cormacburke.me.ke

[in Same-Sex Attraction; a Parents' Guide (Eds. John F Harvey and Gerald V. Bradley) St. Augustine's Press, South Bend, Indiana, 2003 (pp. 33-49)]

 Canon Law and Recent Developments in Psychology and Psychiatry

           Can a person with a homosexual tendency validly consent to marriage? In this chapter I shall recall established principles of canon law, and apply them to the case of homosexuality, taking into account recent changes in psychological and psychiatric evaluations of homosexuality. We shall examine these changes and weigh their possible effect on canonical jurisprudence. These changes are not, as is so often stated, strictly scientific or "value free," and must be critically evaluated in light of a proper Christian anthropology.

 I. Principles of Morality and Canon Law

            Canonical jurisprudence, as articulated in the authoritative judgments of the Roman Rota (the Vatican tribunal in charge of marriage and annulment cases), holds that homosexuality "is a disorder of the instinct or that natural tendency (psychologically, physically and effectively) of one sex towards the other, which in the nature of things... leads and urges people to that union of man and woman which is marriage."' Homosexuality is considered a "pathological state of the sexual instinct." [2]

           It is likewise established that incapacity for assuming certain matrimonial obligations "occurs in some grave cases of homosexuality." These cases "can certainly not be harmonized with the nature of matrimonial consent." [3] In other words, not every expression of homosexuality impedes matrimonial consent. "Homosexuality can only do so when one or other spouse suffers from true, i.e. grave and irreversible homosexuality." [4] (Emphasis added.)

           Canonical jurisprudence distinguishes not only between grave and less grave cases of homosexuality, but also between a homosexual tendency that is transient and one that is deep-rooted, and again between an acquired homosexual condition and one that would seem to be constitutional. "Among those who suffer a perversion or rather an inversion in the erotic appetite, one needs to distinguish those who give way to this aberration only transiently and on certain occasions, or impelled by circumstances of place or time, and who easily return to the right order when freed from these circumstances; these without doubt are in a totally different situation to others who either out of a habit firmly contracted over a long period (i.e. who have become homosexuals), or from their own constitutional makeup (who are therefore abnormal from birth), are irresistibly attracted to their own sex which medical opinion considers to have originated in an organic cause or from a pathological psychic condition." [5]

           In relation to the proof of an incapacitating homosexual condition, "there must be proof of the gravity and the incurability of the [homosexual] disorder. For a slight inhibition or one that can be cured would give rise to an imperfect and perhaps also unhappy marriage, over a period or indefinitely. But the object of an incapacity is a null marriage, not one that is simply imperfect or difficult to live up to." [6]

 II. Recent Developments in Psychology and Psychiatry

            The question could be asked: to what extent should these received principles of rotal decisionmaking be modified, in light of the radically changed position of so much of the secular world with regard to homosexuality?

           Until twenty or thirty years ago, homosexual conduct, even between consenting adults, was treated as a criminal offense in civil law, and was socially considered an unacceptable deviation. This was reflected in psychiatry, where it was universally held to be a psychic illness needing therapeutic attention. In 1973, however, the American Psychiatric Association (more specifically, its board), eliminated the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1980 the APA restricted any diagnosis of pathology to cases where homosexuality caused subjective distress, so-called "ego-dystonic" homosexuality. The APA limited this further in 1987, and in 1994 finally removed homosexuality completely from any categorization as a personality disorder. These developments found expression in successive editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), put out by the APA itself.

           The development of psychiatric thinking about homosexuality, as expressed in the successive editions of the DSM, has had wide and deep effects. The DSM is not only utilized by the American psychiatric profession, but has now become a manual of international use, having been translated into all the leading languages. The importance of this for jurisprudential purposes is all the more evident when one recalls that, in cases concerning possible consensual incapacity for marriage, canonical tribunals have come to rely heavily on experts in psychiatry and psychology, while these experts themselves tend to invoke DSM more and more. Judges tend to have a copy of DSM to hand and very frequently ask experts to give their diagnoses using DSM classifications, in the conviction that this provides the judge with a means to calibrate the scientific reliability of an expert opinion. In rotal jurisprudence, DSM is described as a "renowned work," "easily the leading account of mental disorders," "the greatly used text," "the constantly used list of mental disorders," and its terminology as the "commonly recognized listing." In rotal sentences of the period 1990-1995 which treat of consensual incapacity, DSM is referred to some 200 times.

