Vatican City, Oct 8, 2017 / 11:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While the challenge of protecting children online is one faced throughout the world, Church leaders from Asia and Africa said that the developing world faces the compounding problem of poverty.
“Online sexual income is one of the many faces and one of the many consequences of poverty,” Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle said in an Oct. 5 keynote speech at a conference on protecting children online.
“Dehumanizing poverty, addressing the problem of dehumanizing poverty in a humanizing way, deserves the attention of all sectors of each country in Asia,” he said, explaining that in some cases, parents from poor families choose to exploit their children online “to earn money,” believing, whether out of ignorance or willful denial, that there is no harm done.
“What a shame, what a scandal, to see the poor dehumanized many times over, now turning to dehumanizing ways to gain a bit of humanity,” he said.
Businesses and industries ought “to be disturbed by economic growth or wealth generation that excludes the greater part of the population of the world,” he said, noting that “while business enterprises increase their profits though online shopping and online transactions, the lives of poor children are destroyed by online exploitation. Can we please think about that?”
Archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, Cardinal Tagle was a keynote speaker during an Oct. 3-6 conference titled “Child Dignity in the Digital World,” focusing on protecting children in an increasingly global and connected world.
The conference is organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection (CCP) in collaboration with the UK-based global alliance WePROTECT and the organization “Telefono Azzurro,” which is the first Italian helpline for children at risk.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin opened the conference on day one, and other participants include social scientists, civic leaders, and religious representatives. Discussion points include prevention of abuse, pornography, the responsibility of internet providers and the media, and ethical governance.
Beside Cardinal Tagle on the panel Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop Nairobi, Kenya, both of whom spoke on safeguarding minors in the developing world, offering the specific perspectives of Asia and Africa, respectively.
Asia
In his speech, Tagle began by noting that while the conference focuses on the digital world, in Asia child exploitation “does not happen only online,” and pointed to the various forms of exploitation that children, who are “the most vulnerable,” endure due to ethnic and religious conflicts, poverty and migration.
Citing information gathered on the Philippines from the International Justice Mission in Manila, Tagle said “it is wise not to equate online sexual exploitation of children with other forms of trafficking in human persons.”
While the two were at one time included under the same general heading, there was a slow realization that “online sexual exploitation of children deserves its own heading, because it has its unique configuration.”
In the Philippines specifically, he said, the main perpetrators of online child exploitation are sadly the parents, or other adults who know them, such as family members or neighbors.
Generally speaking, Tagle said the main victims of online sexual exploitation in the Philippines are younger than those of human trafficking, ranging in age from 10 months to 15-years old, with more boys being victimized online than in physical human trafficking.
He also pointed to the cooperation of other parties, including Western Union and PayPal, which he said both collect international payments for exploitation.
Complicating the situation, he said, is increasing access to the internet and anonymity of contacts, as well as a basic lack of knowledge about the lasting effects of this type of abuse on the victims.
While some laws do exist regarding such crimes, Cardinal Tagle said that more work must be done in educating the public about these laws and enforcing them, as well as to coordinate efforts of police, local government, families, schools, and faith-based groups.
Offering some points for reflection, Tagle said he believes there is a need in Asia specifically, and likely other regions, for “a serious anthropological, philosophical and, for us, theological study on the humanity of the child.”
He explained that in some cultures, “a child is considered a possession of the adults, therefore an object that can be disposed of by the adults according to their whims and desires.”
“Of course this is camouflaged by some acceptable cultural norms like obedience to elders, elders just exercising their responsibility over the children, the responsibility of children to augment the income of their family,” and so forth, he said, so a “holistic view of the child” is needed.
In comments to CNA after his talk, Tagle said he has a “nagging feeling” that while people throughout the world speak about “the dignity of the child,” many might still have a misunderstood vision of the child that is deeply rooted in cultural practices and norms.
“There might be a conflict between the slogans. I don’t want the dignity of children to be just a slogan,” he said. “So can we unearth, can we be honest, especially in our different cultures and in our different religious traditions: What is a child? … Can we be frank? What is our compelling vision?”
