Indian Catholic: Homosexuality can be reversed

Responding to the controversial legalisation of homosexuality, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) said homosexual acts are immoral and should not be licensed.

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, president of the CBCI, in a statement warned that the government legalizing homosexuality must not be construed as declaring homosexual behaviour as "morally permissible".

The "government should not give the impression that homosexuality is licensed", he said.

"Giving the impression that homosexuality is moral will bring in sexual anarchy including child abuse in society. The Indian culture which is founded on self-discipline and asceticism should not be allowed to disintegrate by opening the doors to sexual licentiousness which is already rampant in our consumer culture," warned Cardinal Vithayathil, who is also Archbishop of Syro-Malabar Church.

Last Thursday, the Delhi High Court made a landmark ruling declaring that homosexual sex between consenting adults is not a crime. The decision applies only to New Delhi.

Vithayathil acknowledged that certain individuals may be attracted to someone of the same sex because of "circumstances" or by "birth", but he stressed that homosexuality is a "pathological condition that can be reversed by therapeutic methods".

"Homosexuals should not be hated or ostracised from the community or family, simply because they have such tendency," he cautioned.

But he noted that "this does not that mean homosexual acts are moral; these acts are intrinsically evil".

"The so-called same sex marriage is immoral in any context," he continued. "There is not even sex act or marriage in it. Homosexual right is a misnomer, just as there is no right for the minority of people who are kleptomaniacs or serial killers who they say are have innate tendencies to steal or kill.”