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Charlotte408
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Well, I have to agree with him. Practicing homosexuals will not make it into the kingdom of heaven…And I dont understand why gay activists are ‘outraged’…its not like this is a new belief???
Gay activists outraged by Vatican cardinal's condemnation of homosexual acts
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onthenarrowpath
Guest
Fr. Corapi is WRONG. You cannot possibly compare a priest to a person with SSA. A priest freely CHOOSES to become a priest, which means he freely CHOOSES to accept a lot in life which bars him from intimacy with another person. A person with SSA does NOT choose their attraction.
And unmarried straight people cannot possibly suffer the same way a person with SSA does, because a straight person is completely free to pursue a relationship with another human in accord with their fundamental attraction and desire to love someone else. They may not have the capacity to have children, but they can STILL freely enjoy the benefits of having someone close to them with whom they can snuggle, embrace, kiss, etc…without feeling condemnation from the church…so long as they are able to find someone. I’m not even permitted to seek a non-sexual, close relationship with someone whom I can snuggle with, embrace, hold, kiss, etc. I have to suppress those desires, regardless. I don’t feel naturally inclined to share my life with a woman. So please, spare me the comparison with straight people, as if they likewise know the full extent of what people with SSA suffer. They don’t have the first clue what it’s like to be told that the very core fundamental thing they want is considered an abomination.
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estesbob
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So what else is the Church wrong about? The Ressurection? The divinity of Jesus? The Virgin Birth?
And how do we tell when the Church is “wrong”
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redrosetea
Guest
You are right it is a choice, but that doesn’t mean that it is any easier…Any gay that remains celibate because of his will to obey the scripture, makes the same choice, voluntarily…
I don’t want to make light of anyone’s sacrifice whether is is done as a priest or as a lay person…It is all voluntary and something that they must struggle with…so you are both right
The act of self denial is never easy for anyone
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JReducation
Guest
I did not hear or read what Fr. Corapi said on this issue. Please understand that I’m only responding to the paraphrase that is posted here. There may be more to what he said or the nuance may be different. I have no way of knowing from this post.
That being said, I have to respectfully disagree with Father. I am celibate, in vows, for many years now. I do not feel this “longing, knowing that the longing will never be fulfilled.” Nor do I feel compelled to repress desires to be a husband and father. Being a husband and father is a blessing. But it is not one that I desire or think about much. My religious community provides the intimacy, companionship, fidelity, family, and love that I need. I am happy within my community of brothers. Like me, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women religious and priests who are happy and fulfilled, who do not feel an emptiness or a longing for the married state and for parenthood.
Through our vow of consecrated chastity Christ becomes the beginning and the end of all love, all intimacy, all fulfillment, and all desires. Chastity is not just about not being married. There is more to it than that. It is a free response to a call to enter into communion with the Divine and to live on earth what we will all live in heaven where none of us are given or taken in marriage. The very idea that we are experiencing life in the Kingdom, before we get there, is very fulfilling and fills you with great peace. The only restlessness that I have ever felt is that which St. Augustine described so well, “Our hearts will not rest until we rest in you, O Lord.”
Recently the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious put out a wonderful book that addresses this specific question in one of its chapters. And what they found was that those sisters who live in traditional religious communities are thriving as individuals and the communities themselves are thriving. There is a great sense of joy and peace. The desire for motherhood and marriage is one that the women who are entering these communities are coping with very well. They have discerned, prayed, and surrendered to the call to live a celibate life where community meets their psychological and spiritual needs. Therefore, there is not sense of suffering or sacrifice, because they are not mothers or wives. They went through this process of discernment and they accepted that God called them to a consecrated and intimate relationship with him. This makes them happy. But the secret is that God calls and the religious or priest, freely surrenders. Since there is that freedom, the individual can look forward, rather than back and wonder what if I had married and become a parent. There is nothing to look back at. You were there, you contemplated, you asked God and you received an answer, “Do whatever he tells you.” You chose to follow that answer.
What the person with same sex attraction may have in common with the celibate man or woman is the call to do whatever Christ calls you to do. In this case, to live as Christ calls you to live. But once you surrender to his plan, rather than struggle with it, you can find peace and you can be free of longing and wondering what if.
