American Catholic has published an article by Melinda Selmys, who blogs at Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism. In the article, she traces her twelve year journey from when “I decided to embrace the Church as my mother, I knew that meant giving up my lesbian partner” to today, “After ten years of marriage, I’m more in love with my spouse than when I started, we have six kids, and we live in a little piece of paradise in Eastern Ontario.” Against the backdrop of her own life, Melinda examines the two ends of the debate about whether or not the sexuality of those with same-sex attractions can be – and should be – changed.
So let’s come back to the land of reality and look at some of the “bad news.” I’m not attracted to men. Apart from my husband and Clint Eastwood, I still find the male sex pretty unattractive. I have not achieved complete freedom from the fell demon of homosexuality – in the past week alone, I’ve had three homoerotic dreams. I’m not comfortable with my sexuality; my femininity and I are only barely on speaking terms most of the time. I’m far from prepared to hold myself up as an ex-gay poster child.
Does that mean that I’m suppressing my true and fundamental self, or that I’ve entered into a neurotic relationship with my sexuality that is slowly gnawing away at the foundations of my identity? No. It means that I’ve made a decision: I will possess my sexuality; I will not be possessed by it.
I started pasting in more excerpts, but to get the full flavour of the article, you really need to read the whole thing. But here are her conclusions:
1. Sexual identity is not just about sexual desire. A lot of the time people embrace a gay or lesbian identity because of real, genuinely foundational elements of personality that seem “queer” to other people. The LGBTQ community becomes a safety zone, and a gay identity becomes a security blanket, that protects the elements of personality that are under attack from mainstream culture. Anyone who is leaving a gay identity behind needs to find other ways of protecting those elements of personality, otherwise we just end up retreating back into the village when we come under fire.
2. There is no universal solution. I’ve encountered a number of ex-ex-gays who sincerely believe that it is impossible to abandon a gay lifestyle because they were offered a one-size-fits-all “cure” for homosexuality, and it didn’t work. I understand their frustration. I think that we need to realistically acknowledge that what we’re trying to do is very difficult, that the solutions are not obvious, and that we need to search for new, personalized approaches when our efforts aren’t bearing any fruit.
3. There is no universal solution, because there is no universal cause. Honest self-examination and self- knowledge are essential if we’re going to make any headway in achieving chastity, in or out of marriage. Keep in mind that although there is no strict biological causation for homosexuality, there are neurological and physiological factors that may contribute: these must be taken as givens. There’s no point in driving yourself crazy trying to change the things that will not change.
4. Desires are just desires. Many people drive themselves nuts trying to eradicate all homoerotic thoughts, images and impulses from their psyche, presumably in the belief that any trace of homosexuality is an impediment to their spiritual development, or to finding and keeping a heterosexual spouse. If total, instinctual interior chastity were a precondition for sanctity (or marriage, or anything), heaven would be peopled by Christ, Thomas Aquinas and the Virgin Mary. Most of the angst associated with unwanted same-sex desires can be eradicated by acknowledging them, accepting them, and then teaching yourself not to take them seriously.
It’s intriguing to see this posted so soon after that 160-or-so-post thread on a related topic not long ago. I’m not sure what else can be said about it LOL. What one does with being gay, has to be one’s own decision – for her, E. T. (not *that* one !) and other gay Catholics, agreeing with the Church is the way; for others, it’s not. Each to his (or her) own.
“1. Sexual identity is not just about sexual desire.”
## Gay-bashers, please note.
“Most of the angst associated with unwanted same-sex desires can be eradicated by acknowledging them, accepting them, and then teaching yourself not to take them seriously.”
## It’s appalling that people are angst-ridden because of “unwanted same-sex desires” – don’t priests ever preach that sin lies in the conscious willing intention, and can’t be committed by mistake or unwillingly ? Don’t people ever read moral theology ? That is a basic moral truth. 😦 Someone who doesn’t want a particular desire that is perceived (whether wrongly or rightly) as sinful, cannot possibly be guilty of harbouring it, let alone of consenting to it. It’s horrendous that people go through the mill and lose their peace of heart because of desires & attitudes which they reject and don’t approve of. It’s scandalous.
Well, she says:
I’m not attracted to men. Apart from my husband and Clint Eastwood, I still find the male sex pretty unattractive. I have not achieved complete freedom from the fell demon of homosexuality – in the past week alone, I’ve had three homoerotic dreams. I’m not comfortable with my sexuality; my femininity and I are only barely on speaking terms most of the time.
Then:
Does that mean that I’m suppressing my true and fundamental self, or that I’ve entered into a neurotic relationship with my sexuality that is slowly gnawing away at the foundations of my identity? No.
Well if that isn’t a neurotic relationship with ones sexuality I don’t know what is. But an articulate neurotic does a far better job at making it sound hunky dory than your average Joe or Jo would.
gay identity becomes a security blanket, that protects the elements of personality that are under attack from mainstream culture. Anyone who is leaving a gay identity behind needs to find other ways of protecting those elements of personality
Gay identity, of course, is in part a cultural or counter-cultural construct. I’m left handed, I don’t have a “lefty identity”, although in a society where being left handed was stigmatised, I might well have developed one in concert with my fellow lefties. — Doubtless I would have grown out of “lefty identity politics” and just matured into a left-handed adult. I’m also heterosexual, but put little effort into constructing a heterosexual identity, — the work is done for me by the fact that my heterosexuality is simply part and parcel of my larger identity.
