In All Things
What Should a Gay Catholic Do?
Here's a real pastoral question to consider: What place is there for the gay person in the Catholic church? With the warning from the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., that it would pull out of social services in the city rather than accede to a bill that would afford benefits to same-sex spouses, a question, too long neglected, arises for the whole church: What is a gay Catholic supposed to do in life?
Imagine you are a devout Catholic who is also gay. Here is a list of the things that you are not to do, according to the teaching of the church. (Remember that most other Catholics can choose among many of these options.) None of this should be new or in any way surprising. If you are gay, you cannot:
1.) Enjoy romantic love. At least not the kind of fulfilling love that most people, from their earliest adolescence, anticipate, dream about, hope for, plan about, talk about and pray for. In other cases, celibacy (that is, a lifelong abstinence from sex) is seen as a gift, a calling or a charism in a person's life. Thus, it is not to be enjoined on a person. ("Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion," said then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.) Yet it is enjoined on you. ("Homosexual person are called to chastity," says the Catechism, meaning complete abstinence.) In any event, you cannot enjoy any sort of romantic, physical or sexual relationship.
2.) Marry. The church has been clear, especially of late, in its opposition to same-sex unions. Of course, you can not marry within the church. Nor can you enter into any sort of civil, same-sex unions of any kind. (Such unions are "pseudo-matrimonies," said the Holy Father, that stem from "expressions of an anarchic freedom") They are beyond the pale. This should be clear to any Catholic. One bishop compared the possibility of gays marrying one another to people marrying animals.
3.) Adopt a child. Despite the church's warm approval of adoption, you cannot adopt a needy child. You would do "violence," according to church teaching, to a child if you were to adopt.
4.) Enter a seminary. If you accept the church's teaching on celibacy for gays, and feel a call to enter a seminary or religious order, you cannot--even if you desire the celibate life. The church explicitly forbids men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from entering the priesthood. Nor can you hide your sexuality if you wish to enter a seminary.
5.) Work for the church and be open. If you work for the church in any sort of official capacity it is close to impossible to be open about who your identity as a gay man or a lesbian. A gay layman I know who serves an important role in a diocese (and even writes some of his bishop's statements on social justice) has a solid theological education and desires to serve the church, but finds it impossible to be open in the face of the bishop's repeated disparaging remarks about gays. Some laypeople have been fired, or dismissed, for being open. Like this altar server, who lives a chaste life. Or this woman, who worked at a Catholic high school. Or this choir director.
At the same time, if you are a devout Catholic who is attentive both to church teachings and the public pronouncements of church leaders, you will be reminded that you are "objectively disordered," and your sexuality is "a deviation, an irregularity a wound."
Nothing above is surprising or controversial: all of the above are church teaching. But taken together, they raise an important pastoral question for all of us: What kind of life remains for these brothers and sisters in Christ, those who wish to follow the teachings of the church? Officially at least, the gay Catholic seems set up to lead a lonely, loveless, secretive life. Is this what God desires for the gay person?
James Martin, SJ
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I am gay, and have long since come to terms with that gift in a celebratory way.
What to do? I hang on with my fingernails, at the same time that I distance myself - powerfully so - from an institution that is toxic for me (and for many others).
It's clear to me that many in the church want me to disappear, but I can't make my very humanity vanish without throwing the gift of myself and my life back in the face of a loving God who has made me as I am and who wills that I be who I am.
And so I live with the sadness of what the church does not merely to me and my sort, but to many people-and I do so with relative grace on one day or another.
The biggest sadness is being treated as if I am not here, not fully human, not capable of offering insights and testifying to the grace that is in me. I expect that treatment from those who stand on the political and religious right.
But, ironically, those are the folks who do recognize that I am here, who listen to me if only to combat what I say, and who want to shove me as far as possible out of the room. It's my brothers and sisters of the Catholic center who mystify (and, yes, deeply sadden) me, by carrying on as if I do not exist, as if my absence from liturgy and church dialogues means nothing at all, as if it's possible to talk about God, salvation, communion, the church, while pretending I'm/we're not here.
I appreciate your willingness to open a space for a dialogue that entertains the possibility I/we might just be here, and that our humanity still counts in some way for you.
I have to ask: why the extreme focus on the material or ephemeral conditions of homosexuality as opposed to its eternal implications?
Why focus on sexuality as the determining factor in personal identity as opposed to caritas/agape from God?
Why focus on the carnal aspect of love when our entire society is obsessed with sexual freedom and licence and instant gratification? In turn, is your vow of celebacy lonely, loveless and secret? Is it not an offering to God? Are your implyig that homosexuals are not receptive to grace in a similar form that your are?
Why the implied claim of scientific determinism in terms of sexuality when it is clearly false and especially so when viewed in light of the theology of free will.
Why the focus on the theraputic wellness rather than the love and peace that comes from obedience to God and his natural law.
Why are you a priest and not a therapist or social worker?
Your emphasis one material and social conditions in regard to homosexuals denies both faith and logos to this particularly small minority of the church.
This is an issue where one side can really misinterpret the other and, therefore, the possibility for discussion to devolve into "a-mudfight-at-best" is great.
So, I will try to choose my words carefully and I hope they will be, as St. Ignatius asked, be taken in the most charitable possible light.
I have always tried to make a distinction between "gay" and "homosexual" with the difference being between embracing and experiencing same-sex attraction. While the following analogy is rudimentary and wildly imperfect, I believe it will take me as far as I need to go: there is a difference between experiencing a craving for, say, cigarettes and smoking two packs a day. One's enjoyment of the former, regardless how honest and sincere does not lessen its detrimental impact. If we're talking cigarettes, on the lungs; if alcohol, the liver and if homosexuality, the state of one's own soul.
This is something I very rarely see in these discussions, a concern for the souls of individual persons. One side wants to tar the other as bigots, and the charge of libertine flies in return. Or worse.
The usual template is the Church has developed these "rules" because "they" harbor a malicious hatred of homosexuals. I'll be the first to admit the unfortunate usage of Vaticanese (where X means something different than in commonly used language) reinforces that perception. That some hurl epithets isn't exactly helping, either.
The question at the headline is extremely important, because it demands - very precisely - that we go and seek that one lost sheep. This has two very important factors to keep in mind, that we must always look for the lost sheep, and that we acknowledge the sheep we seek is lost.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I would like those who are struggling with this that at least there is one person out there who is prayerfully worried about the state of your soul.
[flameproof suit on]
AMDG,
Firstly, if one is ''Gay'' and ''celibate,'' what's the big deal? You're not having sex, homosexual or heterosexual. You can love whomever you want, you're celibate! (Perhaps a lot of self-described ''celibates'' are actually practicing homosexuals? Maybe that's the problem?)
Any ''gay'' person can marry and have children. They just have to do so with someone of the opposite sex. Fact: the alimentary tract is not a reproductive organ.
Yes, ''gay'' people should not be representing the church. If you don't believe what a organization stands for, don't join. This is not rocket science. Are'nt the recent sex abuse scandal enough evidence that homosexuals should not be in an all male, celibate institution?
Answer that, and you will have the answer to your question.
You have hit on an important point which I would like to amplify and which will answer those who blythly insist that gays accept chastity as their lot. No one should be forced into martyrdom. It must be freely chosen. Indeed, it is sinful to wish it upon another (which is also something the Pro-Life Office should look at when it makes pronouncements on acceptable therapies for ectopic and dangerous trisomic pregnancies and birth control and sterilization for those who would be in grave danger from childbirth).
Many of your conservative readers are under the misapprehension that morality exists to please God, rather than for the happiness of man. Such a view denies the perfection of God, reducing our relation to the Divine to a state of codependency. God does not need us, we need God. It is ridiculous to insist that homosexuality is disordered for one who is naturally ordered toward same sex attraction. This is especially important for gay youth, who sometimes believe what they are told and end their own lives rather than see beyond the error of the Church's teaching on this subject. Their blood is on the hands of those who insist that this teaching cannot change, who will surely face the harshest of punishments in the next life (especially those readers who now cannot claim not to have been warned of their sin).
One final word; in this whole discussion about the church and homosexuality, where is the focus on the poor of Washington, DC (where I live) who will no longer have access to services provided by Catholic agencies because the Church is willing to deny these to maintain its integrity on the gay marriage issue? Do you know how this makes us look? Do you know what Christ commanded us to do for the poor? Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, ring any bells for you? Instead of worrying about the souls of the gays who decide to follow through on their sexual instincts, maybe you should do a little more worrying about the souls of the poor and the soul of our Church when it is not following through on it's explicit mission in the world.
I agree with many others here, we are destined for eternity. That must never be forgotten; we should never ignore that on pain of sin and loss. On the other hand I am fully aware and my heart goes out to those who are afflicted with this or other disorders which preclude them from many of the common joys in life, and I fully belive a pastoral approach needs to be developed. However, it must be one that does not shy away from the fact that these disorders are disorders, nor should it seek to authorize or excuse immoral behavior.
And who have long since determined that the church's teaching on sexual ethics is simply flawed, and who will not go back to a worldview in which they are hell-bound for using contraceptives.
I wonder, as well, why my brothers (interesting who always jumps into these conversations right away, isn't it, to save gay folks) so intently concerned about saving marriage and impose Catholic teaching about sexuality in the secular sphere haven't tried to enact laws to prohibit the sales of contraceptives and to make divorce illegal.
On the face of it, divorce would appear to be the far larger threat to the stability of heterosexual marriage. Why is the church spending millions of dollars to keep gay folks from marrying, whiile doing nothing to outlaw divorce?
The question underlying all of these questions is why this preponderant, absurd focus today on gay and lesbian human beings, particularly on the part of many heterosexual males in church and society? What drives that interest?
Somehow, I find it hard to see whatever is driving the interest as a concern for salvation of souls. And I think that until those churches who continue to demean, exclude, and harm a stigmatized group of human beings come to terms with what is really driving them in this crusade, those churches are going to keep on undermining their most fundamental assertions about morality and the gospel.
And it continues to interest me that my brothers and sisters of the center, many of whom have long since accepted the use of artificial contraceptives in marriage, and have critiqued the ethical norms prohibiting that use (which are precisely the same as those prohibiting homsexual activity), remain silent about this challenge facing the churches. And about the ongoing pain of their brothers and sisters who are gay or lesbian, and who will no more go back to that unconvincing little world of ill-considered certainties about everything and misplaced interest in the afterlife than married Catholics using birth control will.
How do churches work themselves into places when such obvious cruelty appears holy? They did so during the Crusades, in the period of pogroms, in the slave period, in the years of European colonial domination of the rest of the world, in the centuries in which women were regarded as misbegotten males. And they continue to do so in the case of LGBT human beings.
How does this keep happening? And why does it not intently concern us, more than the salvation of the souls of others whom, in charity, we ought to permit to work out their salvation without expressions of spurious concern, when it's evident that they are, indeed, seeking God in and through the humanity God has been pleased to give them?
As long as the ruling hierarchy of the Church is comprised exclusively of males, the Church will continue to teach that homosexuals are "objectively disordered" and that homosexual sex is an abomination.
Whereas homosexuality is not a disorder, homophobia is. Institutionalized homophobia never festers alone. I think that the hierarchy of the Church continues to think that women are misbegotten males, something less than men. It's all about maintaining power and control. In addition to being a disorder, homophobia is a choice.
Very little gets those in power (or those who have intrinsic power by virtue of being heterosexual male) more riled up than perceived threats against their power. Homosexuality and feminism are just such threats and must be vilified as sinful and dangerous.
Oh, and artificial birth control and divorce benefit heterosexual men, so those things are okay.
And you help me conclude that I'm on the right track in wondering why the need to demean gay people (who are normally imagined as gay men rather than lesbians, as these arguments spin forth) seems to arise overwhelmingly from many men in the churches and society today, rather than from women.
Though I do know that there are powerful women willing to do men's work in this regard-as a Methodist friend of mine says, the old boys come in all genders.
Thank you. And blessings on you.
What will change the hearts of the men who make church policy? The Gospels say ''by your fruits you shall know them.'' Whereever gays and lesbians are living openly, productively, and peacefully, in couples and with their children, it will become more and more difficult for moral theologians and others to dismiss them as perverse or ill. Eventually, I hope that science will provide us with greater understanding that homosexuality is part of the natural order of things. In the meantime, with Teilhard de Chardin I can only advise my Catholic gay brothers and sisters to trust in the slow work of God, and for their individual mental and spiritual health to seek out a temporary place in a welcoming parish of the Episcopal Church.
Except for my obvious substitutions this is pretty much Father James Martin S.J. article "What Should a Gay Catholic Do?" This was a parody on his post which in turn was a parody on Church teaching.
This bit of propaganda tries to make pastoral issues trump the fact that homosexual acts are indeed intrinsically disordered. It totally leaves out "Go and sin no more" and the universal call for holiness. Certainly same-sex attraction is a very heavy cross, but we must all pick up the cross daily if we are to grow in holiness as we grow closer to Christ. As sinners we certainly do not need priests making excuses for our sins. It is not an act of charity in anyway to make the Church teaching on God's plan for sex only between a husband and wife to seem like a sequence of negatives.
Fr. Martin has pounded only on negatives and makes no mention of what our brothers and sisters in Christ with same sex attraction can do. No mention of Courage and other Catholic apostolates to help people with same-sex attraction. Plus while father mentioned that those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies can no enter the seminary, it also certainly is not true that all people with some level of same-sex attraction fit that category. There is a lot in our culture that confuses people on the most basic of things making them think that if they have some level of same-sex attraction that they must give in to it. Fr. Martin does not mention that we are all called to chastity. Those that are not married must be celibate. The person who has attraction to the opposite sex must be just as chaste as those who have attraction to the same sex.
No doubt Fr. Martin writes this with the best of intentions. But undermining Church teaching to excuse sin is simply evil. That marriage is only between a man and a women and is indissoluble is part of God's plan. To say otherwise is to oppose God.
It is also rather ridiculous to frame those who actively live the homosexual lifestyle as being a devout Catholic. I am not speaking of those with same-sex attraction who do not fall into sin. An active fornicator or adulterer is not a devout Catholic, they are a Catholic who has fallen and needs to repent and confess their sins. What Fr. Martin has written will help no one who currently follow the homosexual lifestyle to repent. He ends up preaching Christ without the Cross and does a disservice to those suffering. I wonder if he has ever been to a Courage meeting and if he would describe those attending as leading a lonely, loveless, secretive life? One of the priests of my parish runs the local Courage apostolate and he is doing more for our brothers and sisters in Christ than anybody who makes excuses for sin.
I don't write this as an attack on Fr. Martin, I am a fan of his book "My Life with the Saints" and some of what he has written. But of course he identified himself in the progressive camp in the New York Times and this bit of homosexual agitprop just further shows this.
Hardly something on which to hang one's hopes for eternity.
But that's not the point you wanted to make. Yet in the process of making your point, I think you reveal very clearly the double standard.
Adultery seems to me far more of a threat to ''traditional'' marriage than is opposite-sex marriage or homosexual behavior. Yet church leaders seem fixated today, with a preoccupation that strikes many folks as pathological, ONLY on gay people and gay sexuality.
You don't see the church spending millions of dollars to outlaw or enact criminal punishments for adultery. You don't see it spending millions to make divorce illegal.
It's only the gays who seem to get attention when we talk about threats to the sanctity of marriage or the undermining of sexual mores. In my entire life as a practicing Catholic, I heard only one sermon condemning married folks who practice artificial contraception. And people-quite a few of them-walked out in protest at that homily.
But I heard, and have heard about, umpteen homilies attacking gay folks.
Why this fixation, I wonder, and what does it say about us as a Christian community? If we're going to police the Eucharist and forbid communion to openly gay folks and gay couples, are we going to do the same for anyone engaging in adultery, for married couples using artificial contraception, for heterosexual couples living together without benefit of marriage?
If we're not, and our focus remains razor-sharp on the gays, then it seems concern to uphold magisterial teaching is not what's really driving all of this.
Homophobia is what's driving it. And the double standards, not to mention the cruelty and gross injustice and anti-catholic shoving away of a whole demeaned group of brothers and sisters (and the silence of the liberal center as this continues), are radically vitiating the church's claims to have much of anything to say about anything at all.
Lust is ''part of the natural order of things'', and what does that prove? Does it follow that all acts based on lust are moral?
All sin is rooted in our common sinful nature. That doesn't mean God intended sin.
(Don't even get me started on the hypocrisy of annulments.)
Yep. It's all about homophobia. And, homophobia is not Christian.
What perplexes me is why everything seems to hang today - at least in the minds of some Catholics (and of some other Christians) - on seeing that gay human beings know we are identified as sinners in a way that goes far beyond the identification of any other social subset as sinners.
That's a fascinating psychological phenomenon, it seems to me - and a fascinating theological phenomenon.
And when one notes that those impelled by this need to target gay folks as sinners in some unique way, and to keep gay human beings in our place at all cost, also happen to be frequently heterosexual males, then one has to ask what it is in the male psyche nowadays that wants to hang so much significance on demeaning gay people and keeping gay people in their demeaned places.
I agree with Chuck. There will come a day in history when these preoccupations - and the inexplicable cruelty that flow from them (inexplicable, since it's being exercised in the name of Jesus -will seem bizarre to historians.
And, I believe, as inexcusable and grotesque as how Christians once believed they had a right to treat the Jewish people, or people of color, or women . . . .
I appreciate your response very much, Christina.
It is also regrettable how so many ordinary Catholics, like many of the comments above, simply parrot the standard and unjustifiable Vatican line. The simple facts are that homoerotic orientation is not unnatural, as shown by biology, psychology, anthropology and zoology, and so arguments from ''natural law'' are invalid. Modern Scripture scholars and theologians are arguing that the traditional teachings are based on misunderstandings, misinterpretations or mistranslations, and need to be revised, in the light of the findings of science and the church's own teaching on the importance of reason, and new findings from scholarship and science. The only thing disordered about ''homosexuality'' is the Vatican teaching.
Finally, for those who insist we have an obligation to meekly follow church teaching on sexual ethics, try telling that to those married couples practising contraception, or young couples expressing love in sex before marriage, or those recovering from the heartbreak of divorce and seeking comfort with new loving partners, or young people (and older) compensating for the absence of any sexual partners with a little solitary masturbation.
It has been reliably estimated that probably 95% of Catholics are in dissent or contravention of church teaching on at least one of the above. The fact that the so-called, self-selecting ''leaders'' and too many of their followers are vocal in their hostility to one group of dissidents, while ignoring all other contraventions, is simply inexcusable.
Here in Michigan, in 2004, the Catholic Church spent more than a million dollars to help pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, while our Catholic schools are dying from lack of funds, and social service organizations are struggling to meet the needs of all those who are drowning in the current economic monsoon. When the city of Kalamazoo recently tried to pass an antidiscrimination law that included homosexuals among the protected groups, the Bishop released a statement which explained that, while we should behave justly toward all of God's children, the Church must stand opposed to any law that offered job or housing protection to homosexuals. (Fortunately, the ordinance passed anyway!) Back in 2004, the bishops stated repeatedly that their concern was the protection of the sanctity of the institution of marriage, but clearly the Church's position extends far beyond that.
I am heterosexual, and my children are heterosexual, so I'm a little surprised at how deeply troubled I am by the Church's position on homosexuals. I mean, like most people, I tend to be most bothered by issues that affect me personally. Yet this has become an issue that leaves me feeling so estranged from the Catholic Church that it is increasingly difficult for me to remain a practicing Catholic. (Especially since members of the Church hierarchy have started being so insistent that people who disagree with Church teaching in any significant way probably aren't ''real'' Catholics,anyway!) But where else would I go? I'm not Episcopalian, I'm Catholic. Tsk, it's a dilemma. Not such a dilemma for my children - my younger daughter left the Church in 2004, and I don't think she'll be back.
Surely you do not think that when two homosexual individuals decide to commit their lives to being together in sickness and health, etc. there is more lust behind that commitment than there is behind the commitment when it is made by two heterosexual individuals?
I really empathize with you. I am also a physician, and, up to a few years ago, had difficulties with many of the "controversal" church teachings. Your instinct against leaving the Church is correct. I suspect it goes deeper than the fact that you are ""not Episcopalian, [you're] Catholic." You probably realize that Henry VIII (or any other "reformer") did not have the authority to make his/her own church simply because s/he found a particular church teaching too "controversal." Remember the disciples who sadly left Jesus because of his "controversal" teaching concerning the Eucharist (John 6: 60-66). Just as Jesus had the authority to make such a teaching, He gave his Church such the authority to teach in our day.
You ask, "where else would I go?" Your question is strikingly similar to Peter's response to Jesus when so many of His disciples left Him.:
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6: 67-69)
Just as Peter trusted Jesus even though he didn't understand Him, please trust the Church and its teaching on faith & morals. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom. I promise that over time it will begin to make sense to our 21st century Western brains. I'll pray for you too.
In places where they are rejected with verbal violence of the kind presented by Fr. Martin, I am naturally, because of my Catholic upbringing, inclined to side with the victims and the oppressed - clearly, the homosexuals - and it creates a tension with my church leaders. The result, I predict, will be to discredit their authority.
It strikes me as monumentally ironic an individual who is seemingly eager to avoid being the subject of generalized characterizations is perhaps not as diligent in refraining from same.
My immediate response - and let's face it, a 2K character limit does violence to a civilized discussion on this subject - is "You've peered into the hearts of everyone who has proffered concern and prayers and found them, without exception, hypocritical? Really? All of us? You've found not one, not a single and solitary one of us to have address the societal cancer of divorce or artificial contraception?"
It makes it very difficult to engage in a rational discourse when the reflexive retort to a post is a jeremiad.
The very first decision to make in a discussion such as this is simple: How do I want to engage those with whom I disagree? Do I even want to engage them? Or do I prefer to want to cast aspersions?
(Just for that, I'll drag you as my intention to Adoration.)
AMDG,
Remember that the full Magisterium and canon law cover far more ground than just sexual ethics. The guidelines on interpreting Scripture prepared by the Pontifical Bible Commission, for insistence, stress the need to use far more subtle and carfeul techniques than appear to have been used to justify the teaching against homosexuality: the catechism quotes the story of Sodom as justification, but no reputable bible scholar still accepts that this particular story is about believes that Genesis 19 is about lvoing relationships between men - there is simply no reference anywhere in the ext to anything of the sort.
The Gospels, and the specific example of Christ himself, make clear that love is more important than scrupulously following the letter of laws as demanded by religious authorities.
The Magisterium makes clear that we have an obligation to demonstrate real love and compassion, and to fight against injustice wherever we find it.
The Magisterium also makes clear that we have an obligation, where we find in conscience that we disagree with church teaching, our obligation is to follow conscience, not the rules. For the last forty years, countless couples ahve been advised by their priests to follow this precept in dealing with the instructions in humanae vita.
Canon law commands that when we are in serious disagreement with our church leaders, we ahve an obligation to speak up and to tell them so.
In my own life, I can assure you that I have indeed taken this matter into the most serious prayer, alone and under expert spiritual direction, including in several extended directed retreats. I have studied carefully much of what has been written on the subject, in church documents and by other expert theologians.
The outcome of this prayer and study, now extending over just about a quarter of a century, is a firm conviction, in conscience, that the standard church teaching is simply wrong, and is outweighed for me by the other elements of the Magisterium - especially on the obligation to combat injustice wherever I see it.
For me, I see that injustice inside the church, and so it is that I feel compelled, in full accordance with church teaching, to speak up for the truth - and not for the standard line on sexual ethics.
This I do, inter alia, by devoting considerably time to assisting with the organization of masses with a special focus on lesbian and gay Catholics, and by writing for gay Catholics at my blog, "Queering the Church", where I try hard to persuade people not simply to walk away from the church in despair, but to accept and work with the other gifts that the church has to offer.
So I guess that, by a long and circuitous route, I finally come to answering Fr Martin's question, "What is a gay Catholic to do?" This, at least, is what I have done. It has never been easier, and glib responses about simply following teaching, or even praying and then following sexual teaching, are really not helpful.
,
“The church bases her position on tradition, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong….because she is convinced that sex is the foundation of long term relationships. Thus she defines marriage as being limited to two people of the opposite gender. In time, as she becomes better educated in this thing she claims to be expert in – the psychology of loving relationships – she will come to realize that LOVE, and not sex, is the foundation of long term loving relationships.”
Taken from “Murder in the Vatican,” by Lucien Gregoirie
It sounds as though you are very sincere in your love for gay and lesbian Catholics - that is something we must all do. However, I am not familiar with your special ministry. Do you encourage gay and lesbian people to ignore the teachings of the Magisterium? Do you sidestep the issue? Do you ask them to strive to achieve something that is very difficult for them, but yet still is infallible teaching? How do you address this?
You state that, "The Magisterium also makes clear that we have an obligation, where we find in conscience that we disagree with church teaching, our obligation is to follow conscience, not the rules." Where do you see this? Please remember that our conscience has to be well formed. It is not a license simply to do whaterver (even after prayerful reflection) we think is right. The Catechism states "In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church."(1785 - my bolding). Church teachings have always made it clear that we must remain chaste. Therefore, a properly formed conscience cannot justify teaching others to ignore authoritative church teaching.
“Anyone upon whom the ecclesiastical authority, in ignorance of true facts, imposes a demand that offends (his) clear conscience, should perish in excommunication rather than violate (his) conscience.“ St. Thomas Aquinas
"I should look to see what theologians could do for me, what the Bishops and clergy around me, what my confessor; what friends whom I have revered: and if, after all, I could not take their view of the matter, then I must rule myself by my own judgement and my own conscience."
"Was St. Peter infallible on that occasion at Antioch when St. Paul withstood him? Was St. Victor infallible when he separated from his communion the Asiatic Churches? Or Liberius when in like manner he excommunicated Athanasius? And, to come to later times, was Gregory XIII, when he had a medal struck in honor of the Bartholomew massacre? Or Paul IV, in his conduct towards Elizabeth? Or Sextus V when he blessed the Armada? Or Urban VIII when he persecuted Galileo? No Catholic ever pretends that these Popes were infallible in these acts. Since then infallibility alone could block the exercise of conscience, and the Pope is not infallible in that subject-matter in which conscience is of supreme authority, no dead-lock, such as implied in the objection which I am answering, can take place between conscience and the Pope."
From Newman's “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk”
“For Newman, conscience represents the inner complement and limit of the church principle. Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which is in the last resort beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle of opposition to increasing totalitarianism. Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will.”
Joseph Ratzinger on article 16 of Gaudem et Spes, in Volume 5 of the "Commentary on Documents of Vatican II", edited by Vorgrimler (New York/London 1969).
This was my experience after many years spent in the gay lifestyle. I am sure that others experience it differently, but for me it has the ring of total truth. I live a chaste life now and am enjoying freedom for the first time.
Homosexual U.K. Documentarian Says Gay Lifestyle a ''Sewer'' of Casual Degrading Sex, Drug Abuse and Misery
By Hilary White
LONDON, September 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A British homosexual journalist admits that his documentary on the London gay scene is likely to ''burn every bridge in the gay world I've got.''
Simon Fanshawe is a writer and broadcaster who created the documentary ''The Trouble With Gay Men'' after becoming increasingly alarmed at the shallowness and destructiveness of the ''gay lifestyle.'' The film, made for BBC 3 television, questions the emotional and psychological immaturity, narcissism, nihilism and self-destructive tendencies of many in the homosexual community. Fanshawe says he wants homosexual men to ''grow up'' and get beyond their state of ''extended adolescence.''
Fanshawe, who was involved in the early homosexualist political movement, says, ''We've fought discrimination and prejudice, only to wreck ourselves with drugs and wild sex.''
In his documentary Fanshawe admits that the homosexualist movement has in the main achieved its political goals of equalising homosexuality with natural sexual relations, in abolishing laws against sodomy and creating legal equivalency with marriage and adoption. Given these achievements, Fanshawe asks, ''Why do we seem hell bent on behaving like eternal teenagers?''
''We're hooked on vanity, and regard older men with contempt. Despite AIDS we're still chasing the ultimate sexual high and what's more are determined to wreck ourselves on designer drugs. We're happy to assist the straight world in keeping alive the image of all gay men as limp-wristed queens.''
He says that he has recently ''started to worry'' about the ways in which ''gay liberation is celebrated'' in his hometown of Brighton, a major centre of the homosexual subculture. At the annual ''Mr. Gay'' beauty pageant, which he describes as a ''pathetic display of self-delusion'', Fanshawe tells a contestant, ''I'm old enough to remember when all those women were fighting against Miss World...What we're all saying about ourselves is that actually to be really gay, properly gay, what you've got to be is cute, and young.''
''Extreme vanity'' he says, has been ''sewn into gay culture.'' It ''is now so mainstream in the gay community that otherwise intelligent young men are happy to be treated as sex objects on a demeaning meat rack.''
Gay men, he says, are so ''hardwired'' towards finding casual sexual encounters, some going as far as plastic implants to enhance their appearance, that finding genuine intimacy is ''practically impossible.''
''Vast amounts of our leisure time are organised around sex, straight or gay. But what gay men have done is organise our identity around sex. And that is corrosive. And to make things worse, promiscuity has become the norm.''