           Given this extensive reliance upon DSM, two main questions about it urgently call for consideration: (1) its reliability, from the strictly scientific viewpoint, as a trustworthy source of unbiased knowledge; (2) its harmony with the Christian concept of man. To these two questions I now turn.

III. The Hidden Values of the Therapeutic Sciences

            There is considerable professional disagreement among psychiatrists themselves about whether the development of DSM has always been shaped by purely scientific judgments.

           Doubts about the scientific objectivity of the DSM were widely aired within the psychiatric profession after the publication of DSM-III, in 1980. Dr. Alan A. Stone, Professor of Law and Psychiatry at Harvard University and 1980 President of the American Psychiatric Association, observed: "One of the first great battlefields in the attack on psychiatry's hidden values was homosexuality. Psychiatrists had long assumed that as part of their humanistic tradition they had brought their scientific perspective to things that were once considered evil. Homosexuality became sickness rather than sin, and this perspective in this century was accepted not only by the secular masses but even by most religious authorities. However, gay liberation brought a different perspective. Their argument was that our judgments about homosexuality as sickness contained hidden values, a limited vision of human sensuality and intimacy, the old morality under a new guise, and perhaps even our own phobic limitations. A campaign was undertaken to remove the diagnosis of homosexuality from the nomenclature. Our Association, after considerable deliberation and not a little acrimony, accepted that perspective. Our Association went even further it called for an end to legal discrimination against homosexuality." [7]

           The American Journal of Psychiatry in 1984 carried an important "Debate on DSM-III" with Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, New York, and the main mind behind DSM-III, responding to criticisms from other prominent psychiatrists. This debate shows that even supporters of DSM-III admit the unscientific character of many of the changes it introduces, and urge that future developments should be more solidly based.

           These self-doubts about the reliability of DSM continue to be voiced at the highest level within the psychiatric profession. In a recent editorial of the American Journal of Psychiatry, we read: "the new DSM diagnostic process has dominated the research, teaching, and contemporary practice of psychiatry... The DSM diagnosis has become the main goal of clinical practice. DSM-IV, as 'allegedly' being more data-based, has even assumed the aura of allowing psychiatry to keep pace with the rest of medicine as a 'technological triumph';... all of this apparent precision overlooks the fact that as yet, we have no identified etiological agents for psychiatric disorders. Our diagnoses are nowhere near the precision of the diagnostic processes in the rest of medicine." [8]

 IV. Evaluating the Hidden Biases

            What can we make of these misgivings, voiced by leaders within the psychiatric profession itself, about the non-scientific influences upon the DSM and its treatment of homosexuality ? How much science and how much bias is there in the DSM?

          Few psychiatrists would deny that concepts of "psychic health" are enormously influenced by prevailing norms of personal or social behavior, giving rise to the danger that both psychiatry and psychology can be subordinated to, or manipulated by, prevailing cultural or class values. This danger has often been noted in the past, and it is certainly not less operative today. We quote from an article by Dr. J. Baton: "Cultural relativity plays a much larger role in the fields of mental health and illness than in most other fields of medicine. An inflamed appendix has a fairly uniform meaning in all cultures that recognize life as a desirable value. If left untreated it is a threat to life. Not so in the mental field. Even in the case of very unusual behavior, like suicide, one cannot find complete cross-cultural uniformity in its interpretation. . . . [I]n the the mental hygiene movement has accepted the democratic, worldly ascetic, individualistic, utilitarian, and competitive values of the middle class. Its criteria for mental health reflects strong personal and class biases and are in part rejected by other sections of the population." [9]

           Eaton emphasizes that " [p]sychiatrists and clinical psychologists have personal criteria of the requirements to consider a patient cured. These criteria arise out of their experiences and social value orientation. No common denominator for these definitions can be found.'"" Baton also observes: "Afrank recognition of the relativity of mental health will do much to improve both research and its application. It will reduce confusion by putting an end to the fruitless effort to arrive at a single criterion, which some scientists hope would be endowed through some magical process with the "objectivity" of temperature measured by a thermometer. Mental health cannot be reduced to such a single dimension. It is a value judgment/ with all the potentialities for variation and change implicit in such a relativistic entity.""

           In dealing with the troubled workings of the human spirit, psychiatry inevitably (even if, perhaps, unconsciously in some cases) adopts a series of philosophically or morally based value judgments about "concepts of self," about man himself, his nature, his development and end, his psychic good and health.

