The Call to Love: A Catholic’s Guide to New Understandings of Homosexual Inclusivity

The issue of homosexual inclusivity within the Catholic Church has been and continues to be at the center of much debate. This thesis analyzes the issue by engaging the document ,“The Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person” written by Joseph Ratzinger. New exegetical interpretations of both Old and New Testament texts are placed in dialogue with interpretations utilized by Ratzinger in his letter. These interpretations serve to provide an alternative and liberating reading of seminal texts that have been used to oppress and exclude the Queer community from the Catholic Church. Queer theology is then used to draw connections between the experience of Christ and that of the Queer person, in order to argue that in following Christ, Catholic’s must embrace the Queer community as another part of the Cosmic body of Christ.