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The Catholic Church or Roman Catholic Church is the Christian church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus and spread by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter.The Catholic Church is the largest Christian church, representing around half of all Christians, and is the largest organized body of any world religion.According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, the Catholic Church's worldwide recorded membership at the end of 2005 was 1,114,966,000, approximately one-sixth of the world's population.The worldwide Catholic Church is made up of one Western or Latin and 22 Eastern Catholic autonomous particular churches, all of which look to the Bishop of Rome, alone or along with the College of Bishops, as their highest authority on earth for matters of faith, morals and church governance. It is divided into jurisdictional areas, usually on a territorial basis. The standard territorial unit, each of which is headed by a bishop, is called a diocese in the Latin church and an eparchy in the Eastern churches. At the end of 2006, the total number of all these jurisdictional areas (or "Sees") was 2,782.The Church traces its history to Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, and sees the bishops of the Church as the successors of the Apostles in general, and the Pope as the successor of Saint Peter, leader of the Apostles, in particular. The first known use of the term "Catholic Church" was in a letter by Ignatius of Antioch in 107, who wrote: "Where the bishop appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."The Church's catechesis makes use of the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, summaries of the main points of Catholic belief. The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives a "systematic presentation of the faith" and a "complete exposition of Catholic doctrine". The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, first published in 2005 and in English in 2006, is a more concise version of the Catechism, in question and answer form.In addition to all of the main points of orthodox trinitarian Christianity, Catholics place particular importance on the Church as an institution founded by Jesus and kept from doctrinal error by the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, and as the font of salvation for humanity. The seven sacraments, of which the most important is the Eucharist, are of prime importance in obtaining salvation.The teachings of the Catholic Church are derived from two sources, firstly the Sacred Scriptures (the Bible) and secondly the Sacred Tradition. Both are ultimately governed and interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church.In his 1943 encyclical letter, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Pope Pius XII encouraged Biblical scholars to study diligently the original languages of the books of the Bible (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic for the Old Testament; Greek for the New Testament) and other cognate languages, so as to arrive at a deeper and fuller knowledge of the meaning of these texts, stating that "the original text ... having been written by the inspired author himself, has more authority and greater weight than any even the very best translation, whether ancient or modern." The canonical list of sacred books, and their contents, accepted by the Catholic Church are those as contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition.Catholicism is monotheistic: it believes that God is one, eternal, all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), all-good (omnibenevolent), and omnipresent. God exists as distinct from and prior to his creation (that is, everything which is not God, and which depends directly on him for existence) and yet is still present intimately in his creation. In the First Vatican Council the Church taught that, while by the natural light of human reason God can be known in his works as origin and end of all created things, God has also chosen to reveal himself and his will supernaturally in the ways indicated in the Letter to the Hebrews 1:1-2.Catholicism is also Trinitarian: it believes that, while God is one in nature, essence, and being, this one God exists in three divine persons, each identical with the one essence, whose only distinctions are in their relations to one another: the Father's relationship to the Son, the Son's relationship to the Father, and the relations of both to the Holy Spirit, constitute the one God as a Trinity.Catholics are baptized in the Name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — not three gods, but one God subsisting in three Persons. While sharing in the one divine essence, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, not simply three "masks" or manifestations of one Person. The faith of the church and of the individual Christian is based on a relationship with these three Persons of the one God.The Catholic Church believes that God has revealed himself to humanity as Father to his only-begotten Son, who is in an eternal relationship with the Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."Catholics believe that God the Son, the Divine Logos, the second of the three Persons of God, became incarnate as Jesus Christ, a human being, born of the Virgin Mary. He remained truly divine and was at the same time truly human. In what he said, and by how he lived, he taught all people how to live, and revealed God as Love, the giver of unmerited favours or Graces.After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, his followers, foremost among them the Apostles, spread more and more extensively their faith with a vigour that they attributed to the presence of the Holy Spirit, the third of the three Persons of God, sent upon them by Jesus.The Roman Catholic Church teaches that through the graces Jesus won for humanity by sacrificing himself on the cross, salvation is possible even for those outside the visible boundaries of the Church. Christians and even non-Christians, if in life they respond positively to the grace and truth that God reveals to them through the mercy of Christ, may be saved (an attitude often referred to, in the case of non-Christians, as "baptism of desire"). This may sometimes include awareness of an obligation to become part of the Catholic Church. In such cases, "whosoever, therefore, knowing [believing] that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved."Catholics are obliged to endeavour to be true disciples of Jesus. They seek forgiveness of their sins and follow the example and teaching of Jesus. They believe that Jesus has provided seven sacraments which give Grace from God to the believer.If a person dies in unrepented mortal sin, which can be forgiven through the Sacrament of Penance, he loses God's promise of salvation and goes to Hell. However, if the sinner truly regrets his or her actions before the moment of death, then he or she can undergo a purification, known as Purgatory, and eventually enter heaven.Catholics believe that God works actively in the world. Catholics grow in grace through participation in the sacramental life of the Church, and through prayer, the work of mercy, and spiritual disciplines such as fasting and pilgrimage. The Catholic laity also grow in grace when they fulfill their secular duties and try to imbue society with Christian values by being a model of Christ and his teachings.Prayer for others, even for enemies and persecutors is a Christian duty. Catholics say there are four types of prayer: adoration, thanksgiving, contrition, and