           It is significant to find opinions from such authoritative voices within the psychiatric profession, insisting that theirs is not an exact science, but one which relies heavily on "value judgments," on philosophy and anthropology, and also on theses rooted in sociological premises. A recent article in the British Journal of Psychiatry (which holds that psychiatry "is a social practice") stresses "the new approach to psychiatric knowledge which is developed under the influence of social anthropology over the last decade," and asserts that psychiatry "is too socially embedded in the sense that it cannot examine its own institutional assumptions, and mistakes the particular for the universal." [12]

 V. A Christian View of Man and Scientific Opinions in Marriage Cases

            Reflecting on all of the above, the canonist's mind is naturally drawn to the 1987 Address of Pope John Paul II to the Roman Rota. There the Pope insisted on the ecclesiastical judge's responsibility, in marriage nullity cases, to detect and evaluate the anthropological or philosophical presuppositions that necessarily underlie a psychiatric or psychological opinion. The Holy Father warned of the "the very grave danger ... as regards decisions about the nullity of marriages" if the judge, unaware that "the anthropological view, which underpins so many currents of thought in the field of modern psychological science is as a whole irreconcilable with the essential elements of Christian anthropology," were to give judicial weight to expertise based on false anthropological presuppositions. [13]

            Even if the majority of psychiatrists for whatever reasons were to conclude that homosexuality is no longer to be considered a disorder, Christian anthropology cannot accept this conclusion. According to the Christian understanding of man, human nature, weakened though not intrinsically corrupted by Original Sin, is beset in almost all of its faculties and powers by disordered tendencies, whose presence there calls for a constant struggle. Every normal person experiences these disturbed tendencies in a particularly strong way in the whole area of sexuality. Hence the concept of "normality," in regard even to heterosexuality, is somewhat equivocal, for the "normal" heterosexual person also experiences disorders and must continuously strive to correct or check these deviations, so as to keep his or her balance in what is a basically turbulent situation.

            The Catechism of the Catholic Church, treating of sexuality in general, insists that it needs proper integration into the existence of each person a vital task that cannot be achieved without the exercise of the virtue of chastity and the use of human and supernatural means. "All the baptized are called to chastity [which] means the successful integration of sexuality within the person"; "Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy"; "Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life." [14]

            On this background, the Catechism goes on to speak of homosexuality. "Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. Tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. . . . Under no circumstances can they be approved. . . . The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. . . . These persons are called to fulfil God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.. . . Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of selfmastery that teach them inner freedom. . . by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."' [5]

           The Church therefore holds that homosexuality is a disorder, whether considered as inclination or as conduct. It naturally distinguishes between homosexual tendency, which in itself has nothing sinful to it, and homosexual practice which is always sinful just as it distinguishes between the strong but not-consentedto temptation to infidelity in a married person, and actual adultery on that person's part. The insistence on the possession and application of Christian anthropological standards calls on courts, as well as court experts, to check on their own working presuppositions. If a judge lacks a due grasp of Christian anthropology, he is likely to uncritically absorb the operative values underlying each expertise, and be unable to fulfill his mission of deciding whether or not they are acceptable and applicable from a Christian point of view. Not all experts whose services are regularly used by tribunals seem to be as aware of the fact that while most of secular psychology considers certain dispositions or practices to be mutually incompatible or exclusive, Christian thought sees them as complementary and intrinsically designed for integration: freedom and commitment; self-fulfillment and self-denial; "autotomy" and "relatedness"; maturity and dependence. Secular psychologists quite regularly see "over-dependence" or "over-acceptance" as signs of an immature personality. A Catholic would be extremely cautious about applying such a criterion, above all when it comes to judging capacity for marriage which, in a Christian understanding, is a way of life that calls for a high degree of both mutual acceptance and mutual dependence.

           The relationship between frequently invoked psychological concepts, such as "self-esteem" and "freedom from shame or guilt," or "self-doubt" and "self-actualization," would probably be interpreted quite differently according to whether one has a Christian or a secularist anthropological outlook. The same would hold, no doubt, for the nature and psychological evaluation of "self-image" or "self-assertion," or for the concepts of "validation" or of "healing."

            The idea that people can be in "syntony" in positive emotional response with a bad or unworthy tendency is a logical consequence of the current philosophy of "self-definition," which opposes the notion of a given human nature, common to all, and therefore cannot accept that certain actions are "natural" and others "anti-natural." It holds that each person rather has the absolute right to define oneself, one's goals, and the parameters of personal conduct which one considers "acceptable," all of which undoubtedly facilitates the ego-syntonic goal of "being at peace with oneself." In this view, conscience loses its character as a higher, independent, and critical voice of truth and is reduced to an ego-syntonically regulated stamp of approval placed by the subject on whatever he or she wants to do.

