Homosexuality and God's plan for those who are gay

[jjr9]

One’s sexual orientation is proven according to scientific truth.

Can you cite the reference to the “scientific truth”?

God bless

 

[esieffe]

Please understand that I am not trying to diminish or dishonor in any way the pain that you obviously feel from desiring a relationship with a woman that at least as of yet hasn’t happened. I feel for you and will certainly pray for you. I can’t imagine my life without my husband and I know how lucky and blessed I am to have found such a wonderful man. But what I must still object to is not the similarity that you feel to gay people in this regard (which is a good thing), but to your failure to acknowledge the difference because it as an important one.

You know, a gay man who is open to and maybe actively seeking a relationship may find himself in exactly the same situation as you. It’s not as if every gay person who wants a relationship is handed one automatically. In fact, in some ways it is even more difficult to find someone because they are looking for a partner from a much smaller portion of the population than are straight people.

But a gay man who accepts the church’s teaching is in a much different situation than you. Yes, you may end up only forming friendships with women, but you have all the freedom in the world to entertain the notion of a romantic relationship with a woman. You can date women, your Catholic friends may try to set you up on dates, the whole community can support you and pray for you and be behind you in hoping that you find that special woman who is right for you. And despite your frustrations it may still happen.

None of that is possible for gay people in the Catholic Church. You don’t date. You don’t entertain any notions of a partnership of any kind, much less marriage. You can certainly form friendships with other gay people, but you may be encouraged to cut that friendship off if it feels as though it is leading to something more. Gay people can’t entertain, hope for, pray for the type of romantic relationship that not only can you, but that your whole community can support you in finding.

I have a lot of gay friends and have heard their stories, and I appreciate you empathizing in the way you have, but there are others on this thread who think that gay people don’t have it harder than anyone else. Some men compare staying faithful to their wives as a equivalent to the life long celibacy that is just expected of gay people. It’s incredibly insensitive and lacking in the sympathy they always claim to have, but completely lack. I am not suggesting that of you, but I think it’s important to recognize that the burden the Catholic Church puts on gay people is much more than generally acknowledged here on CAF.

And I will pray for you. I know some people who have not found the right person until later in life, but they have been no less happy and I wish that for you as well.

Sarah, in my few years of membership in this forum, I have never read a better thought out, well crafted response than yours.

OP, I noted in the past with compassion and sadness your posts on this subject. By the look of your avatar you are obviously young. It seems especially cruel to be given the capacity to love, and have the understanding in your faith, to be forever barred from the sacrament of marriage as it pertains to you, and who you are. It is an especially bitter cross, made worse by the lack of understanding that Sarah so eloquently spoke of.

I have had my own unique trials, having mild aspergers, mild enough to evade diagnosis for decades, but bad enough to have made most of my life a complete nightmare. I can’t begin to tell you the confusion this caused in the area of sexuality and relationships, the difficulties in career, the trauma of being a kid and going through school when there were no tests, academic accommodations, and the complete absence of “no bully zone” programs.

It is still a struggle today, yet this unique and very painful cross has led to a unique and powerful relationship with God and the Queen of Heaven, my advocate to her Son, our King. Even now, I cannot do justice to the topic of suffering or even joy in the road to emulating the Saints, whose lives I constantly study. But there in lies the secret I feel for both of us, all of us.

The suffering that we both, and millions of other Christians, will and does produce fruit of joy that will last an eternity, if that is our choice. I say that this cross is still tough now to carry, and it is, but since I have come to the Church, since I have taken up prayer, faith, and finally the Rosary, I now live, whereas before, I simply existed under the unbearable weight of sin. God has and does provide. But it is not about ME. It never has been. It is about serving…about a higher purpose.

In time you will discover this in a more meaningful way. Till then, I urge you to consider reading about the Saints, and especially using the Rosary, which will provide an immediate balm for your wounds.

Yours in Christ,
esieffe

 

[esieffe]

Yes ,as pointed out in the posts above immoral sexual acts whether they are by homosexual or heterosexual can’t be justified .The sexually related actions of homosexuals are clearly againt the body,nature and God. Oh,no,poor ,it is not their fault etc.are lame excuses ,but which unfortunately has started gainig support which inturn appears to have lightened their guilty conscience also .To become chaste is not a more difficult task for them as compared to heterosexuals ,if they try for it seeking God’s help.The words of Pope Francis (which iorincally is quoted by them as giving them support) is relevant in this connection which is “Who am I to judge them if they seek God ?”

With all due respect, I don’t think the OP is lamenting the fact he can’t have gay sex, rather he is questioning the purpose of this particular cross. That and lamenting the impossibility of participating in the sacrament of marriage.

I must add that I utterly reject the concept that people choose SSA. Science has been creeping away from that premise for years. Who in their right mind would choose such a thing?

 

[Sacred_Heart_1]

I know “gay” is a tricky word on CAF, but I use it as most people my age generaly use it: having (exclusive or dominant) same-sex attraction. So that first.

I just had a thought I’ve never considered before. It would be one thing, perhaps more easily understood, to say that those who are not attracted to members of the opposite sex just ought not get married. Marriage is no requirement - certainly no requirement for happiness or even ultimate fulfillment in Heaven. So no real loss there! If there is no desire for that kind of relationship with the opposite sex, there is no real harm.

However, with the case of homosexual persons, it’s not just a lack of attraction or ability to relate in certain ways to the opposite sex. It’s that; but it is, additionally, the deep desires and wishes to be in relationship with someone of the same sex. In other words, the same attractions, desires, and human feelings for a relationship are present for a gay person. Just not the right person… In the view of the Catholic Church.

