Homosexuality/Catholic Answers

[Nemothepanda]

Why someone would want to be part of a religion that teaches that one's desires and passions are inherently abominable to the point where it's a dire human flaw affront to the natural and moral order of things, I will never know.

[Nemothepanda]

If you want to know I can tell you.

Enlighten me, I'm rather curious.

[palbert]

This thread is a rabbit hole.

[cityboy-stl]

The church is 200 years behind the times. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today...erview-martini

The church has been wrong on many things. It can be a relic of centuries past or it can catch up today. They used to excommunicate people who thought the Earth went around sun. Being gay is a natural variation of human sexuality, not original sin. As long as the Catholic Church continues to ignore reality it continues to live in superstition and further irrelevance.

I am still Catholic but I refuse to live 200 years behind the times and you shouldn't either.

[bankside]

The idea of inheritable guilt for something someone else did has always struck me as a grotesque fantasy. It is a delusion. Contrary to the linked hate speech, original sin applies to zero percent of the population. What's worse, if people accept the fantasy that their unethical behaviour is inborn, it is likely to prevent them from challenging themselves to do better, just waiting around hoping for forgiveness instead of just learning to behave better.

[FirmaFan]

Mikey, do you ever get tired of promoting the disgusting self-loathing teachings of your religion? Does it bother you that you feel you must apologize for having committed the atrocious crime of being born? The concept of original sin is nonsensical. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful moneymaker - Convince someone they have a non-existent disease and then sell them the cure - but, it doesn't translate to any meaningful purpose in reality. The article you posted is a wonderful example of how far the teachings of the church have come, and how far behind it is with the rest of reality.

[Rickrock]

Thank you MikeyLove for your thoughts and comments. I do believe in original sin. Although I may have heard that Sodom and Gomorah were destroyed because of immoral sexual acts, it hadn't made an impression on my mind that it was homosexual activity. Even so, I still have uneasy issues with some of the things that article said and the way that they were expressed. I had stronger, favorable feelings toward men even before I had any sexual knowledge or thoughts in that direction. It wasn't a choice at that early time. More and more, I believe that sex is only good when producing and raising children is the end result and that all sex, both homosexual and heterosexual, should be avoided at any other time. I have a great deal of difficulty believing that homosexaulity is any worse than heterosexuality although I do believe that those who desire sex with children need to repress those thoughts and desires.

Thank you cityboy-stl for your article as well. There are fewer and fewer people, and especially young people, attending my church all the time. My impression is that the U.S. is becoming less and less churched and the churches are half empty and the U.S. is following Europe in this regard.

[FirmaFan]

More and more, I believe that sex is only good when producing and raising children is the end result and that all sex, both homosexual and heterosexual, should be avoided at any other time.

I'll be sure to let all those men with a low sperm count and all those women with ovarian cancer that they shouldn't be intimate with anyone because they are unable to procreate.

[zoltanspawn]

I consider the linked materials in the OP ignorant, pitiable and hateful.

If there is anyone reading knowledgeable about progressive Catholic thoughts on homosexuality, I hope you add them to counter this unloving nonsense.

[zoltanspawn]

To truly reach the Church in this degree of Magnitude, one must be like another St. Francis of Assisi.

It's not apparent to me that your opening post is about reaching the Church.

It seems, rather, like a post about the sinfulness of gays.

Can you disentangle that confusion?

[Mariatenebre]

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality

I have a strong tendency leaning towards the idea of who and what we are is the result of the effects of Original Sin.

This article is bunk and yet again shows the evil of the Catholic ideology. First of all homosexuals do not exist because of imaginary inherited guilt or original sin. Homosexuality exists in all species as a universal biological orientation which is meant to prevent overpopulation. Homosexuality was around before the god Yahweh Sabeoth was invented as the Canaanite war god and then co opted by the Jews as their supreme god. To say that your own sexuality is the result of sin and is by nature sinful shows your self hatred that is brought on by your religion. It is just another thing attesting to the sick self hatred of Abrahamic gays.

