same sex attraction – The Roamin' Catholic Priest

Homosexuality is the issue of our generation, both within the Catholic Church and the surrounding culture. How we respond to it will shape the way the we either lead people to an encounter with authentic love Himself, Jesus Christ, or push them even farther away from Him. The culture around us has responded by complete acceptance in the name of “love” by embracing same sex attractions as completely normal and should be encouraged. Those who “come out” as gay are praised (just look at the many famous personalities, like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple). Gay marriage, then, is argued as a basic human right, as if it was a natural part of humanity as is traditional marriage. Additionally, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court on ruled that same sex marriages must be recognized by all states in the court case Obergefell v. Hodges.

Now we, as Catholics, know this to be a tragic mistake that will only further to confuse those who don’t understand the reality and true meaning of marriage and sexuality. Now I am not at all saying those who experience same sex attractions are bad people, they’re not! I happen to know many of them and they are some of the best people I know. What I am saying is that every single human being on this earth (whether one has same sex attractions or not) deals with concupiscence (the inclination to sin) and we must truly understand our human nature, and the God-given order to the universe, in order to live fully and gain the eternal life that God desires for us. Marriage, as God intended, between one man and one woman is the only form of marriage that can do this.

Below I have provided quite a number of links to other resources to learn more about the true nature of human sexuality, specifically regarding homosexuality. I give full credit to my good friend, Father Brian Hess (see his blog here) for compiling these links and giving his descriptions (with some minor tweaks from me), which I am sharing here with his permission.

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There are various resources out there that explain why the Church believes so strongly in traditional marriage and how the Church loves every person out there. You are not alone in your acceptance of Church teaching, but to evangelize the culture you have to understand your faith. These are some resources that I know of; I recommend you take some time and look them up.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
First of all, the Catechism teaches in paragraphs 2357-2359 on homosexuality. You’ll find that the Catholic Church hates no one and teaches hate towards no one. The Catechism teaches about acting on same-sex inclinations, that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” But it also teaches about the persons who experience same-sex attraction, that “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” Notice: Church teaching distinguishes between the act and the person. Acts are sinful or virtuous. Persons are beloved children of God. The inclination that a person feels but didn’t ask for is not a sin, only actions are.

My Homily
This is the homily I preached the weekend after the Supreme Court decision. In it I show the beauty of marriage, it is life giving. Marriage unites and marriage creates life. Marriage is a gift from God to help us reach eternal life. By showing the beauty of marriage, I show quite simply how homosexual “marriage” cannot participate in the life-giving power and cannot image the relationship between God and his Church.

The Third Way
This is a 38 minute video that features Catholics who experience same sex attraction and have chosen to live chastely and experience the fullness of life. They boldly tell their stories about how they tried the world’s version of happiness and never felt satisfied, and how they got out of that culture and found their way (for some of them, found their way back to) the Catholic Church. It also features some of the most popular Catholic speakers and evangelists today: Sr. Helena Burns, Chris Stefanick, Jason Evert, Christopher West, Fr. Michael Schmidt, and others.

Desire of the Everlasting Hills
This is another video, about an hour long, that has three people telling their stories of trying to be happy living how the culture told them to live. One of them was even in a same-sex relationship for 25 years. But like the other video, the culture’s promise of happiness never played out and they found their way to the Catholic Church.

Catholic Stuff You Should Know Part I and Part II
This is a two podcasts from former classmates and seminary friends of mine. They excellently and tactfully explain the topic, and they took the time to address it in two parts; both are about 25 minutes each. One of the most excellent points they make is that we (we the Church, we the proponents of traditional marriage) cannot advance a logical argument for traditional marriage as long as we continue to utilize contraception or as long as we live together before marriage. If heterosexual unions exclude the procreative or unitive ends for which marriage is made, then you can’t advance a logical argument against homosexual “marriage.” The second part deals largely with pastoral care for those who experience same-sex attraction and calling all people, no matter their sexual orientation, to holiness.

Chastity Project
This particular part of Jason and Crystalina Evert’s overall Chastity Project deals with homosexuality. A good collection of short videos from knowledgeable Catholic speakers.

Courage
This is a solid Catholic organization that seeks to support those who experience same-sex attraction, their families, and their ministers. Their goals (from their website) are chastity, prayer and dedication, fellowship, support, and to be a good example. Not all “catholic” same-sex attraction support groups are good. Beware of the group called Dignity. They misinterpret the Bible and the teachings of Jesus to defend the LGBTQ movement.