Leaving behind “gay identity” needs to be seperated from leaving behind homosexuality. — I should try and find an article I read a while back which pointed out that the differences in certain aspects of the brain chemistry of heterosexual and homosexual men are noticeable and consistent enough to allow a fair prediction of sexuality prior to interviewing the subject in question. Much like the fact that I’m left-handed can be identified with needing to see me hold a pen
***without needing to see me hold a pen
Melinda Selmys has an interesting take on Romans 1 (apologies in advance for quoting from FirstThings) :
I agree with Melinda that there is indeed a very real difference between homosexuality as it was generally practiced in St. Paul’s time, and homosexuality as it is generally practiced today.
But surely that needs to be factored into a proper understanding of St Paul’s critique of homosexual acts ie that what he was critiquing was a very different thing indeed to modern homosexuality ?
God Bless
“But surely that needs to be factored into a proper understanding of St Paul’s critique of homosexual acts ie that what he was critiquing was a very different thing indeed to modern homosexuality ?”
## Arguments that treat all homosexualities as indistinguishable end up looking silly and obscurantist. Wisdom 13 and 14 are probably behind Romans 1.18-32 – St. Paul’s argument is with idolatry, first and foremost. It seems a safe guess that plenty of straight people are guilty of that.
FWIW, marriage was regarded as “filthy” by a lot of Christians – St.Colette was nauseated by it. So the “yuckiness” argument is very unsafe. Come to that, crucifixion was not something one discussed in decent company – yet Christians worship a crucified Jewish peasant who was ritually unclean & and “accursed” (Deuteronomy 21.23). So the logic of the argument from disgustingness and filthiness undercuts Christianity. It was an obscene and disgusting and degraded way to die – not nice and hygienic. So the argument is not reliable.
All in all reading this article is like reading Catch-22. The tragic and the comic are so interwoven, and equally surreal, it is hard to know whether one should be laughing or not.
Just a wild thought: maybe compassion is the only really adequate response here ?
God Bless
Yes that’s true, fair point
Or possibly, accepting that LGBT people are not going to go away, and should not be treated as second-class citizens, whether in State or Church. “Pulling a Hitler”, and gassing them, would not be an acceptable response.
Perhaps I’m just hopelessly old-fashioned and conservative, but If a young lady came to me to get married and said:
I’m not attracted to men. Apart from my husband and Clint Eastwood, I still find the male sex pretty unattractive. I have not achieved complete freedom from the fell demon of homosexuality – in the past week alone, I’ve had three homoerotic dreams. I’m not comfortable with my sexuality; my femininity and I are only barely on speaking terms most of the time. I’m far from prepared to hold myself up as an ex-gay poster child.
I’d really be asking them to consider if they actually do have a vocation to marriage.
Such a statement would appear to be ample evidence for any Catholic marriage tribunal to grant an annulment, on the grounds of the lack of the wherewithall to enter marriage.
This statement strikes me as tremendously sad and I’d have to wonder if a certain Catholic view of homosexuality will not one day be rightly considered abusive and damaging to the human person ?
On the other hand, I suppose that many married people do struggle with all sorts of sexual problems (not to mention all sorts of other human problems).
I think that Melinda makes an excellent point here:
There’s no point in driving yourself crazy trying to change the things that will not change.
But I wonder if sexuality isn’t for most of us so deep rooted and so much a part of who we are that it is very difficult to change ?
Granted, there is a spectrum of homosexual orientations, from the slight to the very significant, but one wonders about the prudential wisdom of entering into marriage for those with a significant homosexual orientation. We wouldn’t let priests.
God Bless
Such a statement would appear to be ample evidence for any Catholic marriage tribunal to grant an annulment
Yes! I agree entirely Chris. Very good point
And I imagine that this may well also be grounds for annulment :
The body is a sly customer, and when it found that I had completely dammed up the river of my sexuality in so far as lesbianism and masturbation were concerned, it went looking for another outlet. Within less than a year I had fallen in love with a man, and was merrily engaged in excusing myself from the Church’s teachings on pre-marital sex. I’m happy to say that particular chapter in the catalog of my personal sins was fairly brief. An unplanned pregnancy brought it to an end
God Bless
It means that I’ve made a decision: I will possess my sexuality; I will not be possessed by it.
That’s an interesting and noble idea, but I’m not sure that a deep rooted homosexual orientation is quite so easily subject to will power.
The rest of Melinda’s piece indicates that, in her case at least, it isn’t.
The Church doesn’t seem to think it is either, at least in her instructions about homosexuality in terms of who may or may not be ordained a priest.
I do thank Melinda and JP for posting this because it reminds us of how difficult life is for Catholic homosexuals.
We ought to be asking ourselves what we can do to make it easier.
God Bless
I think that, at her best, the Church can be tremendously helpful for all those who struggle with issues in their lives, such as Melinda does.
God Bless
She’d be a perfectly happy lesbian if it wasn’t for the Church.
Well, let’s see Jerry:
“After ten years of marriage, I’m more in love with my spouse than when I started, we have six kids, and we live in a little piece of paradise in Eastern Ontario.”
That sounds like happiness to me. She may well be happier now, married, than she would have been now had she stayed in her lesbian relationship. It’s hard to calculate such “what if’s”.
OK, she struggles with some things.
Most of us do.
