Our sexual identity

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
February 8, 2012

We need to be more aware of this concern. This has been taken for granted for so long that now we have quite a mess of an issue.

Many people now feel quite free as to what sexual orientation they want, as if their sexual identity is a matter of their orientation of preference, totally at their mercy or absolutely of their own choosing. As if no objective law governs it.

While we always have to be tolerant to all sorts of ideas, theories, mentalities, cultures and lifestyles, we also need to be reminded that not everything has the same weight and value, and that not everything is correct and proper. Otherwise, we would have pure chaos.

Lately, we hear a US federal court has overturned the California same-sex marriage ban, considering such ban as unconstitutional. This is one consequence, affecting a country’s legal system, of the confusion and chaos that would ensue if we are not clear about things.

In the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read the following relevant point:

“God has created human beings as male and female, equal in personal dignity, and has called them to a vocation of love and of communion. Everyone should accept his or her identity as male or female, recognizing its importance for the whole of the person, its specificity and complementarity.” (487)

When we are born, we are either male or female. That’s why the first thing we look at even while the baby is still in the womb, as in the ultrasound probe, is the organ. The hermaphrodite is an anomaly that needs to be corrected one way or another.

We have to accept this biological distinction and start to build up on it, because our sexual identity is not only biological, but is also connected to our whole human nature as a person, both individual and social, and the whole gamut of considerations that we are subject to.

In other words, we have a responsibility of affirming, developing and defending our sexual identity. We need to cultivate our sexual identity especially, giving utmost care and attention in areas that are subject to changing understanding. We carry that out with God’s grace and with all the effort we can give. And it’s an ongoing affair.

We just cannot sit pretty and think we will be male or female by mere biological inertia. We need to act on it, especially these days when confusing ideologies and fashions tend to blur the distinction and to hold our sexual identity captive to very subjective criteria, instead of linking it to God’s law and our duty toward others.

That confusing phenomenon is pretty much a by-product of our crisis of faith, of where to find our ultimate guide, since there are now a growing number of people who think things just depend completely on us and on our consensus. No such thing as God.

And much less would they give a hoot to Church teaching.

Thus, we should realize that a kind of campaign, a kind of catechesis is needed. In fact, the whole concern of evangelization should include this issue if it has to be an integral evangelization.

We need to remember that just like everything else in our life, like our body, our talents, our freedom, etc., our sexual identity did not originate with us, but with God, our creator, with the procreative mediation of our parents. We always need to refer our sexual identity to God and his laws.

Such effort to affirm, develop and defend our sexual identity is what comprises the virtue of chastity. It’s the virtue that integrates our sexuality within the person, making it truly human, and not just a toy to play with, or a human aspect merely ruled by hormones.

Admittedly, it’s a complex virtue to develop. At the moment, it seems tangled in a mess of negative impressions composed of myths and other historical misunderstandings that need to be sorted out and explained. This will take time and we can expect a lot of controversies.

But with patience, I think we can succeed in clarifying things. Chastity is such a beautiful virtue that would enable us to love God and others properly – all the way to the use of our sexuality. It takes us away from the clutches of a self-centered vision of life, blind to the spiritual and supernatural dimension of our life.