Same Sex Attraction and the Church Melinda Selmys Originally published in Issue X of Vulgata, March 2003.

Perhaps one of the stickiest issues in Catholic apologetics today is that of homosexuality. As the Vatican points out, there are "…increasing numbers of people today, even within the Church, [who] are bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Church to accept the homosexual condition as though it were not disordered and to condone homosexual activity."¹  In the face of these pressures, orthodox Christians must be able to both defend and uphold the teachings of Christianity and to reach out to those who experience same sex attractions (SSA) in a compassionate and compelling way. Unfortunately, there is often a failure to integrate these two necessary aspects of ministry to persons with SSA – those who understand the doctrines don’t understand why persons with SSA remain obstinately opposed to the Church’s teachings once they have been adequately explained, and all too often those reaching out in compassion don’t really understand the teachings of the Church and end up offering solutions that, while they are quite palatable to the homosexual community, don’t really address the spiritual needs of the people addressed in ministry.

This is not to say that there is no good work being done – groups like Courage and Encourage (support groups for Catholic persons with SSA trying to live a life of chastity, and for the Catholic parents of persons with SSA, respectively) have done a tremendous amount to help men and women struggling with homosexuality, and to help the Catholic community in general to understand the issues surrounding homosexuality. It remains true, however, that most lay Catholics are either unsure of the Church’s teachings, or unsure of how to approach persons with SSA with those teachings in a charitable way.

The first thing that must be understood, is that for all of the misrepresentations and faulty logic employed by gay activist groups, their primary claim – that homosexuality is not a choice – really does reflect the experience of persons with SSA. While, as the Catechism frankly states, “Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained,” we do know that there are numerous psychological, and possibly biological factors, involved that cause a person to feel that they are really, fundamentally and immutably homosexual. This is not simply an excuse used by the gay community in order to give their movement more legitimacy and to generate sympathy for their cause – rather, it is a reflection of their own feelings that this is something which is a part of them, which has always been a part of them, and for which they are in no way responsible.

Essentially, homosexuality seems to be in the same sort of category as something like chronic depression or poor self-image – there may be both physical and psychological components contributing to these disorders, they often arise very early in life, and they are usually the result of factors in early childhood over which the person involved had little, if any, control. This is not to say that a homosexual person is not responsible for any homosexual activities they engage in (although "…circumstances may exist, or may have existed in the past, which would reduce or remove the culpability of the individual in a given instance…"² ), but rather that they are not usually at fault for their homosexual orientation – just as a person suffering from depression is not to be blamed for feeling depressed, but is still probably morally culpable if they commit suicide.

There also does not appear to be one, single factor that is constant in all cases (as in Freud’s theory that all homosexual males had over-bearing mothers and passive fathers), although there are numerous factors that are present in many cases. In other, words, there seem to be a lot of psychological pressures that push someone in the direction of homosexual attraction, but no one factor can be said to determine a homosexual outcome. It is important, however, to understand what some of the most common factors are, because many of them can cause serious complications when trying to dialogue with or convert persons with SSA. ³

Firstly, although Freud was not right absolutely, his conclusions were based on observation and as such do provide a certain amount of illumination. Those working in therapy to help persons with SSA achieve a heterosexual orientation, say that one of the most common factors is a father figure who is either weak, distant, or disapproving. As a result of this many (not all) persons with SSA feel that they are inadequate or disappointing in the eyes of their fathers. In order to escape from this they try to find other male figures (usually lovers) who will accept and affirm them. This has two important consequences: first, it reveals that homosexual men are often committed to the homosexual community for reasons that go beyond mere sexual fulfillment (this is also why so many gay activists become insulted when their sexuality is treated merely as a sexual perversion – their experience of homosexuality is one of personal acceptance, not merely one of sexual pleasure.) Secondly, it suggests that many homosexual men will tend to reject Catholicism, or indeed any major monotheism, because they will sub-consciously equate God the Father with their own father, and will perceive Him as an unappealing, judgmental figure who expects more of them than they are capable of giving, and who rejects them without understanding.

Another common factor is a failure to form proper associations, especially in childhood, with members of the same sex. Complimentarity is central to sexual attraction – we are designed to seek out those who are different from ourselves. When a young boy or girl is unable to identify themselves properly with members of their own sex, especially if they do find it easier to identify with the opposite sex, the sense of mystery and desirability that usually leads us to seek out members of the opposite sex can be misdirected, leading to same sex attraction. A child in this position usually feels fairly lonely and isolated, and is also more likely to suffer paternal rejection (see above) especially if they are a boy who is too “sissy.” Their desire for acceptance, love and inclusion amongst members of their own sex leads to sexual desires, which are then cemented when, at last, they find that there are other people who are of their sex and who will accept them: namely the gay community. Again, you have a massive, and very real, psychological need being fulfilled by the gay community, and so, again, you have the perception of homosexuality as being something that goes beyond the confines of mere sex. This is not only a community that accepts them as persons with SSA, it is also the first community where they feel that they really fit in at all. The fact that many (again, not all) persons with SSA have experienced this sort of isolation points out the importance of being compassionate and understanding when dealing with persons with SSA in the Church and in the community. The Church must, first and foremost, be a place where they feel that they are loved and accepted – if they do not feel this way, not only will they not come, they will also not be open to the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. Rather, they will feel that they are insensitive and simplistic dogmas handed down by a group of homophobes who don’t understand or care about them.

