Catholic Answer Girl!

[loveneverfails]

Ok, LJ!  Does anyone have any theological questions about the Catholic Church that I can help with?  Confused as to why the Church opposes contraception?  What's the story with stuff about condoms and Africa?  Why the hell should you listen to a bunch of old celibate white guys about what to do with sexuality?  Do you have any questions about Holy

Comments

[loveneverfails]

Ok, in order to make a good explanation for this the first thing I have to say is that marriage is the highest natural reality that we know in the Catholic Church. It is the zenith of our original design, not just to be human but to be spouses and love with all that we have and all that we are. Any deviation from that at all is wrong, and it's not like one alteration is worse than any other.

I also believe 100% that homosexuality has a biological basis such that many many gay people are truly born with same sex attraction hard wired into them. I also think it's important to make a distinction between morality and culpability. Morality determines whether an act is right or wrong, or more properly whether it has the full goodness that is worthy of the human person or whether it's a partial goodness only. Evil is not a stand alone reality. It's mostly good but with a lack of something that is supposed to be there. Culpability is how that act impacts our relationship with God, and factors like knowledge and freedom come heavily into play here.

Sex is the expression of the vows you make in marriage. It's the distilled moment that has everything you promise in marriage come into play. Sex and marriage effectively say "you satisfy me, and you are irreplaceable to me. I love you with all that I have and all that I am and ever will be, and I accept that our love could be the dust from which God forms new human life." Marriage is a complete handing over of self to the one you love, and that includes fertility.

Sex from a Catholic perspective is a profoundly holy and beautiful reality that inherently has to have the potential to create a child, because the potential for that life to come into being is part of the irrevocable nature of sexuality. The potential for a child to come from sexual union only exists in a heterosexual union, so it's the "good" that is missing from homosexual relationships that makes them considered immoral. Companionship, compassion, sacrifice and so many other goods are there, but that one good is missing and therefore it's not operating with the full meaning that sexuality is supposed to have.

I do not for one moment believe that homosexual activity is somehow worse than contraception or extra-marital sexual activity. I also believe that when you are talking about sexual attraction like this that is biologically based and about a basic human drive (which is a good thing!) you have to have diminished culpability. Culpability is between God and the individual, and you can never say "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL YOU EVIL SINNER YOU!!!! BURN BURN BURN!!!!" That's not my business. It's not my job to be the sin police and to stand in judgment over anyone. However, there is a difference between judging a person (absolutely not my job) and judging an action to be not the full goodness of what we are called to be, and when we fail (as we all inevitably do) we can always seek reunion through the sacrament of reconciliation.

[addienfaemne]

Good explanation - thank you. You've put the teaching into perspective for me.

[primroseburrows]

The potential for a child to come from sexual union only exists in a heterosexual union, so it's the "good" that is missing from homosexual relationships that makes them considered immoral.

So if we continue this view one step further, is the "good" then missing from the marriages of (heterosexual) couples who for physical reasons (hysterectomy, hormonal issues) are unable to have children? Also, should infertile women remain single because marrying an otherwise fertile man would prevent him from fathering a child if he married someone else?

[loveneverfails]

No, because the sex is taking place still in a manner that respects the original design of the body and its normal potential for life giving love. With a hysterectomy or infertility, you're still giving all that you have in a manner that would otherwise result in the possibility of pregnancy but due to disease or birth defect such a conception is not realistically going to happen. The design of sexuality is still the same although the outcome will never be children.