There is no universally accepted standard for what constitutes abuse, he said, so in order to eventually arrive at a consensus, “you have to go through cultures,” which is why an anthropological and philosophical study might be necessary.
There might be some cultures that justify abuse through accepted norms, “so how do you confront that culture?” he asked, adding that beyond legislation, “there is a deeper law that people have been following for centuries which is their culture, so you have to address that.”
In his talk, Tagle further reflected on this point. “We need an auto-critique: how does my culture affect my view of children and my behavior toward them?” he said, noting that in some cultures it is accepted that a young girl may be raped in order to restore honor to her family.
The cardinal said he was “aghast” to hear about this, but “it is embedded in the culture,” and this shows the need for dialogue and self-critique, not only for government officials and academics, but for parents, educators, and families as well.
He also said, based on his personal experience in the Philippines, that there is a need for a “serious study on the relation between the virtual, the digital and the real.”
This, he said, is because “some parents say they allow their children to be used online since ‘it is only virtual.’ There is no ‘real’ contact.” This could easily be an excuse, he said, but noted that it could also come from a genuine lack of knowledge “about what the virtual reality is.”
“So we need to hear the stories of children who have been asked to do sexual acts before cameras for viewing, for them to be able to bring across the reality of what is happening through virtual reality.”
Africa
Offering the perspective on the safeguarding of minors in Africa was Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop of Nairobi, which Pope Francis visited in 2015 as part of his first tour of the African continent.
In his speech, Njue painted a general picture of a continent that in many ways is still digitally illiterate, and where issues related to sex are largely taboo, but which also falls prey to the same sorts of abuses and exploitation experienced in other parts of the world, including online.
“The digital world, being a new phenomenon, has found a gray ground of abuse in Africa, where the majority of older generations expected to protect minors are not computer literate, leaving their children exposed to cyber-abuse of all kinds,” he said.
Naming just a few of the online dangers that have affected African youth, Njue cited cyber-bullying, ‘sexting,’ online grooming and gambling for money, as well as a number of suicides that have taken place as a result of the online “Blue Whale Challenge,” in which youth are encouraged to join the game and carry out a number of different challenges, the final one being suicide.
Njue said that according to statistics from communications representatives in Kenya, mobile access among citizens increased to 88.1 percent in 2016, with 37.8 million subscribers to online mobile services.
Other gains were seen in the general internet data market, which spiked to 31.9 million people going digital. However, “telecommunications offices remain largely unregulated, and children remain vulnerable,” he said.
Generally speaking, Njue said that as far as Africa goes, “safeguarding of minors has been neglected in our society.”
In many ways it is a “culture of silence,” he said, explaining that even for parents to bring up human sexuality with their children “is a taboo subject in most of our communities in Kenya, and Africa at large.”
Needed infrastructure is also lacking in many African countries, he said, explaining that law enforcement officers “are not adequately trained and equipped” to deal with cyber-abuse, while the majority of adults “are not computer literate, and therefore are at a disadvantage in knowing what their children are doing with their computers and mobile phones.”
Some have taken advantage of this lack of awareness to promote inappropriate sexual content even through cartoons, with children watching the shows in front of their parents, who are often unconcerned “out of ignorance.”
Poverty, he said, is also a key cause of exploitation, and children are often left alone, as parents are frequently out of the house all day for work.
“This exposes the vulnerable children to all kinds of abuses with no one to protect them from the perpetrators,” Njue said, adding that political strife on the African continent such as the conflicts in Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic compound the problem, leaving women and children “in danger of all forms of abuse.”
There is also a lack of advocacy and a lack of funds for awareness-raising, he said, because many people are afraid to speak out in a society “which views issues of sexual abuse as taboo, not to be discussed in the open.”
As far as what can be done, Njue echoed Pope Francis’ frequent call for greater training of Church personnel and the enactment of laws “to ensure that these sins have no place in their Church. This is why we are here.”
