What Should a Gay Catholic Do? | Ameri Magaze

Contents:

• THE POPE’S ‘SHOCKG’ STATEMENT ON GAY MARRIAGE IS G AN UPROAR AMONG CATHOLICS
• WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?
• LIVG S? HOW GAY CATHOLICS MANAGE THEIR CONFLICTG SEXUAL AND RELIG INTI
• THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WILL BLS GAY PEOPLE AS LONG AS THEY DON’T GET MARRIED

THE POPE’S ‘SHOCKG’ STATEMENT ON GAY MARRIAGE IS G AN UPROAR AMONG CATHOLICS

(CNS photo/Pl Harg)Sce Buildg a Bridge, a book on misterg to lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Catholics, was published, I have been asked—at Catholic parish, retreat centers, lleg and universi and nferenc—a few qutns that recur over and over. Buildg a Bridge tentnally steered clear of issu of sexual moraly, sce I hoped to foster dialogue by focg on areas of possible monaly; and the church hierarchy and the majory of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Catholics rema far apart on the issu.

As an asi, sce the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a pendium of church teachg on var topics, do not addrs bisexual or transgenr persons but rather “homosexual persons, ” I’ll refer here to gay and lbian people to be more teachg at the most basic level is ntaed the Gospels and, even more basilly, the revelatn of the Father’s love J Christ. In fact, gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr Catholics are probably the most margalized group the church today, and so I believe that Christ lov them wh a special to gays and lbians, then, the Gospel valu of love, mercy and passn are the buildg blocks of all church that end, ’s important to state that the ey of the church simply beg gay or lbian is not a s—ntrary to wispread belief, even among ted Catholics.

As any reputable psychologist or psychiatrists will agree, people do not choose to be born wh any particular sexual when most people ask qutns about “church teachg” they are referrg not to this qutn, but to rtrictns on homosexual, or same-sex, activy as well as the prohibn on same-sex marriage.

WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?

Consequent to that, the homosexual orientatn self is viewed as an “objective disorr” sce n lead to “disorred” we need to make clear that the phrase “objective disorr” do not refer to the person himself or herself but to the orientatn. )The Catechism of the Catholic Church also stat that gays and lbians n and should approach “Christian perfectn” through chasty, wh such supports as “the virtu of self-mastery that teach them ner eedom, at tim by the support of disterted iendship, by prayer and sacramental grace. Perhaps mdful of the specialized philosophil and theologil language, the church teach that “every sign of unjt discrimatn” agast gays and lbians (aga, here “homosexual persons”) mt be avoid, and gays and lbians mt be treated wh the virtu of “rpect, passn and sensivy.

” In my experience, this is the sectn of the techism’s teachg on homosexualy that is the least known by most the techism, his recent apostolic exhortatn “Amoris Laetia, ” Pope Francis ma three pots related to the issue of homosexualy. That is one reason that ’s important for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people to unrstand the church’s teachg s totaly—the Gospels, the tradn of natural law and s roots Thomistic and Aristotelian reasong, the techism, “Amoris Laetia” and other documents— their sire to bee good Buildg a Bridge mentns, is important for the stutnal church to unrstand the lived experienc of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Catholics.

LIVG S? HOW GAY CATHOLICS MANAGE THEIR CONFLICTG SEXUAL AND RELIG INTI

“A distctn is drawn, and seems wh some reason, between homosexuals whose tenncy…is transory or at least not curable; and homosexuals who are fively such bee of some kd of nate stct… In the pastoral field, the homosexuals mt certaly be treated wh unrstandg and staed the hope of overg their personal difficulti and their abily to f to society. Unlike some other Christian groups at the time (and ntug today, unfortunately), when the Catholic Church regnized that homosexual people were, to borrow a phrase om a morn pop song, “born this way, ” they did not say that a person was sful bee of this part of their personaly. Third, the Vatin was llg for pastoral re for lbian and gay people, not to “change” them or punish them, but to help them bee more tegrated their personal and social liv, prumably bee of the tense rejectn and ostracizatn that lbian and gay people experienced almost everywhere at the time.

So, this document opened two new areas of church teachg about gay and lbian people, addg to the tradnal teachg forbiddg sexual activy: affirmatn of the non-sfulns of a homosexual orientatn and a ll to church lears to provi appropriate pastoral re to gay and lbian people. ” (The phrase “new ways” ught the attentn of Sister Jeanne Gramick and Father Robert Nugent who chose to e the phrase to tle the workshops—and eventually the anizatn—they had veloped to foster more sensive pastoral re for lbian and gay people. Homosexualy had always been erned by the church’s sexual ethics tradn which strsed that the only moral sexual acts are those that are open to procreatn, which brg two people (one male, one female) closer together lovg timacy, and which are performed the ntext of Christian marriage.

While none of the new official teachgs challenged or ntradicted the tradnal teachg agast sexual activy, a number of stanc, church lears enuraged gay and lbian people to velop strong, chaste iendships, and there were also a number of remrs about the church’s teachg on nscience.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WILL BLS GAY PEOPLE AS LONG AS THEY DON’T GET MARRIED

) At the same time, the Catholic theologil muny began to velop criqu of the tradnal teachg about gay and lbian sexual relatnships, often emergg om the femist criqu of sexual teachg, dissent on ntraceptn, and new unrstandgs of sexualy based on new evince om the natural and social scienc. In 1986, the Vatin’s Congregatn for the Doctre of the Fah (CDF) issued a document entled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (also known by s Lat tle, Homosexualatis problema) which they scribed the homosexual orientatn as an “objective disorr. Followg Pope Francis’s announcement clarg support for civil unn laws for same-sex upl, which breaks wh tradnal Catholic valu that oppose homosexual relatnships, the lear has garnered both cricism and support om people all over the world.

A gay layman I know who serv an important role a dce (and even wr some of his bishop's statements on social jtice) has a solid theologil tn and sir to serve the church, but fds impossible to be open the face of the bishop's repeated disparagg remarks about gays. They ed a number of strategi to rencile nflictg inti, cludg limg their relig volvement, qutng terpretatn of the doctre, unrmg prits’ thory, tryg to reject homosexual attractn, puttg tst God’s plan, g profsnal help, and seekg acceptance om clergy.

Keywords: Gay, Catholic, Spirualy, Relign, Sexual orientatn, IntyIntroductnSexual inty often exists a dynamic teractn wh other self-imag such as cultural background (ethnic and/or relig), which requir that dividuals manage multiple inti (Stevens, 2004). Exampl of that n be found studi on lbian Christians (Mahaffy, 1996), Mlim gay Iranians the UK (Taylor & Snowdon, 2014), or Canadian gay Jews (Schnoor, 2006) is, however, ltle rmatn on how people perceive the sts of reprsg eher spirual or sexual parts of their inty, what psychologil mechanisms they e to rce rultg tra-psychic tensn, and how this affects their well-beg. For stance, gay Jews the study of Coyle and Rafal (2001), preferred not to disclose their sexual inty wh their Jewish muny and, like muters discsed by Brekh (2003), often avoid discsg relatnships or sexualy-related issu, and kept a very low profile.