That course is moral yet pastoral, true to our sexual moral tradition yet not inflexible or intolerant. Distinguish between being and doing S tarting in the mid-1960 s, with the publication of a groundbreaking, pastorally sensitive article on homosexuality by Fr. With the onset of puberty, and its associated hormonal changes, every adolescent boy and girl begins to discover sexual attractions, desires, fantasies and feelings. For the majority of people, this attraction is primarily focused toward members of the opposite sex. But for a relatively small but significant percentage of the population, homosexual persons, this attraction or orientation is primarily toward their own gender.
Bisexual persons seem to be somewhat equally drawn to members of both sexes.
Yet the Church has consistently taught that to act on these inclinations, particularly to engage in homosexual genital acts, is always objectively morally wrong. Here the Church attempts to be true to the core premises of our Catholic sexual-ethics tradition, while at the same time fostering basic human respect, justice and pastoral care toward gay and lesbian persons. Only within marriage does sexual intercourse fully symbolize the Creator s dual design, as an act of covenant love, with the potential of co-creating new human life. If these are the indelible meanings of sexual intimacy, written, as it were, into human nature and the nature of these intimate acts, then homosexual sex seems to be essentially deficient or incomplete. Biologically speaking, homosexual sex acts are wholly non-procreative, since either the sperm or ovum element would be absent.