Homosexuality disordered/if you speak a foreign language please read this

[Luigi]

Some of the ambiguity in this discussion involves definitions of marriage - or at least expectations of what one is supposed to get out of marriage, achieve through marriage, etc. - and some of those expectations are culturally-based. The definition of marriage and the cultural expectations of the benefits of marriage are changing very rapidly in American culture.

If modern-day Americans are looking for and-they-lived-happily-ever-after marriages such as are depicted in fairy tales (and the modern fairy tales we call "the movies"), then many people will be disappointed in their marriages, and Era Might may have some valid points.

But most marriages in most countries over most of the course of human history have not been of the fairy tale/movie type: Search assiduously until you find the exact right person who can fulfill your every need and wish, sweep her off her feet (because in the traditional fairy tales, it's always the man who does the sweeping), carry her off into the sunset, and live the rest of your lives staring deeply into each others eyes while you declare your undying love.       SIGH.

Most marriages have been arranged by the parents of the young couple - even in modern-day India, most young Indians prefer that their parents arrange the marriage (if you believe the story I heard on NPR). In those societies, marriage had a more widely accepted definition, the goals of marriage were accepted by all parties involved, the roles of wife and husband were accepted across the culture, and so forth. The goals had to do with keeping a roof over your head, a steadier supply of food, procreation, increased protection from a dangerous world through group affiliation, division of labor, and lots of stuff like that. 

And it worked. At least for most people most of the time. Find on YouTube the song "Do You Love Me" from "Fiddler on the Roof".

Where does the Church come down in all this? As you might expect, the Church supports the more traditional approach to marriage, its goals, its roles, etc.

[Norseman82]

Some of the ambiguity in this discussion involves definitions of marriage - or at least expectations of what one is supposed to get out of marriage, achieve through marriage, etc. - and some of those expectations are culturally-based. The definition of marriage and the cultural expectations of the benefits of marriage are changing very rapidly in American culture.

If modern-day Americans are looking for and-they-lived-happily-ever-after marriages such as are depicted in fairy tales (and the modern fairy tales we call "the movies"), then many people will be disappointed in their marriages, and Era Might may have some valid points.

But most marriages in most countries over most of the course of human history have not been of the fairy tale/movie type: Search assiduously until you find the exact right person who can fulfill your every need and wish, sweep her off her feet (because in the traditional fairy tales, it's always the man who does the sweeping), carry her off into the sunset, and live the rest of your lives staring deeply into each others eyes while you declare your undying love.       SIGH.

Most marriages have been arranged by the parents of the young couple - even in modern-day India, most young Indians prefer that their parents arrange the marriage (if you believe the story I heard on NPR). In those societies, marriage had a more widely accepted definition, the goals of marriage were accepted by all parties involved, the roles of wife and husband were accepted across the culture, and so forth. The goals had to do with keeping a roof over your head, a steadier supply of food, procreation, increased protection from a dangerous world through group affiliation, division of labor, and lots of stuff like that.

And it worked. At least for most people most of the time. Find on YouTube the song "Do You Love Me" from "Fiddler on the Roof".

Where does the Church come down in all this? As you might expect, the Church supports the more traditional approach to marriage, its goals, its roles, etc.

​Exactly.  It's about "settling down and starting a family" (or at least trying).  The CCC in its sections on the fourth commandment and the sacrament of matrimony make constant references as to how the family is the domestic church, the original cell of society, and stresses that the well being of society is based on a healthy conjugal and family life.  And the USCCB published a document on "Why Marriage is good for Men and Women":

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/upload/USCCB-FLWY-Why-is-Marriage-Good-for-Men-and-Women.pdf

Interesting note:  regarding arranged marriages in India, I spoke with some of my coworkers who are from India.  Typically, at a certain age, the parents have a little sit-down with the son/daughter and ask if they have anyone they are interested in marrying.  If they do not have someone in mind, the parents offer assistance in findng someone, but he young person is free to still say "I don't like this one" (although I don't know how much pressure there may be from families in this regard).  I don't know if this is for all Indians, or limited to the professional/educated classes/castes, or if this is more of a northern/southern Indian thing.

Also, I have been told about a birth order, so a younger sibling normally waits until an older sibling marries before he/she marries (this may add to "encouragement" to an older sibling to marry).

And engagements are not long - I've heard of cases that within two months of the engagement the couple is married.  And I've also heard of entire villages being invited to the wedding, with the parents picking up the tab for all the family/guests (which can number in the thousands of people), to which my manager made a comment that there must be familial "encouragement" to not divorce!

