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1. A Catholic Perspective on Homoerotic Desire
Christopher Damian
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 22, Number 1,
Winter 2019, pp. 51-80 (Article)
Published by Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture
DOI:
For additional information about this article
Access provided by Oxford University Library Services (30 Dec 2018 21:36 GMT)
https://doi.org/10.1353/log.2019.0001
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711906

2. logos 22:1 winter 2019
Christopher Damian
A Catholic Perspective
on Homoerotic Desire
Introduction
In recent years, homosexuality has become one of the most con-
tested cultural issues,at both a national and international level.Even
the question of language is hotly debated, especially in Christian
circles, with some rejecting “homosexuality” because of its relation-
ship with clinical psychology in past years, and some insisting upon
its use because of the associations of the term “gay” with certain
political and cultural movements.This article will take a step back
from those particular questions and will seek to give an account
of a more fundamental question: that of desire, particularly same-
sex desire. It will give a historical and philosophical account of the
nature of erotic love and then apply this account to the question of
homosexuality and homoerotic desire.While maintaining an adher-
ence to Catholic teaching, especially the teaching laid out in the
“Catechism of the Catholic Church,” this article will seek to move
the conversation forward, in giving a positive account of homoerot-
ic desire and reframing the current discussion of homosexuality and
Catholicism.

3. logos
52
I.On Erotic Desire
I will begin a discussion of erotic desire, before moving to the ques-
tion of homosexuality, homoerotic desire, and Catholicism. As will
be examined in section four,“homosexuality” is a narrow category in
the catechism. Homoerotic desire, and erotic desire more generally,
considers something much broader.“Homoerotic desire” should not
be confused with “homosexuality,” and “eros” should not be confused
with “sexuality.”
In his Man andWoman He CreatedThem:ATheology of the Body, Pope
St. John Paul II gestures toward an expansive view of erotic desire.
He writes, “According to Plato, ‘eros’ represents the inner power
that draws man toward all that is good, true, and beautiful.This‘at-
traction’ indicates, in this case, the intensity of a subjective act of the
human spirit. By contrast, in the common meaning—as also in lit-
erature—this‘attraction’ seems to be above all of a sensual nature.”1
Likewise, Christopher Dawson argues for a broader understanding
of “the erotic” than simply sensual considerations. Drawing on the
work ofWerner Sombart, Dawson identifies “the erotic type par ex-
cellence as‘the religious mystic,’ the‘man of desire,’ like St.Augustine
or St. Francis.”2
Consider the feeling of having your breath taken away by a beauti-
ful painting,or a sunset,or a striking line of poetry,or by a lovely face,
that feeling of being drawn out of yourself by something or some-
one so beautiful that it awakens something within you, that feeling of
transcendence when you encounter something incredibly good.Plato
calls that the “erotic,” the experience of being drawn out of yourself
by the beautiful.The “erotic” does not simply concern the “sexual,”
but every experience of beauty, such that the “sexual” may be one
way of experiencing the erotic, but is not the only way. John Paul
criticizes the common limitation of the erotic “mainly to a naturalis-
tic,‘somatic,’and sensualistic interpretation of human eroticism.”3
He
looks, rather, to Plato for a fuller understanding of eros.
Such an understanding of eros, in its broadest sense, includes

4. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 53
every inclination drawing man out of himself. The experience of
having one’s breath taken away by a beautiful painting is an erotic
experience.The same is true for having one’s breath taken away by
a sunset, or a line of poetry, or a beautiful man or woman.The same
is said of a delicious-looking cake that captures your attention and
incites longing, or the longing for God in the Eucharist.
Eros should not simply end with that “feeling” of transcendence,
however.The highest forms of eros call us to something more. In The
Symposium, Diotima discusses the concept of “spiritual pregnancy.” In
one example of such a pregnancy,Diotima says that a soul bears with-
in itself wisdom.When a man comes upon a friend who is worthy and
whom he loves,he gives birth to this wisdom in argument and discus-
sion, and the two nurture it together as their spiritual child.
According to Diotima, “all human natures . . . are pregnant,
yearning to reproduce both physically and psychically.” Pregnancy is
innate to humans, and “those things in which or through which mor-
tals can give birth are beautiful.”4
So humans pursue beauty not only
for its own sake, but also for the sake of giving birth. Lovers seek a
beautiful beloved in order to give birth.And in this way,Diotima says
that erotic love enables a pregnancy, giving birth to virtue.
Diotima says that the real purpose of love “is giving birth in
beauty, whether in body or soul.”5
It is not enough simply to feel the
attractions and desires of love; love moves us toward procreation.
She says that pregnancy is an immortal thing for a mortal animal,
and we can only give birth through the beautiful. For this reason,
when people draw near to beauty,they give birth and reproduce.But
when they draw near ugliness or evil, they recoil in pain and do not
reproduce. Diotima says that in this latter case, the labor is painful,
because they hold onto what is inside them and continue to carry it.
Man bears within him wisdom, like a child within a womb, and he
desires to give birth to this wisdom in his beloved. So he draws near
to the beloved and bears the child, while recoiling from those he
perceives undeserving of this labor.
This might become clearer if we discuss inspiration. Imagine

5. logos
54
someone who sees a beautiful sunset.The sight moves him; he feels
something within himself, some kind of longing that moves within
him, a longing that inspires him to do or be something. Something is
stirred within him, and because he is attentive to these stirrings and
is open to creativity, it inspires him to give birth to beauty in a paint-
ing or a poem, or simply telling someone about this experience. It
draws him out of himself, and he can create beautiful things from his
love of beauty.
Throughout history,Catholics have used this very language to dis-
cuss their creative endeavors. Michelangelo was himself a student of
Plato, and the artist’s discourses on love were said to be based on the
writings of Plato. Perhaps Plato influenced him when he responded
to a priest who had told him“it was a pity he had not married and had
children who would honor his art.”Michelangelo“replied that he had
wife enough in his art, adding‘my children will be the works I leave
behind.’”6
Similarly,Blessed John Henry Newman once described his
writing as “a mental child-bearing.”7
His writing often pained him,
such that he wrote,“I have been accustomed to say to myself,‘In sor-
row shalt thou bring forth children.’”8
Newman also writes how all love grows from affection towards
specific persons. Love, he writes, begins with “having our affec-
tions directed in an especial way towards certain objects, towards
those whom the circumstances of our past life, or some peculiari-
ties of character, have endeared to us.”9
He grounds growth toward
virtue in the romantic. He says that the goodness and truth of re-
ligion are grounded “on the basis of our good natural feelings . . .
What is Christian high-mindedness, generous self-denial, contempt
of wealth, endurance of suffering, and earnest striving after perfec-
tion, but an improvement and transformation, under the influence
of the Holy Spirit, of that natural character of mind which we call
romantic?”10
Newman calls romantic love a “natural branch on which
spiritual fruit is grafted.” One should also note that this discussion of
romantic love comes in a sermon not on the love between man and
woman, but on the “love of relations and friends.”11

6. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 55
The language of spiritual pregnancy even appears in the life of
St. Francis of Assisi. Francis calls poverty “his mother, his bride, and
his lady.”12
St. Bonaventure, in his biography of Francis, calls Francis
“the true lover of poverty.”13
He says that “the lowly and seemingly
sterile simplicity”14
of Francis had“brought to birth seven sons,”15
the
first seven brothers of his religious order. Bonaventure writes that
“through the merits of the Mother of Mercy, Francis conceived and
brought to birth the spirit of the truth of the Gospel.”16
And Francis
himself writes in a letter to Brother Leo,“I speak to you, my son, as
a mother.”17
Throughout history, Christians have used the language of erotic
desire and spiritual pregnancy to discuss the ways in which the love
of God, of creation, and of each other have moved them to bring
forth new life into the world. This language especially flourished
during the MiddleAges.We could benefit from remembering it.
ChristosYannaras identifies the eros of the Greek Church Fathers
as the “dynamic and always unachieved consummation” of personal
relation, “the loving impetus and movement of exodus from indi-
vidualized existence in the realm of objects, for the sake of the actu-
alization of relation in the highest sense.”18
Yanarras treats eros as the
experience of being stricken by the beauty of the other and moving
towards union with the other in personal relation.When we encoun-
ter that which is beautiful, we long for a relationship with it. But
because that other will always be an inviolable other, we will never
achieve total relationship but can always move nearer and nearer,
with our love drawing us higher and higher into transcendence.
To gain knowledge of an Other involves such nearness, and the
impetus provided by eros.According toYannaras, knowledge of God
requires eros:“‘Knowledge’ of the Person of the Logos presupposes,
by means of the summons, the actualization of an exclusive relation,
of an immediate communion, which is an event of . . . reciprocal
loving-erotic self-offering.”19
That is,true knowledge of God requires
a relationship with him,which begins with God’s invitation into rela-
tionship and is actualized in a “reciprocal loving-erotic self-offering.”

7. logos
56
But this mode of knowing is not limited to God. Rather,Yan-
naras writes that eros is also what makes the person accessible to
knowledge.20
Drawing on the Eastern Fathers, including Maximus
the Confessor, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Clement of Alexan-
dria,Yannaras argues that eros is the mode in which we come to any
interpersonal relationship. By eros, man is both confronted by the
otherness of the other and is drawn toward the other in a yearning
for interpersonal communion.Thus “erotic wonder” in the presence
of the beauty of a place or work of art or another person is “always
an invitation to communion and relation, an attraction which aims at
union, at the satisfaction of the existential desire for communion.”21
So let us return to that feeling of having your breath taken away
by a beautiful painting, by a sunset, by a striking line of poetry, by a
lovely face, that feeling of being drawn out of yourself by something
or someone so beautiful that it awakens something within you, that
feeling of transcendence when you encounter something incredibly
good.This experience is the experience of the erotic.When we en-
counter beautiful things, the feeling of being drawn out of ourselves,
towards the Other, towards something transcendent and outside of
ourselves, is the movement of erotic desire. It is the soul’s recogni-
tion of something beautiful,and a longing incited by that recognition.
In this way, we might consider Francis ofAssisi as the erotic man.
He sang to the sun and the stars. He wept over the death of animals.
He kissed lepers and adored the poor. Francis was able to recognize
the beauty hidden in all of creation, and this beauty moved him, of-
ten to tears. He was a man who exercised extreme openness to the
goodness in all of creation.
But this recognition is not the end of erotic desire. Like God, we
are all called to be creative beings, to exercise procreativity. Pro-
creativity is at the core of what it means to be fully human.And it is
through openness to the beautiful that we are able to live procreative
lives.
When we hand ourselves over fully to beauty, we are able to cre-
ate. So when we see the beautiful sunset, if we are open to its beauty,

8. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 57
we are then called to be procreative, to be co-creators with God.We
are called to write poetry, to paint, to speak about this beauty with
someone else, to move from that inspiration to a care for the earth,
or the poor.True love will always be procreative, and we procreate
to the degree of our openness to beauty and to love. Erotic desire is
not just about sex, but about art, about creativity, about nurturing.
Thus,Yannaras calls even the relationship between mother and
child an erotic relationship, because, out of her love for her child, a
mother brings forth life in him. She does this by feeding him from
her body.Yanarras says she also does this by teaching him language,
giving birth to him into a new world of identity and names and lan-
guage. Out of her love, she continues to bring forth his life, by nur-
turing and educating him.22
Such an understanding of erotic desire may seem to contra-
dict some explanations of Greek love. Ancient Greeks had multi-
ple words for the single English word “love.”These words included
storge, eros, agape, and philia. C. S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves,
draws sharp distinctions between these words. He focuses especially
on distinctions between eros and philia. Eros is considered by many
to be desirous love, while philia is considered to be the detached
love of friendship. In The Four Loves, Lewis contrasts what he sees as
the face-to-face eroticism of lovers from what he sees as the side-
by-side friendship of philia that does not seek the other but, rather,
delights with the other in a common task. Lewis describes in philia
“the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love,”in which
“I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a
duty to be mine.”23
Wesley Hill challenges Lewis’s distinction, using Lewis’s own
letters. Lewis once wrote about his friend, Arthur Greeves: “Many
thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first
friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder . . . as
first love, or even greater.”24
Toward the end of his life, Lewis real-
izes he may never see Greeves again and writes to him: “It looks as
if you and I shall never meet again in this life. This often saddens

