Dear Seth:

The Catholic Church does NOT frown upon homosexuals. The Church loves homosexuals as Christ loves all his children.

The Church frowns upon sin because sin is a crime against God. God makes the rules on morality, not the Church. The Church is only the messenger. The Church cannot change what God has laid down. The Church loves the homosexual person, but cannot endorse sin. The homosexual can choose to be chaste, but if he sins, it is the sin, not the person himself, that the Church frowns upon.

Homosexual sex is obviously disordered. It violates natural law in addition to moral and divine law. The design of the human body is not for homosexual sex. Homosexual sex, and also heterosexual sex outside marriage, violates God's purpose for the sexual faculty.

God has ordained sex for the marriage between a man and a woman for procreation and for the bonding in love between the husband and wife (which facilitates the healthy home and raising of children). Outside of these two purposes sex is wrong and disordered. This is what God has ordained, not what man was decided.

Thus, homosexual sex of any kind, and heterosexual sex outside of the dignity of marriage is sin. Adultery, fornication, masturbation, living together without marriage (called concubinage), bestiality, and any other practice that is outside of the marital embrace of the marriage of a man and a women is sin. Also, certain sexual practices that offend the dignity of the human person are sin, such as pornography, S&M, bondage, and various other practices too disgusting to mention here.

The Church teaches the dignity of the human person. Anything that offends that dignity is sin. Sex outside of the marriage of a man and a woman offends that dignity that God ordained.

The official teaching on homosexuals is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

I recommend to all Catholic homosexuals who struggle with the tension between who they are and the Christian faith to join an organization called Courage. From their website:

Courage, an apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church, ministers to those with same-sex attractions and their loved ones. We have been endorsed by the Pontifical Council for the Family and our beloved John Paul II said of this ministry, "COURAGE is doing the work of God!"  We also have an outreach called Encourage which ministers to relatives and friends of persons with same-sex attractions.

From our website you will learn about homosexuality and chastity.  By developing an interior life of chastity, which is the universal call to all Christians, one can move beyond the confines of the homosexual identity to a more complete one in Christ. 

In Courage you will get to know men and women who share in your concerns, meeting them online through our Listservs, or in person at Chapter Meetings, Conferences, Days of Recollection, and Retreats. 

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary