Discrimination in confessional

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milkcake

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I had this bad experience in confessional back 2 years ago. When I finished saying my confession, the priest did not focus of what I had confessed to him but he focused only telling me about my orientation. This is my first time that my confessor treated me so badly. I sense in his attitude and bitter expression towards me that he doesn’t like me. He told me that God created only man and woman and there’s no in between. Are we homosexuals people already damned? Did God really love us?
 
Pay attention to the words he spoke, not how you percieved him to have felt about you.

-Tim-
 
It’s been two years and you are still holding on to something a lone priest said to you?
 
milkcake said:
I had this bad experience in confessional back 2 years ago. When I finished saying my confession, the priest did not focus of what I had confessed to him but he focused only telling me about my orientation. This is my first time that my confessor treated me so badly. I sense in his attitude and bitter expression towards me that he doesn’t like me. He told me that God created only man and woman and there’s no in between. Are we homosexuals people already damned? Did God really love us?
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So did the priest tell you that God does not love you?
No matter the sins we choose to commit, God always loves us. He yearns for each of us to seek His forgiveness. He yearns for each of us to sin no more and to know what true love is.

Did your priest tell you that homosexual sexual behaviors are sinful, and are you offended by that truth?
And it doesn’t matter whether a priest likes us or not when we confess our sins. If he is enlightening us by teaching the moral truths of our Lord’s Church, he is doing something charitable. He is helping us to truly reconcile with Christ. That is not treating the penitent badly. Do you expect any priest to tell you that homosexual behaviors are not sinful?

I feel sad that you are defining who you are as a person by how you feel compelled to use your sexuality.

God created one sexuality. He created one “orientation”. About 100 years ago or so, a German guy declared there are two sexualities (heterosexual and homosexual), and too much of society has bought into this very false re-definition. No matter what governments or homosexual “rights” activists claim, there is but one sexuality, not two, not three, not eight (as some modern self-proclaimed sexuality “experts” are now claiming).

The sexuality that every person is born with is biologically geared for reproduction.
Whether people “feel” like conforming to God’s design is another story. There are many ways to “mess with” God’s design of sexuality. Same-sex sexual behaviors is just one way. As is pornography, prostitution, pre-marital sex, and any opposite-sex sexual behavior outside of marriage.

All sin is disordered. Various sins might be legal in many nations, such as pornography, adultery, homosexual acts, contraception, pre-marital sex, gluttony, verbal and emotional abuse, cheating on a test, and so forth, but the legality of an action does not make it moral. We are broken by varying degrees by sin, but God gives us the grace to heal from our brokenness, if we choose to work with Him.

God gives each of us free choice. We can choose to yield to the disorders which seem to compel us, or we can choose to seek and trust in God’s graces which help us to overcome sin. It is frequently not easy to choose God’s way over sin. It can seem impossible if we go it alone. We need to pray, we need to take advantage of the channels of graces offered by the Church (the Mass and the sacraments, the Scriptures, pastoral help by the clergy and laity, and so forth), and we need to find other positive sources of support to help us choose holiness over sinfulness.

God hates sin, but be reassured that God treasures you and wants to help bring your heart to His. Do you love God, on His terms rather than on your own?

If you haven’t been to Confession since the one two years ago, I hope you will consider making an appointment with a priest to discuss what you posted in this thread.
 
I don’t think that the Catholic Church officially says that homosexuality doesn’t exist or that there’s ONLY male and female. I’m pretty sure it just condemns acting on homosexual desires.

The Cathechism of the Catholic Church says:

"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 [1], tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered [2].” 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 circumstance can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. [They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial.] 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."

IMO, the part that mentions those with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” implies that homosexuality is natural. And the fact that the CC calls homosexuals to a life of chastisty implies that the CC doesn’t think it’s possible to “change” a truly homosexual person from gay to straight. So I am personally commfused that the priest told you that there was no “in between.”

Kudos to you for remaining faithful! I know several gay people who have turned away from all faiths because they felt them to be oppressive. I’m straight, so I’m not the best source, but I think Catholicism is reasonable about it, whereas many evangelicals faiths are not. (I think all the “pray the gay away” business that I’ve heard from some Protestant faiths is just crazy.)

