Homosexuality, church teaching and marriage

Catholic New Times, Feb 13, 2005

We write this editorial as the governing Liberal party tables same sex legislation which would guarantee the rights of faith groups o refuse same-sex marriages. Unlike most other editorials, we re prepared to admit that we are unable to come to a consensus ourselves on this important issue. Our division here at CNT reflects the country and will become clearer in future editorials.

What unites us however is our concern over the church's teaching on homosexuality. It seems to us out of touch with growing scientific evidence on the nature of homosexuality itself. Cumulative scientific evidence has added new truth to the natural presence of homosexuals as part of the human family probably since time immemorial, a reflection the extraordinary delightful divine diversity seen in other parts of creation. Now we see fellow humans created by God and sustained by God's love. No more "queers," deviants or perverts, just brothers and sisters made in the divine image. We are not against this orientation the Vatican tells us, even though it is "essentially disordered" (1986), but any expression of this love is intrinsically evil. "When they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent."

Gay people then, animated and quickened, as heterosexuals are, by the love of another person, are denied the sexual expression thereof. They are told it is deviant, aberrant. Their heterosexual counterparts can look forward to fulfillment, sexual and otherwise, within marriage. The gay person, even preparing for a lifelong, irrevocable loving commitment, we are told, should not look for this. His or her natural erotic desire to delight in the other in a way which is primal, lifelong and insistent can only expect frustration. Not only that, but he is told that such a desire is "sinful," "unnatural" and "intrinsically disordered."

All this from the spiritual home where he/she was assured that "nothing, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities ... will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord." (Rom. 8:38,39)

Is this all we can offer gay people? The Vatican statement (1986) essentially says "Offer it up. Your sexual cross is a fruitful sacrifice." Not only does this seem harsh and unrealistic but the denigration of homosexuals and their love seems hopelessly fixated on a "parts" mentality rather than the loving engagement of two human beings joined in love for the common good. And we are not even speaking of marriage yet!

Moral theology has moved beyond "Act centred" towards a more "person centred" approach where the overriding Jesus ethic of love trumps everything. If grace builds on nature, might we not say same-sex, loving and committed relationships and the sexual expression thereof can be holy and may even be sacramental. All of us recognize many such gay relationships. We might argue that heterosexual marriage with its openness to children does indeed carry a deeper symbolic import but in no way does this argue against same sex relationships.

In 1977, a report commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America basically stated this. The theologians said they "were presenting their work in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council to help "beleaguered teachers and pastors." They affirmed homosexual acts as moral within a committed framework. They said: Homosexuals have the same rights to love, intimacy and relationships as heterosexuals ... the norms governing the morality of homosexual activity are those which govern all sexual activity and the norms governing sexual activity are those that govern all human sexual activity. Are homosexuals by reason of their condition, denied by God and nature the right enjoyed by heterosexuals to the intimate sexual expression of love?" The commission's findings were widely received by mainline theologians while being criticized by Rome.

Two years later John Paul 11 became pope and moral theology came to a standstill.