Before examining this issue, however, I first want to temporarily set aside the Holy Father's suggestion that Catholics not "obsess" over the Church's sexual prohibitions, so that we can highlight the clear perennial teaching of the Church and thereby set off in sharp relief the tell-tale ambiguity that marks the muddle-minded thinking of our own day.
To this end, let us consider a recent article by intrepid theological critic, Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., who has just published Part 1 of a two-part series entitled "Why Are Homosexual Acts Wrong?" (Latin Mass Magazine: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Winter/Spring 2014), pp. 16-19 [notes are Fr. Harrison's].
In this first installment of his two-part series, Fr. Harrison briefly lays the groundwork for his discussion by summarizing Church teaching; but his main purpose in the balance of the series, he says, is to address the most common objections to the traditional Christian understanding of why homosexual acts are gravely immoral. The first and only objection dealt with in Part 1 is the claim: "It's not unnatural."
One point Fr. Harrison makes is that St. Thomas' answer to the question at issue does not in any way depend on -- or even mention -- marriage, but appeals to an even more fundamental ethical criterion: the kinds of sexual acts from which generation can never follow, says Thomas, are "the most grave and shameful" of the various types of lust, because "they transgress that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions." (ST, IIa IIae Q. 154, art 12, c) While all sexual activity outside of marriage is gravely sinful, not all such sins are equivalent. As Fr. Harrison reminds his readers, "Sodomy is, but fornication is not denounced in the Bible and Catholic tradition as one of the four 'sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.'" (Cf. Gen. 18:20; 19:13, CCC #1867. According to the fashionable interpretation of many modern exegetes, the sin of the men of Sodom is seen by the Genesis author as consisting merely in their 'lack of hospitality' toward Lot's guests, and not in the vice that has been named after their city. In reply to this objection, it will be sufficient for present purposes to point out that it is refuted by the Bible itself. The Letter of Saint Jude tell us (v. 7) that Sodom was punished for its "unnatural vice" (in the Vulgate, abeuntes post carnem alteram, "going astray after other flesh," i.e., "other" than what God and nature have ordained.")
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its own answer to our question, takes the same approach as St. Thomas, as Fr. Harrison points out, not even mentioning the question of marriage. Rather, it declares:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Gen. 19:1-2; Rom. 1:24-27; I Cor. 6:10; I Tim. 1:10), tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (CCC, #2357, emphasis added)Which brings us to the question raised by the title of our post. While we see daily examples of Catholics and even some Church officials appearing to waffle or go soft on various aspects of Church teaching, particularly on morals, most Catholics would be surprised to think that of a flagship publication of Catholic neo-conservatism founded by the celebrated Catholic convert from Lutheranism, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. One would not expect, for example, to read passages such as Paul J. Griffiths recently wrote in his review of Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography, by Richard Rodriguez, a self-identified "gay." Near the end of his review (FT, April 2014, pp. 58-59), Griffiths first offers this rather benign observation:
I don't agree with every position taken in Darling, or with every argument offered. On Islam, I suspect that's what's needed at the moment isn't emphasis on the similarities among the three so-called Abrahamic religions as desert faiths, real though these are, but rather on difference and complimentarity. The recent work of Rémi Brague on this, especially On the God of the Christians (and on one or two others), is especially instructive.As I say, nothing particularly notable there ... But then he continues:
On homosexuality and homosexual acts, by contrast, I think Rodriguez much closer to being right than not. Insofar as such acts are motivated by and evoke love, they are good and to be loved; insofar as they do not, not. In this, they are no different from heterosexual acts.Really? Acts that the Bible and Catholic tradition have always declared "sins that cry to heaven for vengeance" can be "motivated by and evoke love"?