9. logos
58
me [very] much.”And that letter ends,“Oh Arthur, never to see you
again!”25
Hill comments on this exchange: “Lewis himself in his let-
ters to Greeves sowed the seeds for a critique of what he would later
come to write in The Four Loves about the necessity for friendship and
romantic attraction to be held rigidly apart.26
Critiques of an overly fragmented understanding of love also
comes in Deus Caritas Est. Benedict writes, “God loves, and his love
may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape. . . . Eros is
thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to
become one with agape.”27
God’s eros is agape; his affection is self-
gift; his desiring is friendship. Benedict tells us that “eros and agape—
ascending love and descending love—can never be completely sepa-
rated.The more the two . . . find a proper unity in the one reality of
love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized.”28
According to Benedict, God’s love is a total integration of eros,
understood often as desiring love, and agape, usually understood as
self-giving and selfless love.We cannot think of these loves as distinct
in God, because God’s love is an integrated and supremely ennobled
form of love.And insofar as we learn to love like God, our loves will
become integrated and ennobled as well. Likewise, the Russian Or-
thodox theologian Pavel Florensky writes that the love of friendship
is a love “that combines the aspects of philia [often understood as the
familiar love of friendship], eros, and agape.”29
II.Eros and Asceticism
Imagine a toddler crawling around in a field and coming upon a
beautiful flower.The flower captivates the child,and he stops in front
of it.That “capturing,” the thing that moves us, stops us in our tracks,
and draws us beyond ourselves,can be considered the“erotic.”Eros is
the kind of love or desire that draws us out of ourselves and towards
something beyond us. But eros does not come to us fully grown.
Eros needs to be cultivated into maturity.
A disordered or immature eros always tends toward consump-

10. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 59
tion, objectification, and destruction. So the toddler, because he has
little control over his desires, might pluck out the flower and try to
eat it, or crunch it up in his fat little hands. He doesn’t know how
to take care of the beautiful things that move him. And, while it is
good that he can recognize beauty, his lack of control over his desires
means that his movements toward beauty will tend to be destruc-
tive. I think that this is the experience of most people as they begin
to experience sexual desire in adolescence. It comes in the form of
amorphous, powerful, and often frightening desires. Initially, we all
experience sexual desire with a sense of lack of control.
But someone who has grown and matured, perhaps learned how
to garden, or at the very least learned how to give basic care to a
flower, will see the beautiful flower in the field and stop, just like
the toddler. But, unlike the toddler, he will not try to consume the
flower or crumple it up in his hand. He’ll pick it carefully, so that the
petals are preserved. He will bring it home and water it. Or, recog-
nizing that it will live longer in its natural place,he may leave it there,
return to it,and bring it water during the dry seasons.He might con-
struct a garden around it. But he will resist the childish impulse to
simply destroy it.And, in caring for the flower, in nourishing it, he’ll
enable it to grow and live its own life. He will establish a relationship
with it, but will resist the temptation to just consume it into his own
life and destroy it.
So, too, with the person of mature sexuality. His sexual desires
will no longer control and overwhelm him, but will take shape as
he responds to desire with a way of life that respects and cherishes
desire’s objects. His desire can be transformed into tenderness and
care, passionate at times, but always aware of the deep goodness and
inviolable dignity of the other.
At the core of the Christian understanding of eros is a profound
respect for the dignity of the Other, whether that Other be a plant,
a sunset, a human person, or God himself. Here we see a connection
between Catholic teaching on sexuality and Catholic teaching on the
environment. Both require a fundamental respect for a goodness and

11. logos
60
beauty of the Other. But we are capable of selfishly consuming both
for our own gain.Yannaras has written on the ways in which our
desires can lead to self-absorption. Thus he notes that the world’s
beauty in the writings of the Church Fathers “suggests that they as-
sume a moral effort.”30
Asceticism is required in order to gain a true knowledge of
beauty.Yannaras writes,“For us to encounter the world’s true beauty
. . . we must draw back from the physical demand for pleasure which
accompanies the vision of beauty. We must refuse to change the
beautiful into a pleasurable‘fantasy’ of the flesh.And this means we
must deny our individualistic nature, mortify our individualistic de-
sires which project on to the world’s beauty the physical demands of
pleasure and self-sufficiency.”31
John Paul speaks similarly in Love and
Responsibility when he writes about the dangerous tendency to objec-
tify others by reducing them to their “sexual attributes.” He calls us
always to be mindful of the personhood of those to whom we find
ourselves attracted.32
Man,whenstrickenbybeauty,mustresistthetemptationtotrans-
form the beautiful into a mere object of narcissistic self-satisfaction
and must learn,through self-denial,how to come into a deeper com-
munion with the beautiful. He must learn to overcome mere indi-
vidual desires and learn the delight and communion that comes from
recognizing the good and beauty of the other,as Other,which invites
us into interpersonal relation and not merely to self-gratification or
objectification.
This,in part,explains the difference between natural family plan-
ning and contraception in Catholic moral theology. Natural family
planning treats the body of a woman fundamentally as Other, both
for the man and, to a certain extent, even for the woman herself.
Natural family planning looks to the rhythms and biologicalprocesses
within the woman’s body, and it orders sexual intercourse so as to
respect these rhythms and processes.Artificial contraception, on the
other hand, seeks dominance over the woman’s body, subjecting the
body to the sensual demands of man, woman, or both.

12. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 61
According to Maximus the Confessor, “All phenomena need the
cross.”33
And in the denial of our own fantasies seeking the selfish
pleasure which can be derived from the mere use of the beautiful,we
ourselves “pass through the experience of the cross” and can come
to true erotic practice.34
“That is why knowledge of the world, the
knowledge of the truth of things, is a moral achievement which is
realized within the context of asceticism.”35
Ascetic practice is a pre-
supposition for true knowledge and for real relationship. For this
reason, Pavel Florensky writes: “Friendship gives the loftiest joy but
it also demands the strictest ascesis.”36
The same holds for all erotic relationships.The greater the power
of desire, the greater the tendency and danger to take hold of the
erotic experience through dominance, objectification, consump-
tion, and destruction.While eros reaches its heights in procreativity,
it can also fall into jealousy, control, objectification, impotent self-
indulgence, insecurity, and fear. First Corinthians 13 can be seen as a
gauge for determining whether we truly are respecting the inviolable
dignity of the Other, in a loving procreativity, or whether we are sim-
ply falling into selfishness: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others,
it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of
wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It al-
ways protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (4–7).
Love respects the other.It seeks the other’s flourishing in freedom
and essential otherness. John Paul calls for a “disinterested love,” not
to be understood as a love that does not care or lacks affectivity.37
Rather, “disinterested love” is a love that lets go of one’s own inter-
ests for the sake of the other, that is truly selfless, and that resists the
destructive tendencies of fallen eros.
Aside from such tendencies, erotic desire can also fall into a
false procreativity, through a self-absorbed perpetuation of the self.
In the introduction to Percy Shelley’s translation of the Symposium,
David O’Connor discusses Shelley’s anxieties for the spiritual preg-
nancy of the poet: “What the Symposium presents as an incomplete

