Actually, if you understood the nature of the church then you would understand that she is the final authority on doctrine through the office of the Magisterium. The actions (positive or negative) of the members of the church do not reflect on her authority to teach as this authority is a gift from God and not a by product of the morality of the individuals of the church.
The Magisterium is well documented in both the scriptures and the oral teachigs of the church.
The teaching on homosexuality is firmly grounded in the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium and has been taught since the time of the Apostles.
The Magisterium is a Catholic function and philosophy (pertaining to the pope being vested with that authority), and so is not a term that can really be applied to anything outside of Catholicism, never mind trying to characterize it as "final authority" or more ridiculously, "a gift from God." It is a human invention as much as "royalty" is.
Paul was talking about pederasty because thats how they saw homosexuality at that time. In fact, we don't even see a written account of the term "homosexual" until the 19th century. Clearly the church condemned homosexual acts and pederasty since the very beginning. I can show church father after church father condemning it in the strongest terms. I'm not sure how you can see these condemnations and come to any other conclusion. Can you show me any early Church fathers that accept homosexual acts as moral? You won't find a single one. What does that tell you?
These condemnations come from human beings, not God. Their words are not infallible to me. These "church fathers" were no more human than you and me, and the only difference is that they held their "authority" to be indisputable, thus allowing them to get away with so much over the centuries, child abuse notwithstanding.
You are wrong in that pederasty meant homosexuality "back then." All you have to do is look up the semantics of the specific word Paul used, and you will see it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexual relationships. Paul could have used any of the other 9 words at the time, yet he used that specific one.
I am not confusing the bible with the church. I understand both very well. I understand that the Bible is one part of Revelation along with the Oral teaching of the church and that the church has been given the gift of the Magisterium to interpret both.
"The church" is not an infallible authority. That is an insult to the other major religions, including Judaism, Islamism, Buddhism, etc. The "church" of which you speak of, is just a religion with a certain point of view, amongst many other religions of the world. To speak of it as having been "given the gift of the Magisterium" is to engage in ethnocentric thinking. It is then not so surprising that a great deal of wars in the history of humankind, were waged based on these false principles.
