Livg S? How Gay Catholics Manage Their Conflictg Sexual and Relig Inti - PMC

Contents:

• MAJOR CATHOLIC STUDY CHALLENG CHURCH’S TEACHG ON GAY RELATNSHIPS
• LIBERAL RDAL LLS FOR REVISED CATHOLIC TEACHG ON GAYS
• GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS
• TOP EU RDAL LLS FOR CHANGE CHURCH TEACHG ON GAY RELATNSHIPS
• GAY AND LBIAN CATHOLICS BEG TO DIFFER
• LIVG S? HOW GAY CATHOLICS MANAGE THEIR CONFLICTG SEXUAL AND RELIG INTI
• INFORMATN FOR GAY & LBIAN CATHOLICS
• COURT SIS WH CATHOLIC SCHOOL THAT LET EMPLOYEE GO OVER HER GAY MARRIAGE

MAJOR CATHOLIC STUDY CHALLENG CHURCH’S TEACHG ON GAY RELATNSHIPS

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.

LIBERAL RDAL LLS FOR REVISED CATHOLIC TEACHG ON GAYS

One pot should be ma perfectly clear: Dpe many assertns to the ntrary, the Catholic Church and other Christian nomatns do not nmn homosexuals, but rather nmn their unnatural and unhealthy acts, which not only ntravene the laws of nature but ignore God’s Commandments. 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. )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.

GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS

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.

“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.

TOP EU RDAL LLS FOR CHANGE CHURCH TEACHG ON GAY RELATNSHIPS

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. 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. ) 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. Street protts and monstratns agast police harassment—led by the more margalized members of the gay muny, cludg transgenr persons and persons of lor—fueled a mand for “gay liberatn” and spired more prehensive stggl agast social stigma and for equal jtice, regnn, and acceptance.

GAY AND LBIAN CATHOLICS BEG TO DIFFER

For example, I doubt that the participants those monstratns uld have imaged that over the urse of the next 50 years their activism would lead to gays and lbians servg openly the ary, the electn of openly gay and lbian polil lears (most recently as the mayor of Chigo), the legalizatn of same-sex marriag, and the ndidacy of an openly gay man for the princy.

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

Qutns over the baptism of children of same-sex parents, the admissn of openly gay men to the prithood and relig life, the employment of openly gay and lbian believers as school teachers or posns of church mistry, the provisn of health re servic to transgenr persons, and the pastoral re of LGBTQ young people our techetil and sacramental programs: all of the are flashpots for unrolved tensns the Catholic muny’s engagement wh the profound mystery of human sexualy. Vatin Media/Handout via REUTERS Acquire Licensg RightsVATICAN CITY, Feb 3 (Rters) - A proment liberal rdal who leads a body reprentg European bishops has lled for "fundamental revisn" Catholic teachg on homosexualy, and said is wrong to fire Church workers for beg remarks by Luxembourg Cardal Jean-Cl Hollerich to the German Catholic news agency KNA were among the most direct lls ever by a Roman Catholic lear for change teachg on one of the most ntroversial issu the Church today.

INFORMATN FOR GAY & LBIAN CATHOLICS

Hollerich is print of the pan-European groupg of Catholic bishops' nferenc, known as the KNA terview, Hollerich was asked for his asssment of a mpaign which about 125 Catholic Church employe Germany, cludg some prits, me out as LGBTQ, and about the Church's teachgs on homosexualy. "I believe that the soclogil-scientific foundatn of this teachg is no longer te, " he said terview that was published on Tuday another part Hollerich said: "I thk 's time we make a fundamental revisn of the doctre" Roman Catholic Church teach that same-sex attractn is not a s, but homosexual acts are. Francis has said that while the Church nnot accept same-sex marriage, n support civil unn laws aimed at givg gay partners jot rights areas of pensns, health re and has sent not of appreciatn to prits and nuns who mister to gay Catholics and said parents of gay children should never nmn them, but unr his watch the Vatin has also said prits nnot not bls same-sex December, a Vatin partment raised nservative ire when apologised for "g pa to the entire LGBTQ muny" by removg om s webse a lk to rource material om a Catholic gay rights advocy group preparatn for a Vatin meetg 2023.

My purpose today is not to support or fend gay and lbian marriag—ed, many gays and lbians do not want to marry—but simply suggt a theologil approach that might open up the possibily for greater Christian acceptance of, and eccliastil approval for, same sex unns. "In the last 20 years, the church, particularly this untry, has foced more fully on the human digny and tegry of the [homosexual] person, " says Father Jam Schexnayr, print of the Oakland, California-based Natnal Associatn of Catholic Dcan Lbian and Gay Mistri. "If the Vatin isn't willg to change on artificial ntraceptn, certaly isn't gog to change on any other more difficult issue" such as homosexualy, says Father Charl Curran, a liberal Catholic scholar who was censured by the Vatin for his teachgs on sexual ethics.

Likewise, his book Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexualy (Knopf, 1995), Andrew Sullivan, former edor of The New Republic and an openly gay Catholic, exam the qutn of "how somethg that seemed to occur naturally uld still be profoundly unnatural, and agast the end of God's creatn. And Sidney Callahan, a veteran Catholic mentator, changed her md on gay marriage, wrg a 1994 article for the journal Commonweal: "Why is trsilly disorred for homosexuals and lbians to act on their sexual orientatn, even if they would fulfill all the same moral ndns required of heterosexual maral activy, such as mment, love, and lifelong fily? In s 1997 document, “Always Our Children”, the USCCB lls parents to accept and love their homosexual children “as a gift of God” and to accept “the full tth of God’s revelatn about the digny of the human person” while, at the same time, acceptg the full tth of “the meang of human sexualy”.

COURT SIS WH CATHOLIC SCHOOL THAT LET EMPLOYEE GO OVER HER GAY MARRIAGE

The tensn between the Church’s teachg on human digny and s teachg on homosexualy is evint the language to scribe homosexual orientatn, s moral norms erng homosexual relatnships, and s advocy for legislatn to promote the mon good regardg homosexual people. To jtify s posns, the Church reli on the anthropologil claim that homosexual orientatn is an objective disorr, on the normative claim that all homosexual acts are trsilly disorred and are a threat to the mon good, and the assertn that “every sign of unjt discrimatn regard [to homosexual persons] should be avoid”. Unlike that teachg, argu that the meang of human sexualy regniz both homosexual and heterosexual orientatns as objectively orred and that potentially-reproductive heterosexual and non-reproductive heterosexual and homosexual acts may be moral sexual acts.

If Jordan’s claim that the USCCB’s intifitn of homosexual orientatn wh origal s is accurate, and we believe is, then the claim that such an orientatn is “objectively disorred” is not a morally ntral ontologil assertn, as the Church claims, but a negative anthropologil moral assertn. Homosexual orientatn is objectively disorred the sire for a person of the same-sex (“A homosexual orientatn produc a stronger emotnal and sexual attractn toward dividuals of the same sex, rather than toward those of the oppose sex”), 19 and bee creat a “strong tenncy” towards homosexual acts that are trsilly evil. Even if scientific studi and theologil explanatns dite that is accurate to label homosexual orientatn objectively disorred bee leads to a sire for persons of the same sex and to non-reproductive sexual acts, still leav open the qutn of whether homosexual acts, by fn, trate human digny.