The documentarian asks the proprietor of a gay sex bath house, ''Paul'', who had just related some graphic stories of group sexual encounters in the establishment, ''Are we just swimming around in a sewer which we're just sort of saying is normal?''
For objecting to the lifestyle of pursuing casual and ''extreme'' sex and for holding genuine human intimacy as a goal, Paul told Fanshawe that he is ''the closest thing to a straight person in a gay man's body I have ever met. There should be an operation for you, dear.''
Paul was adamant and forthright in his belief that the gay lifestyle is incompatible with happiness and fidelity in human relations, expressing his dissatisfaction with civil unions legislation. ''The temptation of other things will always stand in the way of two gay men having a long-term, loving, caring relationship.''
Fanshawe says he is horrified at the lack of emotional involvement and at the willingness of men to engage in ''unsafe sex.'' The film includes statistics that show the deadly consequences of the homosexual lifestyle. One in nine gay men in London is HIV infected and new cases of HIV have doubled in the city in five years. Incidences of syphilis have increased in the same time period 616 per cent.
''Unsafe'' sex, he says, is not the only way in which gay men are self destructive. ''If there's a new drug, gay men will find it and take it,'' he states.
At one point Fanshawe interviews a homosexual man who has ''done all the drugs'' and now campaigns in gay clubs against the growing use of crystal methamphetamine. The man, who could not be identified for fear of reprisals from drug dealers, said that crystal meth is preferred in the gay community because it reduces the inhibitions and allows sex to be brought to an ''animalistic'' level ''devoid of emotion.'' The film says that one in five gay men in London use crystal meth.
Those quotes are from individuals - they are not official Church teachings. Please look to the catechism. We cannot use our inner voice to rationalize violating an offical church teaching. We use our well-formed consciences to guide us in areas when the teachings are not clear. The teaching on chastity (homoxexual, heterosexual - whatever) are clear and infallible.
To answer the questions of Newman & others (and I'm sure they knew this), Christ protects the Church's teachings on faith and morals when pope speaks ex cathedra or when the bishops in union with the pope speak as one. Infallibility does not apply to actions of any individual. Peter's teachings on circumcision in Jerusalem were infallible. His hypocritical actions (excluding the uncircumcised) at Anticoh were sinful and Paul was right to correct them. Similarly, the teachings on chastity are infallible. If the pope violates those teachings, his sin would be infallible and subject to correction.
God bless you, Joe Alwin - you are very courageous.
Fr. Martin, you are struggling. It is hard as you love your neighbor. What does God want - for us to be with him in eternity. We all struggle to get there - is one sin more important than another? What is your job - to be an alter Christus. Christ wouldn't condemn us to unhappiness but he would remind us that happiness might not be found in carnal longings. Happiness might actually come by true faith in God. Sacrafice and struggle might actually be worth something.
The current insensible, inhumane teaching which the leaders of the Church espuse as the only holy and logical path towards holiness for LGBT individuals is reprehensible.
As a gay Catholic, I can attest to having tried to live this way for many years. Weekly I repeated the same cycle, rushing to Confession to cleanse myself of the ways in which I had acted "inappropriately" to my sexual attractions. I resigned myself to celibacy, because I genuinely thought that the Lord spoke to the Church through its leaders, and if this was the teaching that the Church was proclaiming it must be inspired by the Holy Spirit, no matter how hard and terribly unhappy it was to carry it out.
So throughout high school, as I watched my friends enter into loving relationships filled with emotion, solace, and intimacy I would cry myself to sleep at nights wondering why I could not enjoy the same thing, but still resigning myself to the fact that this was my vocation as a gay man, according to the Church, to carry my cross in imitation of the Lord.
Then, a turning point occured within my life. I began to become exposed to other sources of Catholic thought. I became aware of numerous Catholic personalities such as Fr. Hans Kung, Fr. Karl Rahner, Sr. Joan Chittister, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Bishop Jaques Gaillot, Garry Wills, Fr. John McNeill, Fr. Richard McBrien, and numerous others who provided strikingly corrobable alternative points of view within the Catholic spectrum.
After an intense period of reflection and prayer, and the experience of voting in the election of 2008 and watching Sen. Barack Obama triumph and become the first African-American President of the United States I asked myself, "If our nation can usher in such a profound sentiment of change, why can't the Church?"
And from that point on, I received a heartfelt consolation from the Lord that He had created me and loved me as I was so I had nothing to be ashamed or fearful of. Since then, I have agreed to disagree with the leaders of the Church on how to live out my sexuality.
I think the road that the USCCB is going down is terribly disturbing and extremely embaressing for the Catholic Church. Even if they are opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriage couldn't they engage in some sort of compromise like the LDS did to show that they truly mean what they say when they respect the "dignity" of homosexual persons? Supporting legislation such as this, even if it wasn't marriage, might give them some sort of vein of credibility and would disprove the notion that so many have probably gathered from their actions, that they are just a homophobic and bigoted group of old men...
Honestly, I just can't understand why Pope Benedict and the shepherds of the Church are so fearful of homosexuality and why they think that the legalization of same-sex marriage will ruin the perfect order of humanity? If they don't agree with the decision they don't have to partake in it. End of story, why all the noise and vitriol, comparing love between gays and lesbians akin to bestiality?
Don't they understand that if a more pastoral approach towards homosexuals was adopted their credibility would not be undermined, as they of course probably fear due to their claims of "infallibility", but would only be strengthened as the public would see them finally come to terms with what modern science and psychology has to say so compellingly about this issue.
The bishops of the Church would do well to heed the words of the Lord in this particular action of discrimination:
"Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men!"
-Mark 7:6-8
I'm going to leave this discussion after this, because I have to say that I see no likelihood of any of the participants actually changing their minds about any of this. But I did want to mention that, Henry VIII and his divorce problems aside, the leaders of the Reformation had some legitimate concerns with Church practices of the time. And, given some of the reprehensible things that can be found in Church teachings and practices through the centuries, I am actually not too impressed by the concept of papal infallibility. The Pope is a human being, chosen by men, in an intensely political fashion, and while I'll give him some extra credit points for being Pope and knowing lots of stuff about God and Catholicism, I honestly don't really believe that Christ has chosen each of our Popes personally (I mean, looking at Church history, I refuse to believe that Christ is responsible for some of our Popes...) So, I guess I am really temperamentally better suited to be a Protestant, since I'm rejecting papal infallibility and I believe that a lay person can study the Bible and learn Christ's teachings and read the writings of scholars, and conscientiously disagree with some Church doctrine.
I believe that the Catholic Church is a force for good in so many ways. I attended Catholic school and college, I have been active in my parish for my entire adult life, I attend Mass weekly, I participate in parish Bible study groups, I sent my children to Catholic schools. I'm really can't quite see myself changing churches at this point in my life. But I feel increasingly alienated. I'm awestruck (and completely uncomprehending) when I read letters from gay Catholics who remain devoted to Catholicism, which in an infallible fashion views them as deviant and broken. I mean, yeah, maybe you could work to change the Church's position, but that whole the-Church-is-not-a-democracy, the-Pope-is-infallible tradition makes that a fairly faint hope. But good luck to you!
You say, "The very first decision to make in a discussion such as this is simple: How do I want to engage those with whom I disagree? Do I even want to engage them?"
But that's precisely the point, Joe. Your initial posting to the thread gets underway by announcing, "I have always tried to make a distinction between 'gay' and 'homosexual.'"
And then you end by stating, "I can't speak for anyone else,"
Are you really unaware that there has been a long discussion, for many years now, in our culture about how to identify people with a same-sex sexual orientation? And that in that discussion, those being tagged have repeatedly noted that we prefer to call ourselves gay rather than homosexual, because the latter term reduces us to sexuality, and because it has clinical overtones that continue the implication that this natural sexual orientation is somehow aberrant?
I'm a Southerner, and I lived through the civil rights struggle of the American South. One of the first - and most important - lessons I had to learn in that struggle was that it wasn't important what I wish to call people of color. What was important was that I listen carefully to my brothers and sisters of color, and learn what they wish to have me call them. To learn what they think of their experience of life.
Not to impose my views and terminology on them.
I learned that I cannot call myself good, charitable, well-meaning and bypass that essential step of listening carefully to the experience of others, before I leap to conclusions about the meaning of their experience.
Yet you begin your discussion by claiming the right ("I have always tried") to define those who are gay or lesbian, without inviting any contribution from us. It is what YOU have always thought that counts, no?
And then you go on to say you cannot speak for anyone else? But that's precisely what you're doing in your posting.
I'm sorry if my reacting to this astonishing gesture of privilege on your part, which simply erases all gay people and our honest contributions to this discussion, as a gesture that makes the profession of sympathy and concern insincere.
I confess I do admit that I react in that way way. That is how people react when their humanity is denied, made invisible, made not to count even as they are defined by those who claim that their definition is all about doing good to the group they're defining! There is, from where I stand, a cheapness about the proclamation of grace when it comes from many Christians who have not troubled themselves to understand the people they analyze so glibly, without recourse to the analysis of their own experience offered by the group under analysis.
When people talk compassion but their words whip and cow instead, it's difficult to perceive those words as, well, anything other than violent. I am not making that statement about you, in particular. I do not know you personally and have no right to judge you.
I am responding to the claim of a certain group of Christians in general, who profess to care when what they are about is not care at all, but doing harm to a particular group of people. I'm afraid that, judging from the effects of their words and actions on the group they are harming while claiming to be motivated by compassion, that group is not earning the right to call itself exemplary in moral terms.
In my experience, people who do hold adamantly to certain absolutes in one area - in an unconsidered, unthinking way that ignores all complexity and ambiguity, and refuses to hear the voices of those who live the ambiguity - tend to hold to similar absolutes in other areas.
And that raises questions for me as to what motivates such a need for a certainty that we cannot have in this life, a certainty that would undercut the entire notion of faith as a journey into the wildnerness, which is fundamental to the Judaeo-Christian scriptures . . . .
Dear friends,
I would like to remind all commenters that, since we no longer have our "firewall" up against bloggers, that it is up to everyone who comments not to engage in ad hominem attacks. Feel free to be passionate, annoyed, disgusted, repelled and even outraged, but please direct your passionate arguments and address your outrage to the topic at hand, or to the specific arguments with which you disagree, not to the character of the individuals who comment here. That serves no purpose.
And yes, by the way, in answer to the question above, I do know the Catechism, which says not only that homosexuality is an objective disorder, but also that homosexuals must be accepted with "respect, compassion and sensitivity." It would be good to afford those three things to everyone with whom we disagree. Also, in answer to the implication above, I have taken a vow of chastity (and just took my Final Vows as a Jesuit last Sunday) and I keep that vow.
Overall, the pastoral care of homosexuals is too important a question to be discussed with invective.
Peace,
James Martin, SJ
"I believe that a lay person can study the Bible and learn Christ's teachings and read the writings of scholars, and conscientiously disagree with some Church doctrine."
I used to beleive that too. However, God entrusted His Word - both oral and written to a Church. He established a Church and gave it a written Bible - He did not establish a Bible and intend for thounds (litterally) of denominations to form based on their own contradictory interpretations of it.
I'm glad you're staying. You seem like a very thoughtful person. Please consider studying the Church Fathers and allowing yourself to be open to some orthodox spiritual direction. It is wonderful once you become imersed in it.
I for one am tired of the Catholic Church focusing on one or two issues, destroying itself and souls in the process, and hijacking a faith that has been on the forefront of so many social justice issues, all for a political culture war that Jesus would be disgusted with (Mark 12). I’m tired of these modern day “Scribes” in their long robes looking for places of honor among society (Mark 12) eradicating the teachings of peace, love, and justice all in the name of bigotry and discrimination.
It’s time for the true Church, Catholics who are well-informed about the teachings of their faith, to stand up and refuse to let some individuals lay waste to a faith that can revolutionize this world that is filled with hurt, pain, isolation, and greed instead of creating a battlefield of wounded souls because some individuals focus on the ends while ignoring the means.
It’s time to stop being afraid (John 6), let he or she without sin cast the first stone (John 7), and go out to make TRUE disciples of all nations, knowing that Christ will be will us until the end of the age (Matthew 28). It’s time to live the Gospels by refusing to allow our Catholic Church to discriminate with our money and to allow our gay brothers and sisters to live a life filled with dignity, respect, and love.
I very much appreciate Fr. Martin’s comment above. I always read and learn from his articles on this blog. My experience of living out my homosexuality differs from the positive views of many here. I can only come to conclusions based upon my experience. I think that I have probably read during the last 40 years everything on homosexuality and Catholicism. I used the positive views of especially Catholic theologians and attempted to hold both my gay activity and my faith together. It didn’t work. What I have experienced over the years here and in Europe illustrates the impossibility of homosexuality. The article I posted describing the “gay life” is, based on my extensive experience, and, I firmly believe, accurate.
Homosexuality seems to me to be a frantic pursuit of the perfect one. In this life one tires of another very quickly. Alas, the number of permanent, faithful, unions are in my experience few and very rare.
What propels much of the concern about gays stems, commendably enough, from Christian compassion. Some of the concern, however, is simply a manifestation of PC.
There are many benefits that flow from one’s homosexuality. God gives his gifts freely. In many ways I have experienced my orientation as many others do as a “Felix Culpa”! Creativity, sensitivity, compassion, and a deep spirituality are some of the gifts. But experience, again, has shown me that one can only really fruitfully utilize these gifts by a life of chastity. I have found this a small price to pay for the gift of faith.
Contrary to the opinion of some I have always found compassion in the Church. Even when I deeply participated in the “gay life.”
I have used the word “experience” to the point of redundancy. I can only share what I have discovered. Your experience may differ.
?
I see a somewhat disjointed national conversation taking place now about these issues on various Catholic blogs, and that suggests to me the need for more extensive conversation—if the church is really serious about pastoral outreach to gay persons. It is impossible to have this conversation at an abstract level, without hearing people’s real-life experiences, because the church’s current stance has real-life implications for real people. And so the conversation is necessarily messy, particularly for those who think that theological discussions can or should be abstract and avoid the messiness of real-life experience.
And the conversation will necessarily be passionate for many of us. Our lives — how our humanity is defined — are at stake here.
Fr. Martin began this conversation noting that those who work for the church in any official capacity find it well-nigh impossible to be open about their identity as gay or lesbian. He also noted that those who work for the church and are open about their identity sometimes find themselves fired.
These seem to me to be important theological data. If Fr. Martin is correct, it strikes me as crucial for theological discussion of homosexuality to take these data into consideration. Are openly gay people commonly barred from working for the church in any official capacity? Do Catholic institutions fire people who are gay and become open about their identity?
