Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops
PART II Putting Love Into Love
(15.) HOMOSEXUALITY
123. The truth of the language of sexuality is also missing in homosexual
acts and sexual relationships between people of the same sex. It is vital,
of course, to distinguish between a homosexual orientation and homosexual
acts. A person with a homosexual orientation is not thereby a sinner.
Homosexual tendencies, as distinct from homosexual actions, can be innate
and can be irreversible.
124. Up to very recently, the whole of Christian tradition, and the
unanimous consensus of all Christian Churches, following the clear teaching
of both Old Testament and New Testament, affirmed the sinfulness of homosexual
acts. Some confusion regarding this teaching may have crept in recently.
The teaching of the Catholic Church stands clear; and it firmly declares
that deliberate homosexual acts are objectively and gravely immoral. Between
persons of the same sex, there cannot be sexual intercourse as God designed
it. There cannot be complementarity of two sexually differentiated personalities
in communion of body and spirit, with openness to the procreation of new
life. There cannot be that truth and fullness and wholeness of sexual communion
which constitute marriage as God designed it and blessed it.
125. There has been a vigorous campaign in recent years to vindicate the
rights of homosexual persons. This campaign, if it limited itself to outlawing
social discrimination against people of homosexual orientation, would be
good and necessary. Unfortunately, however, the campaign in question often
claims for homosexual acts complete social, legal and moral parity with
heterosexual acts. Sometimes it even claims for homosexual relationships
parity with lawful marriage. Such claims damage homosexual persons themselves,
and can have the sad effect of encouraging people to accept definitive public
classification of themselves as homosexuals. This undermines their motivation
and their effort to control the expression of their sexuality. It can also
encourage others, whose sexuality is not exclusively or irreversibly homosexual,
to indulge in homosexual acts and habits, thereby reinforcing their homosexual
orientation. There are young people whose sexual orientation may not as
yet be finally determined; but they can be led by homosexual propaganda
into paths destructive of their personality and of their moral integrity.
The initiation of young people into homosexual activity is particularly
detestable. Homosexual prostitution of children is one of the ugliest crimes
of our age.
126. Persons with homosexual tendencies or habits need and deserve sympathetic,
compassionate and patient pastoral care. Their personal suffering can be
bitter, their struggle agonising, their sense of loneliness and exclusion
intense. They need understanding. They need respect. It is unChristian to
look on homosexuals with disgust or disdain, merely because they are of
this personality type. Above all, there can be no condonation of violence
against such persons. It is not a moral fault to have dispositions and tendencies.
Each person has to observe the moral law and achieve his or her moral
destiny within the personality structure and the sexual orientation which
he or she has. Heterosexual persons too have to control sexual urges; and
for some the struggle can be very much harder than for others. When the
struggle is abnormally and over poweringly intense, the person's moral responsibility
can be lessened, and in some cases, even removed. This applies to both heterosexuals
and homosexuals. The contrast frequently drawn between them in this regard
is not justified Both are equally called to chastity. Both have to struggle
against temptation in order to be chaste. Homosexual men and women who maintain
chastity through moral mastery of their sexuality can attain high moral
virtue, just as heterosexuals can. Their struggle deserves admiration and
support. Such homosexual persons can, no less than others, acquire real
holiness of life. They should be supported by the Christian community, and
especially by compassionate and enlightened guidance from priests, in their
efforts to do so.
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