We hear the word "abuse" a lot these days. Elderly abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse; they all show up daily, but what about homosexual abuse? I am not talking about abuse of a person with homosexual temptations, but homosexual actions as abusive in themselves. After all, homosexuality is, in itself, a disordered and sinful inclination. It is not just a "less than perfect" behavior. If someone has homosexual urges, it would be cruel to leave that person in a disordered state without seeking to help him to return to the order God has designed for us.
If a person has a temptation to torture small animals, do we leave them and say "well, as long as he doesn't act it out"? If someone is constantly tempted to lie, do we just say, "tell the truth" and let it go? No; in both of those (and the many other sinful temptations) we would seek to provide for the person a practice of spiritual discipline that will help him to overcome the desire for sin. One of the reasons why this seems so hard for people today is that they have been duped by the world's terminology. I have been referring to this as "homosexuality" and, technically, that is an accurate term. Yet, there is a reason why the Church chose "sodomy" so long ago to refer to this sin. It reminds us of what happened to Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities God destroyed for this sin.
Every temptation to homosexual activity is an "abuse" to a certain degree. Because of the disordered nature of homosexuality, if someone tempts another person to commit a homosexual act, then that person is "abusing" the other person. He is doing this by trying to encourage someone to reject God's order, and pursue the "order" of the devil (regardless of whether the two individuals are consenting or not!). Everyone calls it abuse if someone does something to another person that harms that person (even if he has blinded the person to how harmful it is). Homosexual behavior is always harmful.
Think of it this way, if someone encourages another person to use cocaine, then he is tempting him to "abuse" his body. Cocaine is harmful in itself, regardless of whether a person uses it willing or not. So to lead someone into that sin is abusing that person. I am not stretching the terminology here. Consider, for example, the old term "self-abuse". Although rarely used today, that term acknowledged that the act in itself is an abuse of that person (both body and soul!).
To feel a temptation is not in itself a sin, true, but we are not "tempted" to do good things, we are tempted to do sinful things. Every temptation is on a scale of varying degrees of disobedience. It is much worse to accuse someone falsely of murder, than it is to lie and say you forgot to do something (when in reality you just ignored doing it). A man's desire to have sex with a woman may be sinful, but it is not disordered along the same lines as is a man's desire to have sex with anyone (or anything) other than a woman. There are varying degrees of disorder, and the Church has said multiple times that sodomy is completely disordered on every level.
Therefore, we can say that all "homosexual" activity is "abusive" in this way. It does not make a difference if those engaged are adults, or if they are willing; it is abusive and a perversion of God's good and beautiful intention for sexual activity. There are a few societies in past history that tried to normalize sodomy. The obvious ones are Sodom and Gomorrah. Ancient Rome also went down this path, and the influence of the Church appears to be the only thing that stemmed the tide of immorality (at least for a while). It is bad enough when society attempts this, but when those in the Church try it--especially her clergy--then the problem has reached grave depths (pun intended).
Although many would disagree, I am not actually trying to attack those who suffer with these disordered temptations (there are a few men in my parishes who struggle with this, and are genuinely seeking holiness in their lives). What I am doing is seeking to help them (and those who know them) to realize the gravity of these temptations. Just because someone does not give in to the temptation to engage in sodomy, does not mean that he or she has nothing to be concerned about. The very temptation itself is a sign of a disordered understanding of what is good and holy. It is something that we must work to eliminate from the Church, just like we work to eliminate adultery and divorce.
Let us seek the grace of Christ to overcome all forms of abuse; all forms of perversion of godly and pure sexual activity. As we do so, we will find that many (sadly, even some priests and bishops today!) will resist us. We are not, however, trying to eliminate something neutral (as though it were no more than "you like it this way, I like it that way; let's just maintain self control"). We are seeking to eliminate something that harms the family, it harms masculinity and femininity, it harms children, it harms adults, it harms the very community of the local parish by creating temptations to something that is abusive to everyone involved. Let us rid the Church of all abuse.
