When
liberal-minded people attempt to
debate the
Roman Catholic Church on her various
teachings, they always make the mistake of approaching the table with
secular arguments, while the Roman Catholic Church is approaching the table with
theological arguments. The
disparate paradigms make fruitful debate impossible.
As a
homosexual who is also a
Roman Catholic, I often struggled with the her teaching on homosexual
intercourse; the Roman Catholic Church does
not teach that
being a homosexual is a
sin; rather, it is the act of intercourse between two persons of the same
gender that is sinful.
The reason for this teaching is that, according to the Roman Catholic Church, the purpose of intercourse is twofold:
procreation and
bonding. As procreation can only occur between two people of opposite genders, homosexual intercourse is disordered, and therefore sinful.
As I continued to give thought to the matter, I recalled the Roman Catholic Church's teaching regarding
birth control. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that
artificial birth control –
condoms,
the Pill, etc. – is sinful, but
natural birth control – and here I do not mean the
rhythm method, but rather the much more precise
Dr. Billings' Method of Ovulation – is not. (An explanation of that area is another
node entirely. Take it at
face value for this node.) According to the Roman Catholic Church, a married
couple can practice natural birth control, therefore
not procreating, and therefore fulfilling only
one of the two purposes of intercourse.
I brought this fact to bear on the teaching on homosexual intercourse. If two people of the same gender are in a loving, committed
relationship, then their act of intercourse would fulfill one of the two purposes of said act, namely bonding, and therefore would
not be commiting a sinful act.
I have used this argument with fellow Roman Catholics who are
conservative-minded, and in the face of a theological justification, they find that their own argument against homosexual intercourse does not stand up.