[Era Might]

Some of the ambiguity in this discussion involves definitions of marriage - or at least expectations of what one is supposed to get out of marriage, achieve through marriage, etc. - and some of those expectations are culturally-based. The definition of marriage and the cultural expectations of the benefits of marriage are changing very rapidly in American culture.

If modern-day Americans are looking for and-they-lived-happily-ever-after marriages such as are depicted in fairy tales (and the modern fairy tales we call "the movies"), then many people will be disappointed in their marriages, and Era Might may have some valid points.

But most marriages in most countries over most of the course of human history have not been of the fairy tale/movie type: Search assiduously until you find the exact right person who can fulfill your every need and wish, sweep her off her feet (because in the traditional fairy tales, it's always the man who does the sweeping), carry her off into the sunset, and live the rest of your lives staring deeply into each others eyes while you declare your undying love.       SIGH.

Most marriages have been arranged by the parents of the young couple - even in modern-day India, most young Indians prefer that their parents arrange the marriage (if you believe the story I heard on NPR). In those societies, marriage had a more widely accepted definition, the goals of marriage were accepted by all parties involved, the roles of wife and husband were accepted across the culture, and so forth. The goals had to do with keeping a roof over your head, a steadier supply of food, procreation, increased protection from a dangerous world through group affiliation, division of labor, and lots of stuff like that. 

And it worked. At least for most people most of the time. Find on YouTube the song "Do You Love Me" from "Fiddler on the Roof".

Where does the Church come down in all this? As you might expect, the Church supports the more traditional approach to marriage, its goals, its roles, etc.

​I completely agree with what you're saying about marriage being socially determined. I do not like the modern romantic conception of marriage. However, I don't think a romantic idea of the other kind of marriage is going to solve things. I am not familiar with India, but I am familiar with Latin American culture, and the more practical/traditional idea of marriage is still strong, but it's a very different worldview from what most Americans will be comfortable with. It's all well to say the church supports traditional approach to marriage, but that requires (very seriously) a revolution in economics, society, etc. The church is not reactionary in this way, though it used to be. And in those traditional marriages you will find less opportunity for many values that we take for granted, such as personality, individual growth, education, etc. I do not think the idea of marriage in the New Testament lines up particularly well with the traditional social structure of marriage that you are referring to. The idea of self-sacrificial love in St. Paul is of a very different order than the practical business of marriage that you find in history. And that traditional idea of marriage mostly depends on a pre-modern economic and social structure. The middle class family today also has very practical concerns: make sure your kids go to school, get an education, have some money for vacations, get a job when they grow up, etc. But me personally, I find that American dream hollow and subservient to economic and commercial interests (even though the families have the best of intentions, they are living the dreams manufactured for them).

A good novel on this topic is "Middlemarch" by George Eliot, which takes place in early 19th century England and is a study of provincial life. Marriage is one of the big themes, because it was one of your main social concerns to make a good marriage...with all the practical considerations that entails. One of the main characters, Dorothea, early in the novel has this sort of self-sacrificial religious ideal of marrying a man of learning who she can be a helpmate to, and she marries an old scholar, Mr. Casaubon, thinking that her religious idealism will find a perfect outlet. Needless to say, her yearning for a meaningful life is soon frustrated when she discovers that her husband is completely lacking in the emotional life necessary for such a young bride, and other younger characters in the novel try to stop the marriage beforehand. They go on a honeymoon to Rome, and Dorothea is sort of scandalized to discover this passionate world of art that contrasts sharply with her dour marriage that she thought was what she wanted, and while her husband has everything to provide a life for her, the fire burning in her soul is being slowly extinguished, and it's a great agony for her. It's an amazing novel and takes a real look at all the different kinds of marriages...there is no "traditional" marriage, although there are marriages that conform to a social ideal, but as Tolstoy famously noted, every happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I am against romanticizing marriage either in modern individual terms or in the traditional social institutional sense. It's a complicated business, and my advice is to stay out of it until you realize that (of course, that's silly advice, because everyone is on their own journey, they can only discover for themselves how complicated life is, but there's a reason why so much art is devoted to frustrated love, unhappy marriages, mismatched lovers, illicit affairs...that's the stuff the human heart is made of).

Marriage is not for the immature, and if it is going to have any future for two people, they have to mature together...what usually happens is they mature apart, and their marriage falls apart. The traditional idea is to smell of elderberries it up and sacrifice your happiness for marriage, and if that's how you want to live, I won't tell you otherwise, but I can only point out the disastrous results throughout history.

