CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS
TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS
INTRODUCTION
1. In recent years, various questions relating to homosexuality
have been addressed with some frequency by Pope John Paul II
and by the relevant Dicasteries of the Holy See.(1) Homosexuality
is a troubling moral and social phenomenon, even in those countries
where it does not present significant legal issues. It gives
rise to greater concern in those countries that have granted
or intend to grant – legal recognition to homosexual unions,
which may include the possibility of adopting children. The
present Considerations do not contain new doctrinal elements;
they seek rather to reiterate the essential points on this question
and provide arguments drawn from reason which could be used
by Bishops in preparing more specific interventions, appropriate
to the different situations throughout the world, aimed at protecting
and promoting the dignity of marriage, the foundation of the
family, and the stability of society, of which this institution
is a constitutive element. The present Considerations are also
intended to give direction to Catholic politicians by indicating
the approaches to proposed legislation in this area which would
be consistent with Christian conscience.(2) Since this question
relates to the natural moral law, the arguments that follow
are addressed not only to those who believe in Christ, but to
all persons committed to promoting and defending the common
good of society.
I. THE NATURE OF MARRIAGE AND ITS INALIENABLE CHARACTERISTICS
2. The Church's teaching on marriage and on the complementarity
of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason
and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world.
Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings.
It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential
properties and purpose.(3) No ideology can erase from the human
spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man
and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive
to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In
this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate
with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.
3. The natural truth about marriage was confirmed by the Revelation
contained in the biblical accounts of creation, an expression
also of the original human wisdom, in which the voice of nature
itself is heard. There are three fundamental elements of the
Creator's plan for marriage, as narrated in the Book of Genesis.
In the first place, man, the image of God, was created “male
and female” (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as persons
and complementary as male and female. Sexuality is something
that pertains to the physical-biological realm and has also
been raised to a new level – the personal level –
where nature and spirit are united.
Marriage is instituted by the Creator as a form of life in
which a communion of persons is realized involving the use of
the sexual faculty. “That is why a man leaves his father
and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh”
(Gen 2:24).
Third, God has willed to give the union of man and woman a
special participation in his work of creation. Thus, he blessed
the man and the woman with the words “Be fruitful and
multiply” (Gen 1:28). Therefore, in the Creator's plan,
sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very nature
of marriage.
Furthermore, the marital union of man and woman has been elevated
by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament. The Church teaches
that Christian marriage is an efficacious sign of the covenant
between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:32). This Christian
meaning of marriage, far from diminishing the profoundly human
value of the marital union between man and woman, confirms and
strengthens it (cf. Mt 19:3-12; Mk 10:6-9).
4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual
unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to
God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while
homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual
acts “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”.(4)
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as a serious
depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This
judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude
that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible
for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts
are intrinsically disordered”.(5) This same moral judgment
is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries(6)
and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.
Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and
women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with
respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination
in their regard should be avoided”.(7) They are called,
like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity.(8) The
homosexual inclination is however “objectively disordered”(9)
and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to
chastity”.(10)
II. POSITIONS ON THE PROBLEM OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
5. Faced with the fact of homosexual unions, civil authorities
adopt different positions. At times they simply tolerate the
phenomenon; at other times they advocate legal recognition of
such unions, under the pretext of avoiding, with regard to certain
rights, discrimination against persons who live with someone
of the same sex. In other cases, they favour giving homosexual
unions legal equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along
with the legal possibility of adopting children.
Where the government's policy is de facto tolerance and there
is no explicit legal recognition of homosexual unions, it is
necessary to distinguish carefully the various aspects of the
problem. Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion,
Christians give witness to the whole moral truth, which is contradicted
both by approval of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination
against homosexual persons. Therefore, discreet and prudent
actions can be effective; these might involve: unmasking the
way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the
service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these
unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the
phenomenon within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality
and, above all, to avoid exposing young people to erroneous
ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of
their necessary defences and contribute to the spread of the
phenomenon. Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization
of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to
be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something
far different from the toleration of evil.
In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally
recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging
to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must
refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment
or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible,
from material cooperation on the level of their application.
In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious
objection.
III. ARGUMENTS FROM REASON AGAINST LEGAL RECOGNITION
OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
6. To understand why it is necessary to oppose legal recognition
of homosexual unions, ethical considerations of different orders
need to be taken into consideration.
From the order of right reason
The scope of the civil law is certainly more limited than that
of the moral law,(11) but civil law cannot contradict right
reason without losing its binding force on conscience.(12) Every
humanly-created law is legitimate insofar as it is consistent
with the natural moral law, recognized by right reason, and
insofar as it respects the inalienable rights of every person.(13)
Laws in favour of homosexual unions are contrary to right reason
because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to those granted
to marriage, to unions between persons of the same sex. Given
the values at stake in this question, the State could not grant
legal standing to such unions without failing in its duty to
promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the
common good.
It might be asked how a law can be contrary to the common good
if it does not impose any particular kind of behaviour, but
simply gives legal recognition to a de facto reality which does
not seem to cause injustice to anyone. In this area, one needs
first to reflect on the difference between homosexual behaviour
as a private phenomenon and the same behaviour as a relationship
in society, foreseen and approved by the law, to the point where
it becomes one of the institutions in the legal structure. This
second phenomenon is not only more serious, but also assumes
a more wide-reaching and profound influence, and would result
in changes to the entire organization of society, contrary to
the common good. Civil laws are structuring principles of man's
life in society, for good or for ill. They “play a very
important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns
of thought and behaviour”.(14) Lifestyles and the underlying
presuppositions these express not only externally shape the
life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation's
perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour. Legal recognition
of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values
and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.
