The recent instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education is not, strictly speaking, doctrinal. It is a directive based upon moral doctrine and might best be described as a prudential judgment made by “legitimate ecclesiastical superiors” and to be followed by all under their authority. Further, while it is issued by the authority of the pope, it does not, unlike Humanae Vitae, carry the more solemn weight of an encyclical. That having been said, it requires a measure of exegetical agility to interpret some of the criticisms of the instruction as anything less than a rejection of the Church’s constantly held doctrine regarding human sexuality, and homosexuality in particular. The teaching is that homosexual desires are objectively disordered and homosexual acts are intrinsically immoral. This is joined to a call to respect and extend pastoral care to those who are burdened by same-sex desire, helping them to respond, along with sinners of every kind, to the “universal call to holiness.”