As a priest once put it in a Lenten reflection he ran: “we’re all broken somehow”.
I’d suggest that Melinda’s realism in her struggle is a helpful reality check for all of us.
God Bless
The broader point Chris, is that the attempts some people make to shoe-horn themselves into heterosexuality, and the palpably neurotic results, aren’t exactly common in general society. It is a painful and unnecessary process. It is religious movements that propogate the idea that this stuff is somehow laudable. It’s a perfectly relevant “what if”. The anguish she describes never need have occured.
What she says, though, is that she didn’t attempt to shoe-horn herself into heterosexuality. She expected – and intended – a life of celibacy. And then she fell in love. I see no reason to call her a liar. After all, she was there. I have no difficulty in believing that, although she is still attracted to women, she is also attracted to her husband. Human sexuality – and particularly female sexuality – is in large part a thing of the mind and the will. And propinquity is a factor in most, if not all, love affairs.
I thought her post was brave and interesting. And surely it is for her – not you or I – to decide whether the process is necessary or not.
Jerry,
I think most people find it difficult to adjust their natural desires to chastity, especially in the world the way it is today.
Does that mean we should all just give up whatever struggles we might have with our desires, be they sexual or other disordered desires (alcohol, drugs, gluttony, theft etc) ?
I don’t think so.
The bigger point here is that Melinda’s struggles with chastity pretty much mirror the struggles than most of us have with something or other in our lives.
I agree with you that it doesn’t make much sense for someone with a deep seated homosexual orientation to try to shoehorn themselves into heterosexuality.
But it is also true than many young people go thru a temporary phase of same sex attractions and can get into homosexual relationships and a homosexual lifestyle when their orientation is basically heterosexual in development.
God Bless
What’s scandalous is that the Catholic Church thinks it has the right to determine right and wrong, as if it has the moral right to do so. If anyone has a right to preach morals, it most certainly is not the Catholic Church – just read your history of the papacy for a start…
Oh, come on KA, get down from your high horse !
Pretty much every group with strong ideas about right and wrong, including atheists, and including secular society thru it’s laws and regulations, thinks it has the right to determine right and wrong.
The history of the papacy is a pretty good example of the chaos and human misery that results when people make the wrong moral choices.
God Bless
But Chris, the CC holds as a truism that the papacy is directly decended from Peter, guided by your god, when actually it is anything but. Look at the in-fighting over the anti-popes, the outrageous behaviour of a great many of the popes and the recent ‘infallibility’ nonsense. How can the CC preach morality to the world when it’s probably one of the least moral institutions of all time.
KA
Granted some Popes in times long past had major moral failings. But the modern Papacy has actually been quite a good moral example. Especially in comparison to many secular leaders.
Morality is, of course, easier preached than lived by.
But by and large, I think the Church is a reasonably moral institution. Certainly she does set high moral standards even if most of her members struggle to live up to them all the time.
God Bless
Perhaps Kiwi atheist is confusing infallibility with impeccability. The church’s teachings are infallible, but her people are not.
Nobody is perfect. We are all on a journey towards finding authentic love. We fall down and then get up once again.
Pope Benedict XV1 world in his youth day address said,
“God does not care how many times you fall down, but how often you pick yourself up”
‘The papacy is directly descended from Peter’ whose human failings are documented, ‘guided by God’ as human beings, not as puppets – which means sometimes they listen and sometimes (more often than not, one might almost say) they don’t.
The contrast between the moral values preached by the Church and the behaviour of top Church officials has often been suggested as a stumbling block. Yet, to me it seems a reasonably cogent argument for the Church being more than just another human institution. After all, what government could resist the temptation to make legal – if they could – their own favourite pecadillos. It’s harder (though clearly not impossible) in a democracy, but dictatorships are notorious for changing the laws to suit what they intend to do anyway. All those immoral popes and prelates, with their mistresses, and their orgies, and their usury, and their other nasty little habits. Yet none of them changed Church teachings about mistresses, or orgies, or usury, etc.
confusing infallibility with impeccability
Errr, no. I think you’ll find that the concept of infallibility is a relatively new one in the CC. The fact that anyone could issue an infallible statement was clearly anathema to the early (and later) church. Now that the Popes can declare ‘infallible’ teachings, it seems that one of the great unchanging principles of the CC has, actually, changed. Has this change been brought about by a greater understanding of the teachings of Jesus, or study of the bible, or is it something that the First Vatican council just thought up to allow the leader to introduce his own teachings?
Yet none of them changed Church teachings about mistresses, or orgies, or usury, etc Just about blew that out of the water then didn’t we 😀
It depends what you mean by relatively new, KA. The doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility has been accepted by the Orthodox and Catholic Churches for as far back as we can trace, and is founded on biblical teachings, primarily: Matthew 28:18-20; Matthew 16:18; John 14, 15, and 16; I Timothy 3:14-15; and Acts 15:28. During the early centuries, the Church certainly acted as if it believed it had the authority to decide what was valid teaching and what wasn’t. To take just one example, Tertullian ridicules the suggestion that the universal teaching of the Church can be wrong: “Suppose now that all [the Churches] have erred . . . [This would mean that] the Holy Spirit has not watched over any of them so as to guide it into the truth, although He was sent by Christ, and asked from the Father for this very purpose — that He might be the teacher of truth” (doctor veritatis — “De Praescript”, xxxvi, in P.L., II, 49) Infallibility is exercised through a) unanimous acceptance of a doctrine;c) the bishops around the world, in union with the Holy See; c) ecumenical councils (that is, official gatherings of bishops such as Vatican II); d) teachings of the pope given ‘ex cathedra’ (that is, under certain defined conditions which have rearely been met). This role of the Pope was explicitly recognised as early as the fifth century, and implicitly earlier than that.