Laws ought to be more stringent, he said, and the faithful, particularly in schools and educational institutes, must also be educated on the dangers involved in internet activities to so that children do not fall victim to abuse or bullying online.
When in 2011 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith requested that all bishops’ conferences issue guidelines for safeguarding minors, Kenya responded by issuing a document titled “Safeguarding children, policies and procedures,” Njue said.
However, he said that due to “a lack of data and expertise,” the Kenyan bishops’ conference, as well as others in Africa, “are not able to do much in safeguarding children from cyber-bullying. This is where the conference needs help.”
In terms of action points that could be implemented, Njue said governments must set up a “singular body” that monitors the internet, as was done in the UK, and which takes down websites found to publish and disseminate child pornography.
Parents must also be more pro-active in monitoring what their children do online, he said. And laws must be implemented to handle cases where the child is both the “victim and the perpetrator of cyber-crime” by ‘sexting’ lewd images of themselves on apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat, he said, and again pointed to models already existing in the UK.
Elders, chiefs and local administration in various villages also ought to be informed of digital risks, and educational institutions ought to push media channels to ensure that television companies are offering appropriate content at times when families might be watching, he said.
As far as the Church goes, Njue said she must first of all accompany children by giving them a solid education in Christian values, “thus empowering and creating a good foundation of morals in them.”
The Church should also take advantage of the various groups, associations, movements and educational institutions she runs in order to educate children on cyber-bullying and sexual abuse to ensure their protection. Similarly, clergy and religious should also be given adequate information on risks and prevention.
Njue also called for heavy investment for counseling and rescue services for victims, and for greater cooperation with the state and with law enforcement to ensure proper training and that all cases “are followed to the end.”
“The safeguarding of minors is a multi-faceted social problem that requires the synergy of all disciplines to bring about prevention,” Njue said, stressing that regional and international collaboration are necessary throughout Africa “if we are to respond to the challenges of child online abuse in a digitally, culturally diverse world.”
Sexual abuse is a problem “across all borders,” he said. “From the poorest remote village in Africa, Asia and Latin America, to the richest countries in the developed world, there is no exclusion.”
Because of this, “it is our cardinal duty and obligation to see to it that children are protected from all forms of sexual abuses, including cyber-bullying and pornographic movies, and to fully implement the laws and regulations to the letter,” Njue said.
He insisted that the Church, and society as a whole, “should advertise zero-tolerance to any form of abuse of minors,” and voiced his hope that the conference would “be the beginning of a new journey.”
[…]
Russell addresses the question of nature-or-nurture…
In his own works the novelist Andre Gide wrote vicariously about his struggles in a bisexual double life up until the very end. Did God make him that way? What does Gide have to say?
Gide was opposed to sexual license and favored self-control and “sublimating sexual energy into desirable moral and artistic qualities.” Nevertheless, his biographer concludes that Gide,
“…emphatically protests that he has not a word to say against marriage and reproduction (but then) suggests that it would be of benefit to an adolescent, before his desires are fixed, to have a love affair with an older man, instead of with a woman. . . the general principle admitted by Gide, elsewhere in his treatise, that sexual practice tends to stabilize in the direction where it has first found satisfaction; to inoculate a youth with homosexual tastes seems an odd way to prepare him for matrimony” ( Harold March, Gide and the Hound of Heaven [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952], 178).
Better to simply redefine marriage!
I think the BIBLE refers to sodomy as a great sin. Using Verbal Engineering and merely referring to Sodomy as homosexuality seems to lessen or dumb it down to something mild. it is not venial but major and . man has free will and he is not a robot but is clearly able to choose the good or the evil. I think alcohol also may play a major role in numbing or clouding the senses. An alcoholic seems to operate in a distorted fashion and he may lose his will power to resist evil. Nancy Roth, BA Biology MAT Guidance Counselor/Univ. of Norte Dame
Nancy, you may have missed something when trying to define all homosexuals are driven to perform sodomy. Lesbians may not be classified as “intrinsically evil”. An excerpt from this article gives a feel as to how the Catholic Church addresses homosexuality…
“When it shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself after 20 years.”
