Against Nature?
Rereading Romans 1:26–27 in Context
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Thus far in this series, we have explored the Old Testament passages most frequently cited as Biblical evidence for the condemnation of homosexuality: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and the Levitical laws. As we have seen, the “traditional” reading of these texts is far from certain, unsettled both by the findings of historical-critical exegesis and the linguistic ambiguities present in the texts themselves.
Far more compelling from a Christian perspective, however, are the New Testament texts frequently marshaled against homosexuality. Since Jesus apparently had nothing to say on the subject, the discerning reader turns to the Pauline corpus, and quickly arrives at two verses in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans:
“Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.” (Rom 1:26-27, NABRE)1
Often cited as the New Testament’s definitive condemnation of homosexuality, these two verses have become a cornerstone of Catholic teaching on same-sex acts, as well as a touchstone for broader cultural debate. The 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons reads these verses as clear evidence that homosexual acts are, by their very nature, “intrinsically disordered.”2 Within the natural law framework of traditional Catholic theology, by now so familiar to us, Paul’s language of “shameless acts,” “dishonorable passions,” and what is “against nature” seems unambiguous. These verses function as essential proof-texts in the Church’s doctrinal edifice for the universal condemnation of homosexual acts.
However, like the classic optical illusion pictured above, which shifts between a duck and a rabbit depending on how one looks at it, the closer one looks at Romans 1, the more ambiguous it appears. Is Paul really issuing a timeless moral condemnation of homosexuality? Or is he doing something far more theologically sophisticated and rhetorically cunning?
In this post, I will argue that Romans 1:26–27 must be understood within the broader context of Paul’s argumentation and rhetoric in Romans 1–3. His aim in these chapters is decidedly not to legislate sexual morality, but rather to expose the hypocrisy of those who pass judgment on others while excusing themselves. When read in the context that Paul’s original audience would have received it, the very passage so often wielded as a moral indictment of homosexuals reveals itself instead as a masterful setup. Paul’s detailed description of Gentile behavior, including same-sex relations, is not the conclusion of his argument, but the bait in a trap. And as James Alison puts it, what we are dealing with is a classic example of a rhetorical “pivot”: the moment when the duck turns into a rabbit, and the reader realizes, too late, that Paul’s condemnation was aimed not at “them,” but at us.
As ever, the re-reading I will propose here of Romans 1:26-27 is not about dismissing Scripture or explaining it away. On the contrary, I hope we can take Paul’s words more seriously, not less, within the broader arc of his theology, and with due awareness of the cultural assumptions he inherited. When we engage the text on its own terms, rather than through the accumulated scaffolding of later doctrine, we may find, not a weapon to be wielded against the “other,” but a mirror of our own presuppositions and prejudices. And perhaps, like those first hearers of the letter, we too will be confronted with a humbling truth: “You have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others” (Rom 2:1).
How Has the Church Traditionally Read These Verses?
For most of its history, the Catholic Church has read Romans 1:26–27 as a clear and authoritative condemnation of all homosexual acts, grounded in both Scripture and natural law. In the 1986 letter cited above, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” because “they are contrary to the natural law” and “close the sexual act to the gift of life.”3 It explicitly appeals to Romans 1 in support of this conclusion:
“In Romans 1:18-32, still building on the moral traditions of his forebears, but in the new context of the confrontation between Christianity and the pagan society of his day, Paul uses homosexual behaviour as an example of the blindness which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than homosexual relations.”4
The CDF’s interpretation aligns with the long-standing Catholic theological tradition, which views the natural moral order, understood in Aristotelian-Thomistic terms, as the divinely intended basis for evaluating human sexuality. Within this framework, Paul’s references to “dishonorable passions,” “shameless acts,” and “relations contrary to nature” (Greek: para physin) are read as unambiguous evidence of moral deviation on the part of homosexuals. His words are taken as proof of the magisterial claims that human sexuality is naturally ordered toward procreation within the union of heterosexual marriage, and that any deviation from that purpose and context is a grave and intrinsic moral evil.
