Homosexuality and Catholic Decline. An article

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This article is at Homosexuality and Catholic Decline - The Catholic Thing

“‘Born that way.’ The LGBTQ movement has had no more effective propaganda slogan than this. It has played a major role in persuading most Americans, including Catholic Americans, to drop their traditional moral (and aesthetic) antipathy to homosexual conduct."
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“To approve of homosexuality is tantamount to saying that the Church has been teaching a false sexual morality for 2000 years, and this in turn is tantamount to saying that Catholicism is a false religion.”
 
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Question…let’s say a practicing Catholic holds the view that homosexual behavior is not a sin, and they know what the Church teaches on this. Can they still take communion?
 
It seems to me that the article is making some connections that aren’t particularly strong.

Is sympathy for gay people the most important threat to Catholicism? I don’t know. The author claims it is so, but I don’t know that it is.

In certain parts I can’ t tell if the author is speaking his own opinion or presenting others’ opinions.

And this sentence: (3) A teenager is homosexually seduced or raped by an older teen or an adult, e.g., a Catholic priest, finds the experience pleasant, and after further experiences becomes addicted. is a horrible notion. People don’t find rape pleasant under any circumstances. By definition, it’s a violent criminal act. And what’s more, “addicted” is utterly out of place and misused.

In the end, I can’t tell if the author is claiming that a person leads an active homosexual lifestyle as a matter of choice or not. And I can’t tell whether the author agrees with it.

And I don’t know why people constantly fall back onto the claim that homosexuality is the gravest threat to Catholicism. How about instead of fighting a defensive war against the perceived forces of evil we fight an offensive war to win souls with positive reinforcement and good examples? The problem with this approach, however, might be that so many in the Church have used the red hot iron of eternal damnation more often than the shepherd’s crook as a means of gathering souls for the past couple millennia that it’s hard to change course.
 
lampshade_on_my_soul said:
Question…let’s say a practicing Catholic holds the view that homosexual behavior is not a sin, and they know what the Church teaches on this. Can they still take communion?
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It would make sense to refrain, at least until you get advice from a priest.
 
Most people here are faithful Catholics anyways so this is for the most part pointless. It’s not like we don’t get similar articles about the topic frequently.
 
on_the_hill said:
And this sentence: (3) A teenager is homosexually seduced or raped by an older teen or an adult, e.g., a Catholic priest, finds the experience pleasant, and after further experiences becomes addicted. is a horrible notion. People don’t find rape pleasant under any circumstances. By definition, it’s a violent criminal act. And what’s more, “addicted” is utterly out of place and misused.
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I found the notion presented by the author that some people become gay because they liked getting raped quite offensive. And as you said, homosexuality is not an addiction. The other examples of how people become gay are not much better. People who advance their arguments by using made up examples like this are being kind of hateful.
 
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All throughout history, there have been very persuasive movements contrary to Church teaching.
They generally end in disaster.
Mind you, not karmic lightening bolts, but the results in real life are never quite as awesome as the paradise the activist swear will happen.

Folks are gonna do what they’re gonna do.
They’re gonna believe what they’re gonna believe.
The Church can’t contradict the moral law, and the Bible is very clear that sex outside of marriage is a sin.
The Church can only teach truth.
It’s up to folks to decide what to do from there.
 
You’re not a believer and I’m not interested in playing games.
However, there are plenty of articles and books that have been written about the Church’s teachings on sexuality and why.

You may look at those.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
You’re not a believer and I’m not interested in playing games.
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I am not playing games. I presented a serious question about the origin of the sacramental marriage. If any sex is sinful outside marriage, then it is a valid question to ask, what happened before the marriage was established. Why can’t I get a serious answer to a serious question?
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
However, there are plenty of articles and books that have been written about the Church’s teachings on sexuality and why.
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Does any of those articles and books talk about the specific question I presented? And, if yes, then which ones?
 
Question

I have a ton of homosexual friends back in college. They are, in my point of view, far more active as Catholics rather than their straight friends. They have served as Campus Ministers, altar servers, community workers, and have set up many catholic charity organizations for the poor in our community. They recently opened up to me that sometimes it’s difficult for them to retain who they believe they are because of many Catholics who, despite knowing of the good works and celibacy of my homosexual friends, have still scorned them and actively hate them for being homosexuals to the point that my friends have expressed their desire to leave the Church.

