About my own sexual disorder

Sometimes people mistakenly think that when we refer to those afflicted by homosexual desires as suffering an intrinsic disorder, we are saying something particularly and specifically nasty about them.

However, the truth is that the Church has long recognised that we all suffer a disorder in our sexuality, resulting from the primeval catastrophe known as the Fall.  We see this all around us, of course, but it is , perhaps, particularly important to look in the mirror occasionally.

The strength of my protestations against the normalisation of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle choice should not be read as any claim to moral superiority.  My sexuality is also disordered, and I am tempted to sin in many ways in that sphere, and have committed many sins of impurity in my life.

As a heterosexual man, I am naturally tempted in a heterosexual way. And Our Lord is clear that He sets the bar very high: whoever looks on a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart - so by that standard alone I am a serial adulterer, regardless of my many other sins.

Given the clarity of my understanding of the Church's teaching, and the relatively light cross I have to bear compared to those in more difficult circumstances than I face, I have no excuse for such sins, and am therefore the more guilty.

But if only those free from all sin were able to comment on the Church's teaching, we would be truly stymied.  And so I go on...