Father Martin rejects the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that the “inclination” to “homosexual tendencies” is “objectively disordered” (2358). He writes:
“The phrase relates to the orientation, not the person, but it is still needlessly hurtful. Saying that one of the deepest parts of a person — the part that gives and receives love — is ‘disordered’ in itself is needlessly cruel” (pp. 46-47).
In a recent interview, he called for the use of the replacement phrase “differently ordered.” That would be a change in the Church’s teaching. It would mean that God created two different orders of sexual behavior that are both good and right according to his will: Some people are homosexual by God’s express design and some are heterosexual by God’s express design.
If that were the case, then homosexual acts themselves could no longer be described, as they are in the Catechism in Paragraph 2357, as “intrinsically disordered.” If the inclination is simply different, and not disordered, then acting upon that inclination is simply different, and not disordered. Homosexual activity would simply be natural behavior for “differently ordered” people.
