Within certain corners of Christianity and I should think in other religions too, there is much disapproval of homosexual activity...
Those who don't want to exterminate LGBT people say they are against the "sin" but love the "sinner"
And everything is OK with having "same sex attraction", so long as you don't do anything gay, and don't have gay thoughts!
If a person is homosexual, they will naturally seek to live out out their innate sexuality (just as with heterosexuals) and act upon their attraction to the same sex, so as to experience both pleasure and companionship in the company of other homosexual or bisexual persons. Otherwise, they could become severely sexually frustrated and repressed.
The task of the church in this respect, in my judgment, is not to 'cast stones' at their private sex lives and decisions (
which are THEIRS alone to make in the private forum of conscience, which is supreme, not my business to intrude) but rather to accompany these people 'pastorally' on their journey together and most importantly
spiritually, even if we cannot (for theological reasons) 'solemnize' their sexual union with a sacramental marriage (
which we cannot in the Catholic Church, it is doctrinally restricted to male - female).
I think it is exceedingly unrealistic (and indeed onerous) to expect the average gay parishioner - anymore than your average heterosexual one - in the pew, to live a life of complete abstinence and chastity, or harder still a non-sexual "brother-sister" type relationship with a close same-sex partner (as some Catholic priests practise, given the rules on clerical celibacy - but that's different, because the clerics have specifically
chosen that restructive lifestyle to "deny" themselves for a higher purpose. We cannot expect the same of average laity, gay or straight). That sounds a bit like a 'prison-sentence' for life imposed on someone who hasn't actually
freely elected to be celibate.
I thus follow the pastoral approach of Cardinal Reinhard Marx in Germany:
In new interview, Cardinal Marx speaks on same-sex blessings
Cardinal Reinhard Marx has expressed the view that homosexual couples can receive a Church blessing “in the sense of a pastoral accompaniment” in the Catholic Church, but not in a manner that resembles marriage.
In the magazine interview, Marx also said that he told the [Vatican] Synod on the Family in 2015 that homosexual couples, who are faithful to each other and support each other, should not be “negatively bracketed” by the Church or told by the Church that stable homosexual relationships are considered worthless.
At the same, Marx affirmed in the interview with Stern that a homosexual union “is not a marriage” in the Catholic sense of the word, and that the sacrament of marriage is between a man and a woman.
More recently, Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin, following consultations in early December, stated that both hetero- and homosexuality are “normal forms of sexual predisposition, which cannot or should be be changed with the help of a specific socialization.”
Cardinal Marx backs "pastoral" blessings for gay couples - Novena
“The sacrament of marriage is based on the faithful relationship between man and woman, which is open to children”, Marx, German Bishops’ Conference President made clear talking to Stern December 23.
But having explained that traditional marriage doctrine, the cardinal also insisted that gays must be welcome in the Church.
If same-sex couples have been faithful for years, the Church can’t “negatively bracket that out” and say their relationships aren’t worth anything, Marx argued.
So that's where I stand as well.
If I may quote the church father St. Augustine of Hippo:
This good is threefold: fidelity, offspring, sacrament.
Fidelity means that one avoids all sexual activity apart from one’s marriage [i.e. no adultery / extra-marital liaisons].
Offspring means that the child is accepted in love, is nurtured in affection, is brought up in religion.
The sacrament means that the marriage is not severed...
[Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, ix, 7, 12 [or 9,9,2]), Corpus Scriptorum Ecciesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) 28: 275-276]
For Augustine, it was chiefly “the sacrament” that distinguished the marriages of Christians from those of other people. Because of its essential goodness, marriage was a sacred reality and he analogized its permanence to the permanent character arising from baptism. [Reynolds, 293-297]
There are only seven sacraments and they represent the essence of the life of the Church. For this reason, a Catholic marriage is a very sacred institution that is elevated to a degree above that of mere 'secular' unions - which the canonical tradition of the church refers to as "
natural marriage", consisting as it does largely of a contract. A sacramental marriage is not a contract under law. It would have the same validity and moral force if the state recognised no marital unions.
This is also the rationale behind the church's doctrine that a sacramental marriage cannot, in essence, be broken - like a normal secular marriage.
So, its
not that we are 'incapable' theologically of seeing value in natural unions, such as cohabitation or gay civil marriage, that don't pass the 'sacramental' test. As the more sympathetic members of the hierarchy and theologians evidence,
we are capable of that.
In his 2016 apostolic exhortation,
Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis warned against what he called an "
excessive idealization" which results in a "
far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families". When people fail to conform with this high 'ideal', due to the pressures of modern living and societal mores among other factors, the Church had in the past clung to its 'laws' so ferociously as to turn them into "
stones to throw at people's lives", according to the pontiff.
The Pope disagrees with this approach, writing in that 2016 document:
"In such situations, many people, knowing and accepting the possibility of living ‘as brothers and sisters’ which the Church offers them, point out that if certain expressions of intimacy [i.e., sexual intercourse] are lacking ‘it often happens that faithfulness is endangered and the good of the children suffers’ ( Gaudium et spes, 51).”
"Hence it can no longer simply be said that all those in any 'irregular' situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding 'its inherent values', or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin. (paragraph 301)
...it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God's grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end. (paragraph 305)...
A pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in 'irregular' situations, as if they were stones to throw at people's lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, 'sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families'". (paragraph 305)...
When a couple in an irregular union attains a noteworthy stability through a public bond – and is characterized by deep affection, responsibility towards the children and the ability to overcome trials – this can be seen as an opportunity"
The Pope believes one can find significant "
elements of love and holiness" in family situations and domestic relationships which - while lacking from our perspective the fullness of truth found in a sacramental, marital relationship - nevertheless represent the right direction (the best a person can legitimately be expected to do in their concrete circumstances or because, indeed, of their biology which is innate to them!) and so we can appreciate and recognise the real truth, goodness and beauty of those partnerships, even if we can never recognise them as passing the sacramental test. These include stable pre-marital relationships (co-habitation), second marriages and same-sex unions.
I would also add the following for reflection:
SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals
A major change in the approach of Catholic ethicists to sexual sin parallels the change in the approach to marriage.61 The majority of Catholic ethicists have agreed for years that decisions of morality or immorality in sexual ethics should be based on interpersonal relationship and not simply on physical acts like masturbation, kissing, petting, premarital, marital, and extra-marital sexual intercourse, both heterosexual and homosexual.62 Lisa Cahill argues that ‘A truly humane interpretation of procreation, pleasure and intimacy will set their moral implications in the context of enduring personal relationships, not merely individual sexual acts. If human identity and virtue in general are established diachronically, then this will also be true of sexual flourishing.’63
Serious immorality, what is traditionally called mortal sin, is no longer decided on the basis of an individual act against ‘nature,’ that is, the biological, physical, natural processes common to all farmyard animals. It is decided on the basis of human goods and human relationship built upon them. Cahill suggests such human goods as ‘equality, intimacy, and fulfillment as moral criteria.’64 We would add the virtues of love and justice, to make more fully explicit what she clearly intends.
Sexuality has three bodily meanings: intimacy of bodily contact, even bodily interpenetration; pleasure; and reproduction or procreation. All of these meanings are realized and developed over time and in the social institutions which a given society recognizes. Immoral or less than moral behavior is defined not exclusively by any sexual act related to these three, but rather by any less than loving, just, equal, compassionate, and mutually fulfilling act
