It is purely co-incidence or God-incidence that the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was celebrated in Sydney last night and this weekend we have had two lead commentaries dealing with homosexuality. Today's offering from John Chuchman is the fifth in his series and was not especialy taken out of order to fit with yesterday's commentary or the events in Sydney last night. John makes the point, and powerfully, that all sexual acts and behaviours take place within a moral context. Sexual acts are neither right nor wrong within themselves. The moral context is given by the intent and the nature of the relationship in which the acts take place.

V: Homophobia and Sexual Morality

What has been taught in the past
about human sexuality
cannot be the exclusive basis
for conscientious moral judgment today.

All must be subject to critical scrutiny.

A truth,
at first expressed incompletely
may at a later date
when considered in a broader context of Faith
and/or advanced Human Knowledge,
be expressed more fully and completely.

The Church's judgment
that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered
based on scripture, the teaching of the Magisterium,
and a perceived moral sense of the people,
has been rendered incomplete, inadequate, incorrect.

This is so
by the church's own historical-critical approach
to interpreting scripture,
by a more advanced, more complete understanding
of what is natural,
and by a better understanding
and an increasingly compassionate view
by the people of God.

This is Not to say
that homosexual acts
are ipso-facto morally right.

The same criteria for judging the morality of heterosexual acts
is to be applied to homosexual acts.
Neither are right or wrong in themselves,
but must be view in the context of the intent and
the relationship.

This reflection was originally published on John Chuchman's blog
and is republished on Catholica with John's permission.

IMAGE CREDIT:
The "flamingos in love" background image used to support John Chuchman's reflection has also been sourced from www.bestroyaltyfreeimages.net. The photo is credited to Kjunstorm. The image is displayed under the Creative Commons license which can be read at: flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/.
FOOTNOTE:
*Wikipedia source says: "Archaic Homo sapiens evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago."

John Chuchman

[Index of Commentaries by John Chuchman]