The Catholic Church is an almost unique stutn — shunng homosexualy but havg so many gay men s ranks, wr Andrew Sullivan. The Vatin’s failure to reckon wh their sexualy has created a crisis for Catholicism.
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
- GUIDANCE UNSELOR ‘HELD HERSELF OUT AS MISTER’: FERAL APPEALS URT SIS WH CATHOLIC SCHOOL FOR FIRG GAY EMPLOYEE
- EXCLUSIVE: TAYLOR MARSHALL SAYS POPE FRANCIS MAY CHANGE POSN OF CATHOLIC CHURCH ON GAY MARRIAGE
- CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”
- THE GAY CHURCH
- POPE FRANCIS ON GAY CATHOLICS: GOD 'DO NOT DISOWN ANY OF HIS CHILDREN'
- MY CATHOLIC KID IS GAY! NOW WHAT??
- 'GAY AND CATHOLIC': A Q&A WH WRER AND SPEAKER EVE TH
WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?
Here s a real pastoral qutn to nsir What place nbsp is there for nbsp the gay person the Catholic church nbsp Wh the warng om the archdce of Washgton D C that would pull out of social servic the cy rather than acce to a bill that would afford benefs to same * catholic and gay *
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. However, to receive this gift, we mt reject s, cludg homosexual behavr—that is, acts tend to aroe or stimulate a sexual rponse regardg a person of the same sex.
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.
GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT
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.
Even if there is a geic predisposn toward homosexualy (and studi on this pot are nclive), the behavr remas unnatural bee homosexualy is still not part of the natural sign of humany. 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. Sometim the charge is even ma that the same people are perhaps homosexuals themselv and are overpensatg to hi this fact, even om themselv, by nmng other 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 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.
FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
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.
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.
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.
GUIDANCE UNSELOR ‘HELD HERSELF OUT AS MISTER’: FERAL APPEALS URT SIS WH CATHOLIC SCHOOL FOR FIRG GAY EMPLOYEE
“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. Pope Francis ma news recently by voicg his support for same-sex civil unns – legal arrangements that give gay and lbian upl many of the same rights as married oppose-sex upl.
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. Around the world, Catholics vary their support for same-sex marriage and their acceptance of homosexualy general, acrdg to Pew Rearch Center surveys nducted recent years.
EXCLUSIVE: TAYLOR MARSHALL SAYS POPE FRANCIS MAY CHANGE POSN OF CATHOLIC CHURCH ON 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. Other untri around the world where most Catholics said society should be acceptg of homosexualy clud Spa (91%), Atralia (81%), the Philipp (80%) and South Ai (62%).
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 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. A church that, sce 2005, bans prits wh “ep-seated homosexual tennci” and officially teach that gay men are “objectively disorred” and herently disposed toward “trsic moral evil” is actually posed, ways very few other stutns are, of gay men.
The llapse of the closet public and private life the past three s has ma the disproportnate homosexualy of the Catholic prithood much ls easy to hi, ignore, or ny.
CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”
This cultural and moral shift has not only changed the nscns of most Amerin Catholics (67 percent of whom support civil marriage for gay upl) and gay prits (many of whom are close to qutg) but also broken the silence that long shroud the subject.
Alarmed by the possibily that divorced and remarried people might be weled as well as gays, tradnalists lnched a fierce rearguard mpaign agast the new papacy, wh a foc on what some lled a “Lavenr Mafia” nng the church, and broke new ground nnectg this directly to the horrifyg revelatns of sex abe that me to light 2002. In creasgly direct ways, they have argued that the root of the sndal was not abe of power, or pedophilia, or clerilism, or the distortive psychologil effects of celibacy and stutnal homophobia, but gayns self.
THE GAY CHURCH
“There is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even wh the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root, ” the Amerin rdal Raymond Burke clared Augt. ” Michael Hichborn, head of the ge-right Lepanto Instute, lled for a “plete and thorough removal of all homosexual clergymen om the church … It is gog to be difficult and will likely rult a very ser prit shortage, but ’s fely worth the effort. Here, seemed, was a pedophile and an abive gay man, at the very apex of the church, known to be sexually active wh semarians, protected by his peers, and tolerated for s by many the hierarchy, cludg the last three pop.
POPE FRANCIS ON GAY CATHOLICS: GOD 'DO NOT DISOWN ANY OF HIS CHILDREN'
New onle media anizatns — led by Brebart-style webs such as LifeSe News and Church Milant — now routely pounce on any cints volvg gay prits and have an fluential dience the Vatin.
At one pot as we spoke the next day the hospal, he was greeted by a woman who asked for an on-the-spot nfsn and he shooed me asi; later I met an anguished gay man om an ultra-Catholic fay he was unselg; and for a few hours on Sunday morng, he was wh the wife and teenage sons of a dyg man. The news environment is saturated wh stori about sex abe — and rightly so — yet there are hardly any public exampl of the overwhelmg number of gay prits who would never dream of preyg upon the powerls. “But how do you e to a posive unrstandg of your sexualy when the church won’t say you even have a sexual orientatn, jt ‘same-sex attractn’ or ‘ep-seated homosexual tennci’?
MY CATHOLIC KID IS GAY! NOW WHAT??
For example, as the late historian John Boswell monstrated his groundbreakg, ntroversial book Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, a fourth-century Christian wrer, John Chrysostom, attacked the lears of the church for beg too acceptg of same-sex love and even sex: “Those very people who have been nourished by godly doctre, who stct others what they ought and ought not to do … the do not nsort wh prostut as fearlsly as they do wh young men … None is ashamed, no one blh … the chaste seem to be the odd on, and the disapprovg the on error. ” There was nsirable Christian ncern about sex general — followg the teachg of sats Pl and Augte — but no nsens that homosexualy, if kept to tense mutual love and celibate iendship, was specifilly problematic. The historil rerd, however, reveals that for all Augte’s fluence, the practice of tense homoerotic iendship among the clergy was mon over the followg centuri, pecially monasteri.
'GAY AND CATHOLIC': A Q&A WH WRER AND SPEAKER EVE TH
The masterpiece on the subject of “spirual iendship” was, fact, wrten by a gay man, Sat Aelred, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Rievlx England the mid-1160s.
By the 12th century, prits and monks were wrg love poems to one another what Boswell scrib as an “outburst of Christian gay lerature still whout parallel the Wtern world. Damian was a leadg reformer of the church his day, far beyond the gay-prit issue, and a synod 1059 rpond to all of his many proposals — except the one agast gay clergy.
Homosexuals, the new theology, were part of nature — many had noticed homosexual behavr the animal kgdom, particularly among har and hyenas — but they were also somehow ntrary to nature.