful to me a sinner,

Ruthie
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Ruthie said:
Yes. The “natural” desire of a man for a woman is part of how God designed us for procreation. Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies. Because we have immortal souls, there is more to it for us humans. But first and foremost, it is to make babies. ]

Ok Ruthie,
You sound sweet, but if you truly think “Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies” then I feel sorry for you. Emotional joy and physical pleasure are also part of God’s design for sex, or lets me honest, there would be far fewer babies in the world. If you ask most people, even just married couples, why they have sex they will certainly not declare that having a baby is first and foremost, and just stating that it should be doesn’t make it so either.

If you read CCC 2357 it states that psychologically we don’t know the genesis of homosexuality, and we should not discriminate against them. But it goes on to say that homosexuality is disordered, unnatural and homosexual activity is always wrong. That sounds very hypocritical, and it just flys in the face of basic logic to declare such things as definitive if you don’t know it genesis.

If we do not know the genesis of something we can not state any definitive truths to an absolute description. If we don’t know what causes homosexual desires (or for that matter heterosexual desires) than we can not with integrity declare they are always disordered or unnatural.

What if we find in the future that homosexuality and heterosexuality are determined by our genetic make up, or that they are determined by the amount of hormones a woman produces while she is pregnant. If we find that a recessive gene or excess productions of hormones results in a gay son then being homosexual is natural indeed.

But such as it is we do not know the genesis of homosexual tendencies so we cannot honestly or logically say that they are natural or unnatural. The truth is that we don’t even know the genesis of heterosexual orientation and desires, so it is only a prejudgment to say that hetersexual sex is natural and gay sex is not.

So what I need are some really good reasons why ALL homosexual sexual activities are wrong and immoral, because right now when I give the Catholic rational as stated in the CCC, the gay men I have talked to see right through its illogic. Please help me find some definitive reasons so I don’t look the fool.
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frankieschatz1 said:
Ruthie;4477443:
Yes. The “natural” desire of a man for a woman is part of how God designed us for procreation. Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies. Because we have immortal souls, there is more to it for us humans. But first and foremost, it is to make babies. ]

Ok Ruthie,
You sound sweet, but if you truly think “Sex was designed by God for one thing: to make babies” then I feel sorry for you. Emotional joy and physical pleasure are also part of God’s design for sex, or lets me honest, there would be far fewer babies in the world. If you ask most people, even just married couples, why they have sex they will certainly not declare that having a baby is first and foremost, and just stating that it should be doesn’t make it so either.

If you read CCC 2357 it states that psychologically we don’t know the genesis of homosexuality, and we should not discriminate against them. But it goes on to say that homosexuality is disordered, unnatural and homosexual activity is always wrong. That sounds very hypocritical, and it just flys in the face of basic logic to declare such things as definitive if you don’t know it genesis.

If we do not know the genesis of something we can not state any definitive truths to an absolute description. If we don’t know what causes homosexual desires (or for that matter heterosexual desires) than we can not with integrity declare they are always disordered or unnatural.

What if we find in the future that homosexuality and heterosexuality are determined by our genetic make up, or that they are determined by the amount of hormones a woman produces while she is pregnant. If we find that a recessive gene or excess productions of hormones results in a gay son then being homosexual is natural indeed.

But such as it is we do not know the genesis of homosexual tendencies so we cannot honestly or logically say that they are natural or unnatural. The truth is that we don’t even know the genesis of heterosexual orientation and desires, so it is only a prejudgment to say that hetersexual sex is natural and gay sex is not.

So what I need are some really good reasons why ALL homosexual sexual activities are wrong and immoral, because right now when I give the Catholic rational as stated in the CCC, the gay men I have talked to see right through its illogic. Please help me find some definitive reasons so I don’t look the fool.
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I agree. How can I give God’s word to those when I can’t explain why what they’re doing is wrong. Or for my personal matter at the moment why I had to give up the only girl I ever loved. But seeing as the genisis of homosexuality remains in the shadows I’ll be forever arguing with myself on this issue.
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frankieschatz1 said:
The word Natural is used every so often in the catechism as in Natural law and Natural relations, etc.

