Dear Russ:

Anyone who dies in a state of mortal sin (lacking the state of grace) will not go to heaven.

Sex outside of the marriage of a man and woman is grave sin. Thus anyone living in sin by having sex outside of marriage regardless of whether they are homosexual or heterosexual, and do not repent of that sin by the time they die, will may find themselves in hell.

I say "may" because in order for a grave sin to be "mortal" three things are required:

1) the sin must be grave (homosexual sex is grave)

2) the person must know that the sin is grave (if you didn't know it before, you know it now)

3) you must have full consent to commit the sin

All three conditions must be true for a grave sin to be counted as mortal.

The third criteria is the one that may save some people by the "skin of their teeth." It is possible that a person's ability to freely choose to sin may be impaired. Such impairment can come from mental illness, brain disorders and other medical or psychiatric conditions that affect impulse control and decision making, addiction (including sexual addiction), demonization to a level that positive volition is impaired, and other factors that may reduce a person's ability to freely choose.

This refers to the Doctrine of Freedom and Responsibility and specifically to what is called imputability (paragraph in bold). The Catechism explains:

I. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

1733 The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."

1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.

1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.

1736 Every act directly willed is imputable to its author:

Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: "What is this that you have done?" He asked Cain the same question. The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with the wife of Uriah and had him murdered.

An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done: for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws.

1737 An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick child. A bad effect is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger. For a bad effect to be imputable it must be foreseeable and the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver.

The Catechism continues:

2352b To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

The question then becomes: When are we in a situation when imputability is reduced for our sin? That question can never truly be answered ourselves for we can easily fool ourselves or not be willing to admit the truth of our culpability.

In some cases, such as mental retardation, mental illness, and some forms of brain damage it may be medically obvious and rather objective in assessing that a person's freedom of positive volition is impaired. When it comes to less obvious things like addictions, immaturity and such it is a little harder to be definitive.

Nevertheless, since we are talking about homosexuality, if such homosexual does have an impaired ability to freely choose because of sexual addiction or other matters that impair his freedom, we would expect to see a struggling person, a person who is trying to stop albeit unsuccessfully.

A person who does not even try to stop their behavior, to do the things that might bring the behavior to an end, would have a hard time claiming that he is not culpable; but there may be some cases where the "trying" is lacking and so is the culpability. Only God knows.

In any event, one should never purposely risk their soul. Since only God can really know the state of even our own hearts, it is crazy not to bring any Grave Sin to the Sacrament of Confession just in case we are held fully culpable by God.

For a homosexual to live as a "practicing homosexual", and who has no intention of trying to stop, and dies in his intransigence, such a person is truly risking hell -- but no one can know his destiny but God.

I recommend that all homosexuals, and all people living in sin, to repent of their sin, seek counseling or whatever is needed to deal with their behavior, seek Confession when they fall, and keep trying to overcome the sinful life.

For homosexuals there is an excellent organization to help called Courage Apostolate. I encouage all homosexuals to check out this organization.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary