same sex attraction is a temptation, not a sin.
Homosexuality, like the tendency toward alcoholism and heterosexual promiscuity, is partly inborn, partly developed by childhood/young adulthood experiences, and so is considered an innate disorder...
people with innate disorders are usually barred from entering the priesthood or religious life (in the middle ages, if you were born out of wedlock, you needed a papal dispensation on the recommendation of your bishop if you wanted to become a priest, the idea being you might be promiscuous like your parents)...ditto for alcoholism and drugs...a person who was deeply into the drug culture should not be allowed to be a priest, because it shows immaturity or psychological problems...
So if you are tempted into same sex attraction, or into lustfulness of your eyes, you are supposed to reject the thought and ask God for help in not dwelling on the thought or not acting on it.
And you are supposed to stay away from "near occassions of sin"...if you are heterosexual, it means no Hooters or strip clubs, if you are gay, it means not living with men in monasteries, the army, or the priesthood...
a good book about how overcoming such temptations leads to holiness is Michael O'Brien's new book Sophia House...
And one more thing: Since homosexuality is an innate disorder, those who do fall into sin are less "guilty" than if a person choses to do it...to commit a mortal (serious) sin, you need to know it is wrong and then do it anyway...
So a man "hiding" homosexuality and who stays away from temptation who nevertheless falls into sin is less "guilty"(since he has an innate tendency toward that sin) than one who chooses to follow the gay lifestyle: The sin is not the sex, but the chosing of a promiscuous lifestyle that opens you to sinful actions...
All of this is true not just for sexual sins, but for anger, greed, etc...
and pride, not sexual sin, is the highest sin...saying my ideas are right and God is wrong is the highest sin...
Bears repeating! Thank you for the excellent exegesis.
You have laid out a description that is both morally and religiously sound, while avoiding the hysteria which so often follows this topic. Kudos.
Well, the entire "inate" defense as to homosexuality represents mere social, liberal reconditioning, not academic truth. There's no proven biological process yet identified (if ever) that supports the "inate" issue as to homosexuality.
It is so far identified as behavioral, as are other manifestations of obsessive-compulsive and/or even psychotic disorders, but instead wrongly instructed by way of liberal, social ideology alone to be "inate."
Calling it so does not prove it so, in the realm of scientific process. The entire approach ("homosexuality is inate, people can't chose or control who they are" line of argument) is entirely IDEOLOGICAL in nature, by definition, mere ideology being instructed without scientific substantion, without empirical proof.
And, without empirical proof, it remains suggestion, conjecture, or, plainly for those who have some need to promote this issue, an act of "wishful thinking."
Unfortunately, the wishfully-thoughtout ideology has been allowed to be promoted through our public educational system but it remains unsubstantiated as to fact.
And, another thing, the instruction of issue here by Pope Benedict is religious instruction in keeping with Christian and Judeo-Christian definitions and beliefs. It's a decision to affect the faith, the Catholic faith, the Church and not one for debate with the NYTimes and others who are not Christian, to be specific.
I'm sorta curious why the NYT just doesn't come right out and say "we disbelieve the word of God" and get it over with, because their argument is with Scripture and Christianity, more than anything.