            The Church has always rejected this total moral subjectivism, this self-threatening current of thought in which freedom is exalted "to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values ... in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and 'being at peace with oneself. . ." [l6]

           Even if morality is left aside, two questions can be posed from the purely psychological point of view. First, is it possible that a person can feel "ego-syntonic" that is, completely "at peace" and experiencing no personal distress at all about any action or form of conduct whatsoever that he or she claims to consider acceptable: murder or rape for instance? Secondly, if one allows that this is possible, can such subjective tranquility about objectively inhuman conduct be taken as a sign of psychic normality, or ought it rather not be considered proof of grave mental pathology?

 VI. The Canon Law of Marriage and Homosexuality

            As a possible canonical ground of the nullity of marriage, homosexuality is treated almost exclusively within the ambit of canon (abbreviated hereafter as "c.") 1095. C. 1095 refers to "a grave defect of discretion" or incapacity which undermines the apparent consent to the marriage." This should not be permitted to lead to a neglect of its possible relevance under the terms of c. 1098. If, in order to bring about marital consent a person deliberately conceals a deep-rooted homosexual tendency, a prima facie cast is already present for a declaration of nullity, since such a condition certainly "of its very nature can seriously disturb the partnership of conjugal life" (cf. c. 1098). If what had been deliberately concealed were not just a homosexual tendency, but previous homosexual activity, the case would be so much stronger.

             As we saw from the principles enunciated earlier, jurisprudence is agreed that a grave homosexual condition, present at consent, can provoke consensual incapacity under c. 1095(3). Care must be taken however lest judgments in this field be too absolute. Otherwise there is the danger of converting certain psychic anomalies which provoke consensual incapacity in particular circumstances (when the anomaly is grave; when the married obligations for which it incapacitates are constitutionally essential) into matrimonial impediments in all circumstances which is clearly not the legislator's intent as expressed in c. 1095.

            No small number of cases coming to the Rota suggest that for some judges and experts, the slightest evidence that some of the diagnostic criteria proposed by DSM for identifying a psychic disorder were present at the time of consent suffices to prove a party's incapacity for marriage under c. 1095. Such a practice ignores two evident facts: (1) DSM in its explicit desire to be exhaustive, classifies many "disorders" which cannot be even remotely connected with capacity for the essential obligations of marriage (as c. 1095 requires); (2) no less importantly, it passes over the clear principle, long established in rotal jurisprudence and recalled in 1987 by Pope John Paul II that "an argument for real incapacity can be entertained only in the presence of a serious form of anomaly ..'" [7] The editors of DSM-IV seem to have wished to preclude such superficial reading or use of their manual when they write in their introduction: "It is precisely because impairments, abilities, and disabilities vary widely within each diagnostic category that assignment of a particular diagnosis does not imply a specific level of impairment or disability. " [18].

            The editors add another "caveat" which is specially significant for those who habitually have recourse to DSM for canonical cases under c. 1095. "The fact that an individual's presentation meets the criteria for a DSM-IV diagnosis does not carry any necessary implication regarding the individual's degree of control over the behaviors that may be associated with the disorder. Even when diminished control over one's behavior is a feature of the disorder, having the diagnosis in itself does not demonstrate that a particular individual is (or was) unable to control his or her behavior at a particular time." [19] This distinction in DSM between "diminished control" and "inability to control" corresponds to the distinction in canonical jurisprudence between "difficulty" which does not invalidate consent and "incapacity," which does. This is firmly established in rotal jurisprudence, and was also recalled by the Pope in his address to the Rota in 1997: "For the canonist the principle is clear that incapacity alone, and not just difficulty, in giving consent and achieving a true community of life and love, renders marriage null." [20]

           This caution applies to other conditions that are frequently dealt with under c. 1095. A formal sentence of consensual incapacity not only takes away the ecclesial right to marry of the person so judged, but deprives anyone wishing to marry him or her of the same right at least as regards the marriage desired. No one can marry a person incapable of valid marriage consent. While the point may have less importance in regard to no. 2 of c. 1095 (a "grave defect of discretion" can at times be of a transitory nature), it calls for attentive consideration with respect to certain chronic or constitutional conditions that are at times invoked as grounds for the "incapacity of assuming" of no. 3 of the canon.

