Catechism and homosexuality: Trends (CCC n.2357)

A "Reflection on the catechism of the Catholic Church and homosexuality"Of the southern coordination of the groups:Zaccheo Puglia,LGBT+ Christians Calabria,LGBT+ Christians Sicily, part two

Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.2357: Homosexuality designates the relationships between men or women who feel a sexual attraction, exclusive or predominant, towards people of the same sex. Manifests itself In very varied forms along the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychic genesis remains largely inexplicable. Relying on the Holy Scripture, which presents homosexual relationships as serious depravations, Tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered". Are contrary to natural law. They preclude the gift of life in sexual act. They are not the result of a true emotional and sexual complementarity. In no case can they be approved.

Who feel a sexual attraction: Define homosexuality as a simple sexual attraction, going to leave out the very important emotional component (exactly as it would be for heterosexuality) risks passing the message that homosexual relationships are exclusively hinted on sex, thus dehumanizing them and degrading them to an act that simple animals are also very capable of making.

Manifests itself: This word has ambiguity of interpretation. It would be more appropriate to write "it is found" because it is a term that offers an observation without value judgments and therefore free from ambiguity. For example, a disease or some external condition is manifested from which it is necessary to free yourself. The observation is instead a point of note of an internal condition to the person and non -pathological.

Its psychic genesis remains largely inexplicable: It is true that the genesis of homosexuality is still uncertain to the scientific and psychological level today.

Science is starting to assert that there is a genetic component albeit minority^[1], psychology has produced many hypotheses on psychic origins, sometimes internal to the individual other times external.^[2] To date, therefore, the sciences support the thesis of the plurality of the factors (biological, environmental, personal) not self -taking care but coexisting.

At the same time medicine and psychology agrees in affirming with certainty the depatologization of homosexuality which is now defined as a natural variant of human behavior.^[3]

It therefore makes no sense to try to heal homosexuality as if it were a disease^[4].

For this reason, we consider equally important that in the catechism it is specified that even the Christian community that accompanies the homosexual person in the path of faith must welcome without offering healing prayers or liberation or other pseudoscientific or pseudopsicological paths that should make heterosexuality reach.^[5]

But the question that we believe most important for a Christian is that it does not matter if you are born or become homosexual, in any case the treatment that a good Christian should show is that of reception without if and without but.

In this regard, we agree with the recent taking of distances of the Vatican Congregation for the clergy compared to the CDs. conversion therapies.^[6]

Relying on the Holy Scripture, which presents homosexual relationships as serious depravations: In the Bible, the theme of homosexuality is not addressed as it is meant today, that is, an erotic inclination towards a person of the same sex. To say it is not us but the pontifical biblical commission, which effectively denies what has instead been affirmed by the congregation for the doctrine of faith.^[7]

The famous steps that is believed to deal with this^[8] They actually condemn the violation of the law of reception against the foreigner, the violation of the procreative purpose of the sexual act, the violation of rules of hygiene or violent and unbalanced pederasty relationships typical of the pagan culture of the times of St. Paul.^[9]

Extending these steps to homosexual relations for transitive properties as we mean today (based on consent, responsibility and balance between the parties involved) therefore is an incorrect distortion and interpretation of the sacred text.

It is also important to remember that like each text also a sacred text must be interpreted in the light of the context in which it was written. Then it was believed that those who carry out homosexual acts themselves violating their "natural" desire for the opposite sex to flavor an insatiable and therefore lustful libido, it was probably believed that homoerotic practices could lead to the information of mankind given the lack of knowledge compared to Biological mechanisms related to fruitfulness as well as compared to the treatments available today that have fallen on the then high childhood mortality.

Tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered": First of all we feel that you share the concern expressed by Card. McElroy^[10] that the concept of disorder is not interpreted by the common reader in the philosophical sense in which the doctrine means. Consequently, the risk is to confuse it with the psychological concept of disorder, which today has a far more negative meaning. We therefore share his appeal to the removal of the concept of disorder from the catechism.

