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Joseph Gentilini
I have been thinking about how to respond to Mary Margaret and her serious and thoughtful questions about same-sex relationships and the complimentary natures of males and females and how the Catholic Church views the subject. She asked me to view a talk by a Father Schmitz at a conference on the subject of 'same-sex attraction.' I previously discussed on why I think this topic is misnamed. By saying it is only an attraction, then the Church ignores that homosexuality is more than an attraction to the same sex; it is an orientation that involves person's personality and is inherent to that person's very being.
I may not have fully answered her question, but this is my attempt.
While the Scriptures are inspired by God, they are still written by men to explain a reality – to explain how God interacts with humanity, why there issuffering and sickness in the world, how sin entered humanity, and even to explain how the earth came into being.
But Scripture passages need to be read with critical analysis – what was the intent of the story, in what context were they written down, what was happening in the world at that time, how did people understand it, and what was the original meaning of their words that they used.
In the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council dealing with the interpretation of sacred Scripture (No. 12) it says, “Since God speaks in sacred Scripture through men in a human fashion, the interpreter of sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.” So, it is not valid to just take a certain text of Scripture and automatically assign a specific meaning without applying it to the contemporary circumstances of life. This takes the text out of context. This warning is applicable for the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.
According to scriptural scholars, the second account of creation in Genesis is older than the first account. In this account procreation is not necessarily the goal of the different sexes as male and female, but companionship and a cure of loneliness. Father Schmitz mentioned that everyone gets lonely at times, including married people or people who never had the opportunity to marry. I agree – we all get lonely at times. However, to insist that gay persons who have the opportunity to live with a beloved companion are forbidden to get married or to form a loving relationship just because they are homosexual seems to me to be inhuman and acting against love. God is LOVE in his very nature and those who love are in God.
God created humanity male and female, but is it all that simple? Today we recognize that there are other combinations of hormones, genes, chromosomes, gonads, and genitals that don’t neatly fit in the differences as only male and female. There are persons who consider themselves as non-binary, or as intersex, or as transgendered. What is considered masculine or feminine behavior today is a cultural phenomenon and differs between cultures. Even the concept of marriage has changed through the centuries.
In the case of same sex relationships, some have interpreted the Scriptures as meaning that all same sex relationships are immoral. They cite that Christian marriage is a symbol of Christ’s love with his bride, the church. For them, this ultimately refers to gender complementarity and it is only interpreted through those who are biologically male and female. I believe this model is too limiting in today’s understanding of human sexuality Homosexuality is a variation of human sexuality.
The objective reality of our bodies – male and female – is such that they physically ‘fit’ together and, according to the Church, they should come together only for the purpose of procreation and the unitive joining of the two persons. But today we recognize that in an ideal world, for heterosexuals, the psycho-sexual and emotional attraction to the other is there. Even in homosexual sexual unions, parts still fit and there is a psycho-sexual and emotional attraction to the other.
I believe Father Schmitz was incorrect in his presentation when he said that Scripture is very clear when it deals with homosexual acts, beginning in Leviticus and on into the Acts, Romans, etc. The Church, I believe, wants to make this topic black and white and simple by preaching this sweeping condemnation. Scripture scholars for years have researched these, what I would call the ‘clobber’ passages dealing with homosexual behavior, and many have come up with a different viewpoint. There is no longer a clear and definitive view on this even between Catholic scripture scholars.
It is very unlikely that the biblical writers in the Old Testament and the New Testament recognized or thought about a person having a sexual orientation; they saw only behavior. The term homosexual didn’t even appear until the late 19th century. In a previous discussion, I explained how a sexual orientation differs from just having a sexual attraction.
I will give just two examples to counter his premise. For example, Leviticus is a chapter on all the rules that the Jewish people had to follow. They needed to increase their population in order to defend themselves against their enemies, hence sex was for procreation. They believed they were the chosen people of the Covenant and needed to be different than their neighbors - pure and holy. In Leviticus 6, it says that a man should not lay down with a man as he would with a woman. Women in that time were considered property without equal rights with men. To lay with a man as with a woman was considered to be act of domination and a humiliation. This chapter also condemns the wearing of mixed fabrics, having intercourse with a woman in her menstrual period (which made her unclean), the eating of shellfish, and many other rules that today people never observe.
