The Homosexually Oriented Person and the Church

The Homosexually Oriented Person and the Church | Steven Schultz | Homiletic & Pastoral Review



Holding that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God, the Church most certainly does not condemn homosexual persons … (but) condemns using human sexuality for purposes contrary to that for which it is divinely intended … including homosexual acts. … It is the act, not the person which is the issue.

Despite the “glamorization” of homosexuality in modern society, we do
not serve the good of our fellow man by encouraging this approach.
Sacred Scripture clearly teaches that God does not condone homosexual
acts. 1 Consequently, the Church has consistently taught that homosexual acts are a violation of Catholic sexual ethics. 2
Unfortunately, those who advocate such acts attempt to ridicule
orthodox Church teaching by misstating authentic Church teaching as
condemning not simply acts, but homosexual persons themselves.
Holding that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God,
the Church most certainly does not condemn homosexual persons. The
Church condemns using human sexuality for purposes contrary to that for
which it is divinely intended, which includes engaging in homosexual acts. We must understand it is the act, not the person which is the issue. Let us considers this point in further detail.

Homosexuality is defined as “relations between men, or
between women, who experience exclusive or predominant sexual attraction
towards persons of the same sex.” 3
While the exact “causes” of homosexual orientation remain uncertain,
until relatively recently, most psychiatrists considered this
orientation an abnormal condition. In 1973, the American Psychiatric
Association changed its diagnostic manual to reflect the term “sexual
orientation disturbance.” This was modified in 1978 to “egodystoni”
(“distressful to the patient”); with all reference dropped in 1987. The
psychiatric community admitted at the time that this move did not “so
much reflect a scientific judgment on the cause or nature of
homosexuality, as the view that to label homosexuality as abnormal is to
stigmatize persons who are content with this condition, and to
encourage homophobia and discrimination against them.” 4
Note here that we are not “labeling” the person; we are speaking of
“orientation,” not person. Indeed, as the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith (CDF) teaches, “the Church provides a badly needed context
for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person
as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual,’ and insists that every person
has a fundamental identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child
and heir to eternal life.” 5
The importance of understanding human sexuality in the light of a
proper understanding of the human person, male and female, is a point to
which we shall return.

Let us first consider what Sacred Scripture explicitly teaches
regarding homosexual acts. We find numerous, clear admonishments of
homosexual acts in both the Old and New Testaments of Sacred Scripture.

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