A third factor that may come in to play is a history of pain associated with heterosexual relationships. This is less common among men (though it is sometimes a factor), and more common among women – especially amongst lesbians who were previously married or in a long term relationship with a man. The homosexual community usually tries to laugh off the idea that homosexuality can be caused by bad experiences with the opposite sex, but, at least within the lesbian community, there does seem to be a fairly high incidence of women who were deeply emotionally (and sometimes physically) wounded by a man in whom they placed a great deal of trust. Retaining their desire for an intimate relationship, they therefore seek out another woman who will be more nurturing and maternal, easier to understand, easier to get along with, and generally less dominating. It should be noted here that, unlike gay relationships, lesbian relationships tend to be more exclusive, more committed, and less centred around sex. In many cases, they are an attempt to achieve the intimacy and love of a marriage while reducing the emotional risks involved. It is important to note, here, that the person involved may not seem like a particularly vulnerable woman – she may be a loud, opinionated, and seemingly very masculine radical feminist. Keep in mind, though, that a woman who seems to be masculine is, in many cases, simply terrified of the emotional vulnerability implied by femininity. The raving, savage, “I’m not going to take any of your patriarchal garbage!” persona is a sort of armour by which she is protecting a highly vulnerable, ultimately feminine, person.

In all of these cases (and most of the others that you are likely to encounter), the most important thing to keep in mind is that the reasons underlying homosexual behaviour are genuine emotional and psychological needs. You are dealing with a person whose sexuality, and possibly ability to identify with their own gender, has been deeply wounded throughout the course of their life. It is not enough to convince the person in question that homosexual activity is wrong. There are plenty of practising persons with SSA who believe in the immorality of what they are doing, but feel unable to stop because they don’t know of any other way to fulfil their fundamental, underlying needs. Many have gone through years of guilt and shame before finally deciding that any God who demands such an impossible sacrifice is cruel, and any church that rejects their sexual actions is unjust. It is important, therefore, to seek to bring the healing power of God into their lives so that, rather than simply telling them to live chastely, we give them the emotional and psychological means by which to do so.

This work requires a one-on-one approach – it cannot be done through the mass media, and it cannot be achieved from the pulpit. Most people who have had any success in the ministry to persons with SSA agree that you can’t get anywhere unless you first form a personal relationship with the person in question. This is one of the reasons why homophobia is so crippling when it is found within the Christian community – so long as degrading and insensitive language or attitudes are promoted, the individual souls that need Christ’s healing are going to be driven away. Yet this is the most important work – not the work of safe-guarding the legal definition of family, or of changing public opinion on the matter of homosexuality (although these are obviously also important battles), but the work of saving individual souls suffering from homosexuality. We must be clear on this: persons with SSA, even the most strident, anti-Catholic, shamelessly sexualised demonstrators, are not the enemy. They are our own people, who have fallen into enemy hands, and it is our responsibility as Christians to do anything necessary to win them back.

Keeping this in mind, there are a couple of practical points that should be kept in mind by anyone attempting to evangelise persons with SSA. First, while it is important to be conscious of the psychological problems that may underlie a homosexual orientation, it is equally important not to openly psychoanalyse. People hate being told that their feelings and attitudes are the result of Oedipus complex, even if it happens to be true. We have to begin by listening, not by telling people (especially people that we don’t know very well) why they are the way that they are. If it becomes appropriate to help them realize, at some point in a long-term relationship, that their feelings stem from a lack of comfort with their own masculinity, that’s fine, but you have to make sure that this conclusion is something that they are coming to realize themselves, not merely something that you are trying to tell them as a supposed expert.

Secondly, it is usually not a good idea to go into a deep discussion of the moral theology of sex unless they absolutely insist on doing so. Of course you must never give the impression that you approve of what they are doing, but it is usually sufficient to say that, yes, as a Roman Catholic, you support the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and believe that homosexual behaviours are morally wrong – but that those teachings don’t in any way interfere with your personal feelings of love or affection for them as a person. Most persons with SSA will be fairly comfortable with this, provided that they don’t feel that you are attacking their sexuality and trying to change them.