Remember, God loves you! 🙂 👍
 
You said that this is the only time that this has happened to you. Be encouraged by that, and just let this priest’s comments go. You are perfectly entitled to decide which priest’s advice you value the most (or least).

In over 30 years in the confessional I have found a small number of priests who I seem to spark off the wrong way and they launch into psychological advice. It has usually been when a macho temperament (the priest) encounters a sensitive temperament (mine) and they seem to just not like me. I really only has been two or three, out of dozens, and I didn’t go back to them. The first time it happened I was quite distressed however.
 
The catechism of the Catholic Church says that it can never issue an approval of homosexual conduct.

But, under the same authority, the catechism says this:

1735** Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors**

Now, I’ve been saying here over and over, that I think this paragraph needs a lot of explanation. It either needs a lot of explanation, or it has said all that needs to be said.

In the latter case, homosexual conduct may meet the criteria of grave matter, but under 1735, which is part of the same deposit of faith, it says that the imputability and responsibility for this conduct may be diminished or nullified by “psychological” factors.

I don’t know of any other sin in the catechism that is described as a psychological problem – a “disorder” – the way homosexual conduct is. So, if you have an addiction to pornography or homosexual conduct due to a deeply rooted psychological problem, then it simply is not a mortal sin.

Therefore, owing to a lack of detail in this paragraph, it seems you don’t have to confess it before going to communion, either. If this paragraph means that you ARE supposed to confess it (or any sin that would fall under this very broad statement), then there wouldn’t seem to be any need for this paragraph, in the first place. But, this paragraph says that it is NOT a mortal sin, under these circumstances.

Bishops and priests should 1) know and 2) apply this paragraph to people who are troubled. But, you may need to find an enlightened confessor who can give you more qualified care under the full deposit of the faith.

God bless.
 
This is something to talk about with the priest who was your confessor. It is not impossible for a confessor to sin against a penitent by discrimination or some other lack of charity. Still, we can’t say that because we don’t know what your words were or what he thought you were saying. It is possible that you may have worded your confession in a way that betrayed to him an incorrect view of your spiritual trials, and if you did not see what he was getting at, you might have interpreted his correction of your assumptions as an attack on you. IOW, there might have been miscommunication going on here.

It is impossible to say unless you talk to him, or at least say what you said to him to another priest…and faithfully repeat what it is that you said. That might be hard for you to do, at this point, two years having passed. Still, it is worthwhile to talk to a priest about the issues that you raised during that confession, in case you are holding on to an incorrect view of moral law that prevents you from forming your conscience correctly. If you are not, then all you can do is reassure yourself that a priest who fulfills his role poorly or who is uncharitable to the penitent still absolves validly. It is not all that one would hope for, but the most important feature of the sacrament is still there.
 
It is definitely wrong if he chastised you for being gay. If he encouraged you to be celibate that would be another story - but to tell someone they are bad just for having feelings is definitely wrong. We are all tempted by something - it’s how we choose to deal with that temptation that matters. I am very sorry you had a priest discourage you from the sacrament of reconciliation. My prayers are with you.
 
Thank you guys! You were all so kind to me. Really appreciate your advices. I devoutly going to confession up to now. I never lose hope in my Catholic faith. God bless you all
 
milkcake said:
I had this bad experience in confessional back 2 years ago. When I finished saying my confession, the priest did not focus of what I had confessed to him but he focused only telling me about my orientation. This is my first time that my confessor treated me so badly. I sense in his attitude and bitter expression towards me that he doesn’t like me.
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From time to time, people have bad experiences in confession. I know of a case, for example, in which a priest yelled angrily at a woman for wearing a hat to confession. It had nothing to do with her sins, and wearing a hat is not a sin. Bizarre and distressing, but true.

Sometimes these things happen, and it really can be very upsetting. Unfortunately, we can’t undo what happened. You know the truth. Try to forgive the priest and move forward in faith. 🙂
Edmundus1581 said:
You said that this is the only time that this has happened to you. Be encouraged by that, and just let this priest’s comments go… In over 30 years in the confessional I have found a small number of priests who I seem to spark off the wrong way and they launch into psychological advice… I really only has been two or three, out of dozens, and I didn’t go back to them. The first time it happened I was quite distressed however.
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All of this!
 
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