From the biological and anthropological order
7. Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological
and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would
be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal
recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper
way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility
of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction,
beyond involv- ing a grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15)
does nothing to alter this inadequacy.
Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal
dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality.
Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express
and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and
are open to the transmission of new life.
As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity
in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development
of children who would be placed in the care of such persons.
They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood
or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living
in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children,
in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used
to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their
full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open
contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best
interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party,
are to be the paramount consideration in every case.
From the social order
8. Society owes its continued survival to the family, founded
on marriage. The inevitable consequence of legal recognition
of homosexual unions would be the redefinition of marriage,
which would become, in its legal status, an institution devoid
of essential reference to factors linked to heterosexuality;
for example, procreation and raising children. If, from the
legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to
be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept
of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave
detriment to the common good. By putting homosexual unions on
a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family,
the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties.
The principles of respect and non-discrimination cannot be
invoked to support legal recognition of homosexual unions. Differentiating
between persons or refusing social recognition or benefits is
unacceptable only when it is contrary to justice.(16) The denial
of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation
that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice;
on the contrary, justice requires it.
Nor can the principle of the proper autonomy of the individual
be reasonably invoked. It is one thing to maintain that individual
citizens may freely engage in those activities that interest
them and that this falls within the common civil right to freedom;
it is something quite different to hold that activities which
do not represent a significant or positive contribution to the
development of the human person in society can receive specific
and categorical legal recognition by the State. Not even in
a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfil the purpose
for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition.
On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such
unions are harmful to the proper development of human society,
especially if their impact on society were to increase.
From the legal order
9. Because married couples ensure the succession of generations
and are therefore eminently within the public interest, civil
law grants them institutional recognition. Homosexual unions,
on the other hand, do not need specific attention from the legal
standpoint since they do not exercise this function for the
common good.
Nor is the argument valid according to which legal recognition
of homosexual unions is necessary to avoid situations in which
cohabiting homosexual persons, simply because they live together,
might be deprived of real recognition of their rights as persons
and citizens. In reality, they can always make use of the provisions
of law – like all citizens from the standpoint of their
private autonomy – to protect their rights in matters
of common interest. It would be gravely unjust to sacrifice
the common good and just laws on the family in order to protect
personal goods that can and must be guaranteed in ways that
do not harm the body of society.(17)
IV. POSITIONS OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS WITH REGARD TO
LEGISLATION IN FAVOUR OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose
the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians
are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their
responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals
in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to
take account of the following ethical indications.
When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual
unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly,
the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition
clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour
of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.
When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual
unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose
it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition
known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not
possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician,
recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter
Evangelium vitae, “could licitly support proposals aimed
at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its
negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public
morality”, on condition that his “absolute personal
opposition” to such laws was clear and well known and
that the danger of scandal was avoided.(18) This does not mean
that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered
just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate
and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of
an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the
moment.
CONCLUSION
11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons
cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or
to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires
that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis
of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition
of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage
would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with
the consequence of making it a model in present-day society,
but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common
inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these
values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society
itself.
The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience of March
28, 2003, approved the present Considerations, adopted in the
Ordinary Session of this Congregation, and ordered their publication.
Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, June 3, 2003, Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga
and his Companions, Martyrs.
Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect
Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary
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NOTES
(1) Cf. John Paul II, Angelus Messages of February 20, 1994,
and of June 19, 1994; Address to the Plenary Meeting of the
Pontifical Council for the Family (March 24, 1999); Catechism
of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2357-2359, 2396; Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Persona humana (December
29, 1975), 8; Letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons
(October 1, 1986); Some considerations concerning the response
to legislative proposals on the non-discrimination of homosexual
persons (July 24, 1992); Pontifical Council for the Family,
Letter to the Presidents of the Bishops' Conferences of Europe
on the resolution of the European Parliament regarding homosexual
couples (March 25, 1994); Family, marriage and “de facto”
unions (July 26, 2000), 23.
(2) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal
Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics
in political life (November 24, 2002), 4.
(3) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium
et spes, 48.
(4) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2357.
(5) Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration
Persona humana (December 29, 1975), 8.
(6) Cf., for example, St. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians,
V, 3; St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 27, 1-4; Athenagoras,
Supplication for the Christians, 34.
(7) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358; cf. Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the pastoral care of
homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 10.
(8) Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2359; cf. Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the pastoral care of
homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 12.
(9) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358.
(10) Ibid., No. 2396.
(11) Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March
25, 1995), 71.
(12) Cf. ibid., 72.
(13) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95,
a. 2.
(14) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March
25, 1995), 90.
(15) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction
Donum vitae (February 22, 1987), II. A. 1-3.
(16) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 63,
a.1, c.
(17) It should not be forgotten that there is always “a
danger that legislation which would make homosexuality a basis
for entitlements could actually encourage a person with a homosexual
orientation to declare his homosexuality or even to seek a partner
in order to exploit the provisions of the law” (Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Some considerations concerning
the response to legislative proposals on the non-discrimination
of homosexual persons [July 24, 1992], 14).
(18) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March
25, 1995), 73
