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| King David by Nicolas Cordier Borghese Chapel Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore |
There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “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”. Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2357.
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
June 3, 2003
Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect
"Phobia" (fear) in the positive Biblical sense is used in the sense of "fear of the Lord" which is the beginning of wisdom. Man's categorical rejection of perversion of every sort is part of his reverence for God. It is called zeal for the truth. N.B. The Christian tradition is that men should endeavor to act like men: esto vir! The Latin Vulgate consistent and repeatedly condemns effeminacy, so that a good king was one who promoted the right worship of God precisely by ridding the land of the effeminate.
Here is a letter on the grave moral and social implictions of legal recognition of same-sex unions.
The Death of God!
Dear brothers and sisters, this profound link between God and the human being, between God's love and human love, is also confirmed in certain tendencies and negative developments that have weighed heavily on us all. In fact, the debasement of human love, the suppression of the authentic capacity for loving, is turning out in our time to be the most suitable and effective weapon to drive God away from men and women, to distance God from the human gaze and heart...
...Today, the various forms of the erosion of marriage, such as free unions and "trial marriage", and even pseudo-marriages between people of the same sex, are instead an expression of anarchic freedom that are wrongly made to pass as true human liberation. This pseudo-freedom is based on a trivialization of the body, which inevitably entails the trivialization of the person. Its premise is that the human being can do to himself or herself whatever he or she likes: thus, the body becomes a secondary thing that can be manipulated, from the human point of view, and used as one likes. Licentiousness, which passes for the discovery of the body and its value, is actually a dualism that makes the body despicable, placing it, so to speak, outside the person's authentic being and dignity.
Basilica of St John Lateran
Monday, 6 June 2005
On the other hand, regarding the pastoral care of persons afflicted with same-sex attraction and the mercy of God inherent in that necessary care of the Church the same congregation issued this statement.
We fear gaydom because we fear the Lord and are ever mindful of His name. Cf. Malachi 4 of last Thursday's Prophesy for the daily Mass.