Thank you MikeyLove for your thoughts and comments. I do believe in original sin. Although I may have heard that Sodom and Gomorah were destroyed because of immoral sexual acts, it hadn't made an impression on my mind that it was homosexual activity. Even so, I still have uneasy issues with some of the things that article said and the way that they were expressed. I had stronger, favorable feelings toward men even before I had any sexual knowledge or thoughts in that direction. It wasn't a choice at that early time. More and more, I believe that sex is only good when producing and raising children is the end result and that all sex, both homosexual and heterosexual, should be avoided at any other time. I have a great deal of difficulty believing that homosexaulity is any worse than heterosexuality although I do believe that those who desire sex with children need to repress those thoughts and desires.

Thank you cityboy-stl for your article as well. There are fewer and fewer people, and especially young people, attending my church all the time. My impression is that the U.S. is becoming less and less churched and the churches are half empty and the U.S. is following Europe in this regard.

This is nonsense again. Sex is made for procreation and pleasure. In fact all species have sex homosexual and heterosexual for pleasure and procreation is in fact an after thought. This sex negative world view is yet another reason of the depravity of Abrahamic religions

[Spensed]

Catholic answers to homosexuality have to do with an objective perspective on what the Bible has to say about it (questionable and very little) and a reliance on the supremacy of an informed conscience (see The Catechism). The Church is bigger than the current venal hierarchy and truth will out, as with women priests and married priests.

So I would be careful about citing "Courage" propaganda as if it were some independent assessment instead of the the anti-gay pulp it is. If one believes in Jesus, one only has to try to imagine him preaching these Courage assertions to see them for the hateful and inconsistent nonsense they are.

As for original sin, I see it as a worn out historical concept that, on an up-to-date analysis also makes no sense, like women being morally weaker than men because Eve picked the apple. Of course, it makes no sense that we should be responsible for something some ancestor did or, if it does, then one can argue anything. Sin being washed away by blood..... One needs to update the myth.

[palbert]

.... because Eve picked the apple. ....

Don't disparage the apple in this fantasy. I vote for the pomegranate, native to where believers believe Eden was, and which leaves a pretty much indelible stain. The mark of "original sin?"

There are numerous other candidates. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_fruit

[Nemothepanda]

It is fear. Fear of hell. Catholic children are raised to fear hell, and today I am willing to admit that my main reason for being religious was that fear that I will end up in a place of eternal suffering.

So I throw it all away, everything I learned, and now I'm trying to find my own way towards religion, because fear is a poison, and thanks, no more poison for me.

I figured as much....even though the very existence of Hell blasts holes in the concept of an all loving deity among other things if you examine it all in a certain perspective, but those are discussions for another time. I wish you the best in your venture; soul searching is never easy, especially when you're tethered by fear like I was. Just keep looking, and I'm sure you'll find something.

[cocksucker4use]

One is tempted to start a competing thread: Catholicism / Homosexual Answers. The Answer: NO. Simply NO. The church hierarchy has no power except over those who choose to surrender it to them. The rest of us have the option of signing this petition on the White House website:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...group/CZB81hWK

[bankside]

The hate speech is the "objectively disordered" part. Homosexuality is objectively neutral, not disordered. We don't have a special burden to suppress our natural ability to understand the attractiveness of other men. The Catholic teaching on that point is wrong, and rooted in blind hate. And we are free to enjoy our "inclinations" with action, which is also to say the physical expression of our affection is ethical and correct when we share that with a likeminded person.

Hopefully one day soon, St. Peter's in Rome will join the Parthenon as another great hall vacant of religion.

[zoltanspawn]

That is one petition I absolutely will not sign, and that is because I believe that the Church has to correct their own errors in light of the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2358: The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

^^Them? They? These persons?

[zoltanspawn]

You know full well who they refer to....don't play the dumb game.

You identify your orientation as gay. Why refer to gay people as "them"?

[Mariatenebre]

Objectively disordered according to the Church's teachings Moral teachings and in Natural Law. Natural Law is infused in us upon conception, and everyone has this, regardless of belief or non-belief, and it cannot be wiped out. With that said, we have been given FREE-WILL, therefore we are free to follow inclinations even against God. God has more patience than each and everyone of us put together...he will wait for us. Because of Divine Natural Law that is infused in me, is why I am in a terrible internal Battle. The correctly formed conscience wages great war on the soul. It is easy to tell me to just quit the Church...that is what the evil one wants me to do. I lost the 1st battle in 2008, and I am not about to lose the second battle. I'll fight that battle to my dying day. Saint Padre Pio fought a far greater than what I am waging, as he personally fought the Devil himself as he carried the stigmata upon his own body. A great battle is not won by being a wimp, or a wuss!

