Non-pastoral care for gay Catholics
Thursday, February 11, 2010
By Bryan Cones
Comments (8)
The Catholic Web has been buzzing this week because of what seems to be a unprovoked attack by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago against Maryland-based New Ways Ministry, which tries to help gay and lesbian Catholics and their families "build bridges" with the church.
The National Catholic Reporter has a good summary of George's statement and the response of New Ways Ministry director Frank DeBernardo, but I've got another question altogether.
As apparently yet another door is being slammed in the face of gay Catholics who remain engaged in a conversation with Catholic church leaders, I can’t help but ask: Just what have the U.S. bishops done to take care of gay Catholics and their families? My answer: Next to nothing. In fact, the bishops have had nothing but harsh words for gay Catholics and their families in recent years, opposing even the most basic civil protections for their families and relationships. Can they offer any pastoral care at all, other than condemnation? There are many gay and lesbian people who are Catholic after all, many of whom are struggling.
George says in his statement that "New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and ... cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States." The first part may be true; but as for the second, I think New Ways speaks for many Catholics in finding the church's approach to the issue of homosexuality to be unnecessarily punitive. As I argued in my January column, many Catholics struggle with the divergence between Catholic teaching and their own experience of gays and lesbians and their families. Can there be no conversation on this matter?
New Ways Ministry has sought that conversation in charity, and it hasn't been easy to walk the tightrope, as they discovered when their founders Sister Jeanine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent were forbidden by the Vatican in 1999 from ministry with gay and lesbian people. New Ways may not be an "official" Catholic ministry, but I find its efforts at reconciliation to reflect the best of our Catholic moral and spiritual tradition.
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What if the "gay gene" is discovered?
By Jim (not verified) on Monday, February 15, 2010Then, if we believe that God created us, then what? God cannot act contrary to his nature, so it is impossible for Him to create a human with a genetically sinful nature.
So, speculating here, what is the Church's response? Is it possible for the Church to evolve in her thinking and reveal something like that?
If God created a man who had sexual desire for another man, how can that be intrinsically disordered? God is God-he can do whatever he wants, right?
What has the Church offered
By Tom (not verified) on Friday, February 12, 2010What has the Church offered gay Catholics? How about confession, and worthy sacramental reunion with Christ. How about truth? How about the Courage Apostolate? Many attack Courgae, but many others are turning to it and restoring true joy in their lives.
Thanks, Bryan
By William Lindsey (not verified) on Thursday, February 11, 2010Bryan, thank you for a clear and courageous statement.
You write, "I can’t help but ask: Just what have the U.S. bishops done to take care of gay Catholics and their families? My answer: Next to nothing."
And I have to tell you that reading that, I begin to find tears forming in my eyes.
Because it's true. And because this truth hurts.
When we are not being used as political footballs in games that have little to do with us (and I suspect that is what is happening with Cardinal George's latest), we are completely ignored.
As if we don't exist. As if we don't count. As if we have no feelings. As if our humanity is something other than the humanity of the church's pastors.
It hurts.
I'm always amazed and
By Ginny (not verified) on Friday, February 12, 2010I'm always amazed and humbled by the strength of gay Catholics. It cannot be easy to stay in the Church. Thank you for continuing to be here at the table.
"In fact, the bishops have
By Anonymous (not verified) on Thursday, February 11, 2010"In fact, the bishops have had nothing but harsh words for gay Catholics and their families in recent years, opposing even the most basic civil protections for their families and relationships."
Sounds like you're approving of homosexual relationships, Bryan. Homosexual behavior is a sin, period! Theft is a sin. Murder is a sin. Adultery is a sin. Lying is a sin.
The only way to address sin is in condemnation of the behavior. Christ came to call sinners, not as they are, but as they would be should they rise above their own sinful natures. And the Catholic Church has done EVERYTHING in its 2000 year history to do that!
The question isn't how can the Church bend in conformity to the demands of homosexuals, but how can homosexuals shed their sinful natures to conform to the Catholic Church!
There's the problem
By Bryan Cones on Monday, February 15, 2010The church's teaching, strictly speaking, forbids only sexual activing between members of the same gender. A same-sex couple could live together, raise children, and even get civilly married where it is legal without violating the letter of church teaching. Most of the debate around this topic entirely overstates the church's actual teaching on this matter.
Bryan Cones
Bryan Cones is wrong on Church teaching
By Anonymous (not verified) on Monday, February 15, 2010CCC 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,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 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.
CCC 2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life"150 teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life."151 "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act."152
Conducting the Discussion
By Greg (not verified) on Thursday, February 11, 2010The new book Taming the Wolf offers suggestions for how to conduct this type of discussion.
The work combines contemporary conflict resolution concepts with the peacemaking legacy of St. Francis.
It seems we are at a crossroads where we have to explore these new ways of engaging one another.
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