Why three gay Catholics left the Church – and why they returned | Catholic News Agency

Contents:

• WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?
• 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?”
• WHY THREE GAY CATHOLICS LEFT THE CHURCH – AND WHY THEY RETURNED
• I'M GAY, BUT I'M NOT SWCHG TO A CHURCH THAT SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE
• THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WILL BLS GAY PEOPLE AS LONG AS THEY DON’T GET MARRIED
• LIVG S? HOW GAY CATHOLICS MANAGE THEIR CONFLICTG SEXUAL AND RELIG INTI

WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?

C., that would pull out of social servic the cy rather than acce to a bill that would afford benefs to same-sex spo, a qutn, too long neglected, aris for the whole church: What is a gay Catholic supposed to do life? 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.

The iative began part bee a iend poted out that my work foc on helpg queer adults rtore a relatnship wh God that has too often been damaged by the silenc and falsehoods that make gay people feel like outsirs wh their if, by the time a young person begs askg qutns about their own sexual orientatn, they already tst that there is a place for gay people the Catholic Church?

I have spoken wh orthodox Catholics who say they would not put their own children Catholic schools or who have left Catholic tn part bee of anti-gay I learned rrponds wh what I heard om my panns durg the retreat weekend. D., released an pecially strgent policy 2022 that bars stunts om “advot[g], celebrat[g], or exprs[g] same-sex attractn” or “transgenrism” “ such a way as to e nfn or distractn” and urg the e of the term same-sex attractn all circumstanc, as opposed to more lloquial terms like gay.

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

Archdce of Denver’s policy, released 2022, urg teachers to nont “genr iology” whenever possible, bars “gay-straight allianc”and requir schools to tell parents if a stunt “beg[s] to assert an inty at odds wh their blogil sex, ” which would out young people to parents whout regard for the child’s reasons for g out only to peers or tsted mentors. This was a theme among several nversatns wh my terviewe: Silence about gay life don’t keep people out of emotnal entanglements, jt mak harr for queer young people to navigate their iendships. In the Catholic muni which she grew up, she was tght a “basele msage that homosexual acts were sful, ” but even that was only brought up “briefly and tentatively when you had a chasty talk.

’” Even though she wasn’t out of the closet, she had heard of other gay stunts who were expelled and was “always lookg over my shoulr for whether I would get lled to the office or kicked out. Several people referred to the Catechism of the Catholic Church as the bt source, whether or not they accepted Catholic want stunts to know that gay Catholics exist, both bee the stori n illumate our fah and bee gay stunts should never feel that they have to choose between their fah and their Catholics I spoke wh want a church that is not aaid of qutns—and not aaid to learn om gay cultur while guidg gay people to eper flourishg.

The regivg provid by gay people durg the AIDS epimic ma clear, she said, that “queer muny [is] a radil refal to dispose of anyone, ” addg, “Regardls of your posn on gay sex, there is a lot to learn” om queer muni about how to live real Catholics also want schools to re-exame their assumptns around genr difference and what lsons stunts might benef om. 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.

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

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. Jt as one n acquire alholic sir (by repeatedly beg toxited) whout nscly choosg them, so one may acquire homosexual sir (by engagg homosexual fantasi or behavr) whout nscly choosg them.

CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”

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. "I went to a Prottant nference and one of the people said, 'Maybe you need to nsir the fact that the label 'gay' don't fe you, ' and that was one of the most liberatg thgs, " Dan said.

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.

WHY THREE GAY CATHOLICS LEFT THE CHURCH – AND WHY THEY RETURNED

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.

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

In Eastern Europe, acceptance was weaker, wh roughly half or fewer of Catholics sayg that homosexualy should be accepted by society Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Lhuania.

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

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.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMany of New York Cy’s most outwardly gay-iendly parish are ncentrated Manhattan, a center of both gay culture and efforts to build a gay-iendly Watts for The New York TimThe pews fill up quickly each Sunday at the Church of St. Mistri; anizg events like spirual retreats, hik and happy hours at lol gay bars; celebratg Mass and other events durg Pri Month; and by speakg up for the gay Watts for The New York TimWhen the Vatin issued a statement March that said prits uld not bls same-sex unns, which rid as a form of s, the parish and a handful of others Manhattan issued statements of dismay or ed hoi durg Mass as an opportuny to fort L.

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

Interviews wh more than two dozen gay Catholics New York revealed a powerful sire to rencile their sexual inty wh their fah both God and an stutn that has often approached them wh hostily. Lbian, gay and bisexual people are much ls likely than heterosexuals to attend relig servic, intify as a member of a relig group or believe that Scripture is the word of God, acrdg to Pew Rearch Center survey data om 80 percent of people surveyed that poll said they nsired the Catholic Church to be “uniendly” to the L. ”The efforts to create a gay-iendly Catholicism highlight the reful path the Catholic Church and s clergy mt walk liberal plac like New York, an important Amerin relig center where churchgoers often look askance at the Vatin’s stanc on admistered day-to-day by more liberal, self-erng relig orrs — cludg the Jus, the Plist Fathers and the Francisns — affords the parish and their prits the eedom to do thgs like preach hoi that extol the digny of gay people and the value of their relatnships a way that prits who work directly for the rdal tend to also giv the archdce some distance om activi that tradnalists might oppose, like the Pri march participatn of St.