# What the Roman Catholic Church Has to Say About Homosexuality **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 30, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367 "2020-08-30T13:10:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/41 "2020-09-01T22:22:14Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > ^^this means the Catholic Church is an equal opportunity oppressor. > [@eschrodinger](#): > > Um, no it doesn’t. The exception doreen noted – straight people can be married in the eyes of the church. There’s no equality involved. You’re right of course. There is no equality in marriage in the Catholic Church. I meant they would consider non-married straight sex as a sin, as they do gay sex. I neglected to qualify the context. Meaning that virtually everything about unmarried sex, gay or straight, or secular marriage in the Catholic Church is twisted. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/42 "2020-09-01T22:23:09Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Um, did you forget about all the Chosen People stuff? Note that I said “Judaism today”, which in my reception doesn’t bring up the chosen people stuff very often, especially not as an argument against other religions. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/43 "2020-09-01T22:25:25Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Note that I said “Judaism today”, which in my reception doesn’t bring up the chosen people stuff very often. I think you might be hanging with the liberal section of Judaism. I wonder what the Hasids and the ultra-conservatives which dominate Israeli politics would say. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/44 "2020-09-01T22:25:35Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > told me that in our diocese the bishop preferred gay priests because they did not father children, This is part of what I was saying above. The church has a problem with straight relationships in the priesthood, that leads them to treat other kinds of relationships in the same way – by denial. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/45 "2020-09-01T22:37:35Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I think you might be hanging with the liberal section of Judaism. I wonder what the Hasids and the ultra-conservatives which dominate Israeli politics would say. In fact, yes I am, hanging with the Jewish members of the SDMB 😆. Really, on a more somber note, I was born and have lived my whole life in Germany , where for historical reasons we all know sadly not many Jews live today, and only a very very small segment of them are orthodox or Hasidic. So the Jews of my country I perceive don’t really ever bring up anything about the “chosen people stuff”. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/46 "2020-09-01T22:38:18Z")
I was also not surprised when I first learned of Catholic policy on this issue. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/47 "2020-09-01T22:54:48Z")
> [@LH75](#): > > Any claim to any moral authority by the Roman Catholic Church is ludicrous at this point. _Ad hominem_? The Catechism is a theological document, usually rife with citations to treatises or scripture supporting their interpretation. There are such citations in [paragraphs 2357-2359](http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P85.HTM), if you are interested in evaulating the theological basis of their teachings. Here are the cites for that section: > 1. Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10. > > 2. CDF, Persona humana 8. > **Persona humana, 8** > > > [XVII](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19751229_persona-humana_en.html) > > > > "At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people. > > > > A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable. > > > > In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life. > > > > 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 no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[18] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of. > > > > […] > > _At the audience granted on November 7, 1975, to the undersigned Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Sovereign Pontiff by Divine Providence Pope Paul VI approved this Declaration “On certain questions concerning sexual ethics,” confirmed it and ordered its publication._ > > > > _Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 29th, 1975._ > > > > **Franjo Cardinal Seper** > > _Prefect_ > > […] > > > > 1. _Rom_ 1:24-27 “That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies since they have given up Divine truth for a lie and have worshipped and served creatures instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen! That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions; why their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their perversion” See also what St. Paul says of “masculorum concubitores” in I _Cor_ 6:10; I _Tim_ 1:10." ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/48 "2020-09-01T23:15:58Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Another Question- I’m Jewish (as you should know by now). No Jewish group can claim to have the Kohen Gadol (The High Priest). Certainly, a lot of people can claim descent but Jewish Law maintains that in order to prove you’re the right guy, you have to fulfill all the tasks assigned to the Moshiach. > > BUT- In the New Testament, Jesus says “I name you Rock. On this rock, I build my church.” To me that would seem to make the RCC the One True Church if you accept the NT as G-d’s word. Last time I checked, the Pope claimed an unbroken laying of hands going back to Peter and Jesus. How do non Catholic Christians answer this? Not a personally a Christian, but I think the Protestant answer to the question “Why don’t you believe that the Catholic Church represents God’s moral authority on Earth?” would be “The history of the Catholic Church.” ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/49 "2020-09-02T01:04:50Z")