This reading of Romans 1 has proven remarkably durable, not because it is the only plausible reading of the text, but because it fits so neatly within the wider architecture of Catholic moral teaching. It offers a direct link between biblical text and extrabiblical moral doctrine, seeming to provide divine warrant for conclusions reached by philosophical reasoning. In doing so, it treats Paul’s argument as a straightforward moral assertion, rooted in an unchanging order of creation.
Yet even within Catholic scholarship, this interpretation has come under increasing scrutiny. Biblical scholars such as Fr. Thomas Stegman, S.J., caution that extracting a blanket moral condemnation from these verses neglects both their literary context and rhetorical function.5 As Stegman notes, Romans 1 is not a free-standing treatise on sexual ethics, but part of a carefully constructed theological argument that culminates in the universal need for salvation. When we isolate these verses from their intended context, we risk misunderstanding both Paul’s original intent and the theological significance of what he wrote.
Reading in Context: The Rhetoric of Romans 1–3
If we are to read Paul faithfully, as Stegman suggests, then we must read him rhetorically. Romans, after all, is not a random assortment of moral precepts; it is a carefully structured and rhetorically sophisticated argument, intended to convince his audience of both Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome that all, regardless of background, stand in need of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.6
From the outset of his letter, then, Paul sets out to diagnose the universal human condition. He paints a dark picture of Gentile idolatry, spiraling into self-deception and moral confusion. In this context, the sexual behaviors he describes—“women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (Rom 1:26–27)—appear as the visible symptoms of a deeper theological malady: their refusal to acknowledge and honor the Creator.
But then comes the twist.
At the start of chapter 2, Paul suddenly turns the tables on his readers: “Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment. For by the standard by which you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things” (Rom 2:1). The sudden therefore is the hinge of Paul’s rhetorical strategy. He has drawn in his audience—especially his Jewish-Christian readers—by rehearsing the familiar tropes of Gentile depravity, only to reveal that this condemnation implicates the judge as well. As James Alison points out, this is a classic Pauline “pivot.” The moment you think you see clearly, the image changes, and the object of critique becomes the subject of conviction.7
The purpose of Romans 1, then, is certainly not to single out homosexual behavior for special blame. It is to provoke a crisis of self-knowledge in the reader. As numerous scholars have noted, Paul is echoing common Jewish critiques of pagan Gentiles, all of which would have drawn approving nods from his Jewish audience.8 And then, with a sudden jolt, he reminds them that judgment is not the path to righteousness. All have sinned. All have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).
This context is not ancillary to the meaning of Romans 1:26–27. It is essential. To isolate those verses from Paul’s broader theological project in this letter is to miss their point entirely. As Eugene Rogers observes, “You quite miss how shocking God’s salvation of the Gentiles is, if you leave out Paul’s bold reclamation of the ugly stereotype.”9 Paul begins with the stereotype only to subvert it, challenging his audience’s assumptions and revealing their own sinfulness in one masterstroke.
In this light, it is difficult to see how Romans 1:26–27 could be intended to serve as a timeless moral absolute. It is, rather, a rhetorical device. Like the rest of Romans 1, it indicts no one until it suddenly indicts everyone. Its function in this context is to humble every reader, to “shut every mouth” (Rom 3:19), and to prepare the ground for grace.
The Real Meaning of “Against Nature” (Para Physin)
Even if the reader grants that Paul’s purpose in writing Romans 1 was probably not to condemn homosexuality, the picture he paints of same-sex relations is not a very positive one. In the most theologically charged phrase of Romans 1, he describes them as para physin, “contrary to nature” (Rom 1:26). As we have seen, the Catholic tradition has long read this phrase as a straightforward appeal to natural law, as if St. Paul were articulating the same principle later codified in the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: sexual acts are only rightly ordered when they reflect the natural complementarity of male and female and are open to life.10
But there are good reasons to question whether para physin carried that meaning for Paul.