At another blog where part of this disjointed conversation is now taking place — at Commonweal, where Margaret O’Brien Steinfels has posted “Tom Reese on DC” — I find Margaret O’Brien Steinfels stating something that appears to move in the opposite direction of Fr. Martin’s statement. She suggests that “in many places around the country dioceses and archdioceses do not discriminate in hiring [i.e., on grounds of sexual orientation].”
It seems important to ascertain the truth here, and to do so in a national American Catholic conversation. Does the church discriminate prima facie on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring? And if it does so, does it go on to discriminate in other ways when its employees become public about their identity—e.g., does it fire people without due process, deny health benefits to them and their partners if they are gay, remove them from their livelihood solely because they are gay?
In my experience — admittedly limited — the church does, in fact, engage in prima facie discrimination against gay people, solely on the basis of sexual orientation. And it does frequently violate its own teachings about justice in the workplace in its treatment of its gay employees. In my own Waterloo experience with a Catholic institution in this regard, I turned to a national Catholic publication, asking to recount the experience. I was told that the story of discrimination I sought to tell is so common in Catholic institutions, it’s not newsworthy.
Another piece of this disjointed conversation: a respondent at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog yesterday (“Charity and Justice in Washington, DC”) suggests that the church’s teaching about gay folks positively appears to demand discrimination. This poster notes that if we follow the logic of the church’s teaching, this teaching appears to demand that gay folks may well end up without various primary goods - homes, jobs, food, medical care, health insurance, etc. – when the church itself is the employer of those folks.
Where does the truth lie here? What is the experience of gay and lesbian folks in the American Catholic church? If that experience comprises manifold forms of discrimination from the church itself, then one would want to ask why it is so hard to bring those experiences to light and discuss them openly within a Christian institution. If it does not comprise manifold forms of discrimination, then one would want to ask why some of us seem to think it’s well-nigh impossible to be openly gay and work in Catholic institutions.
If Fr. Martin is correct when he says that it is “close to be impossible” to be openly gay while working in most Catholic institutions, and that those who are open run the risk of being fired, then it seems American Catholics ought to consider this issue, and listen carefully to the experiences of those affected by this reality, for two reasons. First, it’s impossible to carry on effective pastoral work while ignoring people’s testimony about their lives. Second, if the church’s behavior as an employer belies its teachings about justice in the workplace – or about human rights – then the church significantly undermines those teachings when it fails to adhere to them.
Personally, I have concluded that the Catholic church in the U.S. would simply like for its LGBT children to go away quietly, because the issues we raise are too volatile. I have also concluded that this tacit “pastoral” choice is causing incalculable harm to the church.
The next step would be to start a Courage group.
''Simple facts'' - Where are the data to support that statement?
Again, it seems to me very important that there be a national American Catholic discussion of these issues in which many authentic voices of real-life gay and lesbian persons be heard.
I seem to be a very poor example of a homosexual, if your definition of my ''lifestyle'' is correct. Though I was in college during the drug-saturated late 1960s, I've never in my life used an illicit drug, whether marijuana, LSD, or anything else. Haven't ever wanted to try those options. I was too busy during college participating in the liturgical life of my Jesuit university, teaching catechism, tutoring adolescents in a mental-care facility, and, later, distributing food and clothes to the needy to have time to take drugs.
Nor have I had any inclination in that direction since my college days, though my nieces and nephews (all heterosexual) constantly try to shame me for being the squarest person they know.
And I've been in a committed, monogamous relationship for almost 40 years.
I find that there's a wide range of behavior among people who happen to be either gay or straight. To me, it doesn't seem any more helpful to try to define all gay human beings by the behavior of some who happen to use illicit drugs or engage in extramarital sexual activities, than it would be to define straight people by the behavior of the significant numbers of straight folks who engage in such behavior.
We who are gay come in different shapes, sizes, flavors. Some of us are very vanilla, like me. Others lead more exciting and interesting lives, I suspect - as with heterosexuals. It seems unjust and unhelpful to try to identify an entire group of human beings by pointing to the shortcomings of some members of that group as characteristics of the whole group.
I fear the tendency to identify gay human beings as particularly degraded because of their use of drugs and promiscuity becomes increasingly more difficult when the voters of a state that rolls back the right of marriage for its gay citizens also liberalize its marijuana laws. Or when one of the leading heterosexual exemplars of morality who is preaching about the immoral behavior of gay folks is discovered to have produced eight sex tapes, albeit (I understand) heterosexual ones.
For example, Church teaching is opposed to divorce - and it differs from teaching on homosexuality in that we have this teaching directly from Jesus Christ. And yet, when one applies for an annulment, Church law REQUIRES that one first obtain a civil divorce. Oh, that's just a civil requirement, we don't really believe the civil divorce is actually a divorce. Yet when it comes to civil marriage of same-sex couples, it is suddenly the end of civilization: that civil marriage is a dire threat, while civil divorces are a mere technicality. This is a double standard no matter how you slice it.
Church teaching also provides two entirely separate theologies of sexuality for gay and straight people. For straight people, sexuality is a gift from a good God rooted in the goodness of Creation. For gays and lesbians, sexuality is a burden from an indifferent God to test us, rooted in the experience of the Cross. There is no other instance of two contradictory theologies set up for separate groups on such a fundamental aspect of life. How long can such a house of cards stand? This contradiction is not just a hole in the seamless garment, it is two entirely different garments.
I will believe the hierarchy is not prejudiced when I see them giving the exact same amount of time, effort and financial resources to laws outlawing civil divorce. Until then their claims of tolerance and merely upholding Church teaching do not ring true. In the meantime, these ad-hoc theologies that are patched together by self-loathing closeted homosexuals in the Curia need to be re-evaluated so that we do not look ridiculous, eclipsing the saving power of the Gospel to attract all people by it clear, plain truth.
Oh come now, have you not heard of Google?
''Natural Law'' arguments against homosexuality were based in medieval concepts that homosexuality was (a) a choice and (b) not found in the animal world. We now know that neither of these assumptions are true, so the Scholastic, classical argument is no longer valid.
Dumb me. Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman and Josef Ratzinger are just individuals.
These “just individuals” were/are a Doctor of the Church, a soon-to-be sainted Cardinal and renowned theologian, and the future head of the CDF and Successor of St. Peter. And the Magisterium is composed of …… divinely incardinated pure spirits? Reincarnated Apostles?
How about being “just individuals” themselves?
William: I believe you when you say that you have been in a monogamous, faithful 40 year relationship, but just as you cautioned that we should not take my experience as valid for all homosexuals, would you not concede that one should not take your experience as normative either. Dr. Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service published the results of her study of gay relationship in The Netherlands in May, 2003. She found that on average such relationships lasted about a year and a half and during the relationship men in homosexual relationships on average have eight partners a year outside of those relationships.
You may also be familiar with the research of authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison published in the 1984 book, "The Male Couple." They reported on a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting anywhere from one to 37 years. All couples with relationships more that five years allowed outside sexual activity. "Fidelity is not defined in terms of sexual behavior but rather by their emotional commitment to each other."
Yes, I agree with you. This should all be openly discussed in the Church. At the end of the day, though, I think the 2,000 teaching of the Church will prove valid.
There is no gay gene and homosexuality is not conducive to the theory of evolution and natural selection.
To advance the homosexual agenda of total affirmation advocates will deny reality itself.
This is not to say that people who live a gay lifestyle should not be respected as humans - they should but they also deserve the respect afforded to them as humans by addressing the reality of their sins and struggle.
Mr. Martin obviously favors pastoral strategy of inclusion over truth - a rather relativistic way to look at the world considering the truth found in the gospels and the law (which Christ stated that came to fullfil rather than destroy)...
A pastor's duty is to teach the truth. It is apparent from their hateful and explicitly political language that many commenting here prefer the sinful standards of our depraved contemporary culture to the truth.
You ask, ''[W]ould you not concede that one should not take your experience as normative either?'' Well, yes. Absolutely. I didn't intend to make any claims that my experience is normative.
What I wanted to point out is that it is my experience - my gay experience, my graced experience, my graced gay experience. And so it appears not to fit the model that you and Simon Fanshawe want to impose on ALL of those who are gay by your generalizations about ''the'' gay ''lifestyle.''
If the experience of some who are gay (perhaps many who are gay?) does not fit that generalization, then shouldn't one raise criticial questions about its accuracy - or, perhaps more pertinently, about why some members of church and society wish to impose this generalization on ALL of those who are gay?
I wouldn't want to conclude that all heterosexuals are prone to producing embarrassing sex tapes because Ms. Prejean has produced a number of them, or prone to attacking their gay brothers and sisters as louche and immoral, while living in glass houses themselves. Would you?
Perhaps in the last analysis it's not productive to make these kinds of generalizations about a whole class of people - not if we want to engage in authentic pastoral outreach to them. Or to build a church catholic that includes people from anywhere and everywhere - and welcomes people from anywhere and everywhere, all of whom are sinners.
Perhaps it's important to ask, instead, why some of us keep insisting on making those generalizations about a particular marginalized group of people, seeminglly 1) to justify continued cruelty towards that group of people, 2) to excuse our active complicity in that cruelty, and 3) to insist on our right to define that group negatively, without recourse to the testimony of the people we're defining (and dismissing).
I'd note that this is not the first time this has been done to a stigmatized group of human beings over the course of history - including Christian history. Jews were told for centuries that their Jewish ''lifestyles'' were dirty, immoral, an infection to Christendom. Women were told that they were misbegotten males, daughters of Eve prone to sin and weak of mind. More recently, reams and reams of spurious data have been generated, often by churched people, to convince some of us that people of color are all invariably unintelligent, lazy, childlike, given to outbursts of emotion.
It seems better to me that the church stop giving such free licence to those who need to demean others in this way, and that it do a far better job of teaching us to see the Lord's face in everyone, including the least among us.
As to Maria Xiradou's study, which is now being promoted by political and religious groups whose ''outreach'' to their gay brothers and sisters seems (in my humble opinion) motivated largely the desire to demean and not to love, I recommend Jim Burroway's careful study of Xiradou at Box Turtle Bulletin, ''What the 'Dutch Study' Really Says about Gay Couples'' (http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,003.htm).
I will attempt to address your comments as succintly as possible. With this sort of issue, running into 20 zillion words would be no trick. I have some disagreements with Father's premise, but expressing those here would be Grand Theft Bandwidth. And, frankly, given the false (FALSE, I tell you!) promise of formatting it makes for cumbersome reading.
At any rate, I believe it is harmful for someone to reduce himself or other persons to their sexual orientation (or ethnicity, or some other characteristic). Each individual has a) far too much human dignity as a child of God and b) too much complexity to be treated thus. This is not to deny this happens, either pejoratively or voluntarily, but only to state my opinion thereon.
I DO worry about the state of people's souls. After all, that's the endgame of EVERYTHING. Our primary obligation as Christians and Catholics is to get to Heaven and to bring as many people with us as is humanly possible. Therefore, my tack would have been the same had Father's blog post been on divorced-and-remarried Catholics, or Catholics using artificial contraception.
There are souls at stake.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't folks who use this approach as a bludgeon and not in sincerity. It also doesn't mean there are other folks who deny the possibility their behavior (in whatever realm we may happen to discuss) places their soul in jeopardy.
Speaking always for myself - after all, for whom else CAN I speak? - I make a distinction of using "gay" only to denote a person who embraces and actively pursues a same-sex attraction, and "homosexual" to denote a person who experiences said attraction. I consider the former less reductive than the latter, and I consider the distinction important. You are welcome to aerobic disagreement.
I must correct you, alas, that I seek to define people, when I am merely attempting semantic clarity. It's not what I think that always counts, but what I think is the only thinking I have. When I say, "I can't speak for anyone else" all I am doing is explaining the semantic platform undergirding whatever comments I am making. If you have another way to express that distinction - between embracing and experiencing a same-sex attraction, which I consider vital - please proffer it.
Frankly, I neither see that my so-called "astonishing gesture of privilege" nor do I believe such an assertion is particularly hermetic. Since that assertion is incorrect, the further assertion I am doing so for the putative "all about doing good to the group they're defining" is insupportable.
Keep in mind the purpose of my original comment was a plea - quixotic, I know - for civility in this discourse.
However, you did mention something that might benefit all of us taking part in this discussion. That is to make an attempt to, charitably, try to view a matter from the perspective of another. Some may have noticed (if not, they should) that invective and detraction do not flow only in one direction. If it would help further things by imagining (or ascertaining, insofar as it's possible) "what's it like" to be a person who is X, it would be just as illuminating to take that very same approach, in charity, towards people who sincerely believe that X places a soul in the direst jeopardy.
P.S. I am interested in seeing how many comments get posted up before Father politely shoos people away.
On biology, the medical profession is clear that this is not a ohysical disease.
On psychology, the psychiatric and psychological professions are clear that this not a mental disease.
On anthropology, research has shown that homosexual relationships occur commonly in many pre-industrial societies on all continents.
On history, same sex relationships were treated as normal in Classical Greece and Rome, in Egypt, in other parts of the Middle East,, in Scythia (on the north shore of the Black Sea), in China and in India, (for more on history, read ''Homosexuality & Civilization'', by Louis Crompton, 2003, or John Boswell. ''Christianity, Social Tolerance & Homosexuality''
Gay marriage was legal and recognised in Rome, parts of Greece, Scythia, Egypt, and Canaan., and later among the native Americans, where the ''berdaches'' were seen not as religious outcasts, but as possessing special spiritual blessings and gifts.
(In India, same sex relationships are so fully accepted that homoerotic sculptures, depicting explicit male sexual acts, may be seen as temple art in Hindu temples.)
On Zoology, '' A 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior, has been observed in close to 1500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms'' (see Wikipedia for details).
I could go on with much more, but there is little point in a comment box.
For more supporting evidence, try some simple internet research: Google, wikipedia are easy places to start, or check some of the amny specialist websites that will give comprehensive supporting data.
If all else fails, go to my own blogsite, ''Queering the Church'', where I discuss some of these issues and point to other writers more knowledgeable than I.
It is obvious that the homosexual agenda is not one concerned with respect or honest dialogue - it is an agenda of power that seeks forced affirmation of homosexuality on all those who disagree throughout all of society.
You might "queer elemetary education" with liberals in Washington but you will not "queer" the Church. When you cannot queer the Church, you will persecute her with government help.
Need a real life example? Look at the DC marriage law which will deny social services contracts to the Church because she will not bend to the twisted morality that the government wants to force on the public. There could have been exceptions for religious groups; however, this would not exhibit the power of the gay movement as well as forcing the Church out of contracts and the public square.
Out of pride you call good evil and evil good - as was predicted in the Gospels.