            Declarations of nullity which correspond to truth and justice serve to protect and uphold ecclesial rights. Such rights, however, can be undermined if the principles underlying a declaration of nullity are not properly grounded in justice. It is only for very grave and solidly proven reasons that a person can be deprived of the natural and ecclesial right to marry (cf. c. 1058).

            According to established jurisprudence, as we have noted, a mild or moderate homosexual condition does not justify a declaration of consensual incapacity. Several reasons bear out the prudence of this.

            1. A "real" homosexual has an exclusive sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex and, at the same time, not simply a mere lack of such attraction but an actual repugnance regarding physical sexual relations with persons of the opposite sex. "When faced with a homosexual subject a first question of major importance must always be made: that is, whether it is a case of a constitutional homosexual or of one that should be considered 'occasional.' To be justified in speaking of a real homosexual, i.e. of one who is constitutionally so, it is not enough that there be an attraction towards persons of the same sex. It is necessary that there also be a distaste for the other sex. Every homosexual who does not fulfil this last condition is probably an occasional homosexual. .. . The true homosexual is an instinctual deviant in the proper sense of the term: everything occurs in him as if he were born of an element carrying sexual inversion in itself." [21]

            2. To have (or to have had, in the past) a certain homosexual tendency is by no means infrequent. Whether persons with such a tendency are properly classified under the heading of "bisexual" (having a sexual orientation toward people of either sex) is a question that may be of interest to the psychiatrist, but it is not important to the ecclesiastical judge, since it is clear that such persons cannot be barred from exercising the right to marry. Their natural attraction to marriage remains and, if they marry, their usual motive is love for their partner. A recent study in a psychological review makes this point (in relation to lesbians): "The great majority of bisexual or lesbian women reported that they got married because they were in love with their husbands and desired marriage ... studies indicate that their marriages may be no more conflicted than heterosexual marriages." [22]

            3. The sentence of one appeals court seemed to look positively on the contention that one can "speak of a homosexual tendency of antecedent gravity, and for this very reason incompatible with the assumption of matrimonial life." Here there is the danger of failing to distinguish, not only between tendency and practice, but also between a bad tendency, which simply reflects fallen nature, and the curbing of that tendency which, along with showing moral strength, can also be inspired by love for one's partner.

            There can be no grounds for holding that an immoral tendency, if resisted, can incapacitate a person for the undertaking or fulfillment of any essential marital obligation. Otherwise it would follow that someone highly subject to sexual temptation is incapable of validly marrying, since he or she will go through married life with a constant urge to infidelity although he is also determined to resist those temptations and has hitherto normally succeeded in doing so. This is surely not correct. Moreover, even if occasional falls were to occur during actual married life, it would seem impossible to conclude with certainty that this was due to incapacity, and not just to difficulty.

            A tendency cannot be held to cause incapacity. We all have tendencies to act perversely. For the juridic proof of consensual incapacity, what has to be established is not the anomaly or pathology of having wrong tendencies, nor even that of yielding to them (which per se simply shows a voluntary giving way to a bad moral inclination), but the anomaly of not being capable of resisting them.

            Nor is this clear principle undermined by an expert opinion to the effect that the tendency in question is "constitutional" or "inherited." If the tendency is held in check, so that a person's con duct remains within the norm, the tendency cannot incapacitate. It is not a tendency which one manages to control, but conduct which one cannot control, that can sustain an allegation of incapacity under c. 1095(3).

            4. The mutual exchange of the right to true conjugal acts is essential to the constitution of marriage. According to c. 1084(1), impotence or the inability to have sexual intercourse makes a valid marriage impossible (although the application of this rule to the marriage of an aged person is beset with evident difficulties). However, while the simple ability to perform the act is required, mainstream rotal jurisprudence has consistently refused to endorse any suggestion that the ability to give or derive sexual satisfaction through the act is an essential obligation under c. 1095. Thus, as regards frigidity in a woman (which is not accepted as a form of impotence), even tentative suggestions that it might be regarded as an incapacity for some essential matrimonial obligation under c. 1095(3) have gathered no support.

            A homosexual tendency may render the conjugal act less satisfactory to one or both spouses, just as frigidity in the wife does. But (always allowing for the possible relevance of c. 1098) a "less than ideal" ability to perform the act offers no basis for a declaration of consensual incapacity under c. 1095.