Those words were issued by Pope Francis and reveals that the church holds to the idea that a homosexual can be “converted” in his early years. As Michelle and Marcus Bachmann, who run a “clinic” to “pray the Gay away”.
Then, the beat goes on.
There are former homosexuals and there is emerging scientific evidence to indicate that those with unwanted same-sex attraction can be cured.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0024363918788559
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ex-gays-californias-stay-gay-bill-denies-our-existence
Q: What do Jake Tapper, DA Shapiro and Archbishop Viganò all have in common?
A: They all agree that Cardinal Wuerl is lying about his coverup of sex abuse in the Church.
See Rod Dreher’s site, story of 6 Sep 2028 with video of Tapper embedded.
Yes it is, a mental illness – to say the least. It is this (not so much, anymore) subtle ‘queering’ of the Church’s doctrine and practice which is (no longer subtlety) whistling me to walk out.
So when did mental illness become a sin?
To have same sex attraction is a mental issue, experience by many people that suffered abused in childhood or terrible relationship with father or mother.
The sin is to act on it to have sex with the same sex person. As it is condemned in the Bible.
Deacon Jim you’ve seen the light. Or does the Pontiff see the light but refuses it? Your analysis is spot on. It’s fundamentally [there are rare exceptions] an acquired and grievous habit. I add grievous since it’s not simply the act, which is always serious sin but the inclination itself that is most often a willful deviation of direction to a due end, that end the attraction to the opposite sex. Dr Gerard van den Aardweg a member of the John Paul II Academy on the Family argues that in his book on Gay Ideology. I agree often there are social psychological conditions that mitigate that responsibility in the inclination. But your point is sterling. That the Pontiff admitted a truth but reneged realizing it opened the door to treatment and conversion. He and his cohort are more inclined to sanitize homosexuality, the highly destructive behavior symptomatic of a general loss of faith.
Father Morello,
Thank you very much for your comment. I would like to understand better how someone becomes homosexual. Can you recommend any additional books? Is “The Homosexual Person” by Fr. Harvey still recommended? I have read that some consider its theories outdated. Thank you.
Ted there is an internet online article posted by The Linacre Quarterly 18 July 2013 On the Psychogenesis of Homosexuality Gerard JM van den Aardweg. The same author Dr Aardweg published a book On the origins and Treatment of Homosexuality 1986.
Father Morello, thank you for this information. I read the article you mentioned and I just ordered
The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality by Gerard J. M. van Den Aardweg. Reading the contents of the book on Amazon website, it seemed to me it is very enlightening and a must read for everyone.In it the doctor writes about the origin(s) of same sex attraction and how to cure it.
If it is not normal and there is no cure, then it seems there is very little the Church can offer.
The Church has EVERYTHING to offer. Conversion. Conversion of life. Conversion to the Gospel. Sex is not the core of our existence. Jesus Christ is the core — the heart — of our existence. While a sexual attraction is not likely to be extinguished, it need not be an obsessive-compulsive reality. Unfortunately that is a characteristic of same-sex attraction for many who shoulder it. Obsessive-compulsive sexual desire is not confined by any means to homosexuals, but it is frequently a dark and burdensome reality for them. That need be addressed by developing a deep life of prayer, assent to the truths of the faith without ambiguity, and very frequent reception of the sacraments. It take time, but a thousand years are but a single day in the eye of God.
The Lord who raised Lazarus from the dead, who gave sight to the man born blind, can and will without doubt support and sustain anyone shouldering same-sex attraction who clings to Him.
Confidence and trust in Christ make all things possible. Self-acceptance — self-contempt is contrary to Christ.
Sept. 7th: Pope Francis spoken before about homosexual actions being filthy – so it’s hard to imagine that he would have initiated the change in the transcript. If he did not and it was done without his permission, then I wonder who is running things at the Vatican. In some cases I do believe he is either misinformed or uninformed – are those in his close circle keeping important information from him. As far as homosexual behavior goes, I never say it’s not normal – I simply say it is not natural. God created male and female bodies to complement each other – to fit; and for procreation – anything outside of that ‘fit’ is not natural.
