The Myth of the Chaste Homosexual

An untold number of Catholic priests contend that they are homosexual but chaste. Taking St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide, we will see the futility of such a claim and the peril of succumbing to such a premise.

This claim is primarily an assault on the virtue of chastity. According to the Angelic Doctor

1. The word chastity derives from the chastening or rebuking of concupiscence. By such chastening, chastising or curbing, passion is held in control, and is kept in alignment with right reason. Chastity, therefore, is a virtue inasmuch as it steadily tends to keep human conduct under the control of reason.

2. And chastity is a special virtue for it concerns a special aspect of good, that is, the controlling, the keeping reasonable, of the tendencies of sex. (Summa Theologica 2.B.151)

 St. Paul writing to the Romans condemns sodomy as changing the natural use of sex into that which is against nature (cf. Romans 1,26-27). Therefore, the offense of sodomy is against reason. The person who self-identifies as homosexual has decisively rejected the natural law, and his own ability to reason. Chastity keeps the tendencies of sex in alignment with right reason. It is de fide that there are only two sexes:

And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

There is no third category.

Following St. Paul's analysis of the Fall and its consequences explained in Romans 1,24-32 it is evident that prior to the decision to self-identify as homosexual, there is a deliberate decision to reject the God of nature and exchange the truth for lies (1,25). This occurs in the will informed by an intellect darkened by the rejection of right reason (1,21). The heresy professed by very many today that they are 'born gay' is soundly refuted by Apostolic teaching:

Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempteth no man. [14] But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured. [15] Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death.[16] Do not err, therefore, my dearest brethren. (St. James 1,13-16)

So we see clearly that the decision to self-identify as homosexual is not a simple acceptance of nature nor an agreement with the design of the Creator; it is a willful choice to reject the natural law and the faculties of reason.

Father Krysztof Olaf Charamsa (L), with his partner
Edouard. Photo: AFP

It is also important to acknowledge the term homosexual is itself a neologism of late advent (19th century) without roots in Catholic Tradition.  Catholic Tradition does not admit to any anthropological categories besides male and female. When treating this perversion, it is simply referred to as the sin against nature or the unnatural vice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II employs the novel and troublesome terminology of homosexual persons and teaches that they are called to chastity (2359).  In it's discussion on chastity, the CCC teaches

Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift. (2337)

How then can a "homosexual person" live chastely without integration of his sexuality according the natural order established by the Creator? The answer is that he cannot.

Abstinence from unnatural sexual acts is not chastity.

 3. Chastity is not the same as the virtue of abstinence. For chastity is concerned with the control of sex pleasures, whereas abstinence is directly concerned with the control of the pleasures of the palate. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2.B.151)

The disordered sexual desire of sodomy can never be an object of chastity. And the mere abstinence from sodomitical acts is not chastity. For a person to practice chastity he must agree with the Creator's order established in nature, witnessed to by the natural law, and follow the truth in his intellect. Man must submit his intellect to the faculty of reason as clearly taught by the witness of nature (Romans 1,20). To self-identify as "homosexual" is a clear and unambiguous rejection of reason.

By now it should be evident that sodomy is primarily a disease of the mind and the intellect.

"No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God… Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything.  Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor…. Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than any one else, because this is the worst sin that there is.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche) 

What then is the real reason for maintaining the pretense of 'gay but chaste'? It is presented as a justification for men with no supernatural faith to continue in their careers as professional clerics. They argue that they are chaste and therefore present no imminent threat to the faithful; however, the primary menace to the Church comes not from their acts of sodomy alone but from minds that have rejected reason and the natural law.

Chastity is required for sanctifying grace to remain in the soul. Chastity requires sexual integrity under the control of right reason. Anyone who has adopted the lie of homosexualist ideology has manifestly rejected right reason and therefore cannot be chaste.

How many faithful Catholics have succumbed to this lie! And their ignorance is not a justification for sustaining this blight on chastity; Saint Paul writes

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. (Romans 1,32)

The danger is not only in the acts of sodomy, nor is it restricted to agreement with them. The danger to the soul is in consenting to sodomy as being a real sexual 'orientation' that as long as not acted on is safe. There is no chastity for the person who self-identifies as homosexual, even if he or she never practices sodomy.

Is there any hope then for the person who self-identifies as homosexual? The answer is yes as long as the conscience has not been fatally wounded. If the soul is willing to hear the truth and submit to right reason, then the mind can be renewed and the soul saved. Sadly, we know that such conversions are rare and the road of repentance arduous and exceedingly difficult. This is primarily because the intellect has been reordered to follow an entire architecture of falsehood that rejects nature, and in so doing, rejects the God of nature who planted reason in the conscience of men.

The ugly reality is that the myth of the chaste homosexual is a clever subterfuge employed by wicked clergymen who submitted themselves for holy orders fraudulently. They assert this claim to maintain their status as pastors and priests. But they have no supernatural faith and have rejected nature, reason, and conscience in order to maintain their identity as homosexuals, which in the final analysis is their true priority, even above obedience to God.