For all the obvious reasons, I am generally keen to avoid posting on homosexuality and the church. There have been many posts over the years on ADU and the result has been maximum number of reads, maximum number of comments, minimum signs of anyone's views changing.
But, occasionally, we should post, if only to make a potential new point for consideration or a familiar point for new reconsideration.
So, I draw your attention to this essay, by Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, published online as "Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco on Gays and Catholics" by Outreach: An LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, and published in print in
(ET = Gays and Catholics: The Church Put to the Test of Reality, published by Desclée De Brouwer).
I suggest these are the money paragraphs:
"Yes, how difficult it is to put homosexuality into words. It is not an illness; there are no chemical treatments, and attempts at psychological treatments are sickening. It is not a sin, for sin is committed freely, and no one chooses to be homosexual. Nor is it the result of educational or social conditioning, for within the same family where siblings have received the same upbringing, one child may be homosexual while the others are not.
Social acceptance does not make one homosexual, but it makes it easier to acknowledge it, to share it with others, and to live one’s emotional life as serenely as possible. Homosexuality has no obvious reason, and we must accept this element of ignorance regarding God’s creative work.
Nor is homosexuality part of the norm, and in that sense it is not normal—provided, of course, that the opposite of normal is not abnormal. I like the definition given by James Alison in his contribution: homosexual orientation is a regularly occurring non-pathological minority variant in the human condition. This definition places homosexuality within the order of creation and not within that of disorder or pathology. It also places it within the realm of singularity."
Why do I make this suggestion for your possible reading?
Because, in my summary of debates through past decades, at the heart of our differences is not only how we approach the Bible, it is also how we approach homosexuality as a human phenomenon. We seem to do this in two ways:
1. It is "abnormal" or a "disorder" or a "pathology" or a "sin" or "sinful disposition". Essentially we see homosexuality as something which can be fixed or something which should not be and so the holy and heroic thing to do is to overcome it via abstinence and celibacy. (With the consequence that those who propose differently are disregarding the Bible and/or disobeying the teaching of the church, and, thus and so, we cannot have communion across this divide.)
2. It is a variant within the human condition. As the Cardinal writes,
"I like the definition given by James Alison in his contribution: homosexual orientation is a regularly occurring non-pathological minority variant in the human condition. This definition places homosexuality within the order of creation and not within that of disorder or pathology."
If we agree on 2, then we must revise the way we approach the Bible and the church's teaching on the matter. (There should be no problem doing so: if we are willing to change our understanding of Genesis 1 and 2 (creation did not literally happen per these chapters, but has involved evolution through a long period of time) on the basis of modern scientific knowledge, we could change our understanding of homosexuality from "disorder" (a moral assessment) to "variant within the human condition" (a scientific assessment).)
And if we so revise, we might have civil debates about the ethics of homosexuality (as we do about the ethics of contraception and the ethics of marriage and divorce)?
And if we could have civil debates about the ethics of homosexuality, we might not break communion with each other (as we do not break communion over contraception or marriage or divorce).
I will not necessarily publish every comment submitted here. My attention will be on whether the comment is focused on discussing what I have written (two approaches, how to have civil debates) or ranging more widely and into much discussed matters in past blogs.
Try harder :).
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