It's not just the personal Gay issues that I have been fighting, it is other issues that are far more personal, and requires going to the sacrament of confession, and also requires a competent Spiritual director.

No it is reason and logic that is telling you to quit the Church not an imaginary devil. You have been brainwashed by the evil and unnatural Catholic Church to think that your innate and natural desires are some how sinful when in reality science has shown that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. So you battle your natural self instead of accepting yourself for who you are. In essence it is the peak of self hatred. All founded in the belief of an imaginary celestial dictator who created you "flawed" just so you could fight and hate who you really are. The only natural law is science and reality which exists in stark contrast with the doctrines of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. No matter what you do you can not change the fact that you are gay and no matter what the Church says it will never change the fact that homosexuality is a beneficial thing caused by nature and not imaginary original sin.

You are the epitomy of the disorder of Abrahamic self hatred imposed on homosexuals and why all homosexuals should leave the Abrahamic religions. Psychology shows that it is not healthy to hate your innate sexuality and if you wish to be psychologically healthy then you should leave this primative cult and accept reason.

[Spensed]

Just to be clear, despite the ridiculous distinction drawn between being gay and having gay sex, etc., the Catholic Catechism does acknowledge the supremacy of an informed conscience on these moral matters.

Now one can argue that informed means bowing to the teachings of the current hierarchy, but I don't think that that is what the text actually says (unless it has changed or I misread it).

As with birth control, I think the conscience provisions permit one to say that one has been informed of the Church's teaching, etc., but one honestly finds that that teaching goes against one's conscience. It that is the case, I don't think the Church requires you to act against one's conscience.

In other words, if your informed conscience tells you it's morally OK to be gay than you're committing no sin in being and acting gay.

Obviously, the same analysis applies to, say, murder. But that sort of makes sense, in that the Church may well teach that murder is wrong, but can't condemn the "insane" individual who honestly believes that murder, for example, in war or in capital punishment is morally acceptable.

Or do I have that all wrong?

[bankside]

For the sake of argument; what would you do or say if one day you find out that the Catholic Church was absolutely right all along? Just for the sake of argument, please answer the question.

The same thing you would do or say if one day you found out that the Catholic Church was absolutely wrong all along: accept it.

[bankside]

Keep digging. Wait till you hit Plato!

[Mariatenebre]

For the sake of argument; what would you do or say if one day you find out that the Catholic Church was absolutely right all along? Just for the sake of argument, please answer the question.

Except the Catholic Church is false on countless things and history and science has confirmed this. Nothing can change the fact that homosexuality is universal and natural and not caused by imaginary original sin. Hypothetically if Yahweh or the Islamic Allah existed I would oppose them and fight against them. I would fight to desroy Yahweh like the character Alexiel/Setsuna Mudo in the series Angel Sanctuary or my own character Layla Bint Lahab in my Dante's Inferno fanfiction. If Yahweh actually existed then I would fight for his eradication as I would any tyrant whether terrestrial or celestial.

The more I dig into the Church's History, and the more I read and study the books, the more I pray, the more wonderful things I discover about the Church, and the more clearer it is becoming to me that the Church is right in a heck of lot more things than you realize.

Except the Church is not right about many things. It is dead wrong on women's rights, abortion rights, gay rights and countless other things. Plus Yahweh is a human invention of certain monolatrist Hebrews who took the war god of the Canaanites and made him their chief god and later only god.

Oh and just so everyone sees here is the origin of the Abrahamic god in human history.


Also MikeyLove has not addressed the fact that psychology says it is not healthy for you to shun and reject your innate sexuality.

[bankside]

No, it is not "neutral". It is about an neutral as your liver, or your kidneys. It is good to have.

I meant neutral in the sense that it is ridiculous to assign a moral pass or fail to sexual orientation. It's like trying to argue over which is sinful: attached lobes or free lobes. Sinful earlobes? That is just as ridiculous as the message fed to the flock about homosexuality being disordered.