Sir, - Pat Buckley (August 12th) claims that the "world psychiatric community" has "removed homosexuality from its list of medical and psychological `disorders'." Is he not exaggerating and universalising the 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association, which is only one member of the World Psychiatric Association?
In 1977 a survey of American psychiatrists revealed that 69 per cent of them continued to believe that homosexuality was a pathological adaptation and not a normal variation (cf. Lief, H.I., "Sexual Survey 4: Current Thinking on Homosexuality," Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, 11 [1997] 110-111).
Six editions of the authoritative Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry give six different answers to the question of whether homosexuality represents a sexual disturbance. In the first edition (1967) the response was clearly affirmative. The answer given in the second edition (1975) was less clear. The third edition (1980) answered in the negative. The fourth edition (1985) and especially the fifth (1989) show a cautious return to the position that homosexuality is the result of a defective psychosexual development, so that the fifth edition is in fact rather like the first. The sixth edition (1995) modifies but maintains the position taken in the fifth. Maybe Pat Buckley has the current edition.
Very wisely the traditional Catholic moral evaluation of homosexual acts is based on sacred scripture and constant tradition and does not depend on any of the diverse psychological theories of homosexuality.
While the insights of psychology and psychiatry are important in contributing to our understanding of the phenomenon of homosexuality, pastoral carers of homosexual persons should keep in mind what Pope John Paul II has stated in Veritatis Splendor: "Clearly, situations can occur which are very complex and obscure from a psychological viewpoint, and which influence the sinner's subjective imputability. But from a consideration of the psychological sphere one cannot proceed to create a theological category. . ." - Yours, etc.,
Rev Peter O'Callaghan, Inch, Killeagh, Co Cork.