Sexual Dissent

Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no way be approved of.

--Vatican Declaration on Sexual Ethics, January 1976

When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its 5,000-word statement on homosexuality, premarital sex and masturbation, it was responding in part to complaints that the church was not providing sufficient guidelines for sexual behavior and attitudes. Days later, Father John McNeill, a Jesuit priest and former teacher of moral theology at the now defunct Woodstock College and at Fordham University, won the designation Imprimi Potest (it can be printed) for a book strongly attacking the church's views on homosexuality. It had taken two years to win that designation, which is not an endorsement. Jesuit Superior General Pedro Arrupe had delayed publication while McNeill consulted scholars and revised the book to specify ways in which it differs from church teachings.

One-Night Stands. In the newly released book The Church and the Homosexual (Sheed Andrews and Mc-Meel), McNeill finds those teachings an intolerable burden. The Catholic Church advocates that a homosexual should try to become heterosexual and, if he fails, insists that he abstain from sex entirely because no homosexual act can be justified morally. McNeill maintains that such teaching results in "one-night stands" and "suffering, guilt and mental disorder." Instead, McNeill thinks the church should encourage "a mature homosexual relationship with one partner with the intention of fidelity," though he does not call this marriage.

McNeill denies that there is anything necessarily immoral about homosexual acts. The heart of his case is his reinterpretation of pertinent passages from the Bible, drawing on the work of other liberal scholars who say that condemnations of homosexuality were limited by the cultural context. Thus when the Law of Moses states, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination," McNeill treats this as a protest against use of homosexuality in pagan rites. When St. Paul fulminates against "men committing shameless acts with men," McNeill reads it as opposition only to homosexual activity by people who are naturally heterosexual. The ambiguous story in Genesis 19, he says, means that Sodom was destroyed not for practicing sodomy but for its "inhospitality" to strangers.

The Catholic Church has traditionally opposed birth control because each sexual act should be open to procreation. Many leading moral theologians now question that contention, and McNeill says their logic should lead them to re-study homosexuality, which has also been condemned because it contravenes the purpose of procreation. Curiously however, McNeill uses something of a natural-law argument of his own. "God so created humans that their sexuality is not determined by their biology," he writes. Therefore "the homosexual condition is according to the will of God."

McNeill admits he has a "homosexual orientation" that he became aware of only after ordination, but he is committed to honoring his priestly vow of chastity. He is currently training to become a psychotherapist and plans to work primarily with homosexuals, while remaining a priest. He hopes that his book, along with organizations like the Roman Catholic Dignity, which he helped found, will at least provoke discussion and at best create new attitudes. "Once the church is aware of the destructive impact of its policies on hundreds of thousands of lives," he says, "it will have to change."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.