So no, the concept of infallibility is not relatively new, and was not anathema to the early church. And yes, the formal definition of what had been believed for over a thousand years was brought about by a greater understanding of the teachings of Jesus, the study of the Bible, and the study of tradition.
“Just about blew that out of the water then didn’t we.” No.
No doubt, if some bad Pope had determined to sin with mistresses, or orgies, or usury, he’d just quietly go ahead and indulge himself. No need for all the fuss, bother, and attendant publicity in trying to change any teachings about those.
But Popes have, sadly, changed some teachings to suit themselves. The Pope who wrote a Bull mandating the use of torture in the Inquisition changed the teaching of an earlier Pope who had ruled against torture, the Pope that launched the 1st Crusade changed the teaching on non-violence and against killing, Popes have changed the teaching about interest and loans to the point where the Church now makes a tidy sum from a practice once condemned by the Popes for 1500 years, and various Popes changed earlier papal teaching against slavery when it suited them.
The first Borgia Pope, for example:
Fortunately, with the exception of interest on loans (an appropriate development of doctrine), none of those changes really managed to stick in the long term.
Anyway, the Church doesn’t claim to be an exclusive reserve for saints only, but a hospital for sinners.
God Bless
But Chris, KA was talking about infallibility. A papal bull is not an infallible document. It may be used to state an infallible teaching, but more often than not it simply states the current understanding of the Pope and his advisers. Indeed, you yourself frequently argue out that the papal encyclicals on contraception and the ordination of women were not infallible statements.
JP,
I was responding, not to KA’s question about infallibility, but to your earlier comment about changing teachings.
The Catholic Church has lots of teachings, most of them are not infallible dogmas.
Interestingly, your suggestions of taking mistresses, orgies, or usury are not infallible dogmas either, probably because no one has yet been stupid enough to seriously propose that the Church officially allow them and gather such a following that Church found it necessary to issue a dogmatic clarification.
God Bless
Chris, my comment was part of a response to KA when he suggested that the immoral behaviour of popes shows that the Church is not guided by God.
I find it interesting that one of the great themes of scripture is that people have been guided by God despite their own sins.
God Bless
Yes, my point exactly.
.
“Desires are just desires.”
Reality check needed here, thinks Toad. A desire for an ice cream is one thing, but sexual desires are usually passions and, as such, often practically uncontrollable.
Remember Clinton and Monica? He certainly knew that he was acting idiotically and dangerously, apart from anything else. Just couldn’t stop himself.
If our lesbian lady can write off her own ‘desires’ so glibly, she really doesn’t have a problem. Suspects Toad.
(Does this make sense?)
“sexual desires are usually passions and, as such, often practically uncontrollable”
Rubbish. That’s the excuse we give ourselves when we don’t want to control our passions. We wouldn’t accept that excuse from a pedarast or a rapist; why should we accept it from anyone else. Of course Clinton could have stopped himself. He just didn’t want to. He was sure he could lie and charm his way out of any consequences – and to a great extent that’s exactly what he did.
I don’t disagree JP but I think Toad and Melinda make an excellent point that sexual temptations can be very difficult to control. For many, such control takes a lifetime of steady growth in virtue.
God Bless
sexual desires are usually passions and, as such, often practically uncontrollable.
The esteemed Toad has just torpedoed 10,000 years of human sexual ethics !
Or maybe not.
Catholic Moral Theology would argue that our desires are innate, not much we can do to prevent their natural occurrence, but what we can control is our act of the will, our moral choice, our decision to act on our desires and allow them to take effect until they arose passion.
Now, passion once aroused is much harder to control (as that good biblical book of erotic love poetry, the Song of Songs relates), so the trick seems to be to act in such away as to dampen down the effect of desires.
Aquinas said that temptations against chastity are the sort of temptations we do best to run away from ie not put ourselves into near occasions of sin.
For example, one imagines that Melinda refrains from visiting lesbian bars and getting drunk therein.
God Bless
Very well put. And someone who wishes to be faithful to his marriage makes sure that he goes home to his wife, rather than making opportunities to be alone with an attractive intern.
I thought her post was brave and interesting. And surely it is for her – not you or I – to decide whether the process is necessary or not.
Well JP there’s no doubt her post was interesting. I’ve been reading her blog, it’s all interesting, she can write, she’s thoughtful, and well read. And she has an audience as well, as her published work demonstrates.
And I suppose she is brave, she has taken on board a moral claim made by the faith she has accepted, and tried to respond to the demands of Christianity at the most personal level, and with as much candour as she can muster.
So I think well of her. But the blog posts, flowing into a book and always returning to the “authentic” make me feel sad when I read them one after another. Words and words and words; and the truth she avoids occasionally peeking through. Freud wrote a great deal of tosh, but he had great insight as well. — There is a silent core of pain in these posts– and it’s not her fault, but it makes me think less of the purveyors of dogmatic claims about the human condition, sexual and otherwise. Fatuous though they may be, they can do psychic harm even to very bright people.
