It intrigues me that gay Catholics either fall victim to being called a "heretic" or a "living oxymoron" depending on whose company you find yourself in. In fact, in the wake of my previous article ("LGBT Catholics March Not in Defiance, but in Love," June 27), I received a number of emails, tweets and Facebook messages that have questioned why I don't just become an Episcopalian or argue that I should leave the Church because of my apparent lack of devotion to the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Church). Are gay Catholics really heretics or are they merely people who love being ostracized by their religious leaders? I don't think either of these accurately characterize gay Catholics or queer spirituality for that matter. Either way, it appears that some people on both sides of the debate want LGBT people out of the Catholic Church. In reflecting on this, I can't help but witness the call for LGBT Catholics to stay in the pew.
At its core, the Church is open to all people without exception. This is clearly articulated in the Gospel According to Luke, when Jesus says, "And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11:9-10). Amid this call to inclusiveness, the realities of the Church's teachings on homosexuality are all too clear. So what does this mean for gay Catholics? It means that we should choose to stay while embracing Christ's guidance -- ask questions, seek answers and never stop knocking -- because one day the door will be opened. Perhaps we should start asking these questions and seeking answers with regards to the application of Church teaching on the issue of homosexuality.
Although some argue that the Magisterium offers a clear teaching on homosexuality, I would argue that its teaching is ambiguous and contradictory. Consider for instance the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which calls for "Every sign of unjust discrimination" in regards to gay and lesbian people to "be avoided" (CCC# 2358); however, the Church (with few exceptions) discriminates against celibate gay men in its consideration of applicants for the Catholic priesthood. Isn't this an unjust roadblock in one's discernment of God's will?
The ambiguity continues with regards to the Church's view on same-sex partnerships. The Catechism refers to "homosexual acts" as "objectively disordered" (CCC# 2357, 2358, 2359), but does not explore the question of a committed union between same-sex persons. In what appears to be a response to the Catechism's lack of discussion on same-sex relationships, a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith explained that "Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil." As evidenced by the Catechism and the 2003 document, the Magisterium's focus on sex and its failure to witness homosexual relationships in their entirety limits the Church's own witness to the genuine good that is found in same-sex relationships -- including in many instances the raising of a family. The notion that the Church refers to same-sex relationships as "evil" represents an illogical presumption in light of the Church's teaching and raises serious questions. Can a God-given trait be evil or, for that matter, would God call two people to a love that is evil?
In light of these questions and what I view as the Church's contradictory teachings on homosexuality, it is apparent that the Church needs to discern how to live out its pastoral mission with regard to LGBT Catholics in a way that considers the whole person and the beauty found in an LGBT relationship. This call to exercise a loving pastoral approach is not something new for the Church. For instance, "Always Our Children," a 1997 pastoral letter published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, began to work toward such an approach, by seeking to encourage love as a parent's response to their gay or lesbian child. In this powerful witness to the Church's call to social justice, the bishops urged ministers to, "Welcome homosexual persons into the faith community, and seek out those on the margins. Avoid stereotyping and condemning. Strive first to listen" and called on the parents of LGBT people to "Urge [their] son or daughter to stay joined to the Catholic faith community." When the Church refuses communion or a funeral to a LGBT Catholic, how are they welcoming people "into the faith community"?
In considering these statements, we can only wonder how powerful a listening session between LGBT Catholics and the Archbishop of New York would have been during the marriage equality debate. Perhaps this is a dialogue that will one day take place; for it is by embracing the social justice vision of Catholicism and its pastoral focus that will lead to a willingness to listen to the stories of LGBT Catholics. By listening, the Church will come to discover a deeper understanding of Christian love, rather than resorting to the hurtful language that has come from the Church's hierarchy in recent years on this issue. My hope is expressed well in an editorial from the Buffalo News by Bishop Joseph Sullivan (ret.) of the Diocese of Brooklyn, who wrote, "Catholic teachings compel us to work toward the elimination of unjust structures and to treat people with dignity, regardless of their state in life or their beliefs. My own understanding of this community has also evolved over the course of four decades of ministry."
So where does all of this leave LGBT Catholics? In the pews. The realities call all LGBT Catholics to live our lives as examples of Christian love. By living our lives prophetically, we can continue to help others evolve in their understanding of our community. As people who believe in the all welcoming and loving message of Christ, we must remind ourselves and others that LGBT Catholics and their allies, in the words of Bishop Sullivan, "are not rebels in their churches, but people who have taken spiritual messages of inclusiveness and welcoming to heart."
By staying in the Church and living our lives, we are expressing our belief in the inclusive message of Christ; we are choosing to ask, seek and knock with the hope that one day "the door will be opened" (Luke 11:10).
Follow Joseph Amodeo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/josephamodeo
Joseph Amodeo: LGBT Catholics March Not in Defiance, But in Love
2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
The door is wide open for homosexuals to enter. Inside, they should not be condemned....but they to have a responsibility to turn from sin.
Second, homosexuals are no less moral for wanting a relationship with another person, but for wanting the type of relationship they do with people of the same sex.
Maybe for you ...but the Church is trying to be polite ...I wish the church would speak to it's people blunt and clear....
You Have No Obedience to the Teaching .....Jesus even told the People Be Obedient to the Pharasis and rabbi's ....
The Church did have celebrate Homosexuals in it's clergy ...they sodomized young men....
