"What we know," he added, "is that nothing escapes the providence of God, even disorders, pathologies, sin, and evil. In a very poignant section on providence and the scandal of evil, the Catechism points to the fact that God has created the world and humanity in a state of journeying. Nothing is perfect and so disorders exist."
However, we can be confident that God works to bring good from the consequences of disorder and evil, "even those who struggle with disordered desires can, by God's grace, come to embrace their call to be his children and to live in the dignity to which he has called them, even as they may suffer temptation."
"In fact, it can be in the face of temptation that a person's reliance on God becomes all the more strong," he noted.
In his pastoral experience with people who have same-sex attractions, Petri said some have a harder time believing in God's love than others.
He added that he has found it useful to compare disordered sexual desires to other disordered desires people experience, whether in relation to food, drink, or other things.
Petri noted that confusion sometimes stems from "the tendency to treat [homosexuality] as an identifying trait of the person, as though it is somehow fixed as an ultimate reality for a person," Petri said.
"It's not. The identifying trait of each us is that we are loved by God and children of God. Everything else revolves around that."
"Attractions, sexual or otherwise, are complicated. They come and go, can alternate and shift, and can often be fickle. Our dignity as human beings is that with grace we are called to become masters of our desires and not servants to them."
Mary Farrow worked as a staff writer for Catholic News Agency until 2020. She has a degree in journalism and English education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.