"Human bodies, having been created by God, are evidence for an authentic sexual morality: “The fact that the earth, the cosmos, mirror the Creator Spirit, clearly means that their rational structures which, transcending the mathematical order, become almost palpable in our experience, bear within themselves an ethical orientation.” If the biology of male and female sexuality is complementary, there must be an ultimate reason for it. A rational person searches for that reason and draws ethical conclusions."

At first reading this might seem to be true, but like all other things a rational person will not only seek, but also test Benedict's rationale. The facts are that there are good, clean living, upstanding, decent people we would be glad to have as our neighbours, who are also happen to be gay and lesbian. Some of them are deep, wise, moral and ethical christians, even catholics. and even clergy. Often these are well repected within their church. They do not experience God's condemnation. What they experience, and demonstrate for us, is that Benedict's reasoning is faulty.

Andrew Prior - http://churchrewired.or

God does not creat homosexuality, it is the choice of human to become homosexuals.

I prefer the evolution theory better, if we allow homosexuality, the gay gene will eventually be eliminated, so these people would be able to have kids. and the gay gene will die out.

As CJ Morgan says, it would also be good for the environment, as less people make the world more sustainable. Maybe it is the "God" way of looking after his flock and reducing his flock

Natural law is simply the laws or the processes of nature, the object of scientific research. It may be a mistake to call it law except when one can describe a particular phenomenon such as the laws of motion by a mathematical equation. Biologists have more difficulty describing anything that could be called a law because they deal with very complex phenomena that are not reducable to mathematics, by and large.

Sexual orientation is one such complex phenomenon but we believe that it has its origins in interactions at the chemical, cellular or somatic level and thus it can be called "natural" because the process obeys all of the laws that govern the chemical, cellular and somatic processes.

Granted that the outcome may be called unnatural in that it subverts the most natural process of all, procreation. But it is itself the product of nature. This assumes that homosexual orientation is not chosen against heterosexual orientation, a most unlikely scenario.

My problem with the idea that the act of creation imprinted the will of the creator on the processes of the world is that it is an imposition of a causal cosmology onto a biblical narrative that is not about causality at all but is about the spiritual existence of mankind. By "spiritual" I do not mean the ghostly and the ghastly but such things as hope, love and faith.

Involving God in a casual nexus with cosmology makes him responsible for natural disaster, a prime cause of atheism and masks the real object of faith. The use of this "natural theology" also masks God as being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, i.e. as the God who is revealed in the history of the nation Israel and in the life and death of Jesus. It also masks God as the Triune.

Peter Sellick

"If the biology of male and female sexuality is complementary, there must be an ultimate reason for it. A rational person searches for that reason and draws ethical conclusions."

Ponder the fact that the man saying this is the leader of a very large church which demands celebacy of many of it's staff. A man who is himself committed to putting aside that complementary sexuality in his own life. A rational person who draws ethical conclusions about the complimentary nature of male and female sexuality might find some absurdity in the idea that homosexuality is destructive while celebacy mandated by man is not.

As for the argument of equating caring for the earth and caring for the body. Show me the evidence that homosexual lives are necessarily shorter and less fullfilling than hetrosexual lives (without the oppression of homophobes and their ilk). I can see the harm in wrecking our environment, the ability of the earth to sustain life is reduced. I can't see how a celebate man can determine that expressing your biological sexual orientation with another consenting adult is somehow more destructive than living a lie. Somehow more destructive than trying to live what you are not and possibly involving others in that (spouses, children etc).

I can see the harm in adults who are allowed no legitimate access to the fulfillment of sexual needs seeking to fulfill those needs however they can.

The pope leadsa a system of sexual frustration and pain which has been proven to cause enormous harm to many of those involved and innocents in their care, he has no moral high ground to stand on to condemn homosexuals expressing their love with other consenting adults.

R0bert

I admired the Pope.
Im not Roman Catholic (too little Holy Spirit and too much paganism) but I thought his speech was spot on.

Its the gays who are spreading the diseases and some of each new generation of young boys will become infecting with those diseases.

Society has gotten too complacent since the days of the Grim Reaper. We have a responsibility to protect the children from the gay men.

The Divine Penalty for homosexual practice is total exclusion from Heaven.

There isnt a gay anywhere who cant get set free if he goes to Jesus Christ in committed prayer with the problem.
Not one.

Stopped reading the article at this point - "It could, in fact, lead to a better understanding of why homosexuality is wrong and a violation of human dignity".

Yeesh! Someone had better tell the penguins in the Melbourne aquarium that they had better stop it, or they will go blind.

Can't see that homosexuality is any more less dignified or wrong than heterosexuality myself. Just part of humans being humans and following where their sexual attraction takes them. If it's occuring between consenting adults it's nobody's business except their own - and especially not the Popes.

At a friend's child's school, a little bully aged all of about 8 tried to make another child upset by screaming at them that their mother was a homosexual. Fortunately the would be victim said quite calmly, 'so what - your mothers a heterosexual'. The bully promptly burst into tears and raced off to complain to the very amused teacher that the other child had called his mother a heterosexual, clearly having no idea of what it was all about, he was just repeating his parents bigotry. Hopefully for the world's sake he has rejected his parents views as he grew up. Similarly the Catholic churches view that homosexuality is immoral or un-natural will also get tossed out for good.