The contradictions of the Catholic magisterium when it speaks of homosexuality

Reflections by Bernardo Kastrup* published on his blog (Netherlands) on March 15, 2021, freely translated by Antonio De Caro

According to the Vatican, homosexuality would be one "choice", and therefore a "Sin". Some protest by saying that the Vatican considers one "choice" Only a homosexual relationship, not the sexual orientation itself.

But to be francs, if the sexual orientation of a person is not a choice, even aspiration cannot be a relationship that follows that orientation. Therefore, according to the Vatican, the homosexual condition is also a choice, since a sexuality without relationship is either an abstract notion, or a call to promiscuity, of which perhaps the Vatican is responsible.

The only choice in the game, here, is precisely that of the Vatican, which continues with the danger to carry out the roles of the legislator, accuser and judge instead of feeding thereligion, which derives from the Latinre-And it meansre -onarewith the transcendent. Result: the Church wastes its energies to foment the violation of human rights, and leaves us without religion. But how did this come to this?

Pope Francis, it seems, includes the church dilemma, would like to devote greater attention to the liturgy (expression of authentic religiosity), and has enough human empathy to recognize the suffering inflicted in history from the Church to the LGBT community. But unfortunately the situation does not substantially change: the congregation for the doctrine of faith has denied that two homosexual people will be able to join for a life project together. This not only continues to impose suffering from the LGBT community (a deeper suffering than the visible one), but represents for the Church a path to suicide. And if not even this pope can change the course, what hope does it remain?
 
If any institution were to tell you that you cannot love the people you love, that loving them is a shame, that your love is a disease or - insult on insult - that you choose your sexual orientation or your gender identity, You would say, immediately and without uncertainties, that it is a violation of your fundamental human rights: the right to love and the right to be what you are.
 
If any institution were to declare that your sexual orientation is a kind of whim or fiction, that you, in reality and for your true nature, you are sexually attracted by a sex of verse by what you invent, presumably for The only taste to do it or to cause others, you would rebel against this unreasonable accusation. Who would believe that homosexuals or transsexuals choose to live a life of constant exclusion, shame and humiliation, and to seek sexual relations with people from whom they are not actually attracted, for the sole taste of doing it?

No, really: who can, healthy, believe such a thing? I think we don't even need to try it scientifically; It does not matter, for example that several animal species have homosexual behavior, presumably for the fact that they choose it for the taste of causing scientists who study them: it is a question of simple, traditional common sense.
 
I will try to be even more effective. I find myself from birth a heterosexual male. Let's imagine that the Church tells me “Bernardo, it is not true that you like women, it is only you who fake that you like women, just for the sake of doing it. In reality they are the men you like, and they should like you, and you should have sex with men and dress like a woman ". What effect would you do? But this is the message that is repeated to the LGBT community.
 
While the Church wastes its energies with this type of secondary and dangerous absurdity, us, our culture, our society, we continue to be hungry for meaning, purpose, spiritual food, transcendence, love; In a nutshell, ofreligion. Why? Because the Church remains inert, wasting energies in issues that, at best, have little, very little to do with thereligion.

You see, nobody healthy has intended to participate in Sunday mass just to be judged according to archaic standards. And therefore (coincidentally) less and fewer people go to church. What they need can no longer be found in church. And this is a deliberate choice of the Church, the only real choice that is made.

The idea that the Church does what it does because it is based on the solid tradition of the Bible is a monumental intellectual misunderstanding, an error. For example, I do not expect the Bible to be rewritten, correct or updated; This is not the point. On the contrary: the Bible, as it is, is the spiritual treasure of the West, as well as the noble Koran, the see and other traditional writings are spiritual treasures. The Bible should not be transformed into something different, because the value of a treasure lies in what it is.

However, it is naive to think that the Bible autonomously contain its meaning: this is not the nature of the written word. The meaning of words is evoked through an interpretative act. We cannot avoid it: without interpretation, the written word is made only of sketches of ink on paper. Whatever you think tell the scriptures, it is the result of an interpretation. Perhaps you adhere to a particular interpretation and reject others, and perhaps you are even right, but your choice is still an interpretation: it cannot be nothing else, because only a deliberate interpretative act can extract a meaning from the simple surface of the syntax and grammar.
 
As such, when the Church is urged to evolve, to progress, to be in tune with the needs of the time, a fracture from traditional texts is not necessarily invoking, or an abandonment of our well -tested spiritual foundations. Furthermore, I guarantee it without reserve: the sacred words of writing must not be updated or correct; They must not evolve, since they are the intuitive reflection of eternal and absolute truths. But, and this is the crucial point, it is we who evolve, which we change, that we develop the ability to interpret the absolute through new perspectives, new lenses, in a deeper and nuanced way. And we have the moral duty to do it, since any other attitude represents a way to escape from life and to deny it.
 
Therefore our true act of interpretation, which determines how the eternal words of writing prove to us, evolve, change, illuminate points of view, perspectives and layers of meaning so far obscure. Denying this is equivalent to denying the divine gift of becoming, and voluntarily choosing ignorance instead of wisdom. In fact, if the progress of our spiritual ideas must be politely excluded and liquidated, with which spiritual perspectives do we remain? How can a moral code be founded on a spiritual idea, if this becomes a mere fossil?
 
The conservative position of the Church is therefore based on a logical fallacy. It does not capture the essentials, and then, to add insult to injustice, encourages and offers moral justification for radical violations of human rights. This is one spine, and everything I feel for it is contempt.
 
For a long time I desperate for the slow agony of the church in the West. Now no more. Personally, this is the drop that makes the vase overflow. Perhaps the death of this church is, after all, what it takes, so that new life, true life can be born from the ashes. An institution that continues to make empty and cowardly choices (including that of focusing on everything except on real re-religion) has no more true life in itself. It is a mere ghost that survives for inertia.

* Bernardo Kastrup is executive director of the Essentia Foundation. His work is aimed at a modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the concept according to which reality is essentially mental. He graduated in philosophy (ontology and philosophy of the mind) and in computer engineering (Reconfigurable Computing and artificial intelligence). He worked as a scientist for CERN and for Philips research workshops (where, as part of the research on quantum mechanics, the Casimir effect was discovered). His ideas, formulated in detail in many academic research and books, have appeared on Scientific American, Institute of Art and Ideas, Blog of the American Philosophical Association and Big Think.

Original text: The church's misundersto -suicide