13. logos
62
but nonetheless real human openness to the divine, Shelley fears
may be an enclosure within the self’s imaginative power.”38
Rather
than reaching for the divine, the atheist Shelley worried that “ev-
ery speaker in the Symposium is a mythologist who elevates his own
erotic experience into the realm of gods and heroes.”39
Shelley wor-
ried that the erotic experience was not an experience of the divine
giving birth to the beautiful Other, but an experience of narcissism
in which one simply further generates oneself. Shelley worried that
the creativity of eros may simply be a kind of masturbatory exercise
onto the canvas.
In a similar way, the sodomites of Cantos 15 and 16 of Dante’s
Inferno might be seen not as physical sodomites but as intellectual
sodomites.When Dante comes across his former teacher, Brunetto
Latini, among the condemned, Brunetto calls Dante “my son.”40
And
Dante tells him:
For I remember well and now lament
the cherished, kind paternal image ofYou
when, there in the world, from time to time,
You taught me how man makes himself immortal.
‘And how much gratitude I owe for that
My tongue, while I still live, must give report.’41
The Dante within the story perhaps does not grasp the nature
of Brunetto’s immortality. Brunetto does not give birth to the di-
vine through his art, but gives birth to himself through his poetry and
through other poets. “Creative” activity is not always an act of open
love but can be an act of narcissistic self-creation,like the controlling
and manipulative parent who attempts to live vicariously through his
child. Through intellectual sodomy, one impregnates one’s art and
students with oneself, so that one will be made immortal through an
earthly remembrance. Brunetto tells Dante in their parting words:
“Let my Treasure [one of his books], in which I still live on, be in
your mind—I ask for nothing more.”42
This is the very narcissism that
characterized Shelley’s reading of the Symposium,and Dante warns us

14. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 63
about the end of such a self-obsessed erotic desire by placing Bru-
netto in hell.
The problem of sodomy, both physical and intellectual, is that it
fails to realize man’s procreative power. It moves man with all of the
passion of eros but stops short of true creativity. It spreads one’s self
into the world but does not bring forth a new life, an Other existing
both through and as a third, to whom one submits oneself in open
charity. Sodomy perpetuates the self and the self’s desires, but seeks
nothing more.
Christianity rejects the Shelley-Brunetto understanding of the
nature and end of erotic desire, but it does not reject erotic desire
as such. Rather, salvation history offers us a reorientation of erotic
desire.While Shelley saw the Symposium’s speakers as mythologists
elevating the erotic experiences into the realm of gods and heroes,
Christianity offers a God who comes down into the experience of
man and brings man himself into immortality.
But Christianity does more than this.While Brunetto—and also
Diotima—seek a purely spiritual eroticism, Christianity calls man
to erotic love and creativity with the entirety of his being. As Pope
Benedict XVI writes,“It is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone
that loves:it is man,the person,a unified creature composed of body
and soul, who loves. Only when both dimensions are truly united,
does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love—eros—able to ma-
ture and attain its authentic grandeur.”43
Likewise,Yannaras writes, “The human glance, the expression of
the face, the gesture, the articulated thought, the manifestation of
love—are these expressions of the soul or body? Modern depth psy-
chology has shown experimentally how difficult it is to make real
distinctions between different areas of experience and has demon-
strated the non-existence of unmixed manifestations of the body, the
soul or the spirit.”44
Man never loves as either body or soul. Rather
he loves as man, as body and soul.
For this reason, the erotic intimacy of husband and wife is espe-
cially honored in the marital act. While this erotic intimacy brings

15. logos
64
a temptation to a kind of self-absorption with each other, God puri-
fies this narcissism through the procreative openness of the couple.
Through the marital act, the couple expresses through their beings,
body and soul, not only an openness to the creation of life in their
own image, but to the creation of life in God’s image.45
In this way,
the marital act of the couple shows the proper orientation of all erotic
desire. Erotic desire in its purest form will always involve an openness
to God’s penetration into our lives and our giving birth to his image,
to the Church.Thus, our erotic desires are most elevated when they
come from the wellspring of prayer and give birth to the work of God.
Likewise, the icon of Mary the Unburnt Bush depicts Mary with
all the flame of erotic desire but with the purity and openness of true
procreativity. In the icon, Mary appears within the flame of Moses’s
burning bush, bearing her son Jesus. But because her love is pure
and God’s burning love is protective of the Other, the flame of God
encompasses her without either harming or destroying her. Rather,
through this living flame, Mary is able to give birth to God himself.
The flame of God burns most truly and most enduringly. It draws
our love into infinitude. Newman argues that the love of friendship
will only last in proportion to its binding principle.Young people, he
says, do not establish lasting friendships, because these friendships
are founded upon shared tastes or living arrangements or tempera-
ments that change. Insofar as the love of friendship is founded upon
these things, the friendship will only last as long as these things last.
Religion, however, will provide a lasting foundation for friendship,
because “religious tastes alone are unalterable.”46
The love of friendship, and any love, will be lasting in proportion
to the beauty of their pregnancies and births.The same can be said of
art.Though Dante condemns the self-absorbed narcissistic tenden-
cies of poetry, he also seeks to redeem and sanctify the poet’s work
through his Comedy.The poet lives on in Christianity.
What Dante provides are further signposts for fallen eros: narcis-
sism, ambition, and prestige seeking.True erotic desire creates out
of a love for the Other, and not simply out of an indulgence in the

16. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 65
self’s genius or artistic capabilities. The anxieties, insecurities, and
self-absorption of the modern artist derive, in large part, from such
an indulgence, and from the secular artist’s inability to commune in
humility. Much of modern art even requires an accompanying ex-
planation in order to be understood, because it does not elevate the
viewer into transcendence, but requires an explanation that pulls the
viewer into the artist’s self-enclosed mind.The viewer must either
be subsumed into the artist or attempt to import his own experience
of beauty into the work.
Fallen humanity will always tend toward fallen forms of erotic
pursuits. Every experience of desire incites a longing to procreate,
which can be marred by longings to control, dominate, or impo-
tently self-indulge.Ascetic practice, then, builds within us the habits
of self-denial and other-directedness,while prayer and charity orient
us toward authentic love, so that when the longings of eros arise, we
can procreatively pursue them.
This ascesis is the same for one becoming a great pianist.The pia-
nist requires hours of grueling practice so that he can play to per-
fection on the day of his performance.The suffering of those hours
is never the point, but it is necessary. At the same time, the pianist
needs to utilize his gifts from a mode of love and self-offering so
that he does not fall into the masturbatory anxieties of narcissistic
prestige seeking.
It is not merely coincidence that John Paul, who authored Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body and commented
on erotic love, lived a dramatically ascetic life. After his death, his
practice of self-flagellation came to light, as well as his occasional
habit of lying prostrate all night on the floor instead of sleeping in
his bed.47
Similarly, G. K. Chesterton characterizes St. Francis ofAs-
sisi as “troubadour,” as a man deeply in love in pursuit of romance,48
while St. Bonaventure remarks that Francis’s deep love was in great
part attributable to his suffering, “since affliction can enlighten our
spiritual awareness.”49
Francis was a man of deep erotic passion,who ran to kiss a leper,50

