It shouldn't seem so surprisg when the pope says beg gay 'isn't a crime' – a Catholic theologian explas

Contents:

• GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
• CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”
• I THOUGHT I WAS OVER MY CATHOLIC GUILT ABOUT BEG GAY. MAYBE I WAS WRONG?
• BLSG GAY UNNS
• I'M GAY, BUT I'M NOT SWCHG TO A CHURCH THAT SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE
• LIVG S? HOW GAY CATHOLICS MANAGE THEIR CONFLICTG SEXUAL AND RELIG INTI

GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT

WASHINGTON – A feral appeals urt has led that a Catholic high school Indianapolis was ee to fire a gay guidance unselor bee she performed at least some relig duti, the latt legal setback for LGBTQ+ rights when they nflict wh Fzgerald had worked for 14 years as a guidance unselor at Ronlli High School when school officials disvered she was married to another woman. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circu Richmond is an early tt of how that major Supreme Court cisn ptg ee speech agast anti-discrimatn laws will play out beyond the hypothetil suatn that se, which volved a platiff who had never actually ma weddg webs or been asked to do so by a gay person.

“The Court rejected the dissent’s assertn that s cisn opened the door to discrimatn employment, ” ACLU attorney Josh Block wrote a reply to Becket’s the exampl raised the Supreme Court did not clu a relig anizatn or a gay employee, and Gorsuch repeatedly voked a 2000 cisn allowg the Boy Suts to expel a gay volunteer on “exprsive associatn” grounds. “We all said that thoands of relig anizatns all across the untry ask their employe to uphold their tradnal view of marriage word and ed, and if you terpret the statute that way, ’s gog to unleash lots of lawsus agast them, ” Goodrich the Supreme Court has specifilly said preventg racial discrimatn is a pellg ernment tert that jtifi rtrictg First Amendment eedoms, he noted that the Supreme Court has rejected such a fdg on discrimatn agast gay or transgenr people. To disunt this, some homosexual activists have argued that moral imperativ om the Old Ttament n be dismissed sce there were certa ceremonial requirements at the time—such as not eatg pork, or circumcisg male babi—that are no longer bdg.

Do not be ceived: Neher the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostut nor homosexual offenrs nor thiev nor the greedy nor dnkards nor slanrers nor swdlers will her the kgdom of God” (1 Cor.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

Furthermore, the ten percent figure clus people who are not exclively homosexual but who only engaged  some homosexual behavr for a perd of time and then stopped—people who had gone through a fully or partially homosexual “phase” but who were not long-term homosexuals. The morn arguments favor of homosexualy have th been sufficient to overe the evince that homosexual behavr is agast dive and natural law, as the Bible and the Church, as well as the wir circle of Jewish and Christian (not to mentn Mlim) wrers, have always held.

The statement stck many observers as a shift for the Vatin – which 2003 me out agast any “legal regnn of homosexual unns” – even as Francis did not change his long-standg opposn to gay marriage. In the wake of Pope Francis’ recent ment about same-sex civil unns, Pew Rearch Center nducted this analysis to better unrstand what Catholics around the world thk about legal regnn for same-sex upl and homosexualy general.

The term “homosexualy, ” while sometim nsired anachronistic the current era, is the most applible and easily translatable term to e when askg this qutn across societi and languag and has been ed other cross-natnal studi, cludg the World Valu Survey. The Catholic Church teach that “homosexual acts are trsilly disorred” and lls on gay people to practice “chasty, ” though also lls on Catholics to treat gay men and women wh “rpect, passn and sensivy. As the late renowned, and gay, nrologist Oliver Sacks remarked: “It is … the geic and nral fate of every human beg to be a unique dividual, to fd his own path, to live his own life, to die his own ath.

CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”

For example, the Old Catholic Communn of North Ameri stat, “We accept as te that homosexual practice is not a patible liftyle wh eher Scripture or Sacred Tradn and as such we will not participate the legimizg or blsg of same sex unns nor will we orda those who are volved same genr unns.

As a nsequence, Ain Anglins – still dwellg, seems, the heart of relig darkns, and not posssg the nate English gift for muddlg through – are not yet persuad of the goodns of homosexualy or of the Christian legimacy of blsg same-sex unns. Will Ain Catholic bishops, after chastisg the Germans or Fernánz, issue a siar statement regardg Cardal McElroy of San Diego, who has recently lled to qutn the ancient Christian ia that homosexual terurse is mortally sful, tellg that we 21st-century Catholics know much more about homosexualy than did ancient moral teachers (e. For one, we feel a natural human sympathy for Catholics who, perhaps through no flt of their own, have a fixed homosexual orientatn, yet are told by their relign – our relign – that they mt live whout sexual affectn and pannship.

For another, sce Catholicism has always regard homosexualy as a particularly extreme sexual s – a s that is not merely an offense agast God but an offense agast our animal nature self – once you give the green light to homosexualy you will also have to give to other sexual ss, e.

