Church Teaching on Sexual Orientation

The Church teaches that the homosexual orientation is not chosen, and, so, therefore it is not sinful.  A homosexual orientation is permanent and irreversible, so people should not be directed to try to change their orientations.  The orientation is not a phase and is not a block to spiritual growth, but in fact, it should be viewed as a path to spiritual growth.

The following are quotes from magisterial documents.

Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1975.

“A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency…is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct…”


Letter to the Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1986.

“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”


Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Lifelong Learning, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1991.  (Footnote commenting on the quote above.)

“Here two things must be noted.  To speak of the homosexual inclination as ‘objectively disordered’ does not mean that the homosexual person as such is evil or bad.  Furthermore, the homosexual person is not the only one who has disordered tendencies or inclinations.  All human beings are subject to some disordered tendencies.”


Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Lifelong Learning, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1991.

“…homosexuality is a permanent, seemingly irreversible sexual orientation.  The medical and behavioral sciences do not yet know what causes a person to be homosexual…Such an orientation in itself, because not freely chosen, is not sinful.”


Always Our Children, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Marriage and Family, 1997.

“Having a homosexual orientation does not necessarily mean a person will engage in homosexual activity.”


Always Our Children, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Marriage and Family, 1997.

“…it seems appropriate to understand sexual orientation (heterosexual or homosexual) as a deep-seated dimension of one’s personality and to recognize its relative stability in a person.”


Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination:  Guidelines for Pastoral Care, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006.

“The homosexual inclination is objectively disordered, i.e., it is an inclination that predisposes one toward what is truly not good for the human person.  Of course, heterosexual persons not uncommonly have disordered sexual inclinations as well.  It is not enough for a sexual inclination to be heterosexual for it to be properly ordered. . . .  It is crucially important to understand that saying a person has a particular inclination that is disordered is not to say that the person as a whole is disordered.  Nor does it mean that one has been rejected by God or the Church.”