There is much research going on concerning the issue of homosexuality. We will improve on this page in the future. Keep an eye on it!
Scriptural condemnation of homosexuality?
It looks as if homosexuality has been denounced in both the Old and New Testaments.
The Hebrew story of Sodom and Gomorrah has had much influence on Christian beliefs (Genesis 19,1-29). The story tells of God’s destruction of this city as a punishment for homosexual practices. See also Judges 19,1-30; Leviticus 18,22; 20,13-23).
In Romans 1,26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6,9-11 Paul condemned the ‘homosexual’ excesses in the Graeco-Roman empire.
In tradition, homosexuality was called a ‘sin against nature’ and was often put on a line with ‘bestiality’, that is: having intercourse with an animal. For the State it was a criminal offence, usually punishable by death. Note that our renewed, informed understanding leads to a different evaluation of socalled ‘tradition’.
While softening the complete condemnation it voiced in the past,
the Vatican Congregation for Doctrine still opposes all homosexual acts as
‘intrinsically disordered’ because they cannot lead to
procreation.
The Congregation for Doctrine’s Declaration
on Certain Issues Concerning Sexual Ethics (1974) was an improvement on
earlier Roman statements because it acknowledged that there are
‘homosexuals who are definitively such because of some
kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be
incurable’.
‘In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly
be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their
personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their
culpability will be judged with prudence.’
But the Document still condemns all sexual
homosexual acts as ‘intrinsically disordered’ and’
condemned by Scripture as a serious depravity’ (Paragraph no
8).
Vatican documents
Persona Humana,
Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics by the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1975)
Catholic Theologians today consider homosexuality an existing and valid
variation of human sexuality. Its morality should be judged as we judge
heterosexual morality.
Why this change of view?
1. The facts.
Social research has established that 3 - 6 % of the
population in most countries has an innate homosexual disposition.
Three ‘causes’ of homosexuality are now generally
accepted:
it is a genetic trait in some people;
it may be the result of a hormone switch before birth,
since hormones assist in the differentiation between male and female traits in
the foetus;
it may also be enhanced by the situation in which a child
grows up (i.e. incest or child abuse) and the experiences he/she has of
each sex.
But if God, the Creator, has made some people
homosexual by nature, we cannot condemn them outright, whatever our views on
legitimate sexual acts for homosexuals.
Homosexuality has always existed, but only in our own time are
we becoming more aware of its origins and implications. Here we will quote some
modern theologians discussing the issue.
“ God, the one who has made all of creation, loves and
cherishes all creatures without exception. And modern psychology shows us that
homosexual orientation is set by age five or six. Most psychologists agree that
it is not a matter of choice, whether orientation is inborn as some think or
acquired very early as others say. How then could an all-loving God possibly
violate Divine nature and regard homosexuals as ‘sinners’?”
“Contemporary biblical scholars are indicating that the idea of homosexual
orientation was unknown to the writers of the Sacred Scripture. Certainly these
authors had no knowledge of the Kinsey research which established the existence
of a continuum along which all of us are somewhere between the end points of
totally heterosexual through bisexuality to exclusively homosexual. Many of the
oft-quoted "condemnatory passages" may assume that heterosexuals are acting out
of their violation of their ‘nature’.” Sister Mary Ann
Ford, Pastoral Theologian
“When read at face value, the Scriptures have nothing
positive to say about homogenital behaviour. However, most Christians do not
interpret the Bible literally; they try to understand the Scriptures in their
historical and cultural context and see what meaning the Scriptures have for us
today. These Scriptures were written approximately 2000 or more years ago when
there was no knowledge of constitutional homosexuality. The Scripture writers
believed that all people were naturally heterosexual so that they viewed
homosexuality activity as unnatural.” “Since we have come to
know that homosexuality is just as natural and God-given as heterosexuality, we
realize that the Biblical injunctions against homosexuality were conditioned by
the attitudes and beliefs about this form of sexual expression which were held
by people without benefit of centuries of scientific knowledge and
understanding.” “It is unfair of us to expect or impose a
twentieth century mentality and understanding about equality of genders, races
and sexual orientations on the Biblical writers. We must be able to distinguish
the eternal truths the Bible is meant to convey from the cultural forms and
attitudes expressed there.”
“God has created people with romantic and physical
attractions to the same sex, as well as those with attractions to the opposite
sex. Many, if not most, people, we are now discovering, have both kinds of
attractions in varying degrees. All of these feelings are natural and are
considered good and blessed by God. These feelings and attractions are not
sinful. Most Catholic moral theologians now hold that homogenital behaviour, as
well as heterogenital behaviour, is good and holy in God's sight when it is an
expression of a special and unique love which one person has for another. Both
homosexual and heterosexual genital expression can be sinful if they are
manipulative, dishonest, or unloving actions.” Sister Jeannine
Gramick, PhD, College of Notre Dame Maryland.