I THOUGHT I WAS OVER MY CATHOLIC GUILT ABOUT BEG GAY. MAYBE I WAS WRONG?

Once you give your approval to the blsg of homosexual unns, you will next, at least if you are logil (which humans sometim are), have to allow prits to bls premaral sexual unns and adultero unns. The Roman Catholic Church, the largt Christian nomatn the Uned Stat wh an timated 62 ln members, has weled celibate gay and lbian people to s church life but creasgly is beg more tolerant even of this populatn. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text which ntas dogmas and teachgs of the Church, nam “homosexual acts” as “trsilly immoral and ntrary to the natural law, ” and nam “homosexual tennci” as “objectively disorred.

BLSG GAY UNNS

The 1986 Letter stat, “Although the particular clatn of the homosexual person is not a s, is a more or ls strong tenncy orred toward an trsic moral evil; and th the clatn self mt be seen as an objective disorr. A 2005 Vatin document, approved by then Pope Benedict XVI, stcted that the Church “nnot adm to the semary or to holy orrs those who practice homosexualy, prent ep-seated homosexual tennci or support the so-lled ‘gay culture.

This sheltered upbrgg may help expla my sunny unrgraduate nfince that even though I knew of lerally nobody else who had ever tried to be both unashamedly gay and obediently Catholic, I was totally gog to do . I hope I've learned a few thgs about the dangers of sophomoric self-nfince: There are tim when my relatnship wh the Catholic Church feels a lot like Margaret Atwood's feroc ltle poem, You f to me like a hook to an eyea fish hook an open eyeAnd I've met many other gay or queer or same-sex-attracted Christians, all flavors of Christiany. We disagree (sometim sharply) among ourselv on the bt rponse to the growg cultural acceptance and polil succs of gay marriage; but before polics and even before culture, our rponse mt be personal.

That's a quick and dirty summary, but seems to me more rponsive to the texts, more willg to fer to historil Christian wns, and more attuned to the importance and meang of our bodi than most of the fens I've read of Christian gay beg embedd Catholicism lors my readg of the Bible—that is actually what tradn is supposed to do—and shap my sense of which elements of Christian history are sential and which are wanrgs om the path. I've wrten about possible approach to unselg Catholic schools; anti-bullyg efforts; my problems wh some of the language the Church about homosexualy; reprsive ias of genr which would leave no room for St.

I'M GAY, BUT I'M NOT SWCHG TO A CHURCH THAT SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE

Renewg this Christian unrstandg of iendship would help to make the Church a place where gay people have more opportuni for voted, honored love—not Church needs to grow and change rponse to societal chang. " The Vatin's msage ced Francis' own words om 2016, when he wrote, "there are absolutely no grounds for nsirg homosexual unns to be any way siar or even remotely analogo to God's plan for marriage and fay. Pope Francis has been viewed wh ut optimism by LGBTQ groups bee of remarks like his statement, wily published 2020, that homosexuals are "part of the fay" and that same-sex and other nontradnal upl need a "civil unn law.

In my memoir, A Catechism of the Heart: A Ju Missned to the Lay, I wre specifilly about my parture om the Jus bee they would not nont the homophobia of the Roman Catholic Church spe the tonal shifts hered by Pope Francis.

Dpe my not beg a member of the Roman Catholic Church anymore -- I am a nvert to the Epispal Church -- I am attemptg to disrd the negative theology of my former church, s antigay theology and rhetoric.

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

Let's juxtapose the Catechism of the Catholic Church's language wh homosexualy, along wh the language of other margalized people, like Ain-Amerins and women, and then enter to a discsn about why the Catholic Church should move to rewre the techism light of the objectns. Furthermore, is obv to me that the Roman Catholic Church uld not perpetuate myths about Ain-Amerins, women, the disabled, or while my revisns may seem unnventnal or awkward or funny, they unrle a tth about the place of gay, lbians, and bisexuals the Roman Catholic Church: They are a send-class cizen tolerated but not fully wanted. About gays the prithood, then-Pope Benedict XVI wrote 2005 that dc "nnot adm to the semary or to holy orrs those who practice homosexualy, prent ep-seated homosexual tennci or support the so-lled 'gay culture.

My iend Lisa McCla, a profsor at Boise State Universy, wrote me recently and asked me, "Do Benedict XVI's nvictn that the alleged abily to relate to men and women mean that the Church don't thk gay men n relate to and appropriately unsel people? " A 1986 Vatin letter stat:"Although the particular clatn of the homosexual person is not a s, is a more or ls strong tenncy orred toward an trsic moral evil; and th the clatn self mt be seen as an objective disorr. As the Ju prit Father John Kavanagh once tght me a graduate class at Sat Louis Universy, all humans unt as persons, but for the gay person a veat remas that if you are still Catholic, you are a person only if you are celibate.