For example, ‘man has a natural sexual desire for a woman’. Natural here is used to describe a males sexual attraction and desire for a female. The catechism also says there are certain ‘natural laws’. Here the laws of thermodynamics and physics would be natural laws that God has created, and as far as we know they are absolute and unbreakable.

But can said first example of ‘man having a natural sexual desire for a woman’ also be a ‘natural law’ such that it is absolute and unbreakable? It doesn’t seem so. Some gay men have told me that they absolutely have no natural desire for a woman, but only for a man? They have said to me that it is very natural for them to have this desire for men and not women. The desire for women is very unnatural to them. It is not absolute, therefore, that all men have a natural sexual desire for woman.

The catechism also states that no one knows where the homosexual inclination comes from and that we as Catholics shouldn’t discriminate against them, but the catechism still says all gay sexual relations are immoral. This is confusing. If we don’t know where it comes from we cannot call it natural or unnatural because as stated we just don’t know. Yet the catechism still jumps to the conclusion that gay sexual relations is unnatural and more definitively always unnatural. This doesn’t make logical sense.

It is a standard truth in logic and philosophy that if an argument’s basic premise or position is wrong then any arguments and conclusions leading from it, no matter how logical, are also wrong. So if someone states the basic premise that ‘man has a natural sexual desire for a woman’, but a man, 100% gay, has no such natural desire towards any woman, and we have no knowledge of where sexual desires come from (be they natural or unnatural) then any logical arguments based on this premise, such that gay sex is always unnatural and also immoral, is also wrong.

We just can’t put the natural laws of thermodynamics and physics in the same category as sexual attractions anymore. How can we defend our position that gay sex is immoral if our basic premise about natural sexual relations is wrong? We need new words to describe a premise that would conclude that gay sexual relations is absolutely wrong. What would they be? And if we can not find such words for such a premise that is absolute then maybe we are also wrong about SOME gay sexual relations.

Yes I know we have different Bible passages against gay sexual relations, but each of these passages speaks to a specific gay sexual act, like rape, adultry or pederastry, etc. which are also stated many times in the Bible as immoral in heterosexual sexual relations as well. So what about mutual, loving, monogamous gay relationships? Nowhere in scripture does it speak against such relationships.

It is clearer and clearer to me why most gay men don’t accept the Catholic apologist defense of our position against all gay sexual relationship. They seem very illogical and untenable.
What can I say that can convince someone of our Catholic position on homosexual sexual relations that works?
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When we talk about “nature” we are talking about causes. Gays generally beg the question of the origin of their sexual desires. There is no evidence that it is genetic, so it is more likely that it originates in their life experiences. The differences between males and females are grounded in genetics, but there is also much in our experiences which determine our choices even as we act in accordance with our natures. Sexuality is caused by the our need to reproduce our kind, but it is easily diverted by one thing or another.

Back in college million years ago, I heard in a psychology class that a rule of thumb is that until puberrty, boys and girls were. loosely speaking, homosexual, but then heterosexual. But the objects of their new sexual desires are not always the normal ones, because we may not be able to bridge the differences between men and women, or because the adults around us, have confused up by their own behavior. We may be unsure how to give release to our sexual urges, and it may be easier to relate to a person of one’s own sex, because we know how they feel, and how their bodies function. In short we may simply be afraid of the other sex. So like bonds with like, even if we are led in the wrong direction.
 
It is natural for some folks to throw a ball, play a piano, weild a brush, raise a baby, lead a country, discover a working theorem, even push a broom, etc, etc. We each have our talent in degree and kind. We all have a more basic talent, that is the talent and gift of being able to give and receive Love. It is basic, I feel, to all other talents. It is the one talent I feel we are obliged to develop and to sponsor.

I also maintain that God is Love. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Indeed, I understand that the word for “God” is the word for “good” in many languages. I therefore believe that the doing of good is being in alignment with God’s Will, whaterver diminuative interpretation we wish to put on that. I say that because I agree with Samuel Clemens that “God created Man in His image and likeness and we returned the favor.” I also agree with him that “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.” He is so rationalizing that he can use the word of God and especially dogma to prosecute an Inquisition, murder over a million innocent women as witches, wage war, and have sway over what is clearly evident from science, such as the Earth going around the Sun. We won’t even go into the Bible’s graphic descriptions of sexual perversions too numerous to list and genocides that are done there either in the name of God or by His command. ( No wonder the Church sticks to dogma in preference to the Holy Book; and someone on here didn’t want to read a valuable study because it had the word “Aquarian” in the title. Please.)