First, we should recall that Paul never defines what he means by “nature” (physis) in this passage. Nor does he reference the created order of Genesis explicitly, though interpreters have long assumed he does. Moreover, Paul uses para physin elsewhere in Romans, in a context that is clearly not condemnatory. In Romans 11:24, describing the grafting of Gentiles into the covenant with Israel, Paul writes that “God grafted you, contrary to nature (para physin), into a cultivated olive tree.” Far from signaling disorder or sin, para physin here points to the surprising generosity of God’s grace. It signifies something unexpected, outside the norm, but not an intrinsic moral evil.
This polyvalence suggests that para physin in Romans 1 may not bear the weight of moral condemnation which later tradition has assigned to it. Indeed, in the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s audience, physis often meant something closer to “custom” or “cultural norm” than the universal metaphysical order posited by medieval Christian philosophy. As John Boswell and others have shown, Stoic philosophers regularly used physis in ways that reflected prevailing social conventions, “the character of some person or group of persons … which was largely ethnic and entirely human,” not some universal law or divine blueprint for human flourishing.11 Indeed, Paul’s own usage of “nature” elsewhere, such as in 1 Corinthians 11:14, where he claims that long hair on men is “disgraceful by nature,” would hardly be taken today as expressions of a universally binding truth.12
Some scholars argue that Paul understood heterosexual desire as “natural” in precisely this sense—either as the cultural norm, or else the inclination and character of the individuals in question. The men and women he describes in Romans 1 would therefore be departing from their own heterosexual inclinations in pursuit of dissipate and lustful indulgence.13 This seems to be how St. John Chrysostom interpreted the passage: not as a condemnation of homosexual orientation (a concept wholly unknown in antiquity), but of people “going against nature”—their nature—by abandoning opposite-sex relations for same-sex lust.14
In the cultural milieu of the Roman Empire, Paul would have been familiar with many examples of men engaging in same-sex behavior, not apparently out of any stable sexual orientation, but as expressions of licentiousness, domination, or ritual practice. For example, Greco-Roman temple prostitution often involved both men and women offering themselves sexually as part of pagan worship,15 while Roman elites, like the infamous emperor Caligula, were notorious for their transgressive and performative sexual acts, often violating the expected gender norms of the time as an assertion of imperial power and decadence.16
All of this raises a crucial question: What if the acts Paul calls “contrary to nature” in Romans 1:26-27 were indeed contrary to the heterosexual nature of the people he observed, but not to the natural inclinations of people with a homosexual orientation? To be sure, St. Paul had no conceptual category for the latter. In light of modern psychological and biological research, however, we now understand that homosexuality is a naturally occurring, non-pathological minority variant in the human condition.17 For gay and lesbian persons, same-sex desires are not a departure from their created nature, but an expression of it. To apply Paul’s phrase para physin uncritically to all same-sex relationships, then, regardless of orientation or context, is to impose a modern category of thought onto an ancient text—and thereby to risk misreading both.
Orientation and the Ethics of Love
If Paul’s condemnation in Romans 1:26–27 presumes that his subjects are acting against their own heterosexual nature, whether in the context of violent political spectacle, dissolute and decadent living, or ritual idolatry, then the moral force of the passage shifts dramatically. These verses are describing individuals who “pervert their true ‘nature’ to engage in homosexual acts.”18 In this view, the acts Paul condemns are not those of individuals for whom same-sex attraction is natural and life-giving, but of those who depart from their own heterosexual nature out of lust or idolatrous excess.
As we have seen, the text tacitly presumes that all people are heterosexual. St. Paul undoubtedly lacked the conceptual framework to distinguish between inborn orientation and willful transgression, or indeed, between same-sex relationships grounded in mutual love and those driven by lust or domination. His language reflects the assumptions of his time, in which same-sex behavior was only visible in exploitative or performative contexts. To interpret Paul’s words today as a blanket condemnation of all same-sex acts, regardless of their psychological, relational, or moral character, however, would be to extend his judgment beyond its intended scope. It is to absolutize a culturally bound diagnosis and ignore the very real difference between acts of lust and acts of love.
For the Christian moral tradition, what makes a sexual act good or bad is not only whether it is “natural,” but whether it is an expression of love. Even St. Thomas, for all his focus on procreative teleology, recognized that lust is not only about the physical act itself, but the disordered pursuit of pleasure. For Aquinas, acts that instrumentalize the other are contrary to the order of reason, and thus constitute lust in its most serious forms.19 For his part, John Paul II’s Theology of the Body draws a careful distinction between using another person for pleasure (which violates their dignity) and loving them in a way that is total, faithful, and free.20
Seen through this lens, St. Paul’s objection in Romans 1 is not to same-sex love, which he almost certainly had never encountered in the committed and mutual form we recognize today. Rather, it is to a kind of disordered lust that results from turning away from God and that manifests in acts which instrumentalize and demean the other. What St. Paul condemns are not loving relationships but symptoms of alienation from God.
This interpretation gains further weight when we consider the broader arc of salvation history presented in the Epistle to the Romans. Paul’s entire argument flows from his propositio in Romans 1:17: “The one who is righteous by faith will live.” He sets up the Gentiles as idolaters to trigger a sense of superiority in his Jewish audience, only to dismantle their confidence in Romans 2: “You have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment” (Rom 2:1). The culmination of this argument in Romans 3:23 is unequivocal: “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” The point is precisely our universal guilt and need for a savior.
To invoke Romans 1:26–27 as the New Testament’s final word on the immorality of same-sex relationships is thus to miss Paul’s entire theological aim. If anything, his rhetoric cautions us precisely against drawing moral conclusions based on external behaviors without first attending to the inward disposition of the heart. The same Paul who decries idolatrous lust in Romans 1 also insists in Galatians 5 that “the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). Love—not gender, not anatomy, not cultural conformity—is the final measure of the Christian life, as St. John of the Cross affirms: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”21
Sentire cum Ecclesia: Rethinking Romans 1 in the Contemporary Context
If Paul’s language in Romans 1:26–27 reflects culturally specific understandings of sexuality, excess, and idolatry, then a faithful interpretation today must wrestle with the question of how to responsibly engage ancient texts in light of contemporary knowledge. This is not a modernist evasion; it is a profoundly Catholic task. The Church has long recognized that Scripture must be interpreted “in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”22 That means not only honoring the literal and historical sense of a text, but discerning the enduring theological truth it conveys—and how that truth must be expressed anew in every age.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s 1993 document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church acknowledges this explicitly. While affirming the authority of Scripture, the PBC encourages the use of historical-critical methods and warns against fundamentalist readings that freeze biblical meaning in the cultural categories of antiquity, like fossils in amber.23 The document also makes a crucial distinction between the “word of God” and the “words of men,” noting that the divine message comes to us mediated through human language, culture, and assumptions. If past assumptions about gender roles, slavery, or the cosmos, for example—all of which are found among the pages of Sacred Scripture—can be reevaluated in light of doctrinal development, then why not those concerning human sexuality?
Take, for example, Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians that women must cover their heads in church because “nature” teaches that long hair is a woman’s glory and a man’s shame (1 Cor 11:14–15), or the instruction in 1 Timothy 2:12 that women should not speak or teach in church. The PBC does not propose a literal adherence to either of these texts today, because their cultural presuppositions are no longer considered binding. Instead, the Church discerns the core meaning of the verses in question—reverence, modesty, ecclesial order—and rearticulates that meaning in light of ongoing theological and anthropological developments.
Could we do the same with Romans 1:26–27?
The traditional interpretation sees Paul’s reference to acts “contrary to nature” as an affirmation of the immutable natural law, rooted in male-female complementarity. But as we’ve seen, para physin in Paul’s usage does not always signify moral disorder. It can also indicate the divine freedom of the “God of surprises” to act outside human expectations.24
Moreover, Paul’s concept of nature did not distinguish between sexual acts and sexual identity. He assumes any non-heterosexual, non-procreative acts as a deviation from the universal human norm, because he had no framework for imagining any other possibility. In the modern world, however, we recognize that same-sex orientation is not a phase, a perversion, or a choice. It is a fundamental part of a person’s identity, shaped by factors biological, psychological, and relational. If two people of the same sex live in a covenantal, loving, and faithful relationship—one marked by dignity, mutuality, and spiritual fruit—can we really say such a relationship is “contrary to nature” in the traditional sense?