Why would anyone be surprised? Why would one ask? When an individual is working out of cognitive dissonance attempting to please everyone and accommodating a tradition he must appear to uphold but does not, he’s going to trip up.
Devious. Disoriented. Disingenuous. Disappointing, profoundly.
Perhaps homosexuality has a demonic element. Pedophilia seems to be a sin so severe that grace is withheld and the millstone is attached. Ergo homosexuals can hope and pray for change – pedos? not so much.
With the above citations in mind, consider the following scientific facts about how gender development can go wrong from the womb. These facts have been obtained from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s medlineplus.gov web site, from the Medical Encyclopedia entry for Intersex which can be read here:
Medical Encyclopedia entry for “Intersex”
The scientific facts:
• A person can be born the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external (outside) genitals that appear male.
• A person can be born with the chromosomes of a man, but the external genitals are incompletely formed, ambiguous, or clearly female.
• A person can be born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. This may be in the same gonad (an ovotestis), or the person might have 1 ovary and 1 testis.
• Many chromosome configurations other than simple 46, XX or 46, XY can result in disorders of sex development. These include 45, XO (only one X chromosome), and 47, XXY, 47, XXX – both cases have an extra sex chromosome, either an X or a Y.
• In many children, the cause of intersex (formerly referred to as hermaphroditism) may remain undetermined, even with modern diagnostic techniques.
Gender development can go wrong from the womb. God Himself took responsibility for Moses’ speech impediment and for the man who was born blind. He allows people to be born with disorders so that “the works of God might be made manifest” in them.
Homosexuality is a disorder. It appears that besides a heterosexual’s own choices leading to homosexuality, one can be born with an inclination to it, or simply be born homosexual. If one is born that way that doesn’t mean homosexuality isn’t a disorder anymore than being born with cystic fibrosis doesn’t mean it isn’t a disorder. Cystic fibrosis and homosexuality are disorders.
Homosexuality is not natural, and homosexual fornication is an abomination. If having cystic fibrosis were somehow satisfying and even pleasurable at times, and it was possible to make choices that led to one’s contracting cystic fibrosis, it would still be a disorder and it would still be idiotic to promote having cystic fibrosis as an alternative lifestyle. In the same way it is idiotic and evil to promote the disorder of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle.
However one contracts homosexuality, whether it was chosen or one was born with it, once one is afflicted with that condition, it isn’t having the condition that is sinful, any more than heterosexuality is sinful. Fornication, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual, is what is sinful.
Homosexuality is the counterfeit to God’s created heterosexuality. The attraction is not a created attraction. Whether one is conceived or develops or is born with incomplete physicality, does not make one have same sex attraction. The conditions listed state the physical condition a person might have, and in no way would any of those conditions make a person same sex attracted. Tue decision as to whether one is male or female would need to be made, but once known, therein lies no reason to not embrace one’s created by God, heterosexuality. Jesus Himself said that God created us male and female, and He knew that hermaphroditism happened to some people. Why God allows that condition, we do not know. God bless, C-Marie
Here is a quote from one of the greatest saints ever regarding homosexuality. St. Catherine relays words of Our Lord, about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referrng to sacred ministers, He said: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [ of fallen human nature]…but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recoginze the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that , for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the jugdment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…It is disagreable to the demon, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being commited. It is true that it is the demons who hit the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demons leave.
St.Catherine of Siena, El diabolo, in Orbas de Santa Catarina de Siena
There is obvious willfulness in the process of descending into homosexual behavior and making it habitual and developing practices to justify it in one’s mind. There are antecedent behaviors, like the perpetual pursuit of comfort over strenuousity. But most telling it the fact that close to a hundred percent of homosexuals are pro-abortion. Why would this be if they were not intent on lying to themselves?
Of course, there is a particular reason that they’re pro-abortion. For instance, without abortion one of the chief arguments in the Obergefell decision – that a man and woman can choose not to have children – would evaporate. For this reason, after Roe v. Wade is dismantled, Obergefell should fall soon thereafter.