PS - because homosexuality existed in a variety of historical periods does not indicate that it is natural or good - it proves that there is nothing new under the sun after the Fall...
I agree with you that dialogue is sorely missing surrounding this issue. We have people lobbing one-liners past each other.
However, has it ever occurred to you that dialogue is immediately impossible when one of the fundamental aspects of the issue is ignored by those on the right: That homosexuality is not chosen.
If you have millions of gay and lesbian people stating that they did not choose to be homosexual, and science backing up their claim, then when you insist it is a choice you are from the very start ignoring science and saying to all these millions of people that they are liars.
How do you expect dialogue to proceed from that? How can I have a conversation with someone who calls me a liar from the get-go? Can you a least see how demeaning that is and how it can obstruct dialogue? Do you see how people can feel your dismissal of their own life experience is less than respectful?
''On psychology, the psychiatric and psychological professions are clear that this not a mental disease.'' Psychiatry, they changed the DSM on what clear evidence?
''On anthropology, research has shown that homosexual relationships occur commonly in many pre-industrial societies n all continents.'' So what, so does murder, incest, adultery and bestiality.
On Zoology, '' A 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior, has been observed in close to 1500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms'' ....that has about as much relavance to this topic as my dog mounting my leg. Human beings have a will and intellect, things that separate them form the beasts.
But since you addressed my posting directly, I'd like to repond. Three quick points:
1. You say ,''. . . I believe it is harmful for someone to reduce himself or other persons to their sexual orientation (or ethnicity, or some other characteristic). Each individual has a) far too much human dignity as a child of God and b) too much complexity to be treated thus.''
And that's exactly the point I was making when I told you that it seems better to me that those who define others (and have the power to make their definitions stick) listen first to the others they're defining, and the experience of those others. It is precisely because the term ''homosexual,'' which is imposed on gay people from outside, implies that we are only about sexuality, that many of us ask to be called gay instead.
2. It would be less than honest (and not helpful to the conversation) to ignore the fact that there are dynamics of power at work here that give astonishing privilege to those who have, until now, defined gay people and our experience from the outside, rather than to gay folks ourselves. I think the evidence that such power is there, is at work in our society and church, and in this discussin, is overwhelming.
In pointing this out, I'm not trying to sling accusations or point the finger at anyone. I'm merely calling for a level of honesty about who has power in whose hands - power OVER others - and who doesn't. In my view, the discussion of these issues in the church has been not very fruitful, because, in the name of a bogus ''charity,'' it suppresses recognition of the unequal power dynamics and stigmatizes those who point out the fact that they exist as malicious.
3. Personally, I don't think it's possible to save folks' souls when you demean their bodies. And you (not you, but one does) demean their bodies when you take away their jobs, their health care coverage, their right to a house or an apartment, simply because of their sexual orientation.
I have to return to my observation that the church does this itself, in how it treats gay employees. I know it does so because I've experienced it myself. My life remains very difficult economically and in other ways because the church itself has chosen to do deny a livelihood (and, along with that goes health benefits) to my partner and me. And I don't stand alone in this experience.
Those treated this way by the Christian community find the claim that the community doing this to us is concerned about our souls and our salvation rather tinny sounding. Especially when those doing this to us don't ever and won't ever have to deal with similar experiences, simply because of who they happen to be.
How can I have a conversation with someone who implies that I am a bigot from the get-go?
As for science, you are using this to limit the thological implications of personal human actions/choices. You claim that science is neutral and that it also proves your point - much the way that the current administration dismissed all critics of stem cell cloning by imply that no one can argue with "fact-based" science.
In any case, there is not major scientific studies that back your claim. Even if there were, it is reductionist and determinist to say that genes determine our behavior and that we are programed to act in one fashion or the next.
It is much more complex than that.
So many of these comments are completely appalling and it is very tragic to see them; again thanks to Jim Martin for trying to establish some semblance of respectful dialogue.
However, there are comments here from people I interact with online and I am grateful to see them present here.
I pray that this conversation can carry on in some meaningful way within our church; it is hard to feel hopeful about it so much of the time.
My response to your was in reference to your mourning the lack of respectful dialogue. So I am focusing only on how such an environment can be achieved.
I did not call you a bigot, nor can I see how anything I wrote could be construed that way. I was only talking about how dialogue proceeds. Part of dialogue is listening. It involves taking what the other says at face value and giving them the benefit of the doubt. It involves responding to what they actually say, not making assumptions as to their agenda.
So, can you see how dialogue is not possible when you dismiss the personal experience of gays and lesbians who say they did not choose to be that way? And can you see how you shut off further dialogue when you state there are no scientific studies on the subject (which is quite simply false; there are hundreds) or that even if they are, you plainly state you intend to reject them out of hand?
So if you really desire dialogue, you have already foreclosed the possibility of discussion pertaining to lived experience and science. You have unilaterally set arbitrary parameters to the discussion. That's not dialogue.
So if you truly want to dialogue, you need to loosen up a bit. Perhaps you don't want dialogue. That's your choice; you are not required to do so. But if what you really want is to close off all avenues of discussion and to merely state your own beliefs in a one-way fashion, please don't call it dialogue or accuse others of not wanting to dialogue because they don't follow your rules.
You don't need to tell us that you know the Catechism - we know you do - and that you keep your vow of chastity - we assume that you do, and if you weren't, this would not be the place to discuss it.
Amazing how this blog is taking off now that comments are open. But you need to be tough-skinned to be able to stand it!
Terence wrote, "Dumb me. Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman and Josef Ratzinger are just individuals. ....And the Magisterium is composed of …… divinely incardinated pure spirits? Reincarnated Apostles? How about being “just individuals” themselves?"
Are you saying that Aquinas, Newman, & Ratzinger were protected by the Holy Spirit in their writings stating that personal conscience can trump infallible teachings (I haven't checked those quotes you listed, but I'll assume the authors did state them in the context you provided)? Wouldn't that be self contradictory? If I pray and really convince myself that any action is morally right, is there any limit to what I can do? Believe me, I think I understand where you're coming from. I used to rebel against the Magisterium itself. In the last few years, though, after learning more early Church history, I do think that Jesus did intend a teaching Church whose teachings would be protected by the Spirit.
I am very impressed with the posts by William Lindsey, Deacon Eric Stoltz, Steve Schewe, Christina, Jim McCrea and others I may overlook, who write with compelling effect. I worked in Re-membering Church where many gay and lesbian Catholics shared their pain.
And imagine the multiple burdens on gay priests and bishops (there ARE many) ministering in the face of being called “objectively disordered” and “inclined to an intrinsic evil.” The dislocations occasioned by the need to hide, even to the point of being susceptible to blackmail, are amply covered by the work of former Benedictine priest and psychologist Richard Sipe: http://www.richardsipe.com/
One thing: I always thought the essence (the core) and expression of something had to be in concert. IOW, if the orientation is not evil or sinful, how can its expression be? Either both are evil, or neither.
Frankly, there is no way I can accept church teaching in this matter or some others. And there is NO infallibility at stake here, creeping or otherwise. Better a policy of benign neglect and prayer when it comes to such pronouncements.
As for adhering to the magisterium, forget the believe it or leave it syndrome of some bishops; that is hardly a Catholic approach. The cafeteria is indeed open, and no amount of catechism vacuum-packed answers suffice.
The questions here will persist, as well they should. Blessings again on Jim Martin, and all who struggle with the issues here. Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manly Hopkins must be cheering from above.
However, for Catholics who are gay, at the present moment, the institutional Church offers only a situation of profound cognitive dissonance. If we are to remain Catholic, we are told that we must: 1. in general, live a life of don't ask, don't tell; 2. must deny the fruits of our experience about the origin of our gayness, the characteristics of the gays we know, and the current consensus of psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, biology and other sciences; 3. cannot be admitted to religious congregations or to Holy Orders; and 4. we must, as do all Catholics, live chastely. But in contrast to all other Catholics, must live lifelong involuntary celibacy. In addition, we must endure (and many say endure without question or comment) public pronouncements of bishops and Vatican officials which attack us, caricature us, and oppose legislation that would ensure our right to work and to housing. Learning to love ourselves and all others is a difficult enough challenge for anyone. Learning to love ourselves and all others is made more difficult by what is being required of us by the Church.
Increasingly, there is the perception among gay and lesbian Catholics that we are being "painted into a corner," by an institution that does not value us and our contributions, does not appear to want us, and insists sometimes on going out of its way to offend us. Just what does the institution expect us to do in such a situation?
If the nature and meaning of sex is not predicated on complementarity, then what conceivable basis is there to limiting erotic relationships to two partners? Those who wish to engage in polyamory make precisely the same case as those who wish to engage in homosexuality.
The mischaracterization of same-sex attraction as merely some sort of lustful rage is demeaning. Did you intend to be so insulting, or did you speak out of ignorance? Either way, it seems incumbent on anyone who wishes to engage in such a discussion to at least take a few minutess to learn the basics.
We should progress beyond the lurid covers of 1950s pulp novels.
You then say that the "nature and meaning of sex" is predicated on complementarity. Perhaps for brute beasts. But we are not brute beasts, we are human, with intelligence and mind and will. For truly human beings, the nature and meaning of sex is predicated on love, on self-donation to the other. And in self-donation, we can only give what we have to give. Finally, you state that polyamory make precisely the same case as those who conclude that in some cases same sex sexual expression is permissible. Again this is a red herring. What we are talking about here are two people expressing love to each other in the only way in which they are "wired" to do so.
Dear Father:
You are precisely right. We are called to treat others with:
" compassion, dignity and respect"; however,you left out the
very next statement from " Instruction
Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations
with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies
in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy
Orders ", 2. Homosexuality and the Ordained Ministry , namely:
" Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should
be avoided. They are called to fulfil God's will in their
lives and to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the
difficulties they may encounter[8].
The Spiritual Works of Mercy are just that. To admonish the
the sinner, to counsel the doubtful. The Truth is not
now, nor can it ever be, subject to political discourse. Po
litical discourse must be subject to the Truth. The Truth is
never intended as invective.
Respectfully,
Maria
"If the nature and meaning of sex is not predicated on complementarity, then what conceivable basis is there to limiting erotic relationships to two partners?"
Polyamory violates the priniciples of equality and exclusivity in a way that homosexual relationships do not.
I think the concept of "complementarity" is one that needs much further reflection in Catholic theology. Part of the problem with the Church's position is that is based on rigid sex/gender types- a failure to recognize that people come in more than two types. Not all women fit the same mold, and not all men fit the same mold- not to mention people with certain genetic disorders that blur our clear sex distinctions. (Our approach is too married to Platonic ideal forms.) There can be real complementarity in homosexual relationships. Obviously, this is not the kind of biological complementarity that would permit reproduction, but the possibilty of actual reproducation is not present for many heterosexual couples and the church does not require it for marriage.
Once you have undergone all this, then you may feel free to admonish gays and lesbians.
"But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase."
See? even gay-bashing can be justified by Church documents. If we are beaten to death, the Vatican says it's really our own fault.
The more apt comparison is between all gay and lesbian relationships and all straight relationships - both those who are married and those who are simply living together. In such a comparison, I think gay and lesbians would not have very different rates of breakup than would straights.
Responding to post 87 by j.a.m.: You are making three dreadful assumptions when you cite statistics about the rate of never having been married as an argument against "the supposedly dreadful burden of celibacy." First, you assume that middle aged men who have never been married have restrained from sexual relationships. That is obviously unfounded. Second, those middle aged men who are heterosexual and not incompetent have apparently chosen to be celibate. That is a completely different situation from those who have not chosen celibacy but for whom the Church seeks to impose celibacy. Third, you assume all those 16% of men who have never married by middle age are straight. However we know that some percentage of them are gay and do not have the legal right to marry. If you subtract the gay men, your percentages would be considerably lower.
The rate of fornication among these men is irrelevant, as all are called to chastity, no differently from those who experience same-sex attraction. As for accounting for the latter, subtracting that 2-3% of the population gives you a figure of 13% for whites and 23% for blacks. That minor adjustment hardly changes my point.
But polyamorous relationships also produce children. If I had two wives, I could have children with both of them simultaneously.
Remember, of course, that polygamy was the norm for much of the Old Testament period. The reason the Church rejects it is not because it can't produce children, but because the church recognizes that having multiple partners interferes with one's ability to give oneself wholly to the other, and it produces inherently unequal relationships.
I anticipate your response will be that one can't fully give oneself to the other unless one gives one's fertility as well, but recall that the church allows infertile couples and couples past child bearing age to marry.
Oh rail against what seems so wrong and wrap yourselves in self-righteous self-justification. If the heart of embracing Christ is the crucifixion of letting go, that position seems antithetical.
God have mercy as one strikes another in the name of "exhorting against sin." This is all done without love it would appear.
Nature and circumstance 'impose' celibacy on many people, it doesn't seek out men and women with same sex attraction. Lots of people never find a mate and suffer loneliness, irregardless of their orientation for example. But more importantly, so what?
Life is a b*tch isn't it? Like the Psalmist said regarding our short span of years: '...and most of these are emptiness and pain'. That's why there are biblical titles for this life like 'bitter valley' and 'valley of tears'. Life sucks for everyone, not just people with same sex attraction. So in this regard, you're not special. Whining about something that is part of everyone's fate in this present life is not a good argument.
Now the really big problem here is regarding same sex attraction as something normal, natural, wholesome, and generally on the same level as the sexual complimentarity of men and women. This is the disputed question. This is no small matter, it's huge. The ramifications are huge. This question implicates the whole biblical faith itself. And it faces many serious philosophical and theological problems. Yes, we should definitely improve our pastoral approach to people with homosexual tendencies, but this has to proceed from a correct understanding of things from a natural, scriptural, and philosophical standpoint.
I think that theologians and the magisterium are partly to blame for the lack of comprehension on the Church's understanding of things like contraception and sexuality in general. For some reason I don't fully understand, theologians have insisted in trying to put these things in terms of natural law instead of fully explicating them in scriptural and theological terms.
The only thing that can objectively save erotic desire is its relationship to fertility. The human race has always seen the sacredness of sex in its fertile power. And if sex isn't sacred, it's sacrilege. Without this reference point of fertility, there is no hope for making sex into an expression of love. Love needs a medium, and in the context of erotic activity, only fertility can provide the raw material for that expression. That's why Christ used the grain of wheat as an image for the paschal mystery.
Can you describe the relationship of Christ and his Church in homosexual terms?
You've said it all and said it well. I have had similar thoughts when I see young people severly disfigured or handicaped. We do indeed have our own crosses. Some of us suffer more deeply than others. Who has know the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counselor?