The task of discernment here is not unlike that described by the PBC when discussing problematic passages on women. In some cases, the cultural element must be set aside; in others, the essential message must be re-expressed for a new context. The truth remains, but it needs to be articulated in a new way.
To be clear, none of this means that the Church must conform to every cultural trend. But it does mean that the Church is called to examine whether her moral theology remains faithful to the deeper logic of the Gospel, and have the courage to correct her course when doctrines have developed in contradictory ways, based in part on faulty reading of Scripture.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Letter, Recovering the Spirit
Romans 1:26–27 has been made to bear immense theological weight in the Church’s moral teaching on homosexuality. For many Catholics, these two verses have served as the definitive biblical proof that same-sex relationships are inherently immoral—condemned not only by Paul, but by the very order of nature itself. And yet, as we have seen, such a reading distorts both the intent and the context of Paul’s argument. To weaponize Romans 1 against LGBTQ+ persons is not only a misuse of Scripture; it is a failure to grasp the heart of the Gospel.
This does not mean the Church should dismiss these verses or try to explain them away. On the contrary, it means we must read them more faithfully: historically, theologically, and pastorally. We must ask what Paul was actually doing in his argument, what assumptions he shared with his culture, and what theological truths he was trying to proclaim. We must, in other words, undertake the hard and holy work of exegesis.
When we do—as I have attempted to do in this article—then I believe we shall discover that Paul’s message in Romans is not about exclusion, but inclusion in the most radical sense. Not because anyone’s actions are above critique, but because no one is justified apart from Christ. The proper response to Romans 1 is not judgment and condemnation, but humility. Not moral panic, but renewed trust in the power of grace. Not fear, but love. The love that fulfills the law (Rom 13:10), that builds up the Body of Christ (1 Cor 8:1), and that mirrors the mercy of the One who welcomes us all.
Such a reading allows us to affirm both the moral seriousness of Paul’s critique of idolatry and the moral integrity of same-sex relationships grounded in love, fidelity, and grace. This, it seems to me, is the logical conclusion of the Gospel according to St. Paul: grace for all, judgment for none, and the righteousness of God revealed through love.
That’s the true message of Romans. And it is good news for all of us.
New American Bible, Revised Edition (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011).
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (Vatican City: October 1, 1986), §3.
Ibid.
CDF, Letter to the Bishops, §6.
Thomas D. Stegman, Written for Our Instruction: Theological and Spiritual Riches in Romans (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2017), 26–27.
Scott W. Hahn and Curtis Mitch, Romans, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 22–24.
James Alison, You Can, If You Want To (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2025), 302–305. Unpublished manuscript.
See Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Plato or Paul? The Origins of Western Homophobia (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2009), 130–132; also Stegman, Written for Our Instruction, 24–29.
Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., “Doctrine and Sexuality,” in The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. Adrian Thatcher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 76.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 154, a. 11, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).
John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 110-111.
See Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, 110, fn. 63.
Jennings, Plato or Paul?, 134–136.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, homily 4, in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 60, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: Imprimerie Catholique, 1862), 415–422.
See Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 97–100; also Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, 108–109.
See Cassius Dio, Roman History, 59.28–29, in Dio’s Roman History, vol. 7, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), Loeb Classical Library 176. Suetonius, Caligula, in The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves, rev. James B. Rives (London: Penguin Books, 2007), chs. 36–38. See also Brent D. Shaw, “The Passion of Perpetua,” Past & Present 139 (1993): 3–45, for further discussion of Roman sexual spectacle and its political and ideological functions.
This excellent phrase is credited to James Alison. For a summary of the scientific consensus on the issue, see William Stacy Johnson, A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 61–72.
Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 139.
Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 154, a. 1–2.
John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), 123–125.
John of the Cross, “Sayings of Light and Love,” no. 64, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), 93.
Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), November 18, 1965, §12.
Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993), §§II.A.1–2, II.B.
Pope Francis, “God of Surprises,” Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, May 8, 2017, in L’Osservatore Romano, weekly ed. in English, no. 21 (May 26, 2017). See also Rogers, “Doctrine and Sexuality,” in The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender, 76.