Gay Marriage: Brought to you by Contraception
This article advances an argument that was referenced in the podcast above. If marriage is in a bad spot today, it started with the widespread acceptance of contraception. It began with the Anglican Church’s 1930 Lambeth Conference. Not that marriage was perfect before 1930, but that’s the first time you can point to a thing that was detrimental to marriage being called good.

Heather Does Not Have Two Mommies: Talking to Your Kids About Same Sex Attraction
This is an article from a mother of four who has decided she needs to start talking to her young kids about SSA in the culture. She realizes she can’t shield her kids from hearing about it in the culture, so she wants them to hear the truth from her before they hear the lies from the culture, and she offers tips on how to talk to kids about this tricky topic by making sure they understand solidly what marriage is for.

False Enlightenment at the Court
Here is a more intellectual argument (still very accessible) about the hubris present in the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court has misunderstood essential and accidental in their redefinition of marriage when they said that procreativity is accidental and not essential to the nature of marriage. Read the article for more.

Agape Wins
A small historical analysis of why and how the gay rights movement has won such victories, and which “movement” is destined to win in the long run.

The Church and the New Normal
This article by George Weigel also analyzes how we got to this point and where we go from here.

Here are three books by authors who experience same-sex attraction. I haven’t read them, but I trust the priest who recommended them. I hope to read them soon.
-Beyond Gay – by David Morrison (from Denver, forward by Archbishop Chaput)
-Sexual Authenticity – by Melinda Selmys
-Washed & Waiting – by Wesley Hill (protestant author)

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Catholic, Gay, and Doing Fine
This blog post is originally by Steve Gershom who discussing his own struggles with being Catholic and having same sex attractions. In a beautiful way he shows how he, like everyone else, has to struggle against the inclination to do things that aren’t good for him (sin). The Christian life isn’t easy! But it’s worth it.

Same-Sex ‘Marriage’: Evolution or Deconstruction of Marriage and the Family?
This article, by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, O.P. (Archbishop for the Catholic Diocese of Sydney, Australia), is a well-articulated analysis of what is happening to marriage in our world today. He responds to 5 common slogans that push for the redefinition of marriage to include so-called same-sex marriage (Australia hasn’t yet legally redefined marriage like the USA and Ireland).

Essential take-away message: love each person authentically, be genuinely charitable, but be honest. There is no place for hatred or lies in this discussion with our culture, but then again, there is no place for hatred or lies any place in the Christian life. Authentic love tells only the truth.

If I were to give a title for my homily today I would call it “Holy Order.” What I mean by that is that everything that God created has an order. Everything is arranged in such a way that it has a purpose, an end. In the natural world we see that animals and plants are made to grow and live and die to help others grow and live. Now the natural end of plants and animals is death, but when God created mankind he gave us something more, He gave us a supernatural end, life eternal in heaven. God has revealed us this through Jesus Christ. Jesus himself told us, “I came that they might have life and have it to the full.”[1] So everything that God created for mankind is meant to help us live fully and reach that end, eternal life in heaven. But often this goes wrong in our world because of human sinfulness. The book of Wisdom today captures this dynamic succinctly. The author of the book of Wisdom reminds us that God did not create death. He is referring to a spiritual death, an alienation from God, rather than just a physical death, because our own experience tells us that all things die eventually, and it would be contradictory to say God didn’t create natural death when all things naturally die. That means then for the person who has no sin, natural death is not a problem, just look at the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her “death” is referred to as the dormition of Mary or the falling asleep of Mary, after which she was assumed into Heaven. She had no sin and had no fear of natural death; rather she fell asleep and entered eternal life. This is what God desires for us, but as we can see very clearly in our world today, sin exists, and so too spiritual death that it causes. The book of Wisdom goes on to clarify this truth. The author tells us that God created man to be imperishable, a reference to the end or goal of mankind, that God created us for, eternal life, but that spiritual death entered the world through the envy of the devil. This is the death that God did not create, but sin did. This spiritual death, this alienation and separation from God, prevents humanity from reaching eternal life that God created us for. This whole passage in Wisdom echoes the book of Genesis, where envy was what Satan used to tempt Adam and Eve to desire to be like Gods themselves and choose what is good and evil rather than trusting and following God’s own created order of things.

This is unfortunately also very common in our culture today, and Satan is active in our world today tempting many to reject God as Father and to choose for themselves what is good and evil. This is a very dangerous place to be. I’m sure many of you have heard that on Friday the Supreme Court ruled that Same-Sex marriages must be recognized in all 50 states in the court case called Obergefell v. Hodges. For those advocating for gay marriage this was a win for “love.” They are saying that it doesn’t matter who you love as long as you love. But their definition of love and marriage is not what God intended it to be. Authentic self-sacrificial love does not need marriage to be real; Jesus himself exemplified this. On Friday our supreme court redefined marriage in a political/legal sense and this is not a win for “love” but rather it is actually the opposite.

