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Maximilian produced a Vatican letter saying “…the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Catholicguy quoted the CCC: “This inclination, which is objectively disordered…”

Do we really have to quibble over whether these two statements are substantively different?

That’s not just splitting hairs; that’s splitting them into eight equal wedge shaped lengths like a pizza.

Keating said, “The Church…says that homosexual acts (not homosexual persons) are "intrinsically disordered," and he doesn’t have it quite right. It’s not just the act, it is the inclination itself—IMO the compulsion—to commit homosexual acts that arises from same-sex attraction disorder that is objectively disordered.

When a person suffers from such inclinations or compulsions it is correct to say that he has a disorder.

In ordinary speech, we say, “He *is* an alcoholic,” “he *is* a schizophrenic,” “he *is* a neurotic,” “he *has* paranoid psychosis,” “he *has* a personality disorder,” “he *has* bipolar disorder.” And we all know what we mean by these things.

Based on the symptoms manifested we say that such a person has one mental disorder and not another in much the same way that a doctor looks at physical symptoms and decides a person has mumps and not measles.

When a person manifests the symptoms of same-sex attraction disorder, it is quite reasonable to say “he *has* SSAD.” And, since SSAD is a disorder, it is also correct to say that some part of his cognitive functioning *is* disordered. How petty a semantic quibble is it to continue on from there to, “Oh, we’re not saying that homosexual persons are disordered. Just a big part of their cognitive functioning and their sexuality.”

I’m sure other people must have noticed, perhaps in the writings of Camille Paglia or Andrew Sullivan, how they are perceptive, lucid, even brilliant on many topics, but once the subject turns to legitimizing homosexual conduct their thinking suddenly…I paused for several minutes of thought at that ellipsis…I don’t know how to say it other than that their thinking suddenly becomes disordered. They accept and propound shoddy reasoning on this subject that they would ridicule if the topic were, say, economics or the influence of the Roman Empire on the Middle East, and homosexual behavior were in no way connected.

A person cannot reliably “compartmentalize” such a disorder and keep it segregated from the rest of his excogitation and behavior. For this reason, even if a man who suffers from SSAD had any chance of remaining celibate (which is about as likely as a cobra becoming a vegetarian), he would still be unqualified for the priesthood.

Please…I think we’re pretty much agreed that men who suffer from SSAD should not be ordained. Let’s not squabble over semantic trifles.