This is may own personal experience and that of many other men and women religious, as well as many secular priests. One has to understand that the key to this peace is obedience and the desire to achieve the perfection of charity on earth, as it will be lived in heaven, where there is nothing left but love, no marriage, no family, no children, only intimacy between the lover and the beloved.
If anyone is interested in the book by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, it’s called Foundations of Religious Life and can be acquired here.
avemariapress.com/itemdetail.cfm?nItemid=949
But the sisters also disagree with this paraphrase of Fr. Corapi. Knowing that Fr. Corapi is a very good theologian and a religious, as well as a priest, I would check to make sure that there is not more to what he said.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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Seamus_L
Guest
I can sympathise with anyone who struggles with sexual temptation, but I see a false dichotomy set up here when people speak almost longingly about something that God has condemned as grievously sinful. What God forbids to us he forbids for good reason. We shouldn’t be dwelling on the hypothetical "If God would only allow me to commit that sin "
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Elizabeth502
Guest
I completely agree with this rebuttal and disagree strongly with JR’s post that follows. I’ve known so many priests. It’s not just about Corapi. There is a small subset of priests – and for that matter laypeople – who are much more comfortable than the vast majority of the human race, with a lifestyle that is semi- or even very ascetic, all-around. I’ve known a couple of single, straight lay women like this. They’re not particularly attached to physical pleasures of any kind. For them, one might categorize their self-denial as less excruciating than for the rest of the human race, but this subset does not represent most priests or most lay unmarried people.
Just because one embraces a consecrated life does not mean that the sacrifices contained therein are not just as difficult & painful as those who are making sacrifices without formal consecration. Further, I resent the implication that somehow the religious offering chastity/celibacy to God is somehow presenting a more joy-filled gift than a layperson who is doing it identically out of love. The laity are also called to holiness, called to various kinds of consecration, various sacrifices. We are called to present our offerings to God in the same spirit of joy that religious are. A lay person has a vocation:: that vocation can be parenthood, can be the single life, can co-exist with occupations such as one’s profession.
There are pluses and minuses to every state in life. The reliigous gives up, permanently, a pervasively intimate, lifelong relationship with a complementary soul-mate. That doesn’t mean that every day he or she feels a consuming longing, any more than every mate-less single person feels that way every day. Compensating for that absent Other is liberation from the entanglements & disappointments of intimate love, as well as responsibility for offspring, as well as the “work” of marriage: communcation, compromise, and sacrifice. But as Genesis says, “it is not right that man should be alone.” It is a natural human impulse to want to spill oneself over into another human being, where one receives visible, felt, & tactile rewards, and one experiences the elation of humanly fulfilled love mirroring the love within the Trinity.
One can say that the priests’ spouse is the Church, and the sister’s spouse is Christ, and there are enormous graces that go with that, but it is undeniable that there will be unmet human longings, however positively one responds to these transformative graces. One is not daily conscious of them, but they surface, just as they surface for single lay people: births, marriages, graduations, the first grandchild. Priests have told me that pretty regularly they are conscious of ultimately being alone, despite sustaining human friendships with priests & lay people, despite continuity of birth-family relationships, despite viewing the extended people of God as “offspring.”
The laity are also called to “freely surrender” all the unfulfilled longings in their lives, & not only marriage (should they remain single by accident) but longings for goals & dreams & wishes & hopes on a human level, which occur when circumstances or choices reduce our options. We are all supposed to lay everything at the feet of Christ, united in his ultimate act of surrender on Calvary.
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monica24
Guest
I feel that messing with ones body when God made us as we are we should not tamper with it, like if we were born male, you should stay a male, if woman you are to stay a woman as God made you. To me those who change their body through surgery, to me they are sinning agains God, as well as the doctors too.
Monica24
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aussie_jaz
Guest
nature makes many mistakes to gods plans and it is ok to use doctors and surgery to correct and/or treat those mistakes but for some reason some people , not unlike yourself , seem to have the belief that gender is immune to these mistakes of nature.
tell me what you would do if you were to have a child born with cleft palette or a hole in the heart or any other pre-birth defect that can be treated and/or cured through surgery and other medical procedures.im sure you would probably have no trouble in ‘messing and tampering’ with the body god made.