What I am saying, Angel, is that when it comes to the crunch, it is between you and God according to your heart. Religious beliefs and prescriptions are wonderful as guides when they clearly work. Also the Parrish may be a wonderful venue for social contact and doing good. But trading your heart for the ink and paper dictums of churchmen of questionable repute and argumentation may be something that bears weighty evaluation.

Take a look at one of the deep field photographs taken by the Hubble telescope. What if you were just dropped out there in the midst of all those galaxies? Would you not just be in absolute awe of the immensity of God’s creation, just even the small part you can see? Would you have any clue as to the whereabouts of Earth? Yet God as His Love have changed not one whit. Yet we arrogantly presume that we lesser beings have the one correct interpretation of the intent of His Son two thousand years ago as translated different ways through even two languages whose cultural and semantic basis we have no experiential clue about. Love is the constant and present messenger of God, and perhaps that superceeds the intellectual argumentations of theologians.

If you are going to go to an authority on paper, how about Psalm 40:8 “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”. I feel that that requires the courage of honesty, clarity, and all of the virtues touted as being of value by the Church. It may not be easy, but there is no doubt in my heart that God rewards sincerity, for He is above all else, a God of Love.
 
It may not be easy, but there is no doubt in my heart that God rewards sincerity, for He is above all else, a God of Love.

Thanks for the love thoughts. I truly believe that all the commandments and the prophets are based on the law of Love as Jesus himself declared in scripture. (Romans 13) This is how the law can be ‘written’ on our hearts; to do all we do in the name of love with the guidance of the Holy Spirit .

I must admit that that is a very difficult and daunting task indeed, and the sincerity we do as such is intense. If God then judges the sincerity of our deeds and thoughts on the sincerity of love in our hearts it would be much easier to just go by certain ‘rules’ as set down by our Christian leaders and traditions and hope that they are enough.

The problems today of trying to abide by ‘God’s Law’ is just as impossible to do as it was back then. That is why Jesus came to fulfill the law in his own body and die in our place, for we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We just can’t follow the law as written in the CCC or Bible without God’s help, his love and his inspirations.

This is why I have asked the questions about homosexuality. It seems the reasons condemning all homosexual activity as stated in the CCC are at times illogical and even irrational when dealing with homosexuals and homosexual acts. They are all wrapped up, though, in pretty phrases with words that have untenable definitions.

For example, we English speaking people use the word, natural, mostly as a defining adjective meaning anything that is formed by nature as opposed to artificial and pertaining to the study of natural science, etc, Yet the CCC 2257 uses the word ‘natural’ in sexual desires to mean only that which heterosexuals experience and not homosexuals. Only humans with heterosexual desires are truly natural according to the CCC, and others are unnatural.

Yet humans with homosexuals desires describe those desires as totally natural to themselves and heterosexual desires as unnatural to themselves. This truth is completely overlooked in the CCC by whatever rationale saddens me as a Catholic. If one issue is falsely stated in the CCC by whatever rationale then it begs the question of how many other issues in the CCC may be tainted with such prejudicial rationale?

If a homosexual human is formed by nature which he so obviously is then his sexual desires are just as natural to himself as a heterosexuals sexual desires is natural to himself. To say otherwise to ignore personal experiences and much of the scientific studies of late of what is natural to a homosexual person.
Frankie
 
If a homosexual human is formed by nature which he so obviously is then his sexual desires are just as natural to himself as a heterosexuals sexual desires is natural to himself. To say otherwise to ignore personal experiences and much of the scientific studies of late of what is natural to a homosexual person.
Frankie

But it is not the case, or it cannot be proved, that homosexuals
are “born” the way they are, nor do we know of any physical developmental process that inevitably leads to SSA. The confusion lies in your definition of natural. If you had been educated earlier in the Church you would know that natural in this context means other than supernatural, but also refers to cause and effect. If homosexuality has a physical cause ,we don’t know it. Until 1972, the mental health people treated it as a psychological ailment. Then in 1972, more for political than scientific reasons, but also because they found their techniques could not “cure” it, they abandoned this stancce and no longer contended that it was a mental illness. Again, that is because they could not decide upon a cause. Therefore, they went 180 and decided that the proscription of it was entirely a matter of social convention. The gays themselve blame this on Christianity despite the fact that homosexuality is scorned in many, many cultures. Francis Parkman found among the plains indians they were required to associate with squaws. and were treated as such. This is at once evidence that it is a natural conidition and that no one can figure out the underlying cause.
 