“Catholicism uses four major sources for principles and
guidance in ethical questions like homosexuality: scripture, tradition
(theologians, church documents, official teachings, etc), reason, and human
experience. All are used in conjunction with one another. Scripture is the
fundamental and primary authoritative Catholic source -- but not the
only source. Biblical witness is taken seriously, but not literally.
An individual scriptural text must be understood in the larger context of the
original language and culture, the various levels of meanings, and the
texts’ applications to contemporary realities in light of the role of the
community's and its official leadership role in providing authoritative
interpretations. Both Jewish and Christian scriptures do speak negatively of
certain form of same-gender (generally male) sexual behaviour (not
same-gender love), especially when associated with idol worship, lust,
violence, degradation, prostitution, etc. Whether the Scriptures condemn all
and every form of same-gender sexual expression in and of itself for
all times, places and individuals is the topic of serious theological and
Biblical discussion and debate.”
I do not believe that God regards homosexuality as a
‘sin’ if homosexuality means the psychosexual identity of lesbians or
gay persons, which we know from contemporary scientific studies is within the
boundaries of healthy, human psychological development, and which seems to be
as natural for some people as heterosexuality is for others. If homosexuality
means the emotional, intimate bonding in same-gender relationships of love and
friendship, I believe that since God is love, where there is authentic love,
God is present.”
“Where God is present, there can be no sin. If
homosexuality means same-gender erotic, physical expressions of union and
pleasure, the possibility of personal sin exists in homosexuality -- as it does
in heterosexuality -- depending on the interplay of three factors: including
(1) the physical behaviour itself and its meaning for the person, (2) the
personal motives and intents of the person acting, and (3) the individual and
social consequences or results of the behaviour. For many people, sexual
behaviour which is exploitative, coercive, manipulative, dishonest, selfish or
destructive of human personhood is sinful; for all people ‘sin’ means
freely acting contrary to one's deeply held moral or ethical convictions,
whether these come from organized religion or a personally developed value
system.”
“ Same-gender expressions of responsible, faithful love
in a covenanted relationship between two truly homosexually oriented people not
gifted with celibacy is not something envisioned by the Scriptures. Whether
this form of homosexuality violates biblical or anthropological principles of
sexuality and personhood -- especially in the light of current scientific
knowledge and human experience about the homosexual orientation -- is a key
issue facing the churches and religious groups today.” Father C
Robert Nugent , co-editor of ‘The Vatican and Homosexuality’,
holds degrees from St Charles College, St Charles Theologate, a degree in
library science from Villanova University and a Masters of Sacred Theology from
Yale University Divinity School.
The Catholic Church is beginning to rediscover what it once
knew; that not all persons are heterosexual, that many people are homosexual
and that this is just fine. In the past, the Church accepted homosexuality more
openly and even had liturgies to celebrate same sex unions.(1) There was a
recognition that different sexual orientations are clearly part of God's plan
for creation-some people are heterosexual and some are homosexual-this is the
way God made us and we have no right to criticize God. Wherever the human race
is found we find persons of differing sexual orientations. (We find the same
thing in God's animal kingdom.) Human history shows that some humans have
same-sex attractions and unions and others have opposite-sex attractions and
unions. The desire to bond lovingly and sexually with persons of the same sex
or of the opposite sex, is a fact of life, a fact of God's creation, and we
have no right to call it unholy. As the Acts of the Apostles says in the
Bible, we have no right to declare unclean anything that God has made (Acts
of the Apostles 10:15). To do so, in fact, is a sin.
See entire
article: Professor Daniel C. Maguire, A Catholic Defense
of Same Sex Marriage. Published in The Religious Consultation on
Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, April 2006
Saints Sergius and Bacchus, martyred for the faith in 303 AD. Their hagiography seems to indicate that they were gay.
Conclusion
The biblical texts were misunderstood because they were
taken to imply norms imposed for all times, exceeding the
intended scope
of their authors.
In spite of the official Church continuing to defend the
traditional view, the condemnation of all homosexuality in the past has now
been abandoned by the majority of theologians and pastoral leaders.
A new pastoral practice has begun in which homosexuals are
helped to accept their own sexuality and a life style that does justice both to
their Christian faith and homosexual orientation.
John Wijngaards
To understand the full impact and injustice of the condemnation of homosexuality in the past, see this video clip on how the Church treated homosexuals in the Middle Ages.
1. The facts. 