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StillWondering
Guest
There is a saying, “A cross is a opportunity in disguise, and a blessing is a responsibility in need of partaking.” I believe everyone has a cross, and sometimes those crosses are the responsibilities that comes with blessings. It’s just that not everyone chooses to carry their cross. I think you are doing a great job seeking out people to talk to, and thus you are carrying your cross. I also feel that if you just stop, even after a lot of tries without knowing that you should stop trying is not good. I know you mentioned that you are not definitive if God exists.
However, I hope you will pray to God to guide you and offer your story to God. Though he already knows, he gives us the freedom to choose to share with Him to joys and troubles we go through. If you and find a way to trust my sincere suggestion, please pray and share your story with Him.
To be fair, many straight girls come to me weeping over how they “have no hope of finding that Mr. Right to settle down with.” So there are a lot of people who are heterosexual who feels turmoil. Though some of these women, not Catholics, are also not in a position to understand the dignity of womanhood and the sanctity of their sexuality and maternity.
To get to the heart of your comment. It’s true that having SSA can feelslike the door is already shut. But it does not have to be that way. Faith, Hope, and Charity (Love), is amazing. Take this from a sinner, there’s always peace if you ask for God’s help.
I would agree that nature makes mistakes Aussie Jaz. But I think the person you are quoting is not talking about using medicine to correct unhealthy situations. Though I am not one to understand if your situation or another similar is an unhealthy one since I am not qualified. The person in question is talking about using cosmetic and hormonal means to change from one physical anatomy to another when there is not physical reason to. It is an act of will that I would agree with her is inherently dishonest to the will of the maker.
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aussie_jaz
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the person very much seems to be saying that a transsexed persons operation and hormonal treatment is wrong.
nature made the mistakes pre-birth by giving the male a female body or the female the male body and modern medicine has a way to bring that back to the way god intended before nature stepped in and stuffed up the plan. its not perfect but it does as well a job as possible. just as modern medicine can be used for other pre-birth conditions why do you think it shouldnt be used for this one ?
i cant see how correcting natures mistakes to be as much as possible how god intended before nature took over and stuffed up can be looked at as being dishonest to the maker.
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Zoe_Brain
Guest
Except for the following:
Specific Cerebral Activation due to Visual Erotic Stimuli in Male-to-Female Transsexuals Compared with Male and Female Controls: An fMRI Study by Gizewski et al J Sex Med 2009;6:440–448.
Neuroimaging Differences in Spatial Cognition between Men and Male-to-Female Transsexuals Before and During Hormone Therapy by Scoening et al J Sex Med. 2009 Sep 14.
Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids by Berglund et al Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(8):1900-1908;
Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041
Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Swaab Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.
A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.
A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.
These people are Intersexed. Bodies neither wholly male nor female. The particular condition causes such distress that half attempt suicide before age 20, and stress-related illness from the constant psychic torture slays many more.
It is the Church’s official position (stated in yet another sub secretum document) that in sever cases, such surgery is morally justified.
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Soler
Guest
Well, one must remember that it is possible (I would say probable) that most practising homosexuals are not aware of the immorality of their actions, and are therefore not culpable for them. One cannot judge people, only their actions.
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Charlotte408
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Too’shay (<—LOL or however you spell that)
But I think it’d be a hard time finding one that didnt know the churches stance on ssa…
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JReducation
Guest
That’s OK. We can disagree. This is not a matter of dogma. Moving along, I do not mean to underestimate the gifts that the laity bring to the Church and that they freely offer. I am simply paraphrasing what the Church has always taught about religious profession vs the private dedication of the laity. The Church does not say that one is more virtuous. Consecration does not make one virtuous. Trust me. What the Church teaches us is that the public consecration of the religious to live a chaste life becomes a part of the life of the Church. The same act, undertaken privately, by an individual, may yield the same graces, but is not part of the life of the Church, because it’s not public; therefore, it’s not liturgical.
Consecration is the basis of religious life. By insisting on this, the Church places the first emphasis on the initiative of God and on the transforming relation to him which religious life involves. Consecration is a divine action. God calls a person whom he sets apart for a particular dedication to himself. At the same time, he offers the grace to respond so that consecration is expressed on the human side by a profound and free self-surrender. The resulting relationship is pure gift. It is a covenant of mutual love and fidelity, of communion and mission, established for God’s glory, the joy of the person consecrated, and the salvation of the world
There is a wonderful document where this is explained in great detail. Here is the link.
