Chastity: Never voluntarily having had sexual intercourse.
You are correct in noting the difference.
Sister Rita Mary Harwood: ``The church calls all of us to live a chaste life and outside of marriage to live a celibate life,'' she said. ``And just as the church calls a heterosexual person to refrain from sexual relations outside of marriage, it also calls a homosexual person to refrain from sexual relations.''
I don't normally agree with these outreach groups because they do tend to say it is okay to be gay since God made you that way. However, what Sister Rita is saying is what the Church does say. She does seem to correctly grasp that an inclination to be attracted to the same sex is not the same as acting on it. Gays are not to engage in homosexual relations and if the outreach programs help parishioners struggling to lead chaste lives then it is fine. Sipe, however, seems to have a problem with the Church saying homosexuality is wrong and priests should not be identifying themselves with that lifestyle.
Chastity: Never voluntarily having had sexual intercourse.Outside of marriage, that is. All Christians are called to chastity (from the Latin castus, meaning pure).
Well they're supposed to be chaste. Wouldn't think it would be appropriate to identify themselves with any sexual lifestyle. I don't care what all the fruits and nuts out in SanFran say, "gay" ain't a higher consciousness or nothin'... How can a priest identify himself as "gay"? Isn't he thus betraying his vows?