So here’s where you have to get a little sneaky. Obviously, we know that their identification of themselves, as people, with their sexual orientation is seriously problematic. Our job, therefore, is to undermine that identification without ever attacking it directly. If you tell someone suffering from homosexuality that their sexuality is objectively disordered and their behaviours are immoral, but that you love them in spite of their sexuality, they are going to call you a hypocrite. This sentiment is baffling to many Catholics because we don’t understand the degree to which many persons with SSA believe that their sexual practices are integral not only to their happiness but to themselves. We need to bear in mind that many people in the homosexual community feel that they have only ever really been personally accepted by that community – not just because the outside world condemns homosexuality, but because some significant part of the outside world failed to accept their personality even before they had any sort of homosexual feelings. As a result of this, their genuine personality traits – aspects of themselves that actually are part of the way God made them – are psychologically bound up with their homosexuality. The things that made society (or daddy, or whoever...) reject them are a part of their “gayness,” and to reject their homosexuality is, in their eyes, to reject all of those aspects of their personality as well. What is necessary, therefore, is to show them that someone can love them, and love all of the things that they erroneously associate with homosexuality, without actually loving their sin. Only when this becomes a practical reality, rather than a theoretical tag-line, will the actually believe that it is possible, and understand that they have an identity and a personality with which their sexual desires are not integrally connected.

Of course, this approach might seem to leave the Christian apologist hanging – if you can’t address homosexuality through a discussion of moral theology, then what are you supposed to do to try to convert these people? The answer is astonishingly simply: show them a God who is patient, merciful and loving, a God who brings healing to a world broken by sin. Talk to them about your faith, your experience of God’s healing power and of His forgiveness. Show them that God will meet, perfectly, all of the psychological needs that they have been trying to fulfil through homosexuality.

Of course, inevitably, there will come a point where they are going to insist that the issue of homosexuality and the Church be covered exhaustively. Try to postpone this until they are at the point where they really do want to believe in Christianity and this is the last big stumbling block. None the less, it is important to know the apologetics, because the time will come when they will be both appropriate and necessary. It is also useful to know the arguments when discussing the issue with people who are not actually homosexual themselves, but who have been convinced by the arguments of the gay community and believe that the Catholic Church is simply being backwards and homophobic when it opposes homosexual sex and homosexual “marriage.”

To begin with, it is important to point out that Catholic sexual teaching is in radical opposition to the modern theories of sexuality – not because it belies the value of sex, but rather because we believe that sex is too valuable, too beautiful and too sacred to be treated as a meaningless, self-serving past-time. Sex is an objective good, but it is not the greatest possible good. This is why Priests and religious are called to give it up – because they are sacrificing a lesser good to a greater one, not because they are abandoning a fundamentally degraded or evil practice. However, as with any great good, it has a tendency to become an idol if it is not practised with reference to God’s intention or design. This is, in part, the reason why it is important to put so many limitations on sexuality – not because it is a bad or dangerous thing that can only be grudgingly allowed under specific circumstances, but rather because it is a good thing when used to serve God, but when it is made a god it is ultimately both disappointing and destructive. The modern perspective on sex is essentially one of idolatry: sex is an absolute good, in and of itself, regardless of circumstance, intent, or consequence (provided, of course, it is undertaken by consenting adults.) It need not refer back to God, nor must it be carried out in accord with His design – it’s ultimate purpose and goal is to be found in the personal fulfilment of those participating. This attitude towards anything is fundamentally opposed to Catholic principles, because it is an attempt to appropriate something which God has made and put it to an entirely anthropocentric use. Catholic sexuality is based on the principle that sex was made and designed by God who gave it to us as a gift, and that we have an obligation to use it in order to serve Him and not merely to fulfil ourselves.