While flying over the risk of misunderstanding with respect to the term we believe that even in its correct meaning this expression is based on a fallacious reasoning. Catechism defines the homosexual acts disordered (and not the orientation itself or the person) because the lack of otherness would not allow a true interpersonal relationship of couple (which would have a direct consequence of fertility). Precisely on the absence of an alterity (and therefore of a fruitfulness) we feel we disagree with what is expressed by much more experienced theologians of us, but also in the light of our personal experiences. See the deepening of the question in the following notes.

They are contrary to natural law: To say that the homosexual acts are unnatural seems absurd to us because in nature it has now been scientifically observed that many species are fulfilling them. We also do not believe that the search for a partner, albeit of the same sex, is to be considered contrary to the nature of man. If a person is attracted by the people of their sex (exclusively or partially) it is natural that this is looking for a relationship to be considered in all its dimensions both the sexual one and the emotional one and the genital one. In a nutshell, the person must be considered in the interest of his humanity.

This reasoning is valid if the concept of "nature" in question is the ethological, anthropological, historical, or biological.

Instead, the catechism refers to the theological concept, which considers "natural" what respects the end registered by God in a certain reality. So according to the current magisterium, a homosexual act would be unnatural as it is unspected of the procreative purpose of the sexual act. We confuse the "naturalness" (in the theological sense) of the procreative purpose in the following paragraph.^[11]

We also join the appeal of G. Piana^[12] hoping for the overcoming of the naturalist perspective in favor of a personalistic perspective (which therefore focuses not on abstract concepts of nature but on the reality of the identity and vocation of the individual).

The gift of life preclude the sexual act: As regards generativity (or fruitfulness), as well as the sterile couple the sexual act is allowed since, although there is no procreative fruitfulness, the spiritual, relational and social is always present, the same should be worth for homo -affective couples.

The overcoming of the mere procreative purposes is therefore not a revolution that we would like to perform but something that has already been affirmed by the magisterium for sterile heterosexual couples^[13].

It is therefore the same magisterium implies that the only real purpose inherent in the sexual act is the generative one (in a broad sense) and not the strictly procreative one.

On the other hand, it would not be explained otherwise why God continues to predict the existence of infertile people or periods of the menstrual cycle in his unfathomable design in which the sexual act itself can never lead to procreation (or people attracted by their same sex , we would dare to add).

The fruitfulness (in the sense of a common good offered to society) can arise from a homo -affective union, we continue to observe it in the many homosexual love stories that we know well. The university meaning of the sexual act is also certainly present in the homo -affective couple.^[14]

In fact, we believe that only the generative meaning (understood in a broad sense) and the university meaning of the sexual act can be considered inseparable.

Finally, we would like to remember that if a homo -affective couple felt the vocation for parenting exists to date, not yet in Italy, the possibility of adoption as well as that of gestation for others, but we do not intend to dwell in our moral reflection on this question that would deserve one more adequate space.

We limit ourselves to remembering that the Church being in this world must never refuse to deal (also through doctrine) with the things of the world, preserving the fundamental commandment of love as a polar star.

It is not at all impossible to generate (always understood in a broad sense) for the homo -affective couple who also includes the growth and education of a child.

They are not the result of a true emotional and sexual complementarity: We argue that it is possible to observe a complementarity and generativity of a homo -affective union, in fact reducing the speech to genitality alone seems to us very reductive.

We believe that complementarity is possible in different aspects (not exclusively physical) as two people are always different from each other and not reducible to their genital apparatus, so it is easy that they can complete and support each other in the weaknesses .

Sexual alterity always exists even between two people of the same sex because everyone's identity is made up of a body component, a cultural and a spiritual.

While observing that body can be similar (and never identical both psychological and bio-physiological), it is good to consider that there are also the other two components that will be different because each person is the result of a different socio-cultural context and above all It will have several characteristics in terms of the spirit.

In no case can they be approved: For the aforementioned and following reasons we do not understand how it can "do not approve"The homosexual acts in the abstract without even leaving the opportunity to judge the concrete case with the relative real variables involved.