Jerry,
I’m not surprised that there would be a silent core of pain in anyone trying to live Christian sexual ethics who also has a strong degree of SSA.
That doesn’t mean that Christian sexual ethics are inhumane or cause pain. It just means that some things in life are hard, and damned hard for some of us.
But that applies to the whole gospel, doesn’t it ?
And it isn’t that Melinda isn;t critical of a certain rigid and dogmatic approach to sexual ethics. I loved this post:
http://sexualauthenticity.blogspot.com/2011/01/hustlers-and-condoms-and-popes-oh-my.html
God Bless
So who doesn’t have dogmatic claims, Jerry? Certainly everyone at the two extremes of this debate makes dogmatic claims! And, I’m thinking, most of those inbetween.
So who doesn’t have dogmatic claims, Jerry? Certainly everyone at the two extremes of this debate makes dogmatic claims!
Good question. The short answer would be that a dogmatic claim is one made by someone who holds to a dogma, in the strict sense. — But it’s true that you can be dogmatic while rejecting the concept of dogma.
So I would say that a dogmatic claim is one that imposes itself on human reality from the top down. A non-dogmatic claim may turn out very similar, but it’s origin is bottom up experience of the human condition.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery”. — This can be either a piece of moral wisdom derived from human experience, or a dogmatic claim that has descended, as it were, from the mountain.
The thing is that dogma isn’t always wrong, but it is always unarguable — it simply presents itself and demands acceptance. Non-dogmatic claims aren’t always right of course, but they can be argued.
There is a real distinction.
But ‘thou shalt not repress thy desire to commit adultery’ is likewise a dogmatic claim, established on the rather rocky foundation of pseudo-science. So rather than ‘imposes itself on human reality from the top down’ just ‘imposes itself on human reality’ fair enough, but ‘from the top down’ not necessarily.
so the trick seems to be to act in such away as to dampen down the effect of desires.
The first trick is to identify which desires should be dampened. And the disjunction between the reality of human life and the claims of Christian dogma is a source of great pain.
A good lesson from reading any essays by Orwell is that you should watch for words that put smokescreens in front of nonsense. “Authentic” is a prime example. — “Oh yes, we’re all for freedom, but it must be authentic. Sexuality? oh yes, all for it… but it must be authentic. The search for truth? Oh yes, that’s a good thing, but it must be authentic truth”.
And there’s another one… ‘reality’. As if someone’s life is not real unless it meets a standard set for someone else.
The Western secular view of reality, disrupting the wisdom of 2000 years of Christian family life, is a source of great pain for many people.
And there’s another one… ‘reality’. As if someone’s life is not real unless it meets a standard set for someone else.
## Rome’s attitude to gay preople in a nutshell. Its attitude is indeed a source of great pain for a lot of people.
The Western secular view of reality, disrupting the wisdom of 2000 years of Christian family life, is a source of great pain for many people.
But at least it can be argued against. If some atheist says that “everyone should just sleep with whomever they want when the mood takes them” you can say “rubbish, this would cause social ruptures, wreck families, and add to human misery”.
But if someone says “God has has told us that marriage is between one man and one woman, and cannot be dissolved” — there can be no argument. — If true, the claim demands absolute obedience.
The current situation is that society is rebelling against the idea of unarguable moral claims — it’s not about the end of morality, it’s about the end of moral claims that supposedly have divine sanction— the ultimate argument winner.
I think you’ve conflated several ideas here.
First, I agree that Christians should be able to argue the value of the dogmas (such as one man, one woman marriages). Second, I agree that society is rebelling against claims of divine sanction for moral dogmas.
Conversely, Christians – and specifically Catholics – (in this society at least) are free to choose the set of moral dogmas they will believe, and are free to walk away if they wish. Indeed, if a Catholic says: ‘I am happier married than I was in a lesbian relationship’, you can say ‘rubbish, your writing shows you are in pain’. (Whether or not you are right.)
“If true, the claim demands absolute obedience”
Yes, it does. However, we Catholics have figured out – at least at this point in time – that God requests our obedience, but doesn’t demand it.
.
Joyful was not far off in calling Toad’s comment rubbish, he thinks.
But the point he was trying to make is that controlling desires is, like everything, more difficult for some than others.
The lesbian lady sees to find controlling her desires a piece of cake.
Toad also bets that – quite often – Clinton still often groans inwardly and says to himself, “Why the helldid I do that!”
(Toad certainly does, about several things in his past. Which we will not go into here.)
I don’t know how easy she finds it. Having so many children probably helps – less energy for anything else! Clinton might have had an easier time of it if he’d had a hunt or two to lead, or six acres to plough by sunset.
But the point he was trying to make is that controlling desires is, like everything, more difficult for some than others.
Yes that’s very true. Some saint in the Divine Office makes exactly that point.
God Bless
So rather than ‘imposes itself on human reality from the top down’ just ‘imposes itself on human reality’ fair enough, but ‘form the top down’ not necessarily.
Ok, that’s fair.
But here is something I don’t like about the claims made by orthodox Christianity about homosexuality. What I look for in a moral claim is that it is slowly and painfully produced from experience. — An example of this would be our rejection of the institution of slavery. Experience taught us that dehumanising a portion of humanity stains and reduces us all. — But the Christian rejection of homosexuality is a little different. Yes there are very thoughtful arguments made for the position– but they are undeniably after the fact. The Christian rejection of (active) homosexuality ultimately turns on scripture. And scripture ultimately turns on an element of revelation, — with which there can be no argument. –. Whenever I butt heads with Catholic teaching on homosexuality, I feel frustrated because I know that beyond a certain point it will come down to immovable dogma.