17. logos
66
who through his “lowly and seemingly sterile simplicity . . . brought
to birth seven sons” who joined him early in his life,51
who grieved
the death of a little lamb and cursed its killer,52
and who was “aus-
tere toward himself but considerate towards his neighbor.”53
While
known for his great love for all creation, at the same time Francis
“held in check his sensual appetites with such a rigid discipline that
he scarcely took what was necessary for the sustenance of nature.”54
Indeed, this love and asceticism were mutually reinforcing, in a sym-
biosis of personal development.
It was not self-hatred or the condemnation of desire which mo-
tivated Francis’s austerity.55
Rather, his asceticism was both an erotic
practice and an erotic achievement, “direct[ing] his attention to the
text of theApostle:‘Those who belong to Christ have crucified their
flesh with its passions and desires.’”56
His asceticism was an erotic
practice, in that it enabled him to love more deeply, and it was an
erotic achievement, in that the asceticism itself was a manifestation
of love. It was both an act furthering his belonging to Christ and also
an expression of that belonging.
Erotic desire, then, is the soul’s movement in the face of beauty
towards the beautiful Other. One can consume, destroy, objectify,
or control the other in a fallen form of eros. One can simply use the
other as a vehicle to indulge in one’s own generative capabilities. Or
one can recognize and respect the inviolable dignity of that other,
and be moved by that other into a true procreativity, which brings
forth new life into the world.This life could be biological procre-
ativity, but it could also be the care and nourishment of an other, the
creation of community, or artistic procreativity.
III.The Catechism and“Homosexuality”
One challenge in discussing homoerotic desire is Catholicism’s cur-
rent magisterial texts and teaching on homosexuality.Though the
“Catechism of the Catholic Church” only provides three paragraphs
addressing this topic,these paragraphs are quite dense and easily mis-

18. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 67
understood.To be sure, Catholic teaching on homosexuality draws
on two millennia of tradition, and translating this tradition onto the
modern world is a daunting task. Nonetheless, I will begin here by
attempting to clarify these teachings and address some significant
misunderstandings.
What is Homosexuality?
The first issue in discussing homoerotic desire and homosexuality
is one of language. Most people will look at the term and want to
immediately identify it with “homosexuality,” as Rachel Lu does in
her essay “IsThere Such aThing as Healthy Homoerotic Love?”57
This
would be a mistake. “Eros” predates “sexuality” by more than two
millennia, and these confusions often leave its deeper meanings hid-
den in that past. So we should begin with distinctions.
For Catholics, “homosexuality” is, at least in part, a catecheti-
cal term. Paragraph 2357 of the catechism defines “homosexuality”
as “relations between men or between women who experience an
exclusive or predominant sexual attraction towards persons of the
same sex.”58
The first thing to notice is that “homosexuality” doesn’t
just refer to an autonomous aspect of a person within his own indi-
viduality, but to “relations,” to certain modes of interpersonal inter-
action.This is consistent with the catechism’s discussion of sexuality
in general. Sexuality arises, develops, and is lived out and under-
stood in the context of relationship.59
While sexuality is integral to
the self, it does not exist solely within the self and is directed largely
within the context of interpersonal relationships. So when we talk
about homosexuality,we are talking about certain ways that men and
women might relate to persons of the same sex.
The second thing to notice is the ambiguity of the Church’s defi-
nition of homosexuality. It refers to relations between men or wom-
en experiencing an exclusive or “predominant” sexual attraction.
The Church does not have a clear line marking off what consists of
“homosexuality.”The Church does not divide its discussion of human
sexuality into a Kinsey scale of gay-to-straight or gay-to-bisexual-to-

19. logos
68
straight. It merely discusses “homosexuality” in terms of “exclusive
or predominant” attractions. In this way, “homosexuality,” as consid-
ered by the Church, may differ from how most of us use the term in
our everyday lives. And “homosexuality” may not necessarily mean
the same thing as “gay” or “same-sex-attracted,” depending on how
we or others use it.
This presents an important point of distinction.When the Church
uses a term like“homosexuality,”She may not mean the same thing as
what others are trying to communicate when they use the term. So
some will argue that the Catholic Church teaches that “gay persons”
are “intrinsically disordered,” when in reality the catechism teaches
that “homosexual acts” are intrinsically disordered. “Gay” never ap-
pears in the catechism and is thus not a term under consideration
within the text itself. Nor does “homoerotic desire” appear.
Intrinsic Disorder
The significance of these language choices become clearer when we
examinethecatechism’suseoftheterm“intrinsicdisorder.”Paragraph
2357 says, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homo-
sexual acts as acts of grave depravity,tradition has always declared that
‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’”60
The final words have
been the source of much confusion and hurt in the Church: “homo-
sexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”They are echoed, though put
differently,in paragraph 2358,which says that the inclination towards
“homosexual tendencies” is “objectively disordered.”61
One should first take note of what the Church does not say. She
does not say that homosexual persons or that gay persons are intrinsi-
cally disordered themselves. Rather, only specific acts or tendencies
toward those acts can be considered intrinsically or objectively dis-
ordered. Persons who identify as gay or homosexual or same-sex-
attracted are not disordered in their personhood. Rather, like all
persons, they have specific desires or perform actions that may be
intrinsically disordered. Persons are good. It is acts or inclinations
that may be disordered.

20. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 69
Nonetheless, these distinctions may be obscured by a common
misunderstanding of the term, a misunderstanding I will call the
“pathological” understanding of the “intrinsic disorder” of homo-
sexuality.This understanding is largely psychological, and influenced
by neo-Freudian psychologies abounding in both Catholic and non-
Catholic circles.
This common reading of the words “intrinsic disorder” when it
comes to Catholic teaching on homosexuality treats homosexuality
as a kind of pathology. It argues, more or less, that at the core of all
desire is the desire for sexual union, and this desire is the ultimate
end of any awakening of the soul in the face of another.That feeling
of awe or inspiration when you encounter a beautiful person, the
argument goes, is the beginning of a series of personal developments
that culminate naturally and necessarily into the desire for and pur-
suit of sexual union.
For Christians holding such a view, the directedness of such an
awakening is of supreme importance. If they are directed toward
persons of the opposite sex, then they are “natural” and good. If they
are directed toward persons of the same sex, then they are “disor-
dered,” and “intrinsically” so.Thus, the nature of desire, and whether
or not it is properly ordered, is determined by and pursued through
interpersonal inspiration, through the places in which you find your-
self most instantaneously and intensely drawn to communion.
Under such a view, all interpersonal desire comes under suspi-
cion and scrutiny for the person who experiences such “awakenings”
for others of the same sex. Desires become disordered because it is
the homosexual person who experiences them. In contrast, sexual
desires for persons of the opposite sex are more easily accepted and
condoned, because they are “naturally ordered.”
This pathological understanding places the “intrinsic disorder” of
“homosexuality” at the core of the personality, from which all bonds
of communion flow. It is vague and amorphous and infinitely ap-
plicable.The “homosexual person” would find that nearly all of his
“attractions” toward someone of the same sex are “intrinsically dis-