1) You are correct to say that some people find celibacy imposed on them by their circumstances in life. For example, some of our soldiers who have been badly maimed by IED's are no longer capable of sexual intercourse. Two questions present themselves: (i) Does this condition mean that they should not pursue romatic relationships that do not include sexual intercourse? And (ii) is homosexuality an analgous situation? I answer no to both questions. On the first question I believe we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. (See below for futher thoughts on that.) On the second question there is a real difference between someone whose life circumstances render them incapable of a sexual relationship, and someone who is fully capable of a loving, committed sexual relationship who is told that it is forbidden for them to enter one. Or in the case you mention of people who want to get married but never find a suitable partner: it is one thing to never find someone; it is quite another to find someone and be told that one may not marry them.
2) You wrote: "Love needs a medium, and in the context of erotic activity, only fertility can provide the raw material for that expression." This seems to me to be contrary to Church teaching. As I've noted several times already in this discussion, the Church permits infertile couples to marry. (And by "infertile" I mean not just couples who are struggling to conceive, but also couples for whom conception is impossible.)
Why do we make the perfect the enemy of the good? Two people of the same sex cannot achieve all of the goods of marriage, but they can achieve some of them. Why not allow two people of the same sex to marry and strengthen and support one another with companionship and committed love? The Church allows infertile heterosexual couples to do this. The main issue the Church keeps raising on this point is that of complementarity. But as I've pointed out above, this relies on innaccurate sex/gender stereotypes. In the new document that the USCCB is discussing this weekend (on marriage) you will see that they spend a lot of time extolling the "complementarity" of the sexes, but they never get specific about the traits that make us complementary. This is because as soon as you start naming "male" and "female" traits (other than physical ones) you are immediately confronted with evidence of large numbers of men and women who don't fit that mold. There are sex/gender trends, but no hard and fast rules other than the essentials of anatomy. And biological/anatomical complementarity is only essential if fertility is essential to marriage, which the Church says it is not.
I suppose the fundamental point here is this: can you be openly, actively homosexual and still adhere to all the teachings of the Church as best as you possibly can?
I would answer no. A gay person seeking marriage to their lifepartner or simply living an openly gay lifestyle isn't "struggling" with some Church teaching, but living in open and admitted opposition to it. Your point about complementarity seems to miss the mark. Elements of complementarity do arise out of gender/gender role differences but is predicated on the biological function of generative sex. The entirety of the doctrine of complementarity as the Church teaches it today is founded on heterosexual intercourse.
You are right that we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good, but I suggest that as hard as it is to say this (and it is terribly hard) that part and parcel of the good ought to be striving for the perfect. Settling for the good is spiritual laziness. We ought to strive as strongly for affordable healthcare for all as we ought to strive to stop the crime of abortion. That we may not get either one accomplished in our lifetime, that sometimes we've caved in heated discussions to avoid a real confrontation, is merely a failure on our part to be properly open to God's and wisdom and should not be taken as an indication of where we ought to be. Part of being Catholic is recognizing that this world and its inescapable concupiscence is precisely where we ought not be.
I agree that it really is not permitted in the Catechism. You are right to bring up these questions, as they are hard ones. I would say this, though: yes, a caring, romantic relationship is something most of us want. But what should be a fundamental question is: is it what we deserve? Numerous commentaries on the theology of the body, and on much earlier works within the church touching on human sexuality point out that we should never love our spouse before God. Indeed, I have found, in talking to married couples, that it is in loving and trying to obey God that they were able to love each other better.
Perhaps we have duped our selves into thinking that everyone should be able to do what everyone else can. I'm not sure that that's been the healthiest impulse.
If we can't make the perfect the enemy of the good, neither ought we choose the obtuse when plain meaning more than suffices.
Now, how does any of the above relate to homosexual Catholics. As with every human being, homosexuals should be treated with the dignity inherent in their humanity. Parishes should welcome and accept them as all other people, and be grateful for their contributions to parish life. It seems to me that pastoral care of homosexual Catholics would include what is offered to divorced and single Catholics who try to live celibate lives. The problem arises for pastors who do not believe the teachings of the church regarding homosexuality and believe that the church should change its teachings. I think this is what Father Martin is getting at. The pastoral approach I described above does not fit in that scenario. Confession would be a farce if there is no sin to confess. Obedience and sacrifice, certainly unpopular concepts in our culture would not apply. The pastoral ministry, Courage, would be irrelevant.
I think Father's post and this blog are not the way to deal with this enormously complex issue. As one blogger said, it provides much heat and little light. The issue of homosexuality should be examined in the context of our society's obsession with sex, straight or gay, and the individualistic mentality of many who use others sexually without any regard for their humanity. And what about the children in our society?? Not one blogger mentioned children . The welfare of children should be uppermost in any discussion of this type.
Please aleve me of my obtuseness and enlighten me on what 99.999% of the world knows: Aside from anatomy/chromosomes, what are the hard and fast differences between men and women that make us complementary? In you answer I would simply ask that you observe the "plain meaning" of my words and not identify traits that are merely trends; please limit yourself to identifying traits that are in fact universal features of one or other of the sexes.
When did all this occur? When, during the Mass, the priest's eyes were turned away from Golgotha and toward ''his'' flock....
The inconsistency seems illogical.
We think we know all about male and female, when a great deal more humility is called for. What about the births of transgendered babies? Very often the judgments about the true gender of the infant was incorrect based on biological characteristics alone. Tragic consequences resulted from premature surgeries that chose the wrong physical correction. We learned instead of the key role of the brain and biochemical agents.
Did God make a mistake when He allowed those with ambiguous gender identities to be born? Or is there much more mystery here than we can imagine? We really know very little about sexual orientation...
Did God likewise make a mistake when he made those with homosexual orientations? Speaking of objectively disordered and intrinsically evil, it would seem He did, if you follow the logic. I did not choose heterosexuality, and neither is homosexuality chosen.
Perhaps you need to reread my comment (#106). Here's my argument in short form:
- The church rests much of its argument against homosexual marriage on the supposed lack of complementarity between two people of the same sex.
- I contend that there are no universal differences between the sexes other than the anatomical differences produced by differing chromosomes. All other differences that people identify (e.g. women are more relational, men are more competitive, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, etc.) are merely trends and don't apply to every man or women.
- Thus it is possible for two people of the same sex to have real complementarity in their relationship in the same way heterosexual couples do. The only place where they will lack complementarity is their anatomy.
- This anatomical difference is not insignificant, but is not morally decisive in evaluating homosexuality. The couple still will be able to share sexual intimacy in a way that is supportive of the unitive end of marriage. They will not be able to engage in a sexual union that furthers the procreative end of marriage. However the church has made clear that Church has made that it is not wrong for a man and woman to get married who are biologically incapable of producing children. As the bishops outline in their forthcoming document on marriage, such couples can still further the procreative end of marriage by supporting the children of friends and relatives and in other such ways.
Now if something is good at its core (or at least not sinful), how can its expression be the opposite?
I understand minds are not changed by the discussion here, but more questions may be generated along the way.
Thank you, Jim McCrea:
“Anyone upon whom the ecclesiastical authority, in ignorance of true facts, imposes a demand that offends (his) clear conscience, should perish in excommunication rather than violate (his) conscience.“ St. Thomas Aquinas
And from Benedict himself, commenting on a conciliar document:
“For Newman, conscience represents the inner complement and limit of the church principle. Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.
Joseph Ratzinger on article 16 of Gaudem et Spes, in Volume 5 of the ''Commentary on Documents of Vatican II'', edited by Vorgrimler (New York/London 1969).
The evidence that Boswell presents is that:
Homoerotic relationships are not in fact condemned by scripture - the so-called clobber texts have been mistranslated, misintpreted, or just misunderstood in what have become the traditional presentations. (Many other reputable scripture scholars agree.)
That the opposition from the church was originally based on the Epistle of Barnabas, which argued from ''natural law'': but Barnabas' ideas of nature included some totally bizarre understandings of zoology, and in any casee argued in contrary directions for different animal species. This writing is no longer considered canonical, but remains the root of teaching on homosexuality, in spite of its absurd understanding of zoology
That some of he early church fathers, following Barnabas, wrote against homosexual practices, but these were a minority view for many centuries, In any case, actual church practice showed substantial acceptance. Male prostitution was legal and taxed even by Christian emperors. The early church recognised and honoured many gay saints - most notable Sergius and Bacchus, Roman Soldiers, and lovers, martyred in the early 4th century.
The early saint and bishop, Paulinus of Nola, who was celebrated for his religious poetry, was also noted for his explicit homoerotic verse - some of which is included in the ''Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse''. (Not recorded by Boswell but noted elsewhere is a second bishop and saint, Virgilius Fortunatus of Poitiers, who also has verse printed in the same Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse.)
Opposition to homosexuality developed gradually after the fall of Rome, largely as a result of a decline in urban culture, and in parallel with increasing intolerance of all outsiders - homosexuals, Jews and gypsies. Opposition from the church authorities followed, and did not lead, this secular growth of intolerance. Even so, for many centuries yet, the increasing view of this as ''sinful'' did not see it as particularly more serious than other sins - including some that we today consider fairly mild.
Early in the 11th Century, an openly gay man was nominated by his lover, Ralph the Archbishop of Tours, as Bishop of Orleans. He was also known to have been the lover of another bishop, and the appointment drew strong opposition - not on the grounds of his sexuality or promiscuity, but because he was too young and would be too easily influenced by his mentor. Despite strong pressure, the then pope refused to override the appointment, and the following pope (Paschal II) refused to revoke it, at about the same time that he did depose another bishop, Etienne de Garland, for adultery - implying that an open homosexual relationship between two bishops was less serious than one of secret adultery by another..
In the early twelfth century, Peter Lombard wrote a text that ''was to become the standard moral text for all of Europe's Catholic universities for the next century''. It contained no reference at all to homosexuality. The ''sin against nature'' was discussed at length - in the discussion of marriage and adultery, and was defined as the illicit use of a woman by a man.
It was not until 1179, at thc Third Lateran Council, that the church as a whole for the first time took a clear consensus stance against homosexuality - in response to growing secular intolerance once again of homosexuals, Jews and gypsies.
This does not appear to me to be 2000 years of continuous teaching against a sin supposedly worse than all others, as some people claim. The current teaching is the result of historical development, not of a fixed, unchanging position. It can and inevitably will develop further, and this time will be more soundly based in reality and the findings of science and scholarship, .
(Other scholars have pointed to serious flaws in the later development of the theology, after the period covered by Boswell, but I allow that to pass for now.).
,
The much maligned catholic church and Joe Alwin are better guides than self proclaimed devils advocates.
Which teachings? Any and all? Infallibly defined? Those dealing with Creed (belief)? Code (disciplines)? Cult (worship practices)?
I suggest to you, my friend, that a cursory review of Church history will reveal more than one instance with the Holy Spirit has been derelict in Her/His duty if what you believe is supposed to be true.
Three related citings may help bring clarity to the dogmatism of “Truth”:
If our understanding of God develops slowly and somewhat uncertainly, then there will always be as much reason to regard any putative (i.e., commonly accepted or supposed) heresy as a new insight as there will be to regard it as a distortion of the truth.
Gordon Graham, "The Goodness of God and the Conception of Hell" New Blackfriars, November 1988
“Heresy is willful theologizing of conduct unworthy of the faith. It's not always possible to be sure we're dealing with it. It can for a while be perfectly sincere: people may honestly not see the contradiction between confession and conduct. But we're not talking about complicities with evil that are part of our human lot. We can repent of these, pray to be delivered, bear the burden of guilt, so long as we don't defend them theologically. Heresy is rather the hardness of heart that knows something is wrong but seeks to cover it up with doctrinal blustering. It is most often the heresy of the establishment. But it can also be the heresy of the prophet who embraces causes for personal aggrandizement rather than legitimate conviction.“
Thomas Oden, Can There Ever Be a Center Without a Circumference: A Response to Lewis Mudge (see article immediately above), Christian Century, 4-12-95.
“Heresy may be the result of poor timing.”
Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine", Vol I, "The Emergence of Catholic Tradition."
RE: Numquam(#117): "So, j.a.m. apparently acknowledges that God not only made them male and female but also every variant in between, and all are good as part of creation." Uh, no, that's the opposite of what I said. The existence of a thing is not proof of its goodness. Lots of bad things exist. How you reconcile that with an all-good God is your problem and a whole other discussion. The mere fact that involuntary same-sex attraction exists, or may exist, does not mean that it is good or that God intended it.
I missed this post earlier, so apologise for responding so late. But as I live just outside London, and regularly visit the West End and Soho to attend Mass, I cannot let this pass without comment.
Of course, I recognise the world Fanshawe describes - but he is dead wrong in calling it "the" gay lifestyle. It is, rather, the lifestyle of a few, a very few, who have made the mistake of latching onto a certain stereotype and concluded that to be "gay" means to conform to it. It most certainly does not apply to the people I know who attend the London gay Mass, nor does it apply to the many men I know from other gay groups here in London.
Fanshawe states, without evidence, that "we" (by which he implies he includes all or the majority of gay men) 'are " hooked on vanity, and regard older men with contempt. Despite AIDS we're still chasing the ultimate sexual high and what's more are determined to wreck ourselves on designer drugs. We're happy to assist the straight world in keeping alive the image of all gay men as limp-wristed queens.''
Huh? Again, that might be so for some people, but absolutlely not for all, nor even for a major portion.
Have you ever heard of the gay "bear" movement? This was and remains a conscious backlash against this primping, queenish vanity, and quite explicitly rejects the obsession with appearance, and specifically rejects the fascination with fashion that Fanshawe seems to think dominates gay life. To check his facts, all he needed to do would have been to visit a few of London's most popular gay bars (which I frequent "regularly", like most gay men - about once every second month.) just a look around the bars, or even just walking down Compton Street, would quickly demonstrate that the fashionistas are jsut a very small minority. And remember, we are talking here of the absolute heart of the gay "culture" as far as it exists. Substantial numbers of us never go into this gay "heartland" at all, staying atading, looking after the home, watching sports, hanging out with friends and family - or raising kids, just like anyone else.
I fear Fanshawe claims to be reporting on "the gay lifesttle", but in fact is reporting only on his own. I know that some people do fit his description, but I also nkow that some young black men are drug- addled drop outs hanging out in gangs. That does not make them representative of "the black lifestyle". Some straight men are serious adulterers and lavish expense account funds on lap dancing clubs, cocaine and the like. That doe not make them representative of "the straight lifestyle". The people Fanshawe describes may be typical of the people he used to mix with, but that does not make them "the gay lifestyle."
