Why Ecclesiastical Homosexualism is Such an Issue

The upcoming Synod on Youth is perceived my many, and with good reason, to be an instrument for promoting the homosexual agenda inside the Church. This — unbelievably! — at a time when that agenda is doing untold harm to the Church’s good name in America and Western Europe.

There are many reasons to oppose homosexuality and the agenda of the homosexualists: from its perennial condemnation by the true Church, to the well-known and documented physical and mental health risks associated with the vice, to its violation of the manifest purpose of human sexuality, to its undermining of the nature of the family, to the immense harm inflicted on innocent children by same-sex “parents,” etc.

But from the perspective of Catholic dogma, the natural and supernaturally revealed truths that the Catholic Church teaches and safeguards in the matter of marriage, the family, and sexual morality would all be undermined in globo by the embrace of homosexuality — entirely and radically.

Howso?

Consider:

I. Sacramental matrimony, and even the natural bond between the unbaptized, are only possible between a man and a woman. Now, it is the teaching of the Church that deliberate consummated venereal acts outside of matrimony are always grave matter (i.e., mortal sin, if the other requisites are present). Prescinding entirely from the unnatural aspect of homosexuality (which makes it worse than simple fornication), because it is impossible for two men or two women to marry, it is never permitted for them to engage in venereal acts together. Therefore, homosexual relations always and everywhere violate the Church’s prohibition on sexual relations outside of marriage.

II. Further, it is the teaching of the Church that, even in the context of marriage, the deliberate frustration of the sexual act from its natural teleology of human conception (contraception) is also grave matter. But conception is impossible in sexual acts between two persons of the same sex. Aside from abstinence, the most effective kind of contraception (100% guaranteed every time!) is the abomination of same-sex relations. Therefore, such relations always and everywhere violate the Church’s teaching on contraception.

To this, one might object that contraceptive methods are only intended for use in heterosexual coitus, since homosexual unions are inherently infertile. True, and this very objection proves my point, as it shows that homosexual relations inherently separate the unitive from the procreative ends of sex, which separation itself constitutes the essence of the sin of onanism.

III. Lastly, the natural law and the Catholic Church recognize the hierarchy of the family, where the father is the head of the family. In those instances where two men or two women simulate matrimony and adopt or otherwise procure children (Frankensteinian new reproductive technologies are opening up horrible new possibilities here), that family hierarchy is not at all possible. Therefore, such artificial social constructions violate the natural-law and Catholic concept of what constitutes a family.

If two sodomites or lesbians are permitted to simulate matrimony based upon some nuanced or “developed” view of Catholic doctrine, then no sexual acts can be sinful and no alteration of the nature of the family may be rejected. The bar has been lowered all the way to the ground, and the entire structure of the Church’s moral magisterium on marriage and the family has been razed.

Heterosexuals who dislike the Church’s sexual morality have a vested interest in propagating a permissive morality for homosexuals. At every turn, such an incoherent new morality would provide them with an enormous a fortiori argument in favor of their own hedonistic license. Even if they personally find homosexuality repugnant, they will enjoy the fruits of the consequent moral anarchy.

But perhaps even more to the point, for the Catholic progressivist, if the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church on this issue is subject to a clearly heterogeneous “development of doctrine,” then no teaching of the Church on faith or morals is safe. Again, it is an enormous a fortiori argument, this time in favor of dogmatic anarchy.

The ecclesiastical politics of this issue does indeed make strange bedfellows.