This being said, the obvious question is to wonder why homosexual sex can’t be used in order to serve God if it is undertaken by two people who believe in Him and who want to glorify Him in their union. The simplest answer lies in looking at the purposes for which God created sex – in understanding what the nature of sex is. It is important, here, to make a distinction between the word “natural” as it is used in modern colloquial speech, and as it is used in proper philosophical or theological language. The argument that homosexual sex is unnatural is widely misunderstood precisely because most people don’t understand what we mean when we use the word natural. The most common ways that this is misinterpreted are as follows: a) Natural means “as it is in the natural world,” therefore if we can find rats, wolves, or  platypi that behave like this, it must be natural; b) Natural means “something that feels right, or that is in accord with one’s instincts,” therefore, if it feels normal and appealing to the people doing it, it must be natural; and c) Natural means “something that one feels comfortable with,” therefore, if you feel it is unnatural, that’s just a subjective opinion based, presumably, on homophobia. In fact, natural, when used in moral theology, doesn’t refer to any of these things, rather, when we say that something is natural, we means that it is in accord with its nature, i.e. in accord with the way that God designed it. When looking at sex, therefore, we have to look at the act and ask what God’s purpose in designing it was, and what elements are essential to its nature. The Church teaches, and reason would suggest, that it has two essential characteristics: it is both procreative and unitive. The first should be obvious to anyone who considers the issue objectively: if an act has, as one of its consequences, the creation of a new and completely unique human person, then it is simply absurd to suggest that something else, let alone mere pleasure, is its primary purpose. It’s rather like saying that the primary purpose of chemotherapy is to provide a greater market for wigs, or that the main reason we have lungs is to make our chests move in and out. The second is also tremendously important, but its importance follows from the first: sex unites two people into one flesh, thus forming an indissoluble bond in which the total self-giving of the Creator is mirrored in the creature. This self-giving achieves its most concrete form, and its consummation, not in mere unitive sex, but rather in the act of procreation, just as the self-giving of the Father and the Son achieves its consummation because the Holy Spirit proceeds from that union. On a more practical level, it also provides a stable and complimentary union ideal for the raising of children. Pleasure and “self-fulfilment” may arise as a result of sexual intercourse, but neither are essential in achieving its primary purpose, procreation, and while they may contribute to forming closer unitive bonds, neither are they essential in order to allow a “sincere gift of self”⁴  through the sexual act.

Given that the unitive aspect of sex is consummated in the procreative, and the procreative act is safeguarded by the union of marriage, the Church holds that these two elements of human sexuality cannot be separated without doing violence to the integrity of the sexual act. Or, in other words, sex which does not include these two elements is unnatural, i.e. not in accord with the purposes for which God ordained sex. This is why the Church condemns all forms of sexual intercourse in which one or both of these elements are deliberately or necessarily excluded. (It is useful, because some people might raise it as an objection, to note that the use of natural family planning does not violate the procreative aspect of sex: it does not deliberately interfere with the reproductive process, but rather integrates God’s design of human reproduction with human reason in order to allow couples to avoid reproducing during times of grave need. When it is used in order to avoid having children for purely selfish reasons, or if it is used without the intent of procreating when it is possible to do so, it is disordered. Simply put, it allows the unitive bonds of marriage to be maintained during periods when it would be inadvisable to have a child, and it does so in co-operation with natural human fertility.) In homosexual sex, procreation is impossible, and no true unitive bond can be forged, both because of a lack of complimentarity, and because the purpose for which that unitive bond is established by God is automatically frustrated. This is not to imply that two persons of the same sex may not feel that their sexuality is an expression of self-giving love, or that they don’t feel deeply united to the person with whom they are having intercourse; it simply points out the fact that, objectively, a true unitive bond cannot exist. (This, incidentally, is why the idea of homosexual “marriage” is a theological absurdity.)

Now all of this theology can seem tremendously cold and theoretical – it doesn’t, for obvious reasons, take into account the feelings of the people to whom it applies. None the less, it is important to point out that reason, and not feeling, must ultimately be the compass of morality – otherwise it would be perfectly legitimate to beat a child if you feel angry, or to kill a lover if you feel jealous. Still, there is a more human face to the Catholic view of homosexuality and it is important to allow that to show through. On a practical level, we believe that God has ordained all things in order to serve the good of His creatures. Therefore, regardless of what we might feel at any given moment, when we use things in accord with God’s design, they will ultimately work for our good. When we reject God’s design and try to use things for our own purposes in violation of His plan, they always work out for the worst. Someone who is involved in a homosexual relationship is, by virtue of the fact that they are pursuing a lifestyle which God cannot sanction, frustrating God’s plan for their vocation. If they are called to a life of chastity, to bear their homosexuality as a cross, then they are turning away from that cross, and therefore also turning away from a deeper union with Christ and from the means of their salvation. If, on the other hand, they are called to accept God’s healing, and to eventually enter the married state, then they are essentially rejecting the gift of a spouse which God wants to offer them. Many Christians (the author of this article included) have, through the power of prayer, and sometimes with the help of psychological therapy, been able to overcome the psychological factors that have produced homosexual tendencies. The experience is one of incredible liberation: you begin believing that you are confined to a homosexual lifestyle by factors beyond your control, and end by discovering that God had something more wonderful than you ever imagined possible in store for you. The Church calls all of those who experience homosexual feelings to seek this healing, not because She hates them or wants them to deny themselves, but rather because She knows that in doing God’s will and discovering the incredible depths of His mercy, they will find a life that, far from being impoverished by the loss of that which is sacrificed, is enriched by the grace of God which surpasses all of our hopes or expectations.
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1 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1986.
2 Ibid.
3 Information for the following section was culled from various sources, most notably the work of NARTH (the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) -- if you are interested in more information about the possible physical and psychological causes of homosexuality, look up www.narth.com.
4 Mulieris Dignitatem, Pope John Paul II, 1988