Jerry, I think, with Chris, that we’re at a very early stage in the process of deciding what the dogma is. For a long time, homosexuality wasn’t talked about. Then it was reviled. Now it is being discussed. And people like Eve Tushnet (who thinks ‘particular’ – but chaste – friendships are an important part of a celibate’s life) and Melinda Selmys are discussing it in ways that those who are merely ignorant and not bigots can hear and understand. I suspect the current stand is immovable dogma like Limbo was immovable dogma. But time will tell.
The misery that the Magisterium’s teaching on the matter has caused is, of course, nothing more than, to coin a phrase, a cause of “collateral damage”. A pity, but there it is.
The dogma is built on sand. The clobber texts are irrelevant, or misinterpreted, or else taken from books of which the other commands are ignored.
“I suspect the current stand is immovable dogma like Limbo was immovable dogma. But time will tell.”
## And in the meantime, gay people will continue to be murdered, treated as pariahs, sacked, scapegoated, and vilified, by the Magisterium, Popes, other bishops,other Catholics, other Christians, other people. The Church is answerable for the blood of those who have died because of its teaching. IOW, people can carry on being sacrificed to a position based on misunderstandings, that one day will probably be changed, in reality if not in theory. How is this ****Christian**** behaviour ? It is Rome that tried to blame gay priests for the recent abuses.
So what would you have, Kerberos? We don’t have the option of being ruled by perfect wisdom and love this side of the second coming. And knee-jerk reactions – both inside the Church and in the wider world – have not been at all successful (as clearly evidenced by the Rome comments you refer to).
The current Church teaching is – in summary:
These are the teachings. Anything else is rhetoric and propoganda. Calling misinformed remarks by a Cardinal – however high ranking – ‘Church dogma’ doesn’t make it dogma. There is no basis in dogma for murder, scapegoating, and vilification.
And yes, those responsible for lying teachings will be answerable for ‘the blood of those who have died’. This includes those who were killed through judicial or mob violence as a result of bad Church teaching.
On the other hand, Kerberos, if homosexual acts really are damaging to the human person, as the Church teaches, and as many Catholic homosexuals also believe, then surely the Church would be remiss, and also causing great misery and pain to many millions, if she did not point that out ?
I do agree that often we need to go a lot further in terms of pointing it out in a kind, compassionate and loving way and that we do need to get this into some kind of rational and humane perspective cf other rather widespread sexual failings.
There are many Catholic clerics who have put their necks on the line to show kindness and compassion to homosexuals.
God Bless
those who have sex outside of marriage should not receive the Eucharist
There is no such teaching.
There is a teaching that a person in mortal sin should not receive, but mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent which would be problematic for those in 2nd marriages in good conscience.
If one is an active homosexual who doesn’t think one’s sexual activity is actually wrong, then such a person couldn’t be in a state of mortal sin by definition.
God Bless
How kind of you to take so much trouble to share your knowledge on this blog Chris.
1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
Consent of the will: was your choice unforced? Full knowledge: did you know it was forbidden? Was your ignorance unintentional, or deliberately sought?
Indeed, judgement of individual cases is a matter for a person and their priest. I certainly wouldn’t want to stand in judgement. But I still think my reading is good enough for weekdays.
Full knowledge: did you know it was forbidden?
Err, No.
What is required for mortal sin is full knowledge of “the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law.”
Merely knowing that the Church forbids it is insufficient (one might genuinely believe the Church wrong, as sometimes she has been on moral issues).
God Bless
It is quite true, Chris, that many people have been poorly taught, and don’t understand that they have an ordinary duty to obey the Church (except when to do so is clearly against morality). That being the case, the sin of following their own opinion on moral matters surely lies with their teachers rather than with the people themselves.
JP,
I think that we have to accept that there are plenty of good Catholics who, in good conscience, don’t agree with certain aspects of Catholic sexual teaching.
That isn’t simply because no one told them.
It’s very often because they informed their conscience by quite a bit of study, prayer, and reflection and concluded that what the Church taught was wrong.
It is not a sin to follow one’s own opinion if one has genuinely discerned that one’s own formed opinion is morally correct. In fact, the Church teaches that to so follow one’s conscience is a moral obligation, even when one’s conscience is poorly formed and even wrong.
God Bless
Vast oversimplifications are the meat of blog comment streams, of course, Chris. But your comment is far more notable for what it leaves out than for what it puts in.
The Christian rejection of (active) homosexuality ultimately turns on scripture.
Well, Melinda seems to be doing a great job of debunking such scriptural claims, at least in their simplistic / literalistic sense (see above for her views on Romans 1). Her claim is not based on any particular passage in scripture but on a theology of sexuality built on a more generalized reading of scripture.
So … the trend is towards a wider reading of scripture on homosexuality.
It will be interesting to see where that goes…
Joan Chittister has expressed some interesting ideas about that.
I think one can argue that Eve Tushnet and Melinda and Dave Morrison, and a bunch of other gay Catholics, are also arguing from their lived experience of the dead end of a homosexual lifestyle. I think that lived experience has to count for something.