“We shall find out at the day of judgment that the greater number of Christians who are lost were damned because they did not know their own religion.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
“A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
“an individual is working out of cognitive dissonance attempting to please everyone and accommodating a tradition he must appear to uphold but does not”
this seems like a pretty spot on description
If the author (or anyone else, for that matter) wants to designate something a “mental illness” he needs to either explain the medical criteria he used to justify that conclusion or make a medical argument for why the criteria needs to be changed. Citing Catholicism to challenge science is a losing proposition. Been there, done that, never worked.
The whole Francis world of word-play, omissions, obfuscation, uncorrected reportage, easily used leftist soundbites extracted from statements, ignoring whole bishop’s conferences about sex abuse, is all just par for the course. It’s one part Orwellian New Think, one part egomania, three parts Jesuit pride, two parts South American clericalism, five parts three stooges knowledge of the American Church, 8 parts agrieved South American victim of the evil US, 3 parts general hyperbole, 5.6 parts Trump ego, .05 percent some kind of spirit, holy or otherwise, 4 parts bar bouncer, 12 to 15 parts poor leadership, 0 parts European, 2 parts confused, 140 parts deliberate, 1/32 part St. Peter, and 2 parts rubber band collector. The only thing I know of that might have more parts is a McNugget or a can of spam.
Parts is parts, as the saying goes
Only, you can’t really say zero parts European,
if you consider certain German bishops, for example…
just one example…
In regard to the origins and treatment of unwanted same sex attractions (SSA) in Catholic youth, I recommend the Courage website, http://www.couragerc.net. Courage is the only international Catholic apostolate for those with SSA that is loyal to the Church’s teaching. One would have wished the Holy Father had recommended Courage and its ministry, EnCourage, to parents of children with SSA.
Everybody here is missing the point: A tefacted transcript is not a transcript. Homosexualism is so entrenched in the hierarchy that even the Pope has to make sure that what he says or hears is authentic and uncensored. That’s scary!
Yup, the gays and homosexualists took over awhile back.
Pope knows it, perhaps sympathizes with them.
It is the root cause of all that is exploding before us.
Our Lord will take care of business in His own good time.
Methinks it will be very much sooner rather than later.
Modern psychology agrees with practical unanimity that homosexuality is not a sickness. This does not mean that a child who shows the beginning of a homosexual tendency may not be referred to psychiatry, but that he should not be referred to psychiatry purely and simply on the basis the homosexual tendency itself. That is the legitimate distinction which the Vatican has made, and which I think Pope Francis also endorses.
It is not the role of the Vatican to provide alternative science. The Catechism is not providing alternative science when it tells us that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered (i.e. morally wrong); and it is not providing alternative science when it tells us that the homosexual tendency is intrinsically disordered; when it say intrinsically disordered it is not using this term as a synonymm
for sickness. The Church is pronouncing moral truths grounded in revelation.
I think that this affirmation of the homosexual tendency as intrinsically disordered needs further development, in order to prevent homophobic interpretations, which are widespread and fundamentally wrong.
The homophobic interpretation confuses sin with sinner, confuses the sinful act with the fact of the tendency, confuses the tendency with vice, confuses moral evil with one’s subjective notions about things that one experience as yucky that turn one’s stomach and elicit uncontrolled feelings of hatred which are hypocritically justified according to a twisted notion of Christian morality.
It is unfortunate that modern psychiatry has been co-opted by the PC movement which regards homosexuality as simply another, and valid, alternative life style. This attitude serves no one well and is responsible for such linguistic nonsense as the term homophobia. It also engenders such spectacles as “pride festivals” and other cries for recognition as normalization of behaviors. Although decried today, there was some societal benefit in past decades of awareness of our hairdressers and decorators and the knowledge that the rest were quietly in the closet, without disturbance to the rest of ordered society.