Now let’s back up a minute to see the big picture here. God created man to be imperishable, to have life to the full, and so He gave us means of attaining that end, i.e. the sacraments. Marriage is one of those gifts that God gave us to reach eternal life. But marriage as it was intended to be: between one man and one woman. Marriage serves to unite a couple and produce life in children. Let me repeat that, these two aspects of marriage are essential to what marriage is: marriage is unitive and procreative. It unites a man and a woman and produces life. As such, it is a symbol of the love that Christ has for the Church. Both in marriage and in Christ’s love for the Church, there is a complete self-gift in each person and this is entirely life giving. A man gives of himself completely to his wife and she in turn receives him and gives completely of herself to him; this complementarity of the sexes is part of the nature of marriage itself and is incredibly beautiful. It is only in the sexual difference between a man and a woman that they are able to “speak” the language of love. This union of love is life giving, resulting in children who are enriched by having both a father and mother. As a great symbol, marital love points to Jesus Christ who gave himself completely to the Church, to us, in his death on the cross, which gives spiritual life to all of us in our salvation. Marriage, then, as it was created to be, is a model of the love of God who gave his only Son to redeem the world and give eternal life. It leads mankind to the end that God intended for us, namely, eternal life.

As a result, marriage cannot be any other way because in any other form it will lack part of its essence and cease to model Christ’s love for the Church. Gay marriage, by its nature, lacks part of the essential elements of what God intended marriage to be. It lacks the complementarity of the sexes and also loses the ability to be life giving. No child can ever be born of such a union, and therefore this kind of marriage cannot be life giving and ceases to be a symbol of Christ’s love to His Church. Only marriage between one man and one woman can achieve this.

Today our culture is confused through a process thas been happening for quite some time. Our culture has rejected God as the creator of life and has determined that it, not God, can choose what is good and evil, just as Satan tempted Eve in the garden. Without God then the only meaning of things is what mankind makes them to be. Our culture has determined that it can make marriage mean whatever it wants; marriage as defined by law is now no longer a way of attaining eternal life, but is an arbitrary definition in our political system. And this is by no means the first time this has happened in our culture. The same thing happened when contraception became common use and was no longer considered wrong, and when abortion became legal in the Roe v. Wade court decision. Obergefell v. Hodges is the Roe v. Wade of our age for marriage. And we, as Catholics, must hold strong to the Truth that God gave us. That marriage is between one man and one woman and cannot be any other way.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t address the victims of this redefinition. I want to address briefly those persons who this redefinition of marriage was supposed to help, those who struggle with same-sex attraction. Our culture wants to suggest that gay marriage is their path to happiness and life. But since gay marriage isn’t life giving and doesn’t lead to eternal life, it leads neither to authentic happiness nor life. Persons who struggle with same-sex attraction are led to eternal life the way we all are, through the sacraments as given by God and not by our culture’s redefinition of them. Those persons who struggle with same-sex attraction have the same struggle that we all have, resisting our sinful humanity to draw closer to God. Same-sex attraction itself is not sinful, but acting on it is, exactly as heterosexual attraction is not sinful, but acting on it outside of marriage is. So we are all fundamentally in the same boat; we are all sinners together in need of growing in the virtue of chastity to journey towards eternal life.

Some of you may know someone who struggles with same-sex attraction. It is important to approach them and accept them, as we would approach any person. Each and every one of us is made in the image and likeness of God regardless of what cross we are asked to bear. We must also love them authentically in a way the culture does not. That does not mean stand by and let them do things that are destructive, but that means speaking to them about the truth of their dignity as persons and call to live chastely (as we all are called to live as well). No one is served with a lie, authentic love tells only the truth.

And so my friends, as we continue with our Eucharist today, I invite you to pray earnestly for our confused culture, pray that the envy that Satan has used to corrupt it be overcome by the grace of Jesus Christ. Pray for those who embrace the gay marriage culture as a way of life. Hold fast to the Truth of marriage as given to us by God our creator. Love everyone authentically by proclaiming the truth in love. Let us pray for one another as we journey along the narrow path, rejected by our culture, to our God given end, eternal life.

[1]John 10:10 ESV

Tag: same sex attraction

Resources to learn more about the Truth regarding Homosexuality and Gay Marriage

Holy Order – God’s Plan for Marriage and Eternal Life – My Homily for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B