How do I console their pain? and is it my place to do so?
 
Economist said:
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii:
The Church can’t contradict the moral law, and the Bible is very clear that sex outside of marriage is a sin.
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When was marriage - as a sacramental marriage - established for everyone on Earth?
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The “LGBT” community appeals to emotion in an effort to supersede Church teaching on sexuality, family, and gender. “Love” is a powerful word and they use it to persuade many people that their version of love is just as valid as that between a man and woman.

Many Catholics cannot discern between the secularized version of love and what the Church teaches. In the case of a Catholic, loving one’s neighbor means to have concern for their physical and spiritual good, and most of all for their eternal salvation. So to love a homosexual person is to pray and assist them to live a chaste life in accordance with Church teaching. However, we are all sinners; the person who experiences same-sex attraction may very well exhibit love of neighbor by performing acts of charity, donating time and money, and using their skills and talents to assist others.

This is why being a Christian on the surface appears easy, but it is quite difficult to live because of our own personal pride.

The straight, married man who follows Church teaching in matters of sexual and cultural morals but fails to live the option for the poor is failing in that regard.

The homosexual man who assists the poor with all of his free time but fails to live a chaste life is failing in that regard.

In both cases, the person’s pride elevates them over the other person, thinking that they are living out the most important aspects of the Christian life. But this life is an “all or nothing” proposition, it is not one to pick and choose from.
 
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To quote the last paragraph of the article, with respect to attempts to normalize same sex sexual relations, “This is not the “development” of doctrine. It is the destruction of doctrine.”
 
Tolle_Lege said:
The homosexual man who assists the poor with all of his free time but fails to live a chaste life is failing in that regard.

In both cases, the person’s pride elevates them over the other person, thinking that they are living out the most important aspects of the Christian life. But this life is an “all or nothing” proposition, it is not one to pick and choose from.
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I think it’s a little much to attribute the decision of some gay people not to remain chaste to pride. Forty years ago, a boy of 12 or 13 who discovered that he was attracted to other boys often ended up struggling with this knowledge by himself, in secret, sometimes for four or five years out of fear of what others would say or do if they knew what he was really like. He might have been afraid that his parents would love him less if they knew and that God didn’t love him anymore. He might have been subjected to bullying and taunted with cruel words by other children who perceived that he was different. And he might have thought of himself as a defective and terrible human being unworthy of love. Living with that for several years usually left some pretty serious psychological scars. This young person was probably depressed or sometimes even suicidal.

But some of these young people, for their own survival, decided that they weren’t going to live that way anymore. They weren’t going to think of themselves as defective or “disordered” anymore. And they decided that they deserved to have love in their life and to not feel depressed or suicidal. So, they came out and rejected the traditional narrative about people like themselves. And in some cases, having been deeply wounded in the faith traditions they grew up in, they decided to go back or to another faith tradition, but with a different understanding of themselves.
 
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CatholicELATeacher said:
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Thorolfr:
And as you said, homosexuality is not an addiction
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But homosexual activity most certainly is an egregious vice–and therefore an addiction.
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You can have your own special, private definition of addiction, but real addiction is a chronic brain disease. Homosexual activity is not addictive in the same way that alcohol or some drugs or even some kinds of activities like gambling can be.
 
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Thorolfr said:
ou can have your own special, private definition of addiction,
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Actually it’s not my private definition, but a theological definition. A vice is an addiction to sin. Homosexual activity is a sin. Hence homosexual activity, since it is an egregious vice, is an addiction.
And a vice, by the way, is the opposite of a virtue.
 
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CatholicELATeacher said:
Hence homosexual activity, since it is an egregious vice, is an addiction.
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If someone engaged in homosexual activity only once or twice, would that still be a vice? It really has to be an ingrained and long standing habit to be a “vice” and even then, it’s not a biological disease like true addiction.
 
I take my truth from a higher source.

And we’re not talking about outliers here like the occasional sexual experimenter. We’re talking about those who habitually engage in homosexual activity. They are addicted to a wicked activity, a vice opposed to the virtue of love as embodied in God’s creation of man and woman in the communion of persons.
 
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