Sexual perversion of all sorts is a great problem. It does, after all come under the heading of “Lust” in the ancient list of Deadly Sins. An improper thought, however, surely cannot rank level with actual rape. Nor can “Lust” dominate the stage when six more actors are always performing.
OK, I also believe homosexuality is a mental illness. So when did mental illness become a sin? There is not a cure or treatment for all mental illnesses. Unless it can be cured as an illness we are judgmental to vilify it.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness. It is serious immoral act. A grave evil. People in the Church have been downplaying the evil nature of homosexuality. Only a faithful bishop can heal the person who sincerely wants to stop being a homosexual.
Do homosexuals have a different hormonal balance than heterosexuals?
The temptation to commit homosexual acts may be a mental illness (or, deferring to the greater knowledge of Rusty in his post below, a psychological problem). Temptation isn’t sin. However, committing homosexual acts *is* a sin. And, no, you don’t get to claim, “Well, but if someone is tempted to do it, it’s not a sin, so stop being judgmental.”
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and therapist. I provide Reparative Therapy services for me with unwanted same sex attractions. It is very important that understand that homosexuality is NOT a mental illness from a clinical standpoint and should not be spoken of that way in a cultural perspective. Homosexuality has a “psychological genesis” as the catechism states. A psychological problem is not a psychiatric issue. I can have very low self-esteem which would be a psychological issue. My low self-esteem would not be a mental illness and should not be addressed by a psychiatrist. It is critically important that any individual talking about homosexuality truly know what they are saying, otherwise please don’t say anything. Mis-statements and mis-information on this subject hurts the Church’s credibility tremendously on this topic.
To the article: “Physical factors might be associated with same-sex desires (e.g., genetic or biological predispositions toward homosexuality, even though these have yet to be demonstrated scientifically)……”
“The homosexual condition is a psychological deficit that has a psychological genesis.”
Homosexuality is the counterfeit to God’s creation of heterosexuality. Homosexuality is not caused by genetics nor is its cause biological. Homosexuality is an ingenius insertion into humanity’s desire to have no one but self as the authority to which one submits oneself to.
The inroads by which the pusher of homosexuality works, are to take over a person through emotional upsets, turmoils, traumas, generally with the authority figures in one’s personal life.
It then proceeds to the mind with peaceful images of being with another of the same sex that one is experiencing these upsets with. Then the mind can be worked on by the pusher with images that grow more graphic and sooner or later, the connection with homosexuality is induced, made, and often concretized.
Thus one is caught up in the web of same sex attraction, becomes convinced this is the truth about oneself, and hides the accepted untruth.
The Catholic Church has not made good use of the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to the ordained priests on up to set people free from the insidious lie of homosexuality.
Just to say So sorry you must suffer this way, be chaste and pray, is not God’s solution. His solution is to teach the truth and to set people free!
Homosexuality is a lie that is believed to be a truth by many, plus it is the easy way out rather than the use of the extraordinary powers of the Holy Spirit. If the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is willing as St. Paul was, to free people from this lie, then ever so much glory will be given to God our Father and the “rightness of this counterfeit” will be removed.
God bless, C-Marie
None of us are born perfect. Why is it a lie to say that a person is born predisposed to a same-sex attraction? It is one of the effects of original sin. Not all of its effects will be removed from a person.
Calling it a mental illness diminishes the will to abstain from homosexual acts which can be controlled by the temperance or self-control enabled by the Holy Spirit.
Because we are not born with our sins.
Check out: “Whatever Became of Sin” by Dr. Karl Menninger. It discusses the push to remove homosexuality as a mental illness in the medical field.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness. If it is a mental illness than that means they are born with the affliction. It’s an immoral sin.
The only way to get chastity for the members of the Church is to revisit the Holy Spirit spirituality of the New Testament. It provides the fruit of the Spirit temperance or self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). It is not a Eucharist or Mary based spirituality; and it is not a Christian coated Buddhism or Hinduism.
Considering that the Eucharist is the True Body and Blood of Christ (see John 6, etc.) and Mary is the Mother of God (see Luke 1-2, etc), and considering the Eucharist is given by the power of the Holy Spirit and Mary is with Child by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no conflict or tension between the three. To imply so is to read Scripture poorly and to misunderstand Catholicism quite overtly.