supplication. Catholics may address their requests for the intercession of others not only to people still in earthly life, but also to those in heaven, in particular the Virgin Mary and the other Saints. As Mother of Jesus, the Virgin Mary is also considered to be the spiritual mother of all Catholics.Catholic social teaching emphasizes love, forgiveness, charity towards others, especially those most in need, and respect for the sanctity of life. Catholics were pacifists in the earliest days of the church, as witnessed by the fact that Christians were forbidden to join the Roman army. This was part of the cause of their political persecution in the empire. Today, however, only some Catholics hold that position, with various analyses of the "just war" theory more widely held. It should be noted that the purpose of the Catholic "just war" criteria is to prevent and limit war rather than to justify it.Capital punishment, though it has not been wholly condemned by the Church, has come under increasing criticism by theologians and church leaders. Pope John Paul II, for instance, opposed capital punishment in all cases except those in which it is absolutely necessary for the defense of a society (found almost exclusively in developing nations). After four years of consultations with the world's Catholic bishops, John Paul II wrote that execution is only appropriate "in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent." This position is also held today by Avery Cardinal Dulles, Msgr. William Smith, Germain Grisez and other Catholic moral theologians, who oppose all "intentional killing," as philosophers term it.The Catholic Church affirms the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural death. The Church believes that each person is made in the "image and likeness of God," and that human life should not be weighed against other values such as economy, convenience, personal preferences, or social engineering. Therefore, the Church opposes activities that it believes destroy or devalue divinely created life, including euthanasia, eugenics, abortion and the death penalty.The Catholic Church teaches that human life and human sexuality are both inseparable and sacred. The Church teaches that Manichaeism, the belief that the spirit is good while the flesh is evil, is a heresy. Therefore, the Church does not teach that sex is sinful or an impairment to a grace-filled life. As God created the human body in his own image and likeness, and because he found everything he created to be "very good,"then the human body and sex must likewise be good. The Catechism teaches that "the flesh is the hinge of salvation." Indeed, the Church considers the expression of love between husband and wife to be a most elevated form of human activity, joining as it does, husband and wife in complete mutual self-giving, and opening their relationship to new life. “The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, ‘noble and worthy.’” It is in cases in which sexual expression is sought outside sacramental marriage, or in which the procreative function of sexual expression within marriage is deliberately frustrated, that the Catholic Church expresses her grave moral concern.Pope John Paul II's first major teaching was on the Theology of the Body. Over the course of five years he elucidated a vision of sex that was not only positive and affirming but was about redemption, not condemnation. He taught that by understanding God's plan for physical love we could understand "the meaning of the whole of existence, the meaning of life." "The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it."However the Church teaches that sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful because it violates the purpose of human sexuality to participate in the "conjugal act" before one is actually married. The conjugal act "aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul" (Catechism 1643) since the marriage bond is to be a sign of the love between God and humanity (Catechism 1617).Masturbation, fornication, adultery, pornography, prostitution, rape, homosexual acts,and contraception are regarded by the Catholic Church as, objectively speaking, gravely disordered actions. (Whether in concrete cases they also constitute a mortal sin depends also on other factors.) The procurement or assistance in abortion can carry the penalty of excommunication, as a specific offence.The Church has been criticized for its teaching on fidelity, sexual abstinence and its opposition to promoting the use of condoms as a strategy to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, and STDs. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, has stated that Pope Benedict XVI asked his department to study the question of condom use as part of a broad look at several questions of bioethics. However, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, in an interview reported by Catholic News Agency on May 4, 2006, said that the Church "maintains unmodified the teaching on condoms", and added that the Pope had "not ordered any studies about modifying the prohibition on condom use."In the Catholic Church, there is a distinction between Liturgy, which is the formal public and communal worship of the Church, and personal prayer or devotion, which may be public or private. The Liturgy is regulated by church authority and consists of the Eucharist (the Mass), the other Sacraments, and the Liturgy of the Hours. All Catholics are expected to participate in the liturgical life of the Church, but personal prayer and devotions are entirely a matter of personal preference.The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1131 teaches: "The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions."According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1113, "The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments. There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony." For a discussion of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Biblical foundation of the Sacraments, go to Aquinas and the Sacraments.The Church is the People of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Body of Christ. It is fundamentally a communion of members, and a communion of communions, with each other and with God. The Second Vatican Council identified the nature of the Church to be a mystery. As the Body of Christ, every member has a distinct calling, and is gifted for different kinds of participation in the mission of the Church. This mission is essentially to preach the Good News to all people, to form a worshipping communion, and to help those in need, particularly the poor and marginalized.I am a Gay Catholic. I am Gay, and I am Catholic. These are two parts of me. I can not change either. The church as seen above does not support the homosexual act. I as a Homosexual Catholic have to learn to live with that. I have created this page because I have deep feelings about this.I don't have anger toward the church because of their stance on this issue. Like wise I dont think the Church dictates Policy (So to speak) to God either. I think God created me and every other Homosexual in the world in his image. He gave us free choice to acquire knowledge in this life just the same way he gave everyone else freedom of choice.Being Gay is not a choice!!!! But choosing to participate in gay interaction is. It is a choice I have made. Just as it is a Choice I have made to be a practicing Catholic.I will not let the stance the Church takes on Homosexuality exclude me from the sacraments of the church.I AM A GAY CATHOLICAnd there are many others like me.