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

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I’m not really sure that I know what sexual orientation even means, or what “gay” or “straight” means. I think it is far less important than the existing culture seems to make it.

Is a gay man attracted to every other man on the planet? I doubt it. Is a straight man attracted to every woman on the planet? Surely not. Sexual attraction is usually specific, not general. A heterosexual man is not attracted to every woman, but to this specific woman. A man with SSA is likely not attracted to every other man, but to a specific individual.

Not only that but sexual attraction is a matter of degree. Some persons are sexually promiscuous; some are not. I knew one guy who routinely had sex with any number of women during his younger years. Was he oriented to multiple sex partners? Was he a sex addict? Maybe so. Then he married, and never strayed, remaining faithful to just one woman. Was he monogamously oriented? Apparently he became so.

I was never attracted to multiple women. Eventually I fell in love with one woman, and married her. If I had had personal discussions with my friend during our single years, he would have had a lot to talk about; I would not.

Some people are attracted to children; some are attracted S&M practices; I guess some are attracted to exotic or creepy sexual practices and various kinds of fetishes. A lot of it is learned behavior. But if everyone follows Catholic sexual morality, there won’t be much to talk about.

Some people marry; some don’t. The state of being unmarried is not an indication of any kind of orientation. In real life I hardly ever hear anyone talk about sexual orientation. The only real identification with regard to sex is not orientation but simply male and female, man or woman.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
I’m frustrated with everyone acting like they know exactly what a gay person’s experience is in the church.
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Yea I can see how that’s frustrating
RealisticCatholic said:
I just don’t understand why people label “heresy” the simple attempt to include LGBT in the church…
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I don’t remember seeing people label the attempt to include those with certain experiences
“heresy”
RealisticCatholic said:
I’m scared to follow a career in theology while being gay, for fear of being on Church Militant’s next headline. Etc.
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Are you planning on becoming a priest, monk, etc…?
 
They always had the option to get married if they chose it, of course theyd have to become members of the laity to do so. The point is that they could experience marriage and romantic relationships as a vocation. I can’t. That isn’t saying I think church teaching should be changed, but it makes the situation a different animal
 
I don’t think you need to worry about it. With the substantiated stories about the huge number of gay priests, bishops, and cardinals, and their active gay lifestyles, it’s abundantly clear that it’s ok to lead a gay lifestyle as long as you pretend you’re not. Gay activity is no longer “disordered”at the Vatican. It’s pretty much normal, everyday life.

And the gay lifestyle is in no way, shape, or form a crisis or scandal for the faithful. The hypocrisy and corrupt machinations of our spiritual leaders, our “shepherds,” is the true crisis.
 
Sadly, I fear that this hypocrisy and corruption, centered on the lack of chastity, will lead to a huge schism. Not saying I hope for it. But I think it may be coming, unless an extraordinary leader arises who can really, once and for all, cleanse the Church. In fact, the very effort to cleanse the Church may be a proximate cause of such schism. I don’t know. Right now I don’t see a concerted will toward such scouring. We’ll see.
 
If you think that the Church has lots of resources for same-sex attracted people, I don’t know what world you’re living in. I think most people on these forums will admit that the Church has a lot of room to improve. If not, then I know many orthodox priests who freely admit that to me. That’s one of the first things they’ll say, “The Church has not done well in this area so far”.

Joseph Sciambra claims to be ex-gay. Maybe so. But, when people posted that idea on this thread, thankfully they were immediately dismissed by everyone. “Just don’t be gay” someone said, and thankfully several orthodox Catholics dismissed that. Because the Church doesn’t teach that.

Idk what New Ways Ministry is. Are they pro gay movement? Gay sex is ok? Yeah, that would put them on the other side, indeed. So, then we’re only left with Courage. Which, is what it is. They’re not in several major cities I’ve lived in.
Hmm. There’s not even a map on their website, probably because of all the glaring holes. Anyways, there’s only 109 chapters in the U.S. I counted the states. There are no chapters in 11 states. Many states only have 1 chapter. So, that’s not great, I think anyone would agree.
 
OnAJourney said:
They always had the option to get married if they chose it, of course theyd have to become members of the laity to do so. The point is that they could experience marriage and romantic relationships as a vocation. I can’t. That isn’t saying I think church teaching should be changed, but it makes the situation a different animal
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I disagree because they didn’t have a calling to marriage.

I also would not be surprised if some Saints did have same sex attraction and that was part of their calling to the priesthood, Religious Life and/or to become a consecrated virgin.

I think the bigger problem is that people think marriage is the better option. It’s not. It’s just a different vocation. It is arguable far more work too. Remember: we Catholics are called to be married for life. Divorce and remarriage (unless there no real marriage) is a mortal sin. It’s just as damning as homosexual acts. So for a practicing Catholic, you marry the wrong person - you’re stuck!

