Disorder

[ithinkjesusiscool]

Pax! According to Catholicism (and myself) homosexuality is a disorder. I've been listening to Catholic psychologists on Catholic Live Radio telling us that homosexual disorder can be cured. When I listen to psychiatrists they tell me that personality disorder or other mental disorder will never be cured even if one learns to cope with it. So why then is homosexual disorder cureable? I have hear Oriental Orthodoxes telling me that they think even just having homosexual disorder is sinful. Cancer is also a disorder. Wouldn't that make cancer sinful as well. I am a confused non-Catholic. Please help me understand Catholicism.

[Winchester]

When I became the sun

I shone life into the mans' hearts
When I became the sun
I shone life into the mans' hearts

 

 

 

[CatherineM]

My unscientific vision of it from working with may gay clients is it is a bit like an addiction. You can be genetically predisposed to alcoholism. You can never be cured of it. You can learn, with therapy and support to not engage in the behaviour.

[CrossCuT]

Never trust a psychologist. 

[CrossCuT]

Never trust a psychologist. 

[Oremoose]

Pax! According to Catholicism (and myself) homosexuality is a disorder. I've been listening to Catholic psychologists on Catholic Live Radio telling us that homosexual disorder can be cured. When I listen to psychiatrists they tell me that personality disorder or other mental disorder will never be cured even if one learns to cope with it. So why then is homosexual disorder cureable? I have hear Oriental Orthodoxes telling me that they think even just having homosexual disorder is sinful. Cancer is also a disorder. Wouldn't that make cancer sinful as well. I am a confused non-Catholic. Please help me understand Catholicism.

 

 

As far as I know homosexuality cannot be cured (as those have said above). But I do want to clarify that have homosexual attractions is not sinful acting on them is. Like with a person with heterosexual attractions acting on that attraction and has premarital sex is a sin.

 

So we need to Pray for those our bothers and sisters who are asked to carry the cross of homosexuality that they stay strong and pure.

 

 

P.S. side note but is cool the great artist Andy Warhol, who is held up by gays as a pioneer for the gay lifestyle. He actually lived with his mother went to daily mass and stayed celibate through out his life. Because he was catholic and knew it was wrong to act on his Homosexual attractions.

[Oremoose]

Pax! According to Catholicism (and myself) homosexuality is a disorder. I've been listening to Catholic psychologists on Catholic Live Radio telling us that homosexual disorder can be cured. When I listen to psychiatrists they tell me that personality disorder or other mental disorder will never be cured even if one learns to cope with it. So why then is homosexual disorder cureable? I have hear Oriental Orthodoxes telling me that they think even just having homosexual disorder is sinful. Cancer is also a disorder. Wouldn't that make cancer sinful as well. I am a confused non-Catholic. Please help me understand Catholicism.

 

 

As far as I know homosexuality cannot be cured (as those have said above). But I do want to clarify that have homosexual attractions is not sinful acting on them is. Like with a person with heterosexual attractions acting on that attraction and has premarital sex is a sin.

 

So we need to Pray for those our bothers and sisters who are asked to carry the cross of homosexuality that they stay strong and pure.

 

 

P.S. side note but is cool the great artist Andy Warhol, who is held up by gays as a pioneer for the gay lifestyle. He actually lived with his mother went to daily mass and stayed celibate through out his life. Because he was catholic and knew it was wrong to act on his Homosexual attractions.

[Byzantine]

Seems others have answered your main question, so I'm just wondering

 

I have hear Oriental Orthodoxes telling me that they think even just having homosexual disorder is sinful.

 

Is this an official teaching of their Church(es) or their private opinion?

[HisChildForever]

Never trust a psychologist. 

 

Nice generalization you got there.

[CrossCuT]

I think it is very irresponsible for Catholics to start claiming this or that about Homosexuality when science is still in the early stages of understanding it.

We need to be patient, open minded, and always have the curiosity to seek a better understanding of our physical world.

[GregorMendel]

Homosexuality is not a psychological disorder, so no, it cant be 'cured'.

[photosynthesis]

Pax! According to Catholicism (and myself) homosexuality is a disorder. I've been listening to Catholic psychologists on Catholic Live Radio telling us that homosexual disorder can be cured. When I listen to psychiatrists they tell me that personality disorder or other mental disorder will never be cured even if one learns to cope with it. So why then is homosexual disorder cureable? I have hear Oriental Orthodoxes telling me that they think even just having homosexual disorder is sinful. Cancer is also a disorder. Wouldn't that make cancer sinful as well. I am a confused non-Catholic. Please help me understand Catholicism.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the Church hasn't specifically labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder.  The Catechism refers to homosexuality as an intrinsically disordered action.  In this way, the Church is commenting on the nature of the act of homosexual sex.  Men and women complement each other relationally and emotionally, and the union between the two can lead to procreation.  Homosexual acts lack the complementarity to fulfil the unitive purpose of sex, and they lack the potential for procreation.  Therefore, such actions are disordered, as in, not conforming to the natural order of things.  Since the actions are disordered, it follows that the desire to commit the action would also be disordered--but the Church doesn't specifically make the judgment that homosexuality is a psychological disorder.

 

There is a lot of debate as to whether someone with a homosexual orientation can be 'cured.'  Some people with same sex attraction have had success in therapy.  Their desires might completely go away, or at least be minimized.  This is often the case with people who have homosexual desires that stem from sexual trauma in childhood.  When you treat the trauma, the SSA can go away.  Therapy is not a cure-all, though.  There is no guarantee that the feelings will go away, and it is even rarer for someone who is exclusively homosexual, to 'turn' heterosexual through reparative therapy.  Celibacy is what is usually recommended to them.  Such people need our prayers and charity because they have a very heavy cross to carry.  

[photosynthesis]

 

Edited June 11, 2013 by photosynthesis

[Apotheoun]

Whether the homosexual condition can be cured or not . . . homosexual desires are to be resisted by ascetic discipline and self-mastery with the help of God's grace, and in particular the grace of the holy mysteries.

[Apotheoun]

To the best of my knowledge, the Church hasn't specifically labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder.  

As far as I know the Church has never endorsed modern psychology in any doctrinal sense, nor has it invested that modern approach with any doctrinal value. That said, the biblical and patristical tradition would identify homosexual desires as psychically disordered, that is, as a disordered of the soul of man due to the fall of Adam, which is why the homosexual condition is seen as an objective disorder contrary to human nature as God willed it from the beginning in the creation of mankind as male and female.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Apotheoun