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^[1] See article by Metanalisi by Andrea Ganna and others on Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7693

^[2] See A. Fumagalli, Possible love. Homosexual and moral people Christian, Cittadella, Assisi, 2020, pp. 45-57 and B. Brogliato, D. Migliorini, Homosexual love. Essays of psychoanalysis, theology and pastoral. In dialogue for a new synthesis, Cittadella, Assisi, 2014, pp. 75-109.

^[3] See how they no longer consider non -heterosexual sexual orientation as a disorder is the World Health Organization, ICD-11, ICD.Who.int, both the American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5-TR-TRA-DIGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL OF Mental Disorders, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan, 2023.

^[4] Contrary to how it was sadly hypothesized in sacred congregation for the doctrine of faith, Human person declaration about some issues of sexual ethics, Rome, 1975, n. 8.

^[5] We are referring to the so -called reparative theories. See B. Brogliato, D. Migliorini, Homosexual love. Essays of psychoanalysis, theology and pastoral. In dialogue for a new synthesis, Cittadella, Assisi, 2014, pp. 171-180.

^[6] In this regard, the article by Miguel Ángel Malavia and José Beltrán published on the website of the Catholic weekly Vida Nueva (Spain) on 9 July 2021, freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro in Italian on the Gionata portal: https://www.gionata.org/la-cregation-vaticana-per-cler-condanna-dhe-Trapie-raparativi-proposta-

^[7] See pontifical biblical commission, What is man? An itinerary of Biblical Anthropology Biblis, Vatican City, 2019, nn. 185-195 and sacred congregation for the doctrine of faith, Homosexualitis problem - Letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the pastoral care of homosexual people, Rome, 1986.

Above all, the final point 195 in which the contribution of human sciences, theologians and moralists can help the Church to perform "An intelligent interpretation that safeguards the values ​​that the sacred text intends to promote, thus avoiding to repeat to the letter what brings with it also cultural features of that time“. We hope too, taking note that at the present time this has not yet happened, we want to give our input to help the Catholic Church to get out of this temporal and social isolation.

^[8] Genesis 19,1-28; Levitico 18.22; Levitico 20.13; Judges 19.15-28; Romans 1,26-27; 1 Corinthian 6,9-10; 1Timoteo 1, 10

^[9] Cfr. La Tenda di Gionata (a cura di.), Lucky parents. Live the coming out of children as believers, Effatà, Cantalupa, 2022, pp. 67-86 and G. Piana, Homosexuality an ethical proposal, Cittadella, Assisi, 2010, pp. 21-36 and AA.VV., Bible and homosexuality, Claudiana, Turin, 2002, pp. 9-36.

^[10] Text that can be consulted in English or Italian on: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/01/24/mcelroy-synotality- Inclusion-244587 and https://www.giona.org/quando-francesco-e-cardinale-mcelroy-si-confrontano-ti-temi-lgbt/

^[11] To clarify the concept of nature and the related implications cf. B. Brogliato, D. Migliorini, Homosexual love. Essays of psychoanalysis, theology and pastoral. In dialogue for a new synthesis, Cittadella, Assisi, 2014, pp. 221-253.

^[12] See G. Piana, Homosexuality an ethical proposal, Cittadella, Assisi, 2010, pp. 49-53.

^[13] See Paul VI, Humanae Vitae - Encyclical letter, Edizioni Paoline, Rome, 1968, n. 11.

^[14] See A. Fumagalli, Possible love. Homosexual and moral people Christian, Cittadella, Assisi, 2020, pp. 159-161. What we affirmed is therefore in antithesis with what is affirmed in Paul VI, Humanae Vitae - Encyclical letter, Edizioni Paoline, Rome, 1968, n.12 or in sacred congregation for the doctrine of faith, Human person declaration about some issues of sexual ethics, Rome, 1975, n. 5 in which we speak of procreative purposes (and not generative in the broad sense).

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