A person with a malfunctioning digestive system may be inclined to vomit even though vommitting is not natural.

A person with a malfunctioning sexual and affective system may be inclined to be in bodily unity with another man (form a united quasi-merged body and spirit). So that’s all it means when the church says homosexuals are morally (sexually) disordered individuals. Their disorder is moral in nature since it pertains to human action that is of a moral dimension (sex) as opposed to mere digestive function beyond our choice (vomitting).

It’s NOT disordered or sinful in anyway whatsoever however to simply want to be in greater and intimate union with a member of the same sex. Women tend to be more in tune with that than men, probably due to male homophobia. So for example two women holding hands together to form unity in spirit and body (without quasi-merging which is physically impossible for women and also spiritually impossible), is great and to be recommended if it weren’t for the germs people carry 😉 For two men two, it is fine to hold hands together to form unity in spirit and body and here to no quasi-merging is possible that is a genuine quasi-merging of body and spirit. It may seem like homosexuals are capable of quasi-merging like that but quasi-merging of human body and spirit is possible only when like two jigsaw puzzle pieces two persons can fit together in a complementary way. Two men and two women can’t do that not just physically but also spiritually. They may still be complementary as friends, but to be be quasi-merged one has to be male and female – this is not morality, this is just fact and reality … it’s like magnets or postively and negatively charged particles – for some things to quasi-merge (be it in fusion or other processes), certain conditions must obtain. In the case of sex, those conditions are male and female sexuality.

Fortunately once we identify homosexual genes, some kind of genetic therapy (this is something that is not related to abortion necessarily, genetic therapy can be applied without killing anyone) will develop for both humans in the womb (on some theories it is womb conditions not genes that cause homosexuality) as well as for those unfortunate enough to be homosexually oriented – which is a true orientation just as some people are oriented due to bodily defect to vomitting. As Cardinal Daneels teaches, homosexual orientation more than being moral or immoral, just is.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfried_Danneels
 
Well, it is natural for a husband to desire his wife and for a wife to desire her husband but I suppose that desire can become excessive. You can become addicted to sex. An addiction to sex would not be natural. Also, a man desiring another man or a woman desiring another woman is not natural either.
 
But it is not the case, or it cannot be proved, that homosexuals
are “born” the way they are, nor do we know of any physical developmental process that inevitably leads to SSA. The confusion lies in your definition of natural. If you had been educated earlier in the Church you would know that natural in this context means other than supernatural, but also refers to cause and effect. If homosexuality has a physical cause ,we don’t know it. Until 1972, the mental health people treated it as a psychological ailment. Then in 1972, more for political than scientific reasons, but also because they found their techniques could not “cure” it, they abandoned this stancce and no longer contended that it was a mental illness. Again, that is because they could not decide upon a cause. Therefore, they went 180 and decided that the proscription of it was entirely a matter of social convention. The gays themselve blame this on Christianity despite the fact that homosexuality is scorned in many, many cultures. Francis Parkman found among the plains indians they were required to associate with squaws. and were treated as such. This is at once evidence that it is a natural conidition and that no one can figure out the underlying cause.

You beg my response. You say it cannot be proved that homosexuals are ‘born’ the way they are. CANNOT? What a closed minded, ungodly and unscientific statement. All things are possible with God. Who are you to say what the future will foretell? It maybe that science will discover the very cause of human sexual orientations.

It may be nothing more than one or three genes that says if one will be homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. It may be that the bisexual gene is really the dominant gene and the homosexual and bisexual ones are recessive one. These genes may be discovered to be no different than the dominant brown eye gene and the recessive blue gene. How much more natural is that?

If the Church is using the English word ‘natural’ in a way that is not an English usage defintion, then my original point still stands. The church needs to use new words to define homosexual desires so as not to confuse the very people she wishes to educate on the subject.
Frankie
 
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