I think today’s culture says “marriage is all about feeling loved.” It’s not. It’s about dying to oneself, sacrificing yourself for your spouse and children. And frankly, that’s not easy. Sometimes you just want to take a vacation from your family. But guess what, you can’t.

A priest I know put it like this (we were not talking about homosexuality, but I think it applies).

“People say priests are too busy to do X or Y. It’s not true. Married people have far less time on their hands and are far more busy than priests. When a married man comes home from work, he’s still has work to do as husband and as father. He has three jobs. Priest have far more time for themselves than a married man”
  • spoken by a young priest
My point, a CHASTE marriage dedicated to live the Catholic way is not easy. And there is no reason why a Chaste single life dedicated to service of others (whether family, parish, etc) cannot be equally rewarding.
 
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The catechism agrees that the number of gay people is not negligible. I think, in fairness, that the number of celibate saints throughout history is.

To be blunt, its posts like several of the ones in the last 20 posts that caused a huge number of gay people to become priests, that probably shouldn’t have. Just saying. Not working out too well is it?
If 10% of the U.S. Population is gay then that’s 32 million people. If its 5%, that’s 16 million people. If y’all think that just looking to the saints that have always been there is enough, then go ahead and think that.

If y’all want a minimum of 16 million people to live chastely for the rest of their lives, without the possibility of a relationship, I think there is infinite work that needs to be done. Lifetimes of work to even get a small fraction of gay people doing that in this country.
prayerrider said:
So you’re called to single, celibate chastity. Rejoice! It is the highest calling!
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Rejoice! I’m sorry, this is just so out of touch.
Rejoice at how well the Church has done.
And, if the Church doesn’t need to work on this, then I guess blame the gay people in this country for being selfish, etc. Many, if not most of them have had sincere struggles with their faith over this, I think most people should know that to be true. And, at the end of the day, very few of them are living as the Church would want.
 
phil19034 said:
And there is no reason why a Chaste single life dedicated to service of others (whether family, parish, etc) cannot be equally rewarding.
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Of course it can be. We need look no further than the example of Christ and Paul and many saints. This argument that, “well, but at least the saints chose celibacy, they at least had the option of marriage” is disingenuous.
 
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I actually agree with just about everything you said in your post.

I would just like to say, that if most gay Catholics are called to single life, again, there are few examples in our society. I’ve been on 3 different retreats where there was a vocations panel. There was never any representative for the 4th vocation, single life. Always priests, nuns, monks, and a married couple.
 
What exactly is it you want the Church to do?
Single, celibate and chaste is the only calling of all who have an exclusively homosexual orientation. There is no "calling’ for same sex marriage. That is the Church teaching. It is certainly no secret. Do you believe that teaching is wrong?
 
The fourth is the consecrated life. But they are often forgotten for some reason.

If we gave the consecrated life more attention, that might help people with SSA find purpose within the Church, if they are not called to priesthood, monastic/Religious life.
 
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So you agree that the Church has not done a good enough job in messaging the vocations for gay people
 
There are myriad resources available for those called to a single, lay but consecrated life. I could pull up dozens in a ten minute internet search. If I can do it, so can anyone else, regardless of their sexual orientation.
 
prayerrider said:
There are myriad resources available for those called to a single, lay but consecrated life. I could pull up dozens in a ten minute internet search. If I can do it, so can anyone else, regardless of their sexual orientation.
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True, but you and I know they exist. There are plenty of Catholic who don’t.
 
“Seek, and ye shall find.” Sometimes we need to exert a modicum of effort, yes?
 
And how many parishes have those resources? How many don’t? I tried getting in touch with the local Courage chapter in my area and the priest never bothered to get back to me. Now I can understand he has a busy schedule, but if you’re going to run a ministry specifically for gay people you can’t offer an email for contact and then never contact them back. It’s very off putting for people that want a sense of connection with the Church and it makes it seem like the Church doesn’t take that particular ministry seriously
 
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ALL single Catholic people must remain chaste
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I think this is absolutely at the root of everything: regardless of one’s sexuality, if one is sexually active and not married via the sacrament of matrimony, one is not living according to the teachings of the Catholic faith. That doesn’t mean they should be excluded, but that they should be educated and learn to do their best to uphold the teachings of the church if they profess to believe them.

But, I think it is important to acknowledge that we are all sinful, and hopefully we are each doing our best to follow the teachings of the church. We all have our failings, but if we are actively seeking salvation, we will tend to our faults as we can deal with them—everyone is on a different part of their journey, and sometimes people just need to get their foot in the door in order to begin learning how to deal with their own faults. (Something about throwing stones and first removing things from one’s own eye and all . . . )
 
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