Bishop Tom Gumbleton told a CTA audience that "Always Our Children," the recent pastoral letter of the U.S. Bishops to parents of homosexual children, is a very positive development, but just one step in a process of changing the Church and its teaching on homosexuality. More steps are needed.

The letter says homosexuality is a stable condition, present from a child's earliest years. Having said that we must help homosexuals to fully accept who they are, with their own sexuality, "we are at a critical point in dealing with the pastoral message that active or genital homosexuality is totally against Church teaching," Gumbleton said. For openers, be clear that primacy of conscience is sound Catholic teaching: this was asserted in the first draft but omitted in the final version of the pastoral. "Judging the sinfulness of any particular act is a matter ultimately between God and the individual person," he said, citing both Vatican II and the more recent Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Catholic teaching on human sexuality has changed over time. Pleasure in married sex was long regarded as sinful, to be tolerated only for procreation. As that teaching has changed with increased understanding, so can our teaching about homosexual sex, Gumbleton said.

At present, church teaching expects homosexuals to be celibate. "But celibacy is a call from God. A person chooses celibacy," stressed Gumbleton. Will the bishops come to affirm celibacy as a charism for some and not for all? "It won't be soon," he said. "But that shouldn't discourage us. Changing attitudes will take time. We are a big church, 800 million people with a history of distortions on teachings of sexuality. If we've been programmed, give us a chance to change. Don't just make demands. That should be the attitude."