Being Gay doesn’t mean you’ll end up in Hell, at least according to Catholicism.
You’ve heard it before: being gay means you go to Hell. Eternal Damnation. All that juicy stuff. But is that really the case?
To really break down this question we need to look at what Catholics consider “damnable sins” or, as they’re referred to in the Catholic Church, ‘Mortal sins’.
These sins are said to sever your connection with God unless you repent for your sins. Examples of these include Murder, Rape, Theft, etc etc. There are 3 defining factors to what makes a sin a Mortal one.
- The subject matter must be ‘Grave’, I’ll touch more on this in a bit
- It must be committed knowing that it’s a sin and how bad of a sin it is.
- It must be committed with deliberate and complete consent.
These are defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) , essentially a doctrine manual to Catholicism written by Pope John II. And while Pope John II was against homosexuality, the teachings are there and still taught today and can be held up true for any sexual orientation. He goes on to discuss what makes a matter grave, and though there’s no absolutely clear definition, a crude definition would be ‘its defined by the 10 commandments’. For further reading on these, see Part 3, section 1, chapter 1, article 8.4 of the CCC.
On the flip side of this, we see Venial sins, which are seen as “lesser” and don’t send you to Hell or make you lose your connection, rather these are understood to be able to lead you to commit Mortal Sins, an example of which would be swearing.
Further into the CCC, we see that Saint John discusses how when considering responsibility of sins in the eyes of God, ‘one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.’
This verse is interesting, and has an impact on how one looks at the will and intent of so called ‘sexual sins’. Passions and the state of mind can greatly diminish, if not absolve the aforementioned sinner of culpability, leaving the sin as not Mortal, but a venial sin of grave matter.
If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency is not the problem... they’re our brothers.
—Pope Francis, 2013
Armed with this knowledge, we can begin to discuss homosexuality. General beliefs, supported by science or not, held by catholics about homosexuality tend to fall into 3 categories:
- It’s a mental disorder
- It’s something you’re born with
- It’s something you develop
Science obviously supports the latter, however this isn’t from the eyes of science this is in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
Though these all appear different, in the context of sinning, they can all be explained the same way with a key, distinct fact.
Homosexuality is not a choice.
This automatically means homosexuality fails the third criterion of a Mortal sin. Which makes it a Venial sin, still a sin sure, but not one you need to confess, nor one that is really “wrong”.
The last thing is the intent. Are you homosexual with the intent of Malice? Of course not, that’s absurd to even consider. Therefore we can conclude that it is considered a passion, a sin of passion if you will, which in the eyes of the Catholic Church, leads the sinner to be lessened by the burden of their already venial sin.
So while Homosexuality itself is not a sin, the Catholic Church is far from progressive, but it is taking steps in the right direction. Our LGBTQ+ siblings can only hope that the future brings more tolerance.
We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their [LGBTQ] son or daughter.
— Pope Francis, 2014
