Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?
What I don’t understand here is the focus on homosexuals as such. Why pick them out as deserving of some special mention?
Surely we believe that all persons have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community. Are we saying that homosexuals have some sort of special, unique gifts to offer simply because they are persons with same sex attraction? Where does that come from? What exactly are those unique gifts they have because they are homosexuals? This is sentimentalist, wishy washy, secularist nonsense.
This does
not mean I am some sort of homophobe. I am not taking an anti-gay stance, I simply don’t understand what they’re talking about. What particular gifts to homosexuals offer the church that are different than the range of gifts that all people might bring to the church? Can anyone specify that? What are the “gifts and qualities” that homosexuals have that heterosexuals do not?
People with same sex attraction are already welcomed into the church equally with whatever gifts and qualities they have as individuals. Why does their sexuality have anything to do with it? Are we suggesting that homosexual people are more sensitive, caring, artistic or spiritual? If so, isn’t that patronizing–almost like saying, “Gerald is such a witty person! He’d make such a good interior designer…” If that is what we are saying are we suggesting that all homosexual people have these gifts and qualities simply because they have same sex attraction? Does that mean we think there cannot be homosexuals who are dull, selfish, stupid, brutish, violent, vulgar and boorish? Are we putting one group of people in some kind of special category because of their sexual orientation? If so how crazy is that?
Furthermore, in what way does the Catholic Church exclude people with same sex attraction? I have been a Catholic for nearly twenty years and I have never met a Catholic who excludes a person simply because they have same sex attraction. Sure, there is plenty of animosity towards gay activists and those who wish to destroy the Catholic Church and impose their life style on Catholics, but rejection of people simply because they experience same sex attraction? I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen exactly the opposite–kindness, toleration and mostly indifference.
This can only refer, therefore, to Catholic exclusion of men and women who are living an active homosexual lifestyle. Are these individuals to be granted “a fraternal space in our communities”? How so? How can we reject their lifestyle while accepting them? In what way exactly are we to grant them “fraternal space in our community”?
Again, my grumble here is not so much with what has been said, but the totally wishy washy, sentimental, ignorant and vague way in which they are being stated. The manner and style is far closer to the Anglican Church than the Catholic Church.
Let’s have more specifics. In what way do homosexual persons “wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home”? They, like everyone else, is already offered a “welcoming home”. The Catholic Church welcomes everyone equally–homosexual and heterosexual. All are welcomed. All are invited to repent of their sins and turn from their sinful lifestyles to follow the Lord in the path of chastity, sacrifice and obedience. This is how we welcome people into the Catholic Church–by welcoming all to take up their cross and follow Christ. For all people who are engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage we welcome them with the warmth of the Father welcoming home the prodigal. We welcome them with open arms and with loving pastoral concern as they seek to give up their sinful lifestyle and follow Christ. That is the welcome we offer all, and I fail to see why homosexuals are presently unwelcome.
Finally we are to “value their sexual orientation”? Again, what exactly does that mean? Am I to value what my own catechism calls an intrinsic disorder? How do I do that? Do I value their orientation by saying, “I think it’s wonderful that you desire to have anal intercourse with another man?” Just how do I do this without “compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony”?
Excuse me for using blunt language, but this IS what we’re talking about, and if it is not what we’re talking about, and we’re talking about simple human friendship and love between two men as between brothers, then what is all the fuss about? If we’re talking about ordinary same sex friendship or persons with same sex attraction living holy and celibate lives, then there’s no problem.
We’ve accepted this kind solution and this kind of fraternal love since the beginning.
Let’s be clear. This is an attempt by progressives to push a secular agenda on to the church under the guise of “pastoral concern.”
Where is the spirit of the martyrs and missionaries in all this?
How do we welcome people? What do we offer?
I’m reminded of the great missionary to the Mid West, Rose Phillipine Duchesne who, after arriving in the remote Missouri territory met with the bishop.
He asked her, “What do you desire?”
The little Frenchwoman said, “A cross”
The bishop replied, “Good, because that is all I have to offer you.”