[Era Might]

Here's a small sample from Middlemarch, an unbelievably brilliant study of human nature and society:

All these are crushing questions; but whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same. And it would be astonishing to find how soon the change is felt if we had no kindred changes to compare with it. To share lodgings with a brilliant dinner-companion, or to see your favorite politician in the Ministry, may bring about changes quite as rapid: in these cases too we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we sometimes end by inverting the quantities.

But was not Mr. Casaubon just as learned as before? Had his forms of expression changed, or his sentiments become less laudable? Oh waywardness of womanhood! did his chronology fail him, or his ability to state not only a theory but the names of those who held it; or his provision for giving the heads of any subject on demand? And was not Rome the place in all the world to give free play to such accomplishments? Besides, had not Dorothea's enthusiasm especially dwelt on the prospect of relieving the weight and perhaps the sadness with which great tasks lie on him who has to achieve them?— And that such weight pressed on Mr. Casaubon was only plainer than before.

However, Dorothea was crying, and if she had been required to state the cause, she could only have done so in some such general words as I have already used: to have been driven to be more particular would have been like trying to give a history of the lights and shadows, for that new real future which was replacing the imaginary drew its material from the endless minutiae by which her view of Mr. Casaubon and her wifely relation, now that she was married to him, was gradually changing with the secret motion of a watch-hand from what it had been in her maiden dream. It was too early yet for her fully to recognize or at least admit the change, still more for her to have readjusted that devotedness which was so necessary a part of her mental life that she was almost sure sooner or later to recover it. Permanent rebellion, the disorder of a life without some loving reverent resolve, was not possible to her; but she was now in an interval when the very force of her nature heightened its confusion. In this way, the early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult—whether that of a shrimp-pool or of deeper waters—which afterwards subsides into cheerful peace.

[Era Might]

The CCC in its sections on the fourth commandment and the sacrament of matrimony make constant references as to how the family is the domestic church, the original cell of society, and stresses that the well being of society is based on a healthy conjugal and family life.

Ah, but that's exactly why the Apostles said it is better not to marry. You can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't say that marriage is not about the individuals, but then talk about "happy and healthy." ​Happy and healthy by whose standards? It is society itself that provides those standards, and the personal happiness of either spouse is hardly necessary for a socially well-functioning marriage.

[Norseman82]

Ah, but that's exactly why the Apostles said it is better not to marry. You can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't say that marriage is not about the individuals, but then talk about "happy and healthy." ​Happy and healthy by whose standards? It is society itself that provides those standards, and the personal happiness of either spouse is hardly necessary for a socially well-functioning marriage.

​Sorry, but I don't follow what you are getting at?

[Era Might]

​Sorry, but I don't follow what you are getting at?

​Sorry, was kind of a postscript to my response to Luigi. If we're going to hold up the traditional business of marriage, then things like personal happiness and fulfillment become almost unimportant. If someone is unhappy in their marriage, then they just have to accept it, because as Luigi said, it's about putting a roof over your head, having kids, making sure there is food on the table. That was true about society in general, you accepted your lot in life and your place in society and went with it. And I think that is still true today, people find their niche in the economy, and build a family life around it. But if that is what marriage is about, then my opposition to romanticism is even stronger, and that includes the romanticism of loneliness. If "making a family" is someone's goal, then they need to put aside feelings like loneliness, because those are irrelevant psychobabble...the machismo men of the traditional marriage find what they want, take it, and build a life...they don't sit around talking about how lonely they are because the can't find a wife. That kind of romanticism is a condition of modern marriage and psychology.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Era Might

[Norseman82]

​Sorry, was kind of a postscript to my response to Luigi. If we're going to hold up the traditional business of marriage, then things like personal happiness and fulfillment become almost unimportant. If someone is unhappy in their marriage, then they just have to accept it, because as Luigi said, it's about putting a roof over your head, having kids, making sure there is food on the table. That was true about society in general, you accepted your lot in life and your place in society and went with it. And I think that is still true today, people find their niche in the economy, and build a family life around it. But if that is what marriage is about, then my opposition to romanticism is even stronger, and that includes the romanticism of loneliness. If "making a family" is someone's goal, then they need to put aside feelings like loneliness, because those are irrelevant psychobabble...the machismo men of the traditional marriage find what they want, take it, and build a life...they don't sit around talking about how lonely they are because the can't find a wife. That kind of romanticism is a condition of modern marriage and psychology.

​Is such ruthlessness Christian, or is this part of a point you are trying to make?

[Didacus]

​Does it really? I had a French friend tell me it meant messy or unorganised rather than sick. That's terrible if it has the same psychological connotations in other languages as it does in English.