The Bible IS VERY clear in defining Marriage...and Homosexuality .....you who are Gay what to see it otherwise ....Yes you are a heretic ...and Not Catholic .....
Whoa unto thee Who Leeds my Flock astray Jesus said......You Profess to know More than the Authority of the Church with it's 2000 + years of teaching....you would let Worldly things into you Church under the assumption of ..Modernizing or keeping up with the times .....Jesus said and so did the Apostles ...detach yourself from worldly things ...they are fruitless....This means society and its teaching ......
Personally, I don't think staying in a church that verbally-abuses you is a very good idea at *all.*
Certainly they aren't people to go kneeling to when they call you 'Objectively-disordered.'
The Church's treatment of LGBT people is tantamount to *gaslighting,* not 'justice. '
Never mind anything 'holy.'
People like Joe Amodeo remind me of that old lady. What makes him think that when Jesus spoke, he was talking about the Roman Catholic Church? The reason to raise questions about this institution isn't just because it has been making life awkward for homosexuals here in America TODAY. The Roman emperor Constantine and the homophobic, misogynistic, anti-semitic. slavery-defending Paul of Tarsus have had at least as much to do with what "the Roman Catholic Church" has been for the past 17 centuries, as what Jesus may have had in mind 2000 years ago.
At http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ I ask how followers of Jesus can have any part of an institution that has been all about promoting CONTEMPT for one's neighbors, rather than LOVE for them (the 2nd of his two key commandments), for most of its history, contempt not just for gays, but for "Christ-killers", for "witches", for "savages", for "schismatics", for women who insist on taking charge of their pregnancies, and even for fellow Catholics whom it viewed as "heretics".
You're dead right that the Magisterium is full of contradictions. In addition to those you mention, I would add the importance of paying attention to the findings of science, and of taking great care in the interpretation of Scripture - both of which the CDF simply ignores in its infamous Hallowe'en letter on homosexuality.
Let us never forget that the Magisterium may be viewed from different perspectives. Looking at it solely from that of sexual ethics leads to one set of ideas. Considering also the Magisterium on social justice, and on the role of conscience, lead to completely different sets: and contrary to common perceptions, sexual ethics is very far from the most important dimension to the Magisterium as
And that is a bad thing because...? After all, your Creed commands you to believe in the Church as holy and apostolic. If you consider the Migisterium as out of step oligarchs, then why would you profess to believe in them as masters of the Church every mass?
Even as an R.C. priest and seminary professor, I learned that I was a NOBODY in this institution. It climaxed when I addressed "a sermon to the hierarchy on behalf of the laity" and sent a hard copy to every RC bishop in America, including the Pope's ambassador, which you can see at http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/sermon2hierarchy.html , and after 40 years I'm still waiting for the first of them to respond in any way, even to contact my superiors to discipline me. And you think they care what people in the pews think !
YOU have as much chance of CHANGING the R.C. church's direct as people in steerage on the Titanic had of saving that ship.
See what you are up against at http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/PopesvsChrist.html .
That is the answer if you are a Catholic.
Good definitions/distinctions to know.
I'm all of the above. Only thing I'm not is excommunicated; I hear only the Pope can do that...but I'd gladly excommunicate myself in a heartbeat, so that hardly matters...
An excommunication can be automatic when one denies a dogma with full knowledge.
If it is an excommunication from a bishop (or the pope) only they can remove it.
A few years ago I fell madly in love with a woman, who refused to use contraception, so I had to study her natural cycle. I discovered that it actually added a spiritual dimension far in excess of any other relationship I had ever had, because even though chances were very slim at certain times of the month, there was still this unifying God-like power (for lack of a better word). The Catholic Church will never support Gay marriage because it regards sex with the chance of creation a spiritual plateau worth aspiring to. In their thinking there is no such thing as recreational sex.
That does not mean that they will oppose the love of a same sex couple, but they have reserved a special place for the creation act inside marriage
So the most recent pope has a more enlightened view of sex. Now imagine the 16 century, most people had fleas and ticks, that is why they wore wigs and powder. There was no running water most had sores and skin disease... that was reality.. (as it is in parts of Africa, was in Afghanistan under the Taliban) . Seen in that light, along with the smells of the unwashed, skin diseases, flea ridden, I would say sex was not necessarily a pleasant experience.... in fact it might be something you would want to avoid unless you were keen on having children for your old age.
Thanks.
But I cannot forgive the Catholic Church for it's refusal to support the Employment Non Discriminatoin Act, (also known as ENDA).
That is a bill in Congress that would give protection for GLBT people from being fired because they are gay.
Many states have passed such laws. But there are many other states where there is absolutely no laws that protect gay people from being fired simply for being gay.
In MOST states, it is still perfectly legal to fire a person because he is gay.
Many gay people, especially younger gays, may not be aware of that.
The Catholic Church opposes ENDA because it fears the church then would be forced to employ gays, perhaps in teaching positions.
But the bill clearly grants an exemption for churches.
SHAME on the Catholic Church for opposing this vital bill.
I will never set foot in a Catholic Church again until they support ENDA.
Ohs NOES! Teh gays want to teach our children math...and...and...English...and and.....Oh the humanity!!!
Feh, I don't want to set foot in a Catholic Church again period... also, of course they would have an exemption for themselves - they are all about protecting themselves and the organization, first and foremost.