Another way of looking at this might be in terms of sexual maturity. It’s reasonably common for teenagers to go thru periods of sexual confusion, even active homosexuality, which they grow out of as they mature. That does seem to suggest that married heterosexuality is a more mature form of sexual expression.
One might also consider the apparent growth in homosexual activity in the modern West in correlation with family breakdown, divorce, sexual violence, and drug use. If the later are a contributor (at least partially) to the former, and I think they are, then this also seems to argue for homosexuality being in some sense a distortion of a mature sexuality.
God Bless
Jerry, if it’s revelation, it’s true and needs no argument by its nature, and the Lord’s laws aren’t arbitrary. But if it’s only contingent, if it’s a rule thought up by dead white men (rather, evolved), then how did it come about? The very existence of the rule is to my mind an argument in its favor—and one I wish I knew more about.
Put another way, the fact that we do not recall the slow and painful production is no reason to relive it and destroy so many people in the process.
Now there’s no guarantee I’m right, but you seem to be dogmatising your own position and then arguing backwards from it, too.
There’s a lot of wicked and toxic rubbish in the Bible. Joshua 10.28-40 with list of places purged of Canaanites by extermination, would not be out of place in the diary of an officer in the Waffen-SS. Joshua would have made an admirable Gauleiter, with his devotion to providing Lebensraum for the invading Israelite Volk. There have been Nazis who were sentenced to death and hanged for doing much less than he is said to have done; yet Gauleiter Joshua is venerated as a type of Christ, a Saint, a hero, a man of God. The Bible is a very unreliable guide to morals – there is no way to get good men to do enormous evil, compared to claiming that “God Wills It”. Why should Christians treat such books, which were originally given to another people, with any reverence ? The Book of Esther concludes with a pogrom-in-reverse.
Another problem with using the Bible as a moral guide is that even its most recent parts are almost 2,000 years old – and people can make a lot of moral progress in 2,000 years. It’s badly out of date, and encourages people to be less humane than many people are today. Much of its morality is inferior to morality today, or is predicated on the prospect of the imminent Return of Jesus; we are still waiting. The non-occurrence of His Return means that the Church has had to adapt what he said to novel circumstances; making his words in large part inapplicable to her life: for what works in Roman Palestine, may not work in mediaeval Rome or 20th-century London.
A great deal of what is brandished as unchangeable & inviolable Divine Revelation had the stuffing knocked out of in the NT. Nehemiah & Ezra hated the Samaritans – Jesus mixed with Samaritans. The writer of Gen.17 has God saying: “10This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised” – but in Romans, St. Paul ignores that. There is no Biblical foundation for making Jesus, a non-Levite, replace the Levitical priesthood – but the author of Hebrews goes ahead and does so anyway. The NT authors were not dazzled by or fettered to the Bible in the way so many Christians today are. Understandably, because a crucified Messiah, who was as such “accursed” as far as the Law was concerned, was counter-Biblical. Jesus is the centre of Christianity – the Bible is not. The Bible is “useful” – but nothing more than that.
Properly speaking, hardly any of the Church’s sexual claims are dogmatic, and none at all about homosexuality.
There is, of course, scope to argue about what is dogmatic and what isn’t and how to interpret the dogmas. So saying that something is dogma by no means completely closes off the matter from discussion, and certainly not from development.
God Bless
“God has has told us that marriage is between one man and one woman, and cannot be dissolved” — there can be no argument.
Well, yes, but right from the get go scripture qualified that in all sorts of ways – excepting for adultery, if one can accept this, the Pauline privilege, the Petrine privilege etc. The reality is that the Church dissolves marriages all the time, and always has done.
God Bless
Chris,
The Church does not dissolve marriages all the time – annulments are a recognition that there was no marriage there in the first place – that’s it. A valid marriage cannot be dissolved. More, if you consider that lady being quoted may not have had a vocation to marry, and that she may have grounds for an annulment, then you are effectively saying that you don’t believe she is actually married right now.
A valid marriage cannot be dissolved.
Lucia,
The Church has the power to dissolve valid non-sacramental marriages. It’s called the Pauline privilege and goes all the way back to St Paul who wrote about it in the NT. It’s quite common for converts to invoke it to dissolve a previous valid but failed marriage so they can remarry. The RCIA process deals with that issue constantly.
Valid marriages which have not been consummated may also be dissolved. (Validity does not require consummation). Catherine of Aragaon’s first marriage to Henry VIII’s brother was so annulled.
you are effectively saying that you don’t believe she is actually married right now.
The Church’s presumption is that the marriage is valid until shown otherwise. She may well have very good grounds for an anullment, but if she has managed to overcome the issues involved, and there seems to be good grounds to think that she has, then there is no good reason to end the marriage and, in fact, many excellent reasons to continue it. People do manage to overcome all sorts of horrific obstacles in life.
God Bless
As I’ve noted before, I’m not fond of putting people into boxes with labels on them – even when people do it to themselves. I suspect that some of the comments on this thread show category confusion issues. But any of the categories for sexual orientation are – at the very least – overlapping and transparent at the edges. As shown by prison experience and incidence of venereal disease in animals on small remote islands.
Labelling oneself or someone else as heterosexual, homosexual, or (for that matter) zoophiliac may be true as far as preferred object of sexual attraction goes. But that’s about lust. Lust is nice, but it isn’t love. Sexuality in the context of a committed relationship is about far more than simply physical attraction. Propinquity, emotional connection, affection, and – yes – social expectations and support – all combine to make some relationships affirming and some destructive.
