How has the Catholic Church attitude to same-sex relationships developed and changed?

Early Church: Influence of Church Fathers

• Position on homosexuality built on scripture, stark contrast to Greek and roman attitudes towards same-sex reations including the usually erotic homosexual relationship→ Pederasty (adult male and teenage male)

• ‘John Chrysotom’- archbishop of Constantinople loathed homosexuality ‘[the men] have done an insult to nature itself(..) more disgraceful(..) when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame then men’

• homosexuality as a worse sin than murder, evil

Early Church Council

• 4th cen council of elvira

• excluding male homosexuals from the holy communion

• genitals amputated, humiliation, dying from these injuries, castration

Medieval and Early Modern period

• Pope Leo IX labelled homosexuality in the 11cen as ‘filthy, ‘execrable vice’

• Albert Magnus (philosopher)→ foulness, contagious!

• The Inquisition→ Pope Nicholas V enabled this to prosecute men who practiced sodomy, often burned those over 25, the clergy was shown some mildness

• ‘Nor the effeminate nor sodomites shall possess the kingdom of God- 1 Corinthians 6:9

Modern Age

• Homosexual activity→ ‘crimen pessimum’- the worse crime, this is in general church documents

• Pope John Paul II→ ‘The intrinsic evil of the homosexual condition’ in his Veritatis Splendor of 1993 (Encyclical)

• Homosexuality as a dimension of ‘the culture of death’

• Gay sex is regarded as a utilisation of another’s body, not mutual self-giving in love, no free choice

• 2012, Benedict XVI→ cultural shift towards gay marriage in US, pressure on church

Modern modern age!

• Pope Francis→ ‘If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?’

• Accepting the existence of gay people as a recognizable part of the catholic church community, first time a pope has used the word ‘gay’

• 2016→ ‘‘when a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say,' ‘Go away because you are homosexual’’

• Welcome children of gay couples, less judgement towards gay people more understanding towards same-sex couples in civil unions/marriages while still rejecting the validity of same-sex marriage

• Francis→ wanted every person to be respected regardless of their sexual orientation, free from threats, its not an illness!

Gay acceptance moments within the Church

• 1970s→ New Ways ministry 1977 ‘sexuality’s God’s Gift’, defending the rights of all people including those who were gay and lesbian

• 1990s→ Rainbow sash movement in Australia, USA, England

• 2010s→ Fr. Paul Kalchik (Chicago priest) destroyed/ burned LGBTQ banner

• 2020s→ Informal blessings for same-sex couples, God “does not and cannot bless sin.” This is strong language from the Holy See and from Pope Francis, ‘God loves all his children just as they are’