There is one point on which I agree with him, and it is an important one. He notes that vast amounts of our leisure time is organised around sex, straight or gay, but what gay men have done is to organise our identity around sex. To the (limited) extent that this statement is true, we need to look at why, and the reason is clear: it is a simple social self-defence mechanism, where social opprobrium in the past has been so strong, that we have not been able to form normal and healthy romantic attachments in public, like other people can. Organising to meet around sex is often the only way we can meet up with other gay man in the hope of friendships that can lead to more serious relationships.
It is striking that as same sex friendships and relationships are becoming more acceptable and more visible, so the traditional gay bars and gay clubs are finding that their appeal is dropping. In countries where marriage or civil unions have been recognised for any length of time, male couples are taking their relationships more seriously, and developing pattterns of fidelity and permanence that resemble any other. (In the classical world, where same sex relationships were seen as entirely nomral, many people believed that male couples showed greater loved and greater fidelity than opposit gender marriages.)
If you are appalled by this misnamed "gay lifestyle" and would like to see it disappear in your own state, encourage gay marriage and gay parenting. Works every time.
As a church we have not done well and certainly have a lot of room for growth in how we care for those who struggle with SSA. So I say lets pray that God will raise up a group of people who have a heart for those who struggle with SSA so that the walls that divide us can be healed. That we can truly dialogue with one another, and I say truly dialogue because from my own experience those struggling with SSA seem to want to dialogue only if the end result is if the church will change its teachings on this topic.
There is a truth here and I have decided to live a life that is worthy of God's inheritance. If I live for God I lose nothing but if live for my own inclinations, rights, desires, fantasies I could lose everything and I just am not willing to take the chance. Are you?
In Christs love,
It seems that those who oppose the Church's teaching on homosexuality deny the fundamental freedom of Judeo-Christian revelation: the freedom to turn from evil, the freedom to repent.
This vision of this particular blog seems to be a form of relativism or Manichaeanism - which sees evil as co-eternal with good and, in doing so, embrace folly and sin as diversity or individuality rather than repudate it in the name of Truth and the reality of God's creation.
I am afriad that Fr. Martin and his co-bloggers - when in modern, comspolitian company that dominates the public square these days - are embarassed of their own tradition and, more importantly, the revalation of truth as found in the Old and New Testaments.
I believe that when people speak from their real places, from their hearts, it's important that they know that their wrords are heard. And so I want my brothers and sisters who have expressed Christian concern for those of us living the gay "lifestyle" to know that I have heard you on this thread. And I have listened carefully.
I have to say in all honesty I am not convinced by your arguments, however. They don't seem in any honest or effective way to engage the data set forth by Fr. Martin in his posting that began the thread.
What's more, I have to tell you honestly - in all Christian charity - that I'm not really convinced at all that pastoral concern and love motivate many of the negative responses to Fr. Martin's initial statement and to the statements of those of us who took seriously his invitation to deal with the question, What's a gay Catholic to do?.
When I hear people continue to talk about the "gay lifestyle," after those of us who are gay have asked you to move beyond the false stereotypes and engage real persons, I hear not a religiously motivated crusade but a political one, one not conspicuously respectful towards the people you profess to wish to save.
And it's not a crusade I can endorse, as a Catholic. My Catholic values move in a different direction. I see that there is real evil at work in the world, to be combated. There are real wounds to be healed. And that evil has far less to do with sexual infractions than with inequitable distribution of the goods of the earth, something that often seems to fail to concern my anti-gay brothers and sisters.
It seems preferable to me that the church devote its energies to feeding the hungry, healing the sick, providing shelter for the homeless - not inflicitng needless pain on its gay children. It seems preferable to me that if the church is going to address sin in the world today, it deal as aggressively with those who exploit the poor, destroy the environment, neglect the needs of the indigent, as it does with those who happne to be gay.
In my experience, Christians who attack and demean their gay brothers and sisters rarely demonstrate much concern at all about the sins that really wound the world and the body of Christ today. In fact, I'm sorry to say, in my experience Christians intent on demeaning their gay brothers and sisters are not uncommonly allied with political groups that defend the "right" of the rich to exploit the poor.
As a result, I'm sorry to have to tell those who have logged onto this thread to invite me to renewed engagement in the Christian community that you haven't, unfortunately, made me feel more welcome. Rather the opposite, sad to say.
I do live in hope, though. I believe that there will come a day - perhaps sooner rather than later -when the strange, indefensibel need of many contemporary Christians to demonstrate that their gay brothers and sisters are unwelome and inferior, while those Christians claim to have the high road, will perplex historians and Christian communities. As much as the need in the past to do the same thing to the Jewish people, to women, and to people of color perplexes people of good will today . . . .
What you fail to understand this that the Church is not a theraputic institution - it, rather, is an institution divinely created to uphold and spread the truth and reality of God's creation and revelation.
It does not exist to affirm your actions no matter their consequence or support your claim for autonomy.
I understand that many are misled by modern insitiutions due to the fact that most are theraputic - commercial enterprise and ads constantly affirm individuality and desire as natural goods - the government promotes moral hazard by disconnecting actions from concequences in the business and personal areas - etc.,etc.
However, the Church, unlike those using desire and the illusion of autonomy to sell sneakers or get re-elected - will not allow you to be decieved into believing that your trangressions are any thing but trangressions and are a threat to your soul.
This is not descrimination or hostility - it is the truth - and, as I am sure you know from personal experience, you have to truely love someone to tell them a tough truth - especially when they do not want to hear it.
The church looks to Jesus for its originating impulse - Jesus whose whole significance can be summed up, according to Mark's gospel, in the statement, "He went about healing the sick and doing good."
The church is called, at the most fundamental level possbile, to heal, to be a therapeutic institution. When it fails to fulfill that mission, it betrays the gospel and fails to be church.
My partner of 37 years and I, like other couples of any stripe, do not have a “lifestyle”: we have a life together. It really isn’t all that much different from the straight couples who live on either side of us. We keep our house up. We tend to our gardens. We participate in our parish and local civic activities. We volunteer. We celebrate holidays with both our biological as well as social families. We watch out for our neighbors’ houses when they are away, and they reciprocate. We don’t raise children, but know many LGBT couples who do - and straight couples who don’t. Our relationship has outlasted by far those many of the straight couples who we know, their relationships having been sanctified by church and financially supported by state. (So much for the straight – and Catholic - “lifestyle.”)
I recommend the following article from about a year ago that sheds a lot of light on the similarities and dissimilarities between straight and LGBT couples – and what straight couples can learn from LGBT relationships: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/health/10well.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
Two telling paragraphs are these:
“A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships. Most studies show surprisingly few differences between committed gay couples and committed straight couples, but the differences that do emerge have shed light on the kinds of conflicts that can endanger heterosexual relationships.”
“Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.”
The Church's mission is to proclaim the good news of salvation, not the happy talk of therapy. Therapy has its place and yes, the Church must offer solace and refuge. But salvation is not therapy, and salvation comes at a cost, the laying down a life of sin.
Silly me - I thought that Chrst summed it up Himself in the idea of love!
However, sin can be found not only in individuals, but also in institutions. Have you even considered that Christ's message here might be to remove the cross of sin from the institutional church itself?
And before replying that the church can do no evil, just take a look at history.
(And, to answer your question "B" applies to Bisexual)
I think are are misunderstanding each other on the term theraputic - I am speaking not of medical therapies for healing a particular disease but, of psychological therapy which focuses on a sense of personal well-being at any cost (usually deceiving oneself about the nature of reality via coping mechanisms).
Regarding your reference, Christ clearly states that He came to fulfill the (Jewish) law, not to break it - He saved the sinner but also told them to go and sin no more.
Of course the Church offers solace and healing to the sinner (and I include myself in this category) but, as j.a.m. states, this healing comes at a heavy price - a price that Jesus specifically spelled out in the gospels - there is nothing more trying for us "moderns" than the forsaking or destruction of self...
As a youngish, single celibate male who struggles everyday of the week with modern transcressive culture and then struggles socially as a single person going to Mass (filled with families or couples) - I understand what it means to be on the outside looking in.
We all have a cross to bear and, as a person who avoided/refused his cross until fairly recently, I can honestly say that sacrifice and dependence on God is 1000x more satisifying than smoother road of autonomy and self-affirmation (which usually leads to madness).
God bless and I will say a prayer for you.
You say that giving up sin is the cost of salvation. And yet Jesus came to set us free not just from sin, but also from fear, doubt and death. The freedom that Jesus offers us is what will make us truly ourselves, truly happy. If you like to quote popes, conceder what Benedict XVI said: "If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great."
You see, j.a.m., for some disciples of Jesus the whole idea of giving up sin as some sort of sacrifice is foreign to us. To us it is a joy to live the Gospel. It makes us more alive, it gives us purpose, it frees us from the slavery of the world. The disciple does not secretly desire sin, grimly forgoing it so as to be "saved." Salvation is not achieved through one's own grit and determination; that's what we call Pelagianism. And we have a word for the worldview that sees life as a trial and a test, through which one passes only by giving up what he or she truly desires to do: Jansenism.
When we find who we are meant to be, we begin to become our true selves, as God has made us. This is why denial is not an option for the gay person. We are on a journey toward becoming who God means us to be, and along the way we learn that everything must be integrated into this primordial call of the Father, even our sexuality. We can no longer leave that out of the equation than we can the name he has given us from before the foundation of the world.
And so we are left with two ways of approaching life: the fearful, resentful way of life where we grudgingly give up sins we really want to do, and resent those who do not; or the way of the Gospel, where we accept who we are, hope in the love of God and seek to learn how sin is actually not as attractive as others make it out to be, and really just complicates our lives unnecessarily.
Part of the hopeful view of life is learning to think for ourselves and not being afraid of what we don't know. We are enlivened when we hear of others' life experiences, we are fascinated by science, we are engaged in society. That is a living faith. A dead faith closes off avenues of learning that do not fit our agenda, it clings to words and parses them, it seeks to set human experience in stone rather than flesh.
j.a.m., I do not accuse you of having adopted the harsh and stony view of human experience, but some of the things you say make me sad. I am concerned that you may perhaps look at life and the Gospel this way. And that makes me feel sorry for you. I am sad when you reduce the compassion of Jesus to "Patch Adams." How tragic for you, that divine compassion can be so easily ridiculed. Perhaps you are one of those who refer to others as "bleeding hearts. " And yet the Sacred Heart is a bleeding heart.
"I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full." That's not just after we die, but here on Earth as well. And if you live your life with resentment for all the "sinful" things you "gave up" for heaven, then that is a bleak life indeed.
Please, please tell me that you are not really a Catholic deacon...if you are, do you mind telling us where?
In any case, the true question here is philosphical/theological - what is happiness and how is it attained? What is sin and how is it avoided.
The problem with both sin and happiness is that we "moderns" have lost our "sight" or our ability to judge one from the other. We, in effect, no longer can distinguish the authentic from the inauthentic - the reality from fantacy - and, as predicted, much of the time we now call evil good and good evil.
Happiness can be an illusion and much of the modern versions of happiness (i.e. autonomy, freedom, unlimited desire) are exactly that. If you believe that are following your "true self" "as God made you" much of the time you are immitating ideology or social trends/conditions around you and you do not realize it. As for "giving up sin," the nature of sin and Satan is such that we rationalize our actions and the majority of the time to do not even see that we are in fact in a state of sin.
Only by imitating the life and words of Christ - not our autonomous idea of self - are we able to SEE what is real and take steps to follow his path on earth. However, this act of faith takes effort on our part too! This means using our free will to decide which path through this fallen world will best lead us to the life of Christ. And this is the main role of the Church - supporting our pilgrimage and helping us to RECOGNIZE and to atone for our sins along the way.
We are not living in a pre-lapsarian world; sin is real, evil is real (recall the body count from last century?), and Satan, the father of lies, is more active than ever.
Christ has given victory and truth; however, there is one more victory to come and, until then, we need to fight to remain on the path that Christ prepared for us and to avoid the snares of the Devil.
The world is fallen but God is great and the fight is not over...if you believe otherwise, you have been lied to.
I love your line that sin "really just complicates our lives unnecessarily." It reminds me of a homilist (sadly, in a prominent Jesuit parish) who opined that the only real sin is that we're all just too darn busy. I'm not obsessed with sin. However, the vacuous bunnies-and-rainbows blather, and the endless mental contortions to legitimize sexual immorality, do not give God His due as our Creator, and do not bring us closer to becoming who He created us to be.
I like your concise logic and style in these responses; in any case, have you read Rene Girard - "I see satan fall like lightening" or "Violence and the Sacred"?
He is out of Stanford Univ and I think you would like his ideas - a bit of theological anthropology that has a facinating theory on culture/religion and the passion/atonement.
My disgreement comes to the applicability of these concerns to the question of committed, lifelong, monogamous, homosexual relationships. Nearly all the comments admonishing us not to "embrace folly and sin as diversity or individuality rather than repudate it in the name of Truth and the reality of God's creation" (to quote Brett) have begged the question of whether such relationships are in fact sinful.
The catechism defines sin as "a failure in genuine love for God or neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods" (#1849). I have tried my best to offer clear arguments about why homosexual marriage ought to be allowed and tried to show how the traditional arguments against it fail to stand up to reason. I would invite those of you defending the current Church teaching on this topic to explain in what way such relationships embody a failure to genuinely love God or neighbor. To which goods are people in such relationships perversely attached?
I anticipate two major lines of response:
(1) That gay marriage is a failure to love God because it violates his will as expressed through Scripture and Tradition. >> I would respond by inviting you to examine some of the scholarship that Terrence Weldon and others have pointed out regarding both Scripture and Tradition on this matter. The case is not nearly as simply or straight forward as many defenders of the current Church teaching would have us believe.
(2) That gay marriage is a failure to genuinely love the other because genuine love is rooted in truth. >> This of course is predicated on the assumption that the truth is that homosexual relationships are intrinsically disordered and sinful. This once again is simply begging the question.
In Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates famously asks whether holiness is holy because it is commanded by the gods or whether the gods command it because it is holy. The Christian answer to this question has always been that God's commandments are not arbitrary; rather they are ordered towards what is best for us. God tells us not to do the things that disrupt the genuine love that should pervade our relationships with Him, our neighbor, or ourselves. He tells us not to do the things that hurt us or our relationships. Please tell me what is harmful or hurtful about committed sexual love between two people of the same sex? What harm (be it physical, emotional, or spiritual) is caused by such relationships?
I know that I for one at least will remain unpersuaded until I hear a convincing answer to this question. It is in many ways the crux of the argument, but it too often goes unaddressed in discussions such as these (which is why they often go nowhere). My suspicion is that defenders of the current Church teaching are reluctant to articulate a specific answer to this question because their answer will be challenged by the hard evidence of the experience of the many fruitful lifelong gay relationships that exist in the world. But perhaps my suspicions are wrong. I am open to thoghtful and prayerfully considering your reply.