How disgusting that the authors of the catechism didn't think about how hurtful words and terms that pathologise those with SSA and paint them as ill would be to people - those who identify as gay, those who are Catholic and striving to be chaste, and their loved ones. Truly hurtful language. My disillusionment with this Church grows day by day. 

​You friend got it wrong and he strikes me as a dramatists looking for flaw.  I wouldn`t put too much worth on his words./opinions on the matter.

[Kia ora]

God said (see Genesis 2) that it is not good for man to be alone, and CCC 1603 states that the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature.

​well then st paul was one unnatural dude. so was jesus. 

 

 

[Socrates]

​well then st paul was one unnatural dude. so was jesus. 

 

 

​I believe "supernatural" is the word you're looking for.

[Kia ora]

yeaaaah i really don't see how that differs from what i've been saying.

let me repost:

1 corinthians7:

i take this to mean that marriage is not the order to which all of us are called anyway. marriage is a concession to our weakness. better to give up our weakness to god and sacrifice it. if the ability to conform our suffering to Christ is one of the greatest gifts we have been given, then let's suffer like christ in celibacy.

st paul said marriage is a concession to our passions, why shouldn't we pray for the grace of celibacy again?

Edited May 31, 2015 by Kia ora

[Nihil Obstat]

yeaaaah i really don't see how that differs from what i've been saying.

let me repost:

st paul said marriage is a concession to our passions, why shouldn't we pray for the grace of celibacy again?

More Catholics should pray for the grace of celibacy. It is the objectively higher calling, and we sorely need faithful priests and religious.

[Kia ora]

in catholic christianity is celibacy only restricted to the priests and the religious orders? what about lay people?

[Nihil Obstat]

in catholic christianity is celibacy only restricted to the priests and the religious orders? what about lay people?

A person in an order can be a layperson as well. Lay brothers and nuns. There are also consecrated virgins, hermits, and probably some others.

[Benedictus]

I have a question for those people who speak a language other than English. In English paragraph 2358 of the CCC that describes the homosexual orientation as "objectively disordered" sounds particularly harsh because the word 'disorder' in English has strong psychological connotations, so it sounds like the Church is passing a negative judgement on the mental health of SSA people. I was wondering if the word used for 'disordered' in non-English languages has a similar negative connotation in those languages, or if it's just an issue with English. I've cut and paste the sentence in a few different languages below for those who can speak them (or feel free to look up the section in your own language if it's not included below).

I guess this is quite important for me  because I have heard/read super conservative Catholics using this language to justify their view that homosexuality is an illness a few times and it really frustrates me that the Church would talk about gay people like that, so basically I'm hoping it's just an unfortunate coincidence in the English language that the two words are the same and that the connotation of illness/disease isn't there in other major languages too.

​it's meant in a theological sense but often misused in other ways too. Yes, my understanding is that it has the same stigma and problem in other languages as in English. There have been complaints about misuse of terms, or cross using, for some time. Many people don't care to note the differences though, mostly as it may well be their opinion such actions are theologically and psychologically disordered. It's unfortunate but that's the state of affairs for the time being.

[FutureLilSister]

Okay I took moral theology I'm about to shut it down. All your actions must be ordered to happiness, that is living for eternity with God. Anything that hiders that is considered "disordered". Nothing more to it.

[LaPetiteSoeur]

Nothing in this conversation so far about offering those struggling with SSA a way to change.  There are Christian organizations that do this.  Eventually I hope the Vatican catches up.  D. James Kennedy had one outfit in Fort Lauderdale FL that helped those struggling with SSA change, by the power of the Holy Spirit in large part.  Catholics need to broaden themselves and incorporate these extremely helpful elements that are for the most part being advocated by non-Catholic Christians.

Militant homosexuals (including those posing as "open-minded" heterosexuals) hate these charitable organizations because it puts them at odds with the world, but let us never allow them to frame the discussion to pretend these do not work.  Look into it yourself.  I am not going to debate it since the proof is there for those with eyes to see and a heart set on truth.  If you truly are seeking the truth and not just trying to see how far the Catholic Church can be pushed, then please search out these organizations and disregard the snide comments that will ensue from the haters of these good loving Christian organizations.

With Christ all things are possible.  All disorders and predispositions to sinful behavior can be overcome.

God Bless and guide!

E

​Courage seems to be an organization that supports what you are proposing. It is a group sanctioned by the Catholic Church. 

However, the success rate of "reparative therapy" is not high (http://www.ispn-psych.org/docs/PS-ReparativeTherapy.pdf) and there is no published scientific literature proving the success of reparative therapy. American Psychological Association opposes it, and homosexuality (or SSA) has been declassified as a mental illness and as a disease.