Scripture Scholars now believe that the sin of Sodom was the sin of inhospitality, not homosexual behavior. In another Old Testament passage (Ezekiel 16: 49-50, it reads, “Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her sisters lived in pride, plenty, and thoughtless ease; they supported not the poor and needy; they grew haughty, and committed abomination before me.” This certainly does not sound like a sin of homosexuality. Each time in the Gospels where Jesus mentions Sodom, it refers to this sin, not homosexuality.
Concerning Romans in the New Testament, Father John McNeill, in his book The Church and the Homosexual (page 56), states, “…the Pauline epistles do not explicitly treat of the problem of homosexual activity between persons who share the homosexual condition, and as such cannot be read as explicitly condemning such behavior.” There was not even a concept of a homosexual orientation. Most likely, Paul saw them as heterosexuals who abandon the natural intercourse with women’. For me, having been gay all my life, having intercourse with a woman would be against my own nature and wrong.
In addition, Paul probably never met true homosexuals who were in an equal and loving relationship. Scripture scholars now think Paul was referring to temple male prostitutes, promiscuous behavior, man-boy sex, rape, etc. Unfortunately, I no longer have my books that dealt with each of the ‘clobber’ Scriptural passages.
Furthermore, Jesus never said one word about homosexual behavior. Homosexual activity certainly occurred in his time, and it certainly would have been mentioned in the Gospels if Jesus said anything about it.
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talked about good trees bearing good fruit and bad trees bearing bad fruit. In looking at those in same-sex relationship of love and devotion, who can say they are not producing good fruit. Their very lives show their love for each other, and love is the new commandment given by Christ that supersedes the Jewish Laws. In my opinion, this is the criteria in looking at same-sex relationships. Is there love involved? Is it self-giving? Is it mutual? This to me seems the differences we should be looking at, not the biological differences between men and women. Research also shows that those who are gay, etc., and ‘come out’ are healthier psychologically and I would add spiritually. What is not good psychologically cannot be good spiritually.
Years ago, the Church taught that the primary purpose for sexuality was procreation. In fact, in the Middle Ages, it was considered a venial sin if one took pleasure in sexual acts. Years later, it was recognized that the secondary purpose of sex was the unitive joining of the couple. Under Pope Pius XII, they were given equal importance, and this has been the same thought even today. Hence, the church says that heterosexual sexual acts serve its purpose and intent.
This is why the Church says that every sexual act must be open to the transmission of life (Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI - July 1968), that any sexual act between married couples outside the penis-vagina union is immoral. Hence, even between heterosexual couples, oral sex to orgasm, and mutual masturbation are considered immoral. And of course, homosexual unions would automatically be immoral.
However, there are Catholic heterosexual couples who have sex but do not have the intent of procreation; in fact, their intent is not to have children. Hence the rhythm method was allowed. Of course, we all know that this method was not full proof. The Church now has introduced a ‘natural family planning’ method as a more accurate way of avoiding pregnancy. The issue is still the same: the intent is not to have children.
Sin is in the intent. If the two persons having sex but intending not to procreate, then logically they are only having sex for the purpose of pleasure and the unitive factor. The sexual act is no longer for procreation and therefore falls short of the purpose of the sexual act which the Church teaches is for procreation and the unitive factor.
The Church allows older couples to get married even if they are past the age of becoming parents and it allows a couple who are sterile to get married. In these cases, their sexual acts can only serve the unitive purpose, not the complete purpose which the church insists on – procreation AND the unitive factor. Logically, to my way of thinking, maybe these persons therefore should not be having sex relations because part of the purpose of the sexual act is missing part of the reason for sex. Therefore, it only serves the unitive purpose of the sexual act and not the other.
Father Schmitz encouraged persons with same-sex attraction not to identify as gay or lesbians because this assumes they are engaging in the sexual act as if that is the only important thing about gays and lesbians. The priest said the ‘correct’ position would be to say they are a person first and this person has same-sex attraction. Of course, I am a person first, but I also identify as gay, and it certainly means more than having sex. Even if I was celibate, I would still identify myself as gay.
I will end my comments with a few entries from my book.
September 29, 1995
I am who I am before you, my God, and in you I do place my trust.
June 13, 2003
Thank you, God, for the gift of Leo in my life. How did you know I needed him so much? Well, I guess I can answer that one – it is so obvious that I was a mess before him.
May 15, 2010
As I sat in prayer, I often just told God that I wanted him for all eternity. I also want Leo for all eternity, and there is a connection. We are a threesome. I do not feel a need to disconnect my life with Leo from my life with God.
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