IN WHAT SENSE ARE THEY THEN A CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION?:

Sexual Orientation and the Catholic Church (Dr. Charles E. Rice, March 2, 2010, Ignatius Insight)

Editor's Note: The following column by Dr. Rice was written for publication in the Notre Dame Observer, which Dr. Rice has written a bi-weekly column for since 1992. He was informed by the Observer that this column would not be published because of concerns about its language and whether or not it would lead to a "productive discussion". Ignatius Insight believes that frank articulation of Church doctrine is the perfect basis for productive discussion, and so is happy to publish the column. [...]

1. Homosexual acts are always objectively wrong. The starting point is the Catechism: "Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction to persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, 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" (No. 2357). [...]

2. Since homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," the inclination toward those acts is disordered. An inclination to commit any morally disordered act, whether theft, fornication or whatever, is a disordered inclination. "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies," says the Catechism, "is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial" (No. 2358). That inclination, however, is not in itself a sin. [...]

4. "[M]en and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies.... are called to fulfill God's will in their lives, and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.... Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection" (Catechism, nos. 2358, 2359).