I note in as friendly a way as possible that you have not yet answered by question in # 141.
Advocates of so-called polyamory (not polygamy or polyandry) will make precisely the same arguments same-sex advocates do. They will dispute and take great umbrage at your prejudiced assertion that their relationships are in any way less equal or less mutual than other sexual groupings or pairings. Who are you to say differently?
I'm happy to acknowledge that there are countless moral relationships and living arrangements other than the family. The point in dispute is whether it is licit to engage in genital acts outside the union of husband and wife. When everything that is knowable and observable points so strongly to the real meaning and purpose of sex and family, one is compelled to say no.
Are there compelling historical examples of changes in church teaching on matters of morality? I am at least vaguely aware of attitudes toward slavery (formerly tolerated, now condemned) and the death penalty (formerly tolerated, now less tolerated), though I don't know whether these attitudes, present or former, rise/rose to the level of ''authoritative'' church teaching (or, of whatever standard of authority in which people take current condemnations of same-sex marriage, birth control, etc). And it would be particularly interesting to have examples that go the other way (behaviors that were condemned in the past but are now tolerated or even praised).
But I won't.
Instead, I will just say that I loved - LOVED, I tell you! - PAD's comment. I will offer up my Angelus for your intentions. God bless you and keep you.
Oh, and William Lindsey: I'm betting this discussion will hit the archives after the 212th comment.
The authoritative study on this is John Noonan's A Church that Can and Cannot Change. If I recall he examines the issues examines the issues of slavery, usury and divorce.
My contention is that the principle of exclusivity in sexual relationships is separate from and not dependent on the priniciple of heterosexuality. Thus to question the latter does not undermine the former. My reasons for thinking this:
- negative argument: The heterosexual character of polygamous (not polyamorous) relationships has not automatically led to a belief in the exclusive (limited to two people) nature of marriage in many cultures past and present.
- positive argument: If marriage is a commitment and gift of one's whole self to the other then, regardless of whether it is a heterosexual or homosexual couple, I think logic and experience compel us to understand that one can't give one's total self to more than one person at a time.
It would seem from your answers thus far that your concern about permitting gay marriage has nothing to do with the nature of gay marriage itself, but only about a slippery slope from gay marriage to other froms of sexual practice (e.g polyamory)that are immoral. My guess though is that you do have specific objections to gay marriage itself. I would like to hear what they are.
But since I see that you made a comment to me before it went archival last evening, Joe G, I'd like to respond.
You noted that you LOVED PAD's posting. I'm struck by something vis-a-vis PAD's posting and several other postings here that is - how to put the point? - an indicator of a certain disparity in the levels of self-revelation at work in the thread.
It's interesting, isn't it, that we don't really know who PAD is? She didn't choose to disclose her identity. Not as I've done, or Jim McCrea, or Eric Stolz. Or quite a few other posters, for that matter, who include their full name, or, as you do, include links to a website that permits us to know who you are.
I was struck by this same point when Brett (last name and identity never disclosed) chose to make rude comments about Eric Stolz's (full name and full identity disclosed) hometown, Los Angeles. We don't really know who Brett is, where he lives, where he works. We know all of this in Eric's case.
Certainly PAD and Brett have a right to their viewpoints, and I fully respect any self-revelations they've made on this thread. I take what they have to say seriously. But I find it rather difficult to evaluate those self-revelations with any reliability when I don't really know who is making these very partial self-revelations, in the expectation that they will be listened to with the same seriousness as those who put their lives on the line in this conversation apparently thought we'd be listened to.
There's a lack of mutuality in some of these exchanges that's rather troubling, given 1) the seriousness of these issues to many of us, and 2) the fact that some people who put themselves out on Front Street in the dialogue were countered by purportedly self-revelatory testimony by those who kept their identities hidden.
In addition to the well-known examples of slavery, usury and the subjugation of women, church teaching has also changed very notably on this very subject, homosexuality. See John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (amongst others), or have a look at my post above, #118, where I present a snapshot of Boswell's main findings, or at my regular blog, Queering The Church, (http://queeringthechurch.wordpress.com) where I have several posts on this changing teaching .
L = Lesbian
G = Gay
B = Bisexual
T = Transgender
For extra credit:
Q = either Queer or Questioning
If it helps to have a name with the PAD post, its Peggy. To what difference that makes I am not sure. But if its more personal for you to have a name there you go.
Blessings on your evening
You say you don't understand what difference our varying levels of personal disclosure makes. In my view, it makes two differences.
Some of us have shared deeply personal stories at a personal level, and have disclosed our identity in the process. When we do that, we make ourselves vulnerable. When those who tell stories designed to counter the stories of those who disclose their identity do not disclose their identity, they do not share in the vulnerability of those who fully disclose their identity.
Without full disclosure of identity, it's also impossible to assess fully the credibility of the speaker disclosing hs/her story. Much information is easily available about me to anyone who wants to know who I am, the groups with which I'm affiliated, the causes I support, and so forth, because I have used my full name in my postings.
With those who do not choose to do provide full disclosure (and that's your right, and I respect it), it's not possible to know who you are, the groups you affiliate with, the causes you support, and so forth.
And yet you clearly expect your story to be regarded as a significant commentary on what you call the gay lifestyle, and as a credible counter to the stories of those of us who have a different understanding of our "lifestyle," and who have made ourselves open books by sharing our identity with the thread.
There's a lack of mutuality at work here. We can evaluate the credibility of one set of stories because we know who's telling them. The other set, well, we take on faith that the person telling them is being truthful in what he/she says . . . .
I only speak from my own experience, which included 18 years of living a life with another woman. The longer one lives a sinful life regardless of the nature of that sin we become desensitized to it. It feels good, we have friends who support it, we find theory to rationalize it but in the end there is only one God, and when I meet God at the gate it will be alone. Our salvation is personal, and we will all be held accountable for the choices we have made. There is only one truth handed down by the one true God, outlined for us as catholics, in sacred scripture, tradition and the magistarium. God appointed a succession of popes to up hold those teachings. You must decide for yourself if its true.
My faith might seem a bit simple to some of you but it works for me and I have a freedom and peace in my life today that I never had when I was living with another woman. It was enough for me to be asked if I was willing to risk my soul on such a way of life. I was not. God used that and has shown me the redeeming power of His love.
I ask you, if God came to you tonight in a dream and asked you to give up the relationship you were in for the sake of the kingdom, and eternity with Him, if He extended to you a personal invitation what would you say? God calls us to a radical way of life, but His generosity will never be out done.
Again God's peace to you. I share only out of desire to offer hope, and to share with you on a personal level that there is happiness in choosing to live for the Lord. I am not alone, lonely or secretive.
peggy
And so we both tell our stories, and where does that leave us? Well, it seems to me we need to evaluate the theological (and political) presuppositions from which both of us are working.
But that's not easy to do when my identity is an open book to this thread, but yours is not. And yet you're telling your story to counter mine, and to convince people that my experience is not what I claim it is - an experience of grace - but an example of a "sinful" gay "lifestyle."
Something troubles me about the disparity in self-disclosure here, and the expectation of those who use these kinds of tactics to discredit the experience of their gay brothers and sisters that they will be believed and listened to, simply because they reinforce unfounded prejudices about the gay "lifestyle."
Many would have looked at my life and seen it as a life that was full of grace as well, it was with the same partner for the last 11years, we had our dream home, we traveled, we had GREAT friends, and again the white picket fence, however internally there was no peace.
You ask, "What would you like to know?" What I'd like in this conversation, if I had my druthers, is that we be honest. It seems to me that this conversation is too important for us not to seek completely honesty in it. It can't go anywhere productive otherwise.
You say, "Please don't make this personal." And yet honesty demands that we both note it IS personal. This thread began with my sharing my deeply personal story at a deeply personal level. You then told your personal story.
The conversation obviously matters to both of us at a deeply personal level. It would be less than honest to say it's not personal.
And then you say you don't want to judge me. But your previous posting says you'd been following the blog for several days, so you know that I asked posters on the blog to think about what they are doing to their gay brothers and sisters when they use the term "gay lifestyle." And yet your posting uses that term repeatedly.
You say you don't know me. But you have summed up my life - a rich, complex, human life, and a graced one - as a "lifestyle," with associations that in no way reflect my experience. I want to take your own testimony of grace seriously. I'm happy that you have found peace in your new life. As I have told you, my experience moves in the opposite direction. I have found peace and love by accepting who God has made me to be, and then building a life around my faith that God is active in my life and my love.
Your posting also says that you think the church has not really done well by its gay children (actually, you use another clinical term that, in my view, furthers the alienation of gay folks from the church, a bogus pseudo-psychological term called "same sex attraction"). But I have in all honesty to ask you, how do you think your own "outreach" to all of us who are gay on this thread has helped us, when you lump us all together under categories like "gay lifestyle" and "SSA"?
And if we have asked not to be identified in this way - if we've asked to be considered as human beings with real human lives and rel human stories - how do you think the lack of respect shown to us by those who insist on using these terms, while claiming to be about love and compassion, is going to help matters?
If you are offended at the term gay-lifestyle how would you like it referred to? Would homosexual lifestyle be more accepting to you?
My desire to share comes only from a place to say that one can move beyond the struggle of same sex attraction, the gay lifestyle, homosexuality. I am one of many who have found that freedom. If my email doesnt work for you then move on, read past it etc.
My exchange isnt with you, my source of hope comes from what the catholic church teaches and holds fast too, I have found freedom in the Holy word. I don't need you to try and change my mind about those teachings, tell me they are flawed, aren't up with the times etc.
I am sorry that you have felt/feel unaccepted, unwelcomed, and hurt by the church. I don't spend time hoping,wishing, praying, and advocating for them to change their mind in this area. That in of itself leads to a lonely, bitter life. That might not be what you are experiencing but the tone of your emails would lead me to think you aren't completely happy and if you aren't completely happy until the catholic church accepts,blesses or allows you to marry the man you have shared life with for 40 years maybe you should ask yourself why you can't let it go. Why worry what the catholics think or the church thinks. Could it be in the end William that there is one small space in your heart that worries about your own salvation. Its only a question you can answer and if you aren't worried about your salvation then trying to convince others of how great your relationship is shouldn't be on the forefront of your life.
I answer to the Lord and I shared from a very personal level of my own if it isn't helpful for you move on. It justmight not be meant for you.
Blessings on your day, I hope you feel better.
I have to admit, your reply surprises me. You're telling me that you logged onto a thread discussing a very serious pastoral issue (that's the way Fr. Jim Martin seemed to me to frame the discussion with his posting), and you didn't read carefully the postings in which people poured our their hearts in response to the invitation to discuss this serious issue?
But at the same time, you want your testimony to be taken seriously?
I'm sorry you didn't read the numerous postings noting the shortcomings of the term "gay lifestyle," and how use of that term doesn't promote productive conversations, in the mind of many of us. I'm surprised that, as someone who lived that "lifestyle" for many years and has been healed of it, you have never encountered these criticisms before.
Your initial posting argued that the church needs to do better by its gay members. I have to ask you again, is the church really going to engage in effective pastoral outreach to a community that it stereotypes through using a demeaning term, "gay lifestyle," when those being stereotyped in this way ask for more respectful treatment?
In the final analysis, what I hear you saying, Peggy, is that God is on your side and you don't really have to listen carefully to what those you intend to save think, feel, or have to say. If that's your position, I'm troubled by it. It seems to undercut the pastoral intent you're professing.
You tell me you don't know me, and yet you keep claiming the right to tell me that I am a sinner - specifically, a sinner because I live the "gay lifestyle" - even though I have told you that my experience is very different from yours. You tell me you have found freedom and peace by rejecting the "gay lifestyle." I tell you I've found freedom, peace - and, most important to me as a believer, love - precisely by accepting and celebrating who God has made me to be.
And so where does this leave us? We have two stories. On the basis of your story, you want to tell me I am a sinner and to "move on," another response that strikes me as less than pastoral. I'm not intent on telling you that you are a sinner or that your experience of grace is false.
Why is it important to you and others to do this in my case, I wonder? Is it possible that there is more than one way to read the scriptures, and to be a faithful Catholic? And is it possible that the church's refusal to listen carefully to the graced experience of its gay members is unjustifiable, and that the church is wrong about this matter, as it has been wrong about some important other moral issues in the past?
But I haven't emailed you and don't have your email address, since your identity is not public on the thread (and that's your right, and I would, of course, never email people out of the blue as a result of a discussion like this, unless they invited me to do so).
I'm pretty sure you mean "postings" where you say "emails," but I wanted to clarify that point, since readers might assume that we've exchanged emails.
j.a.m.: sounds as if you are volunteering. Have at it! Not for me and most people I know, though.
Good luck with someone making that decision for you.
Yes, that's the biological purpose of sexual complimentarity. But the spiritual purpose of sex can only rest on it, it can't be separated. It is in the fertile power of sex, that the sexual love of men and women lives and moves and has its being. There is, however, one way that homosexual and heterosexual marriage is alike.
And that is if we swallow the understanding of sex that is implicitly buried in contraception. If we accept this form of behavior, which we have as a society, then we accept that sexuality need not have anything to do with procreation or fertility. We accept that sex need not be 'open to life'. And then, under that view of sexuality, homosexuality and heterosexuality really do become equal. Once contraception was socially adopted, homosexual marriage was a done deal. Where were the bishops when the seeds were being planted?
But that fertile power of sex, that natural orientation of heterosexuality to bear living fruit, that life-giving power; homosexual marriage has absolutely no resemblance to it. It is in this way that heterosexual marriage is utterly unique, and utterly irreplaceable. And there is no 'unitive dimension' to sex, there is no sexual love that is not mediated by this life giving power. Sexual love does not depend on the act being fertile in fact, it depends on a quality of will and intention on the part of the actors. A quality of will and intention that could be called reverence. It is respect for the nature of sex, respect for the fact that sex is that kind of act which naturally leads to new life. It is within that sacred nature of sex that the human will must draw the raw material for expressing love. How?
Jesus revealed the secret when he used an image of fertility to reveal the Paschal Mystery (''unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.'') Hence, the procreative nature of sex is meant to symbolize the oblative love of the husband for his wife in an analogous way to Christ's love for his Church. That's why St. Paul said that the spouses 'one flesh' union refers to the great myster y of Christ and the Church. Sexual love is a sign of the oblative love of God as revealed by Christ and his Church. It occurs in and through the 'falling into the earth' of the seed into the soil.
Like Peter whispering to Jesus ''you don't have to go to Jerusalem, you don't have to die'', all forms of sexuality not open to fertility whisper to us ''there is no need to die, the seed need not fall into the earth and die, it can still bear fruit''. But just remember Jesus' reply to Peter: ''Get behind me Satan!''
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