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccscrlife/documents/rc_con_ccscrlife_doc_31051983_magisterium-on-religious-life_en.html
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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onthenarrowpath
Guest
I don’t ask God to condone sin, and I don’t “long” for something that God has condemned. How is the desire for non-sexual, loving affection and non-sexual romantic physical contact a sin?
I think too many people see homosexuality as strictly something that is done. It’s much more than that. Let me see if I can illustrate what I’m talking about. Let’s say a regular straight man meets a pretty straight woman, and finds her to be endearing with a wonderful mind, heart, personality, wit, charm, etc. In the course of interacting with her, he finds that he has fallen in love with her. With HER…not necessarily her sexual organs. He has fallen in love with her heart, her mind, her soul, etc…and he wants to be close to her. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her, even if they don’t ever have sex. But he DOES want to snuggle up next to her on a couch, or embrace her, or kiss her soft lips and hold her in bed while they sleep together. Is that wrong for a straight man to want from a straight woman? No, of course not.
Now…imagine another man wants all those same non-sexual things. Only he’s gay, and wants it with another man. Why does he want it with another man instead of a woman? Because there is simply a core fundamental part of him that is drawn to men, much like there is a core fundamental part of a straight man that draws him to women. So why is it wrong for a gay man to want the same non-sexual things a straight man wants? The gay man could TRY to have those things with a woman, but it ultimately is unfulfilling to him emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. He simply doesn’t “connect” or “bond” with a woman’s mind, heart, soul, etc. For whatever reason that maybe can’t be explained, it simply doesn’t “work” for him. If the straight man tried to have those things with another man, it would likewise not work for him, either.
For a gay man to repress how he feels is depressing. And I don’t just mean in a simple “ho hum, I’m sad” way. It is a deep ache that penetrates to the core, because there is a constant daily reminder that you are fundamentally flawed. God might be able to heal you of that, but He doesn’t always do that for everyone. Why not? It’s very lonely for a gay man to want something he cannot have. The depression is more than just sadness. It’s dishearting and really affects how you view life and yourself. I know. I live it every day, even though I’ve been celibate since 1992. I yearn for something that straight men are freely permitted to seek out…albeit in a marriage. But nevertheless, the feelings are still there.
THAT is what homosexuality is. It’s not just about sex.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
I’ll answer on the poster’s behalf. It’s not a sin. That’s why this post does not square with your earlier statement:
(underline mine)
No, but you admit that it includes sex. Emotional fulfillment is not denied to you, any more than it is denied to a celibate priest or a chaste single Catholic. But your “longing” (“WHOLE heart, soul, and mind” – which btw I hope I needn’t remind you is actually supposed to be reserved for God, as we are taught as Catholics) apparently to you does extend to sexual aspects of such a union, so in fact you do “long for” it.
There are those who philosophically might suggest that a gay person with at least an emotional union with a beloved partner is more fulfilled, known, and satisfied, than a single person who has not even that. And I assure you that there are millions of unattached straight people in the world, some who go to their graves never having partaken of such singular attachment. There is no difference between their lack of fulfillment and yours. Perhaps, though, the difference is that many of them have made their peace with that, whereas you have not?
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joannazenobia
Guest
I agree with you. But it would require people understanding what sexual contact between husband and wife actually symbolise. The answer is so obvious but our society has accepted sexual acts as a ‘right’ for so long that its become woven into our fabric of life that the root of the meaning has become lost.
I’m a little miffed how sometimes it appears to be a gay vs. straight thing when really its not. The law is very clear. Sexual relations are only allowed within the bounds of marriage as defined by God, like you said. That means if you are gay and not married, or if you are straight and not married, its a no no.
Furthermore, I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around some people who are trying to throw a long-held belief out the window. Not just by the Catholic church, but by many cultures and faiths for thousands of years since the dawn of man and the marriage act and so now what some groups are saying is that we’ve been wrong this whole time???
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JReducation
Guest
The only thing that we have to add to the above is that human sexuality is not only for procreation. That is one of two purposes of human sexuality. Otherwise, couples who cannot reproduce would be outside of God’s plan. Human sexuality also serves a unitive purpose in marriage.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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bobbyva2001
Guest
Poor quoting. There would be nothing to reply to if you would have included the context.
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