> [@eschrodinger](#): > > Really? What if they were married in a Protestant church? Are they really treated as _unmarried_ , or just nagged that they ought to do what is expected and get properly married in the church? The Catholic Church rule that requires you to get married in a Catholic ceremony only applies to Catholics (and, even then, only to Catholics who haven’t sought and obtained a dispensation allowing them to marry in a non-Catholic ceremony). So if two non-Catholics (of opposite sex, natch) get married in (a) a Presbyterian ceremony, or (b) a civil ceremony or (c) anything else, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned that’s perfectly legit and entirely valid, and if either or both of them later become Catholics they don’t need to get married in a Catholic ceremony; they’re already married. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/50 "2020-09-02T01:17:36Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Not a personally a Christian, but I think the Protestant answer to the question “Why don’t you believe that the Catholic Church represents God’s moral authority on Earth?” would be “The history of the Catholic Church.” Given the Religious Right’s support of Trump (and history of sinning in general by their leaders), I’d say they haven’t any business claiming any moral authority themselves. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/51 "2020-09-02T03:44:41Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > BUT- In the New Testament, Jesus says “I name you Rock. On this rock, I build my church.” To me that would seem to make the RCC the One True Church if you accept the NT as G-d’s word. Last time I checked, the Pope claimed an unbroken laying of hands going back to Peter and Jesus. How do non Catholic Christians answer this? The Eastern Orthodox have held to the example of Peter rather than him starting some Uber Bishopric. After all in the early years of Christianity, Bishops of Jerusalem, Constantinople and Antioch (and Simon Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch as well) had just as much if not more authority. Not to mention the Bible does seem to speak of the equality of the Apostles in Council as well. Others (Protestants among them) would say there is not much evidence Peter was a “Pope”, or a Bishop in Rome. Luther’s view is that the Rock isn’t Simon Peter but his proclamation of faith (you are Messiah, son of the living God). So anyway it’s not all cut and dried. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/52 "2020-09-02T05:47:32Z")
> Last time I checked, the Pope claimed an unbroken laying of hands going back to Peter and Jesus. How do non Catholic Christians answer this? The Church of England maintains that the Apostolic Succession continued through its archbishops even since the jurisdiction of the Popes of Rome was denied. Non-conformist protestant churches (and, for all I know, the evangelicals in the CofE as well) say that the continuity doesn’t matter - what counts is the Holy Spirit as manifested in godly living guided by scripture and conscience (i.e , a “religion of The Book”, a term you may be familiar with), and acceptance by the authorities if whichever church you want to be a minister in. And if they won’t have you, you take your chances setting up on your own. Or some such. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/53 "2020-09-02T06:07:26Z")
My copy of The Prince was at least half preface, describing the time period and major events. Like when the Swiss army engaged the Pope’s army. There was mention of the son of a Pope (technically a bastard, I would imagine). Really, the spiritual mandate of the Catholic Church seems pretty shaky when you look at the Church’s history, though I suppose good Catholics are conditioned to ignore that stuff or take it in stride because, salvation or something. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/54 "2020-09-02T06:45:07Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > The Eastern Orthodox have held to the example of Peter rather than him starting some Uber Bishopric. After all in the early years of Christianity, Bishops of Jerusalem, Constantinople and Antioch (and Simon Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch as well) had just as much if not more authority. Not to mention the Bible does seem to speak of the equality of the Apostles in Council as well. It’s interesting how little attention is given to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. After all, they are the second largest denomination of Christians in the world, with a history every bit as ancient and distinguished as the Catholic Church. Their [attitude to LGBTQ issues](https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-eastern-orthodox-church) is not very different from the Catholics though. It’s perhaps a little less rigid, and also varying in different places due to the non-centralised structure of the church. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/55 "2020-09-02T08:49:19Z")
The Russian Orthodox got in a hooha when Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest with a [transvestite singer](https://images.app.goo.gl/uR11nop3Knmu45eJ8) Clearly they have a thing about [bearded blokes in gold frocks](https://images.app.goo.gl/dC5FiULS3b6c6WRr5) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/56 "2020-09-02T14:52:38Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > In the New Testament, Jesus says “I name you Rock. On this rock, I build my church.” To me that would seem to make the RCC the One True Church if you accept the NT as G-d’s word. Last time I checked, the Pope claimed an unbroken laying of hands going back to Peter and Jesus. How do non Catholic Christians answer this? God gave authority over the Church to Peter and no one else. A pope has no more right to it than any other Christian. Priesthood is a gift of the Holy Spirit to all who are called to it, not something measured out by bishops. And Jesus is the Word of God, not a book written by imperfect creations. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2020, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367/57 "2020-09-03T09:23:20Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > BUT- In the New Testament, Jesus says “I name you Rock. On this rock, I build my church.” To me that would seem to make the RCC the One True Church if you accept the NT as G-d’s word. Last time I checked, the Pope claimed an unbroken laying of hands going back to Peter and Jesus. How do non Catholic Christians answer this? That’s just a Catholic interpretation of the verse–that he was making Peter high priest. It’s not even one the early Christians really believed, or James (brother of Jesus) wouldn’t have been the head of the Jerusalem Church. The claim to Petrine succession to the bishop of Rome is questionable, as is the idea that said was intended to be the head bishop or pope. That has more to do with history, with the Jewish church being conquered. Others have pointed out that people can think they are still descended from Peter’s church. Or that Jesus wasn’t talking about Peter being the rock. But the main thing is that “on this rock I will build my church” is not some unambiguous declaration that he was putting this one guy in charge. There’s so much room for other interpretations–ones I would argue would make more sense given the history above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-roman-catholic-church-has-to-say-about-homosexuality/919367.md?page=2)