In choosing to express that part of yourself that revels in the role of wife and mother, you might need to supress that part of yourself that enjoys sex with other women. We all make such choices. To suggest that someone is denying their true self because they choose one path and not another is – in my view – presumptuous. When I chose the suitor I later married, I closed myself off to other choices. When I left university to get a job that paid better so we could plan for a house and family, I chose motherhood over a career in linguistics. Each choice shapes and defines us. We don’t find ourselves; we make ourselves.
“Labelling oneself or someone else as heterosexual, homosexual, or (for that matter) zoophiliac may be true as far as preferred object of sexual attraction goes. But that’s about lust.”
## It’s about attraction – which may or may not be lustful.
“In choosing to express that part of yourself that revels in the role of wife and mother, you might need to supress that part of yourself that enjoys sex with other women. ”
## Rome wants LGBT people to deny their own existence, and to live the lie that they are not LGBT.
What do you mean by ‘Rome’?
I hoped someone might comment on my picture.
I think that the red tulip makes a nice change in the monotonous sea of gold tulips !
It must be really hard not really fitting in and I suppose that can lead to Melinda’s withdrawing into the village, or becoming defensive, or even overly aggressive in pushing one’s own perceived rights.
The Catholic vision is not so much a NO to homosexuality, masturbation, pornography, and contraception as it is a YES to the great good of marriage. It’s really trying to help us focus on the really really good thing and not just get stuck in that which is only partially good but also problematic.
Chris West described it as eating from the banquet which really satisfies vs merely getting by scrounging from the rubbish bin.
God Bless
And the red tulip has to find out for itself how to be a red tulip, while it is the task and responsibility of gold tulips to not only celebrate their own goldness, but also to rejoice in the singularity of the red tulip. To push the analogy into the realm of tweeness.
And I like the fact that the tulips are all together in a community of tulips, all protecting and sheltering each other. Standing together in solidarity. Hence my Dorothy Day quote above.
God Bless
“By this shall all know that you are my disciples; that you have love one for another.”
Which is nice for those who are straight, and for those straight people who want to marry, or have the ££££ & $$$$ to be able to. Marriage has no attractions for those not attracted to it. The people I’m sorry for are those who have some ghastly spouse dumped on them for ££££ advantage.
This is an interesting article. The whole concept of gay identity is new. A person defining their entire existence by who they are attracted to is a new concept.
We are all human beings who struggle with all kinds of things.
Once we get rid of the labels, we find that we are all looking for authentic love.
A close friend of mine, closed down her feminist bookstore and started a journey towards the faith after she read JP2’s “Love and Responsibility”
She said it had so much in common with the radical feminist Andrea Dorkin. (No kidding)
She also claims many of the radical bunch would become Catholic, if they knew what the church actually teaches.
many of the radical bunch would become Catholic, if they knew what the church actually teaches.
That’s very true. As long as what she teaches isn’t smothered by the Catholic Right !
Hilary Hammell, a pro-choice activist, seems quite entranced by the Catholic social justice and consistent ethic of life position.
http://catholicmoraltheology.com/the-princeton-abortion-conference-one-year-later-guest-post-by-reproductive-justice-activist-hilary-hammell/
God Bless
“This is an interesting article. The whole concept of gay identity is new. A person defining their entire existence by who they are attracted to is a new concept.”
1. New =/////= illegitimate
2. The notion of a crucified Messiah was pretty new once. So was the notion that women were socially & politically equal to men. History is full of familar and “self-evident” ideas being upset. How many peple notice the oxymorons in descriptions like “patriot American Christian” or “national Church” ? Hierarchy used to be taken for granted in antiquity, as C. S. Lewis points out – the very notion of hierarchy is an abomination in the US; that the CC is hierarchical, is a standard objection to it in that country. Examples could be multiplied. So the novelty of gay identity, is not an objection to it, but merely a fact about it.
FWIW, the definition is not quite correct – but we can let that pass.
Chris,
I am not a big fan of Christopher West. I prefer Dawn Eden. Have you heard of her. She’s a former rock music journalist and a convert.
This is her blog.
http://dawneden.blogspot.com/
Chris,
Thanks so much for that link.
Chris,
They could be equally smothered by the Catholic left.
.
“Joyfulpapist,” is a label if Toad has ever heard one.
But then, so is, “Toadspittle.”
my comment was part of a response to KA when he suggested that the immoral behaviour of popes shows that the Church is not guided by God.
What, for the sake of argument, would show that the church wasn’t guided by God?
“What, for the sake of argument, would show that the church wasn’t guided by God?”
## It all depends on how open to arguments that the Church is not so guided a believer in the Divine guidance would be. If one hold as an immovable certainty – as an axiom – that it is God-guided, no counter-argument can possibly overturn that certainty.
I think I would be open to conviction by arguments that the gospels are devoid of historical content – whether I would be open to conceding that Jesus was only human, and nothing more, I doubt. A lot of these arguments touch on matters that deeply affect people’s self-understanding – these are not things that don’t matter existentially and can be surrendered more or less painlessly. Any belief that is not fall on ground that is shallow, but is heart-felt and greatly valued, is going to sink very deep roots into the self; so giving it up will be very painful; for the whole self is involved. Generally speaking anyway.