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Life Experience
For some time now, I have intended to write you to commend you on your excellent writing and articles on the sexual abuse issues in the Catholic Church. The report in Signs of the Times (7/29) about the remarks of Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz prompts me to write.
Current understanding among human development professionals includes the idea that each human person finds herself/himself somewhere on a continuum with regard to sexuality and affectional preference. That is, some people are more inclined to think of members of the opposite gender when they think of someone loving them; others think of persons of the same gender. And some people are emotionally attracted to members of both genders equally.
Bishop Bruskewitz focuses on two elements that I think are not indicated by the life experience of persons of either affectional preference. One element is to equate homosexuality with addiction (note his reference to persons suffering from drug addiction, alcohol dependence and kleptomania). Another troublesome element is his implication that persons who are attracted to persons of the same gender are driven to sexual promiscuity. To turn the tables, one might (erroneously) make the argument that it is not appropriate to ordain heterosexuals because they would likely be at risk of giving in to temptation of having sex with the wives and daughters of parishioners!
As a licensed counselor, I have met no person with a same-gender affectional preference who says that it is right to have sexual relations with children. Most gay people of my acquaintance want what most people want from a relationship: a special, monogamous relationship with the ability to love and be loved. And that does not always include genital sexual expression! Many persons of the gay affectional preference have been so rejected by their culture and/or family members that they certainly do not put themselves in the position to be rejected again. In sum, they are not pedophiles, nor are they sexual predators, in my experience.
One priest wrote in another publication, I believe God asks of homosexual relationships exactly what God asks of heterosexual relationships: truth, faithfulness, longsuffering, and the continuing forgiveness of the other. He then quotes Gal. 5:23: Against these there is no law.
We can all learn from one another. Your articles on this topic reflect good writing and pastoral sensitivity.
Louis Lowrey
Complicity
Pope John Paul II’s affirmation of humanitarian intervention, mentioned by Drew Christiansen, S.J., (8/12), contrasts with the U.S. policy of acting only if it is in its strategic interest. East Timor showed the tragic gulf between the two.
The East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United Nations-mandated referendum, believing as they courageously went to the polls that they were under the protection of the world community of nations and, certainly, its superpower, the United States.
Instead, they were sheep to the slaughter, as militia gangs wrought carnage that Americans watched on television news for weeks.
The United States not only failed to act, fearing to offend Indonesia (though the United Nations had never recognized the bloody annexation of East Timor), but blocked Australia, East Timor’s near neighbor, from acting.
When the combat-ready Australian troops were finally allowed in as peacekeepers, the game was over. East Timor was a land of corpses, rape victims and rubble.
As we preen ourselves on the moral high ground in the world arena, we ought to look in the mirror. In East Timor and elsewhere we have been complicit in the loss of thousands of innocent lives.
(Rev.) George P. Carlin
