As a gay (SSA) Catholic, I'm exhausted

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RealisticCatholic

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I can hardly stand how people talk about the abuse scandals.

I’m frustrated with everyone acting like they know exactly what a gay person’s experience is in the church.

I just don’t understand why people label “heresy” the simple attempt to include LGBT in the church…

I keep my faith in Christ, but I feel like I don’t belong in this current cultural context.

I’m scared to follow a career in theology while being gay, for fear of being on Church Militant’s next headline. Etc.

Are my fears rational?
 
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I don’t fear people finding out I’m gay…

I fear being gay in the Catholic Church.

Gay = same-sex attracted in my terminology BTW.
 
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If you’re worried about what Church Militant and any other media outlets think, stop giving them attention.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
I can hardly stand how people talk about the abuse scandals.

I’m frustrated with everyone acting like they know exactly what a gay person’s experience is in the church.

I just don’t understand why people label “heresy” the simple attempt to include LGBT in the church…

I keep my faith in Christ, but I feel like I don’t belong in this current cultural context.

I’m scared to follow a career in theology while being gay, for fear of being on Church Militant’s next headline. Etc.

Are my fears rational?
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My suggestion?
Log off and live your life “in the real”. You are participating in a very narrow perspective here. And I don’t mean that in a pejorative way for the site, just that apologetics can be very exacting, impersonal, and tiring.

Visit a nursing home.
Mentor a teenager.
Do a mission trip to help rebuild homes.

We are meant to go out and pour out, and that is not tiring, it is restorative.
 
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I was listening to Catholic radio just now, and someone called in frustrated that Catholicism teaches homosexual activity was sinful. They wanted the Church to teach that just BEING gay (having attraction) was wrong!

The Catholic host went on to describe homosexual attraction, likening it to being physically blind.

I can’t stand it.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
I was listening to Catholic radio just now, and someone called in frustrated that Catholicism teaches homosexual activity was sinful. They wanted the Church to teach that just BEING gay (having attraction) was wrong!

I can’t stand it.
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If it makes you feel any better, hateful and ignorant people abound outside the Catholic Church as well.

I sympathize with your frustration.
 
Are you planning to seek a career in the Church and thus have reason to be nervous about being a person with SSA in a clergy, religious, staff, or teaching position?

Because if you’re just going to work in the secular world and be a practicing Catholic, then unless you do something like parade around the parish church waving a pride flag, no one will pay much attention to you. I meet gay Catholics regularly and presume they are living chastely as I see nothing to the contrary. It’s no big deal.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
I was listening to Catholic radio just now, and someone called in frustrated that Catholicism teaches homosexual activity was sinful. They wanted the Church to teach that just BEING gay (having attraction) was wrong!

I can’t stand it.
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Most Catholics I know in real life don’t seem to actually understand or know the Church’s position on same sex attraction ome way or the other, and it’s very unfortunate. I don’t blame you for being frustrated and upset having to hear these types of things, especially while working like the rest of us on being a faithful Catholic.
 
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Maybe take a break from this topic? Whenever people make these kinds of CAF, I cannot help but say that perhaps it is focusing so much on your sexuality that is exhausting. To me, there are no straight Catholics, gay Catholics, black Catholics, white Catholics, etc. Only good or bad ones.
 
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Then don’t listen to Catholic radio. I could find Catholic radio programs with people complaining about women who have careers after marriage, don’t have kids, married non-Catholics etc. I don’t bother because the Church doesn’t and didn’t consider these things as being sins and I am too busy to care what Angry Joe Pewsitter or even Fr. Ripperger has to say on it.
 
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CCHcolonel said:
How will anyone know you’re gay unless you tell them?

Just live a chaste life and it should never be on someone else’s radar.
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This is a suggestion that is not helpful at all.

Assuming you aren’t gay, what if someone suggested to you that you just live a life without disclosing what your orientation is.

We need to get past caring what someone else’s sexual orientation. It is unhealthy to pretend these things don’t exist.

You do realize that if you are Catholic and a single adult, you are constantly baraged by people trying to fix you up with dates. Then when you decline, they whisper about how maybe you are gay. Gossip about it is the worst. It is much better to be open about who you are.

The Church really needs to take the lead in helping its members “get over this”. There is no shame in being gay, even in the Catholic Church. Remember, the teaching is that the sin is in not being chaste.

It is time to stop shaming others by suggesting they hide themselves away.
 
I try not to focus on it. It seems the current culture in the American church does, though. From big personalities to Catholic media.
 
I get the sense that they’re rational fears for sure. I feel for you. I understand it’s not as simple as just not telling anyone that you’re gay, because even if you do that you still have to grapple with the remarks and judgments about gay people in the Church. I’m sure it’s very frustrating.

You’re in my prayers.
 
For me, the “gay thing” is not about being “intent on showing how special and unique” we are.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
I try not to focus on it. It seems the current culture in the American church does, though. From big personalities to Catholic media.
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I think the last time this topic came up I posted the quote from Archbishop Chaput about Catholics not identifying ourselves by our sexual orientation.

The world tells us to qualify and identify ourselves by all sorts of classifications. Sexual orientation is the current one. But the Church, or at least leaders like Chaput, tell us that there’s no other way to ID ourselves other than ‘Child of God.’
 
I guess with the current happenings within the Church. Your fears are rational.
 
If it’s any consolation, I think the church teaches that all human sexuality is corrupted as a result of the fall (as you aspire to study theology, you probably know that already! :).

I just mean that heterosexual people should acknowledge that, absent any miraculous interference from God, they are also subject to lust. In other words, without God, all are subject to that blindness… even happily married heterosexual Christians are subject to that same temptation (same meaning: wrong in God’s eyes)!

My point is that the comparison with gayness to a disability should not hurt you. Even those who hurt you should not hurt you.

1 John 4:20: If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
 
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Maybe I should qualify by stating the need for people to actually know the real life experiences of gay people. That way people in the church don’t have to brush it aside as simply something under the label “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

That just proves people aren’t actually thinking about these issues with any depth. Or even compassion.
 
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