            Two older persons for whom the physical side of marriage the actual conjugal act is of little or practically no interest have the right to marry, even if this lack of interest derives from a rooted homosexual condition that was always present in one or other party.

            5. If Church jurisprudence were to hold that any degree of homosexual inclination incapacitates for exercising the legitimate right to marry, this could be held discriminatory also in regard to the rights of homosexuals themselves. It would deprive them of the possibility of marrying someone whom they wish to marry and who, despite their condition, wishes to be united in marriage with them. From the supernatural point of view, they would be deprived of the special sacramental graces of marriage, which are such a powerful help to salvation and holiness.

            A psychologist with broad experience in this field writes: "I have had contact with more than one homosexual whose marriage had been a great help in avoiding homosexual adventures and in [avoiding] abandoning himself to other neurotic inclinations. The situation of many married homosexuals is identical with that of other married neurotics. It is sensible to warn a homosexual as well as his future marriage partner of the difficulties they will almost certainly face if they decide to marry, but it must not be an iron rule to discourage such intended marriages." [23]

 Conclusion

            Christian personalism, given such a prominent place in Gaudium et Spes by the Fathers of Vatican II, and so powerfully developed by Pope John Paul II, is rooted in the truth that "man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself" (GS, 24). To avoid alienation and indeed total frustration, we need to come out of ourselves, to "lose our life" in search of higher values and in real service toward others in order to find it. The confusion about homosexuality is one more outgrowth of the egosyntonic mentality (the "learning to like oneself" approach) that has been the tonic of psychological thought and therapeutic practice for the past half-century and more. How far this approach is from the truth about human freedom and fulfillment is a matter that each Christian, and particularly each Christian psychologist or psychiatrist, should be able to judge for himself. In their reflections they could find no better guide than the closing words of Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Veritatis Splendor:

            I ask everyone to look more deeply at man, whom Christ has saved in the mystery of his love, and at the human being's unceasing search for truth and meaning. Different philosophical systems have lured people into believing that they are their own absolute master, able to decide their own destiny and future in complete autonomy, trusting only in themselves and their own powers. But this can never be the grandeur of the human being, who can find fulfilment only in choosing to enter the truth, to make a home under the shade of Wisdom and dwell there. Only within this horizon of truth will people understand their freedom in its fullness and their call to know and love God as the supreme realization of their true self. [24]

NOTES

*   Editors note: This chapter is an adapted form of the section on legal considerations, of a sentence of July 9, 1998 of the Roman Rota. The rotal "Turnus," or panel of judges, in that case was presided over by Msgr. Burke, who also wrote the decision.

1  c. Huot, Jan. 28,1974: R.R. Dec., vol. 66, p. 28. (R.R. Dec. refers to the officially published volumes of rotal decisions, "c." (or "coram") indicates the Presiding judge in the particular case cited.

2 c. Pompedda, Oct. 6,1969: vol. 61, p. 917.

3 c. Anne. Feb. 6,1973: vol. 65, p. 64.

4 c. Pompedda, Oct. 19,1992: vol. 84, p. 496.

5 c. Pompedda, supra note 2, at 916.

6 c. Serrano, July 18,1981: vol. 73, p. 423.

7 137 American Journal of Psychiatry 890 (1980).

8 "Putting DSM-IV in Perspective," 155 American Journal of Psychiatry 159 (1990).

9 J. Eaton, "The Assessment of Mental Health," 108 American Journal of Psychiatry 81-90 (1951).

10 Id. at 82.

11 Id. at 89.

12 R Littlewood: "Against Pathology: The New Psychiatry and Its Critics," 159 British Journal of Psychiatry 696,699 (1991)

13 Se AAS 79 (1987), 1454-55.

14 Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2348, 2337, 2339, 2342.

15 CCC, no. 2357-59.

16 Veritatis splendor no. 32.

17 AAS 79 (1987), 1457.

18 DSM-IV, p. xxiii.

19 Id.

20 AAS 79 (1987), 1457.

21 P. Zavalloni, Elementi di psicopatologia educativa, 1982, pp. 49-50. A declaration of incapacity for a valid marriage is certainly not justified in the case of an "occasional homosexual."

22 Dr. Eli Coleman: "The Married Lesbian": 14 Marriage and Family Review 121,132 [1989],

23 Gerard J. M. van den Aardweg: On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality, 147 (Praeger, New York, 1986)

24 VS no. 107.