I think labelling homosexuality as a “mental illness” is quite condescending on your part. Don’t attempt to label something that you don’t understand, especially when your limited understanding comes from a single line in the Old Testament. Being gay is completely normal and is found in all animals, which shows that it is not a choice or illness, as they cannot grasp the idea of God or sin, let alone turning their backs on Him. My God is a God of love, and he sent his only son to spread this message. I understand what a mental illness is, and sexuality, whether evident from early stages of childhood or “20 years later”, is not on this list – attempting to convert or “pray the gay away” is quite, to say the very least, immoral, unloving and completely messed up, considering you are changing someone’s entire human experience and tainting them as Other, which, I believe my God of love would not approve. From my understanding as a Christian, the pain and anguish and horror of this torture is the work of Satan.
Conversion therapy is a form of torture, and according to Dr. Robert Spitzer’s study on 143 “ex-gays” who went through Conversion Therapy, 89% of the men still had feelings of attraction to people of the same-sex – many that are “cured” end up admitting years later that they did it to get out of the torture. The success rate of Conversion Therapy ranges from 11% to 37% anyway. Conversion Therapy is very counter-productive in fact. Many people involved in Conversion Therapy have committed or attempted suicide.
Homosexuals are not born that way. The choose to be “gay”. Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. It is a sin to be gay.
The Catholic World Report states here that it welcomes “a civilized and helpful level of discussion” and does not permit comments that are “needlessly combative or inflammatory”. OK … Sounds good. Meanwhile, I’ve just been going through the comments you permit. And so I read here that gay people (often called “homosexualists” on this site) are: mentally ill, sick, demonic, abnormal, a counterfeit version of humanity, major sinners, wilfully deviant, obsessive-compulsive, 100% pro-abortion perverts, typically hairdressers and decorators, who commit filthy acts condemned by the Pope and “who took over a while back”. Right. This sort of language must add up to the sort of “discussion” that you wish to promote about those of your fellow human-beings (including some Catholics, you know) who are … “homosexualists”. But I am more than a bit intrigued that you seek to characterise it as … “civilised and helpful”. Really? Civilised and helpful?? Please – in this context, I’m an ignorant Jewish outsider, indeed, a rabbi – but I’m rather interested in the way that religious people talk about the issue of homosexuality. In fact, I myself find the sort of anti-homosexual vocabulary which I encounter here more than a little “combative and inflammatory”. Clearly, however, the CWR takes a view diametrically at odds with my impressions. And so I want to ask: how is it civilised and helpful to talk about gay people in this way?
Rabbi we’re not living in an antiseptic morally neutral world. A Catholic forum open to discussion has to give a degree of leeway. Otherwise over editing tends to shape discussion into a panel for a completely neutral professional psychiatric analysis of homosexuality, which this forum is not. Sigmund Freud an agnostic perhaps atheist Jew made such a clinical assessment in Analysis Terminable and Interminable. His findings [he treated homosexual patients] were that it’s a form of immaturity, remaining in an adolescent state. The basis for that opinion is “For the psychical field, the biological field does in fact play the part of the underlying bedrock” (Freud Terminable 1937 The Standard Edition London: Hogarth 1971 PP 253). He perceived a natural tendency toward opposite sex attraction. Not for same sex attraction. Dr Gerard van den Aardweg has a similar assessment. Either homosexual behavior is natural or it is not. Here we’re primarily approaching the issue from a traditionally Roman Catholic perspective similar to Jewish tradition. Rather than simply criticizing comments why not add your own perspective?
In the old testament Yaweh condemned homosexual relationships. You as a Jewish rabbi must accept this since it’s coming from Yaweh.
LC is intrinsically disordered and everyone in it has been subject to long and intense malformation. The rot is endemic. There is no charism, and the lie is still peddled that the Maciel mess has been cleaned up. The priests of the LC have grave need of prayers. May they have the courage to get out.