21. logos
70
ordered,” or at least very suspect. Because under this view, almost
all “attraction” is inherently going to be, at some level, illicit “sexual
attraction.”A person with such attractions would have to regard any
“awakening of the soul” in the face of a same-sex person’s beauty
with disdain.Any physical signs of affection, or possibly even having
an intimate and vulnerable conversation, with someone of the same
sex would fall under the same moral category and depravity as his
heterosexual counterpart’s fornication.
On this view, not only particularized activities or attachments of
his sexuality are intrinsically disordered, but his sexuality itself, and
thus any attachments, desires, or actions implicating his sexuality are
categorically wrong. Under this view, the homosexual person is pro-
hibited from falling in love because his pathology mars any form of
ecstatic joy in the beauty of a same-sex other.
The second reading of the “intrinsic disorder” of “homosexual
acts” I call the “teleological reading.” In philosophy,“teleology” looks
to the “ends” of things, not in a sense of completion, but in looking
to what a thing is made or meant for.A chair is meant to be sat upon.
A human person is made for happiness. Under this view, an action
in relation to a thing is “ordered” or “disordered” insofar as it works
either in accord with or contrary to that thing’s “end.” Using a chair
to beat another is “disordered” because it violates the “good” of the
chair, that which it was made and best suited for. Sin is “disordered,”
because it moves a man away from happiness.
Under a teleological reading, the term “intrinsically disordered” is
narrowly focused on particular acts.It considers acts that“misuse”man’s
sexual faculties and the specific inclinations toward those acts. For
example, both the activity of and specific desire for fornication are
disordered, because they involve engaging the sexual organs outside
of the marital relationship, for which they are meant. In this way, the
catechism’s understanding of “homosexuality” is distinguished from
how most people use the terms “homosexual” or “gay,” as people tend
to use them as markers of diverse experiences which include roman-
tic inclinations, aesthetic preferences, and erotic interests.

22. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 71
This narrow, acts-focused understanding of “intrinsic disorder”
is consistent with what other portions of the catechism have to say
about disorder.The catechism’s definition of concupiscence limits it
to appetites or desires “which produce an inclination to sin.”62
Mas-
turbation is “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”63
Acts are
clearly contemplated when paragraph 2351 calls lust a “disordered
desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure” and says that
such pleasure is “morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated
from its procreative and unitive purposes.”64
And St.ThomasAquinas
has taught that “all sex between men and women outside marriage is
intrinsically disordered.”65
Even intentions are separated out from “intrinsic disorder,” when
paragraph 1753 says that good intentions do “not make behavior that
is intrinsically disordered” good.66
Thus, the “intrinsic disorder” of
“homosexuality” does not lie primarily within the personality, or
even within intentions, but within particular inclinations towards
particular acts that are immoral apart from intentionality and desire
(even though they may be accompanied by illicit intentions and de-
sires).
Of course, it may be the case that holding hands with someone
may incite an overwhelming desire to commit fornication. But this
would be a sign of an immature or imbalanced sexuality, rather than
a sign of it acting as it ought or usually does.To say that holding hands
with someone to whom you are attracted will inevitably lead to an
overwhelming urge to fornicate is to mistake teleology for pathology.
It is true that intimate activities work on a spectrum, and there
may be acts that more strongly open man to concupiscence than oth-
ers (though such acts would not be “intrinsically disordered”). But
as we grow and develop as moral agents, these mostly fall under the
order of prudence, rather than catechetical directive.And prudential
judgments are to be made by moral agents, not imposed by outside
commentators.

23. logos
72
Chastity
Paragraph2359saysthat“homosexualpersonsarecalledtochastity.”67
One could easily misunderstand this statement. Many people con-
fuse chastity with “abstinence” or “continence.” But chastity does
not mean simply abstaining from sexual activity. Rather, paragraph
2337 of the catechism defines chastity as “the successful integration
of sexuality within the person and thus the inner integrity of man in
his bodily being.”68
Chastity does not simply mean avoiding certain acts. Rather,
chastity focuses on “integration,” on the unity of the human person,
and on interior peace. It considers the integrity of one’s sexuality.
Paragraph 2332 states: “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human
person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns af-
fectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general
way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.”69
Thus, chastity involves the successful integration of man’s body and
soul, especially in his ability to love and form bonds of communion
with others. Chastity involves, broadly speaking, the successful inte-
gration of man so that he can fully and freely love others in his words,
thoughts, and actions.
When the catechism proclaims that homosexual persons are
“called to chastity” and that chastity is an integration of one’s sexual-
ity, it argues that homosexual persons can and should find this inte-
gration.That is, homosexual persons should find a proper ordering
and unity in their affectivity, in forming bonds of communion, and,
as will be argued later, procreativity.
One should note that under the pathological understanding
of the intrinsic disorder of homosexuality, chastity is not actually
possible. Rather, if we understand homosexuality as a pathology in
which one’s innermost desires, personality, and sexuality generally
are “intrinsically disordered,” then chastity cannot be achieved. At
best, only continence, the avoidance of sexual acts, can be achieved.
If the homosexual person’s sexuality is “intrinsically disordered” as
a general matter, then finding a “successful integration of sexuality
within the person” will be impossible.

24. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 73
IV.On Homoerotic Desire
Still, the catechism’s understanding of “homosexuality” cannot ac-
count for the entirety of same-sex love and relationships. Failures
don’t just occur on the level of genital activity, but we have little
guidance in our evaluations of non-genital activity.What about the
enjoyment of just being in another man’s presence? Or the desire to
bring him coffee? Or wanting to sit by him in a library? Or to hold
his hand?What about the inclination to help him clean his house, be-
cause you really like him, because you enjoy being with him, because
you want to love him? What about the problems of relationship that
aren’t strictly sexual,like insecurity when another man you love isn’t
around, or jealousy at his affection toward others, or possessiveness?
A different language is needed here.
In contrast to the particularity of “homosexuality,” homoerotic
desire refers to any experience of being drawn out of oneself by the
beauty of a same-sex other, toward communion and procreativity.
Homoerotic desire is not limited to “homosexual persons,” but to
any person attune to the existential goodness of persons of the same
sex, to any person who can look into his fellow man or her fellow
woman and find an inspiration leading to communion and creativity.
Some may experience homoerotic desire more intensely, and each
person experiences it in different ways (“gay” persons claim a unique
experience of it). But it is at the core of any same-sex love.
At the core of homoerotic desire, like the core of any erotic de-
sire, is a recognition of beauty. And this recognition is good.To be
drawn out of yourself by another is to recognize the other’s existen-
tial goodness.To take notice is to affirm existential value. It is to say,
“I could love you. I desire to love you.”
But, as with all erotic experiences, this stirring must be ap-
proached with care and a respect for the inviolable dignity of the
other.Any proper pursuit or consummation of this desire into pro-
creativity must respect the circumstances under which we find that
other. For erotic desire toward a married person or a person ro-
mantically attached to another, these stirrings can find legitimacy in

25. logos
74
friendship,or service,or artistic activity,or in a simple joy shared.In
this way, we could imitate Francis’s or St. Jeanne Jugan’s consumma-
tion of their love of the poor, in simple tenderness, prayer, service,
and care for others.
For the romantically available, this stirring could culminate in a
friendship or in romantic attachments that flow forth into the commu-
nity,in a procreativity that gives life to the world around the two.As in
any romantic relationship,care should be taken to observe and respond
to the tendencies toward mutual self-absorption, control, dominance,
jealousy,possessiveness,insecurity,and fear.Any authentic love will be
characterized by freedom, openness, and mutual gift of self.
Catholicism does not condemn all homoerotic desire, but calls
for an ascesis that moves this desire away from selfishness and self-
satisfaction into a true wonder at the goodness and beauty of the
other, which culminates in communion and creativity. Erotic desire
that draws man out of himself and moves him toward communion
with the other is inherently good.
Even manifestations of physical affection and joy can be deeply
good. As discussed previously, man does not love with only body
or soul, but as an integrated being.And the highest love will always
come from man as man, not just as body or soul.We ought to resist
overly “theologized” or “spiritualized” accounts of love and desire
that reject their embodiedness.What Robert Sokolowski says of the
light of creation can also be said of the light of grace: “Instead of al-
lowing the light of creation to enhance what is natural and to confirm
it in its goodness and necessity, the ‘light’ may be used to make the
natural and the necessary fade—in which case it serves not as light,
which is supposed to make colors appear, but as the bleaching agent
that makes them vanish.”70
That is, grace perfects nature precisely by revealing and raising it,
rather than destroying it. Grace, rather than destroying homoerotic
desire, orients and raises it by reminding man of the true beauty for
which he longs, and directing erotic desire toward this beauty and
away from short-sighted selfish ends. Homosexual acts, understood

26. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 75
in the catechism as sexual-genital activity with another of the same
sex, are a short-sighted and selfish pursuit of what is more deeply a
good desire arising from wonder at the beauty in another and long-
ing for communion with that other. Far from destroying homoerotic
desire, grace casts light onto it and brings out its true color that may
have been dimmed or faded in its selfish substantiations.
“Homosexual acts” and “homosexual desires” fail by falling short
of the depths of homoerotic desire and their aspirations to transcen-
dence. Rather than taking desire “too far,” “homosexual acts” do not
take desire far enough. Like contraception, “homosexual acts” don’t
simply come from a posture of affirmative sin, but from a posture
of holding back, of refusing to fully embrace the other as other in
his or her totality. It reduces the wonder of the integrated beauty of
the other into a reduced pursuit, of the other’s “sexual attributes.”
Artificial contraception seeks to medicate away the natural powers of
the body, while “homosexual acts” (or any nonvaginal sexual activity)
spill these powers into places in which they reach finality.They fail
to pursue creativity aspiring toward infinitude and mistake pleasure
for joy.
Erotic desire flourishes when it leads us to communion and pro-
creativity, when it brings us out of ourselves and enables us to bring
forth new life in the world. But eros fails when it leads to posses-
siveness, control, objectification, and self-indulgent impotence. In
this way, the “disorders” of eros are much broader than the “intrinsic
disorder” of “homosexual acts.”While the failures of “homosexuality”
involve fornication and desires for fornication, the failures of eros
can involve a wide range of issues.
But sex can help to bring the dangers of fallen eros to light.Every
erotic relationship struggles between selflessness and selfishness, and
sex can especially lead to the latter. Sex pushes us toward private
spaces, toward hidden corners and private indulgence, into a mode
of relationship that crowds out others and tends away from com-
munity, friends, and family. In the biologically procreative sexual
relationship, however, the couple is forced out of these tendencies

27. logos
76
as they face the possibility of a new child and, recognizing the chal-
lenges and difficulties of child rearing, they must look to friends
and family for help and support as they bring the child to maturity.
Biological procreativity has natural supports for drawing out of the
couple’s tendency toward enclosed absorption into each other.
Even for married couples unable to conceive a child, their sexual
relationship involves just as deep a handing over of the self. Recog-
nizing sexuality, and the sexuality of the other, as a gift shrouded in
mystery,they aspire to a full openness of whatever might come of the
relationship.They hand themselves over to each other in complete
totality, in bodily and spiritual wholeness, in a way that expresses
deep openness to the life that comes from embodied sexuality. But
they do not claim control over this life.They recognize that they can-
not be the arbiters of life and death, but can only hand themselves
over to these mysteries.
And this Christian openness brings with it a catechesis in sexuality
by requiring a way of life that is more instructive than any theological
text. For this way of life aims at the very ascetic moral achievement
required for true knowledge.There is a catechesis in conjugal love
that is entirely unique to the love between man and woman.
The “homosexual” relationship, however, does not have the same
safeguards as the heterosexual relationship.A sexual relationship be-
tween two persons of the same sex does not culminate in a new life
that forces them to look out of themselves. Rather, like the contra-
cepting couple, it occurs in a way that allows completely enclosed,
coupled self-determination, separated interdependence apart from
the community.
Outside of the maritally procreative context, one must resist the
selfish allures of sexuality, so that one’s erotic desires can aspire to
something higher and deeper.The descent into a self-enclosed sexual
relationship represents one way in which homoerotic desire can fail
to reach its aspirations.Another way is that it can fall into consump-
tion and objectification, or the impotent perpetuation of the self, as
discussed above.

28. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 77
But the final way a person can fail in his homoerotic desires is
by seeking to destroy them altogether. The power of beauty often
evokes fear, because man does not know how to respond to the vari-
ous emotions and attractions welling up within him in the face of
beauty. The toddler who realizes his tendency to crush beautiful
flowers might be tempted to flee from them, worried that he could
never learn to properly cherish and love them.
Ultimately, this is the response of one who has given up on love,
on chastity, and on the possibility of growing and maturing toward
the ability to respond to one’s desires and attractions in an integrated
love and freedom. It is the decision, when faced with beauty, to bury
one’s head in the sand, and to suffocate there.
This is a far worse form of objectification than the tendency
toward consumption. Rather than consuming the beautiful in a re-
duction to sexual or other attributes, this form of objectification
reduces the beautiful to nothing. In an anticreation, it attempts to
return the beautiful to nihilo, and to do the same to one’s own incli-
nations toward love. It seeks not simply reduction, but obliteration.
It is a move toward blindness, believing that none should be noticed
and that, thus, none should be seen, none should enter upon one’s
existential plane. Rather than freedom, it dwells in fear. Rather than
integration, it necessitates fragmentation, and tends toward suicide.
Man was made for more than this.
In the face of homoerotic desire, the Church should help Catho-
lics cultivate such desires into healthy and loving forms of procreativ-
ity.She should help Catholics who experience same-sex attraction to
recognize and integrate these desires into chastity’s experience of
freedom and self-gift. To be sure, our erotic lives should be much
broader than simply homoerotic desire.And the Church should call
Christians to bring forth life into all of their encounters with the
world, to exercise erotic wonder and procreativity in every aspect of
their lives. But in the present culture, special focus should be given
to aid and encourage those who identify as “gay” or “lesbian.”
Erotic insights vary from person to person, largely because God,

29. logos
78
the source and summit of all beauty, reveals himself to us where we
are. He lies behind every corner, and he knows that we each have
our own favorite place to look. In the face of beauty, some create life
in observations of creation and scientific research, others in finding
friends and hosting dinner parties, others in studying Russian litera-
ture, others in service in law or medicine or public policy, and still
others in loving the poor.God waits everywhere,and he gifts us with
the ability to breathe life into all things. Let us begin.
Notes
1. Pope John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans.
MichaelWaldstein (Boston, MA: Pauline & Media, 2006), 316.
2 Christopher Dawson and John J. Mulloy, Dynamics ofWorld History (Wilmington, DE:
ISI Books, 2002), 251.
3. John Paul II, Man andWoman, 1.
4. Harry Neumann, “Diotima’s Concept of Love,” The American Journal of Philology 86,
no. 1 (January 1965): 33–59, 39.
5. Plato, The Symposium of Plato:The Shelley Translation, ed. David K. O’Connor, trans.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (South Bend, IN: St.Augustine’s Press, 2002), § 206B.
6. Paul Barolsky, “Plato,Aristophanes, and Michelangelo,” Notes in the History of Art 25,
no. 1 (Fall 2005): 25–26, 25.
7 John Henry Newman, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Ste-
phen Dessain and Edward E. Kelly, SJ (London: Nelson, 1970), 21:69.
8. Ibid.
9. John Henry Newman,“Sermon 5. Love of Relations and Friends,” Parochial and Plain
Sermons:In EightVolumes (London: Longmans, Green, 1924), 2:52.
10. Ibid., 53.
11. Ibid.
12. Bonaventure, trans. Ewert H. Cousins, The Life of St. Francis (Harper One San Fran-
cisco, 2005), 73.
13. Ibid., 72.
14. Ibid., 27.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 23.
17. Francis of Assisi and Clare of Assisi, Francis and Clare:The CompleteWorks, ed. Regis J.
Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 47.
18. ChristosYannaras, Person and Eros (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox, 2008), 20.
19. Ibid., 40.

30. a catholic perspective on homoerotic desire 79
20. Ibid., xiii.
21. Ibid., 83.
22. ChristosYannaras, Elements of Faith:An Introduction to OrthodoxTheology (London:T &
T Clark, 2006) 69.
23. C. S. Lewis quoted inWesley Hill, Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a
Celibate Gay Christian (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2015), 77.
24. Ibid., 78.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (2005), 10.
28. Ibid., par. 7.
29. Pavel A Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth:An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in
Twelve Letters, trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1997), 289.
30. Yannaras, Person, 84.
31. Ibid.
32. KarolWojtyła, Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T.Willetts (San Francisco, CA: Igna-
tius Press, 1993), 49.
33. Yannaras, Person, 85.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.One consequence of this fact will be that no one will truly be able to understand
either beauty or asceticism who has not practiced asceticism and also that the more
one practices asceticism, the greater understanding one will have of beauty, of the
lives of the saints, and of Christ and the Church, and the more one will be able to
participate in true friendship.
36. Florensky, Pillar, 326.
37. Wojtyła, Love, 203.
38. Plato, Symposium, xl.
39. Ibid., xliii.
40. Dante Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander (New York:
Anchor, 2002), 31.
41. Ibid., 281–82.
42. Ibid., 285.
43. Benedict, Deus, 5.
44. Yannaras, Person, 48.
45. For a discussion of God’s role in the creation of the human soul, seeThomas Aqui-
nas, Summa theologiae, I-I, q. 90, a. 2. Unlike all other living animals on earth, which
receive life simply from the parenting animals, each new human soul is a new act of
creation by God and not simply a new life created by the human parents alone.
46. Newman, Sermons, 59.
47. Collin Hansen, “Why Pope John Paul IIWhipped Himself,” ChristianityToday, Febru-
ary 8, 2010.

31. logos
80
48. G. K. Chesterton, St.Thomas Aquinas and St.Francis of Assisi (San Francisco, CA: Igna-
tius, 2002), 196.
49. Bonaventure, Life, 9.
50. Ibid., 11.
51. Ibid., 27.
52. Ibid., 85.
53. Ibid., 45.
54. Ibid., 44.
55. For Francis, charity was inseparable from asceticism. Ibid., 49–50.
56. Ibid., 44.
57. Rachel Lu, “Eros Divided: Is There Such a Thing as Healthy Homoerotic Love?” in
Living the Truth in Love, ed. Janet Smith and Paul Check (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius
Press, 2015), 23–47.
58. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Libreria EditriceVaticana, 2000), par. 2357.
59. Ibid., par. 2332.
60. Ibid., par. 2357.
61. Ibid., par. 2358.
62. Ibid., 871–72.
63. Ibid., par. 1753.
64. Ibid., par 2351.
65. JohnY.B.Hood,The EssentialAquinas:Writings on Philosophy,Religion,and Society (West-
port, CT: Praeger, 2002), 219.
66. Catechism, par. 1753.
67. Ibid., par. 2359
68. Ibid., par. 2337
69. Ibid., par. 2332
70. Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology
(Washington, DC: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1995), 22.