This way of thinking makes me wonder more as to what God’s plan is for the gay person. For, to restate quickly, the gay person does not only have a lack of desire and feelings to marry someone (of the opposite sex). They have, in addition, the added state of desiring and wanting to be in union with someone of the same sex.

I’m just here to say that homosexuality is ok. Look, all sexuality is sin, even in marriage. There is nothing that a homosexual has to confess that a heterosexual doesn’t. Sex is sin no matter what the attraction is. Just bless the Lord, the Lord understands your position. These people may not. But the Lord perfects strength through weakness.

 

[Rau]

… Look, all sexuality is sin, even in marriage. There is nothing that a homosexual has to confess that a heterosexual doesn’t. Sex is sin no matter what the attraction is.

Imagine that! We must sin to preserve the species!

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Perhaps it is not the “remaining chaste” piece that is more difficult, but other aspects of socialising that most of us take for granted. Single people normally expect to be able to socialise one on one with persons of the opposite sex, (in a ritualistic kind of way) with a view to discovering a possible romantic attachment. The person who find himself with romantic attractions to only the same sex is best advised to go without this form of social activity (given that persons of interest to them are of the same sex). I think that is a further challenge. Arguably, it would be easier to be asexual, than of homosexual inclination.

You read the novels of Dickens and quite a lot of the time, the villains slink in alone and the goodies drop by in groups.

Catholics never bother to introduce anybody. Often, re-introducing would help. What happened to visiting in pairs!!!

I can see how Catholics particularly cold-shoulder people who have been heard to or are thought to have called themselves gay, and I’m not cntradicting that at all, but it’s not dissimilar for the asexual and “on the shelf” types generally.

Relating is not at all a Catholic thing to do.

 

[joseie]

With all due respect, I don’t think the OP is lamenting the fact he can’t have gay sex, rather he is questioning the purpose of this particular cross. That and lamenting the impossibility of participating in the sacrament of marriage.

I must add that I utterly reject the concept that people choose SSA. Science has been creeping away from that premise for years. Who in their right mind would choose such a thing?

How many type of crosses different persons get in this world !Are not some several times worse ,cruel and insufferable than being an SSA?
Regarding one becoming or choosing to be an SSA etc.let me reproduce what I already posted earlier.This is from my little bit of experience in dealing with some SSAs.

“1.Homosexuality is not a birth defect .No male or female is born as homosexuals ,that is as somebody who will surely become a homosexual when grownup.Everybody is having some traces of homosexuality.For some it will be less,for others it will be more that’s all. If ,unfortunately the circumstances (both physical and spiritual ) during the growth of the second category individual are also adverse ,the tendency can further develop in them and they may eventually become homosexual.Once become homosexual, the reverse process is a bit diffcult, but not impossible.”

 

[Rau]

…This is from my little bit of experience in dealing with some SSAs.

What is the nature of your experience?

"1.Homosexuality is not a birth defect .No male or female is born as homosexuals ,that is as somebody who will surely become a homosexual when grownup.

Certainly, there is no persuasive evidence that homosexuality is “built-in” from birth. But the accepted scientific position is that the etiology of SSA is unknown.

Everybody is having some traces of homosexuality. For some it will be less, for others it will be more - that’s all.

How do you know this? To what do you attribute the “trace of homosexuality”?

Once become homosexual, the reverse process is a bit diffcult, but not impossible. Do you have details of any effective processes?

 

[Eichelbaum]

ILook, all sexuality is sin, even in marriage.

Huh???

You know, I really should stop visiting internet forums …

 

[Eichelbaum]

This way of thinking makes me wonder more as to what God’s plan is for the [homosexual]

To do His will and to take up their cross and follow Jesus Christ on a daily basis.

THAT is God’s plan.

Everything else is oriented towards that.

For a non-homosexual, it might be by having a family, and the many, MANY, MANY crosses that that can involve. All of those crosses are a means of sanctification.

The problem here, is I wonder if you aren’t putting worldly standards above God’s standards. Perhaps you’re more interested in whether someone is lonely than whether or not they are truly doing God’s will.

You’ve certainly used a lot of qualifiers when discussing the immorality of homosexuality. Perhaps you see nothing wrong with it?

Well, already we aren’t focusing on God here, but on ourselves and our pleasure.

 

[Eichelbaum]

With all due respect, I don’t think the OP is lamenting the fact he can’t have gay sex, rather he is questioning the purpose of this particular cross. That and lamenting the impossibility of participating in the sacrament of marriage.

The purpose of the cross is sanctification.

It doesn’t matter if one’s cross is constantly crying twins who leave you with no sleep at night, or if it’s homosexuality, or if it’s cancer, of if it’s sitting in prison for life after having murdered someone.

ALL those things, if done in love and in a state of grace, are oriented towards growing ever more in love with God. Suffering without love is pointless, love without suffering is an empty emotion.

Now, is he lamenting not being able to marry, or is he arguing that such an inability is really quite mean and nasty and oh! so ridiculous? The world may never know.

 

[Eichelbaum]

1. Homosexual sexual attraction is no more or different a tendency to temptation to sin than other-sex sexual ditto.

This is an incredibly confusing sentence.

But assuming I understand you: homosexual temptation to lust, even in merely being a temptation, is quite different from heterosexual temptation to lust. The latter is a disordered desire for sex, the former is a disordered desire for disordered sex.

Obviously, it’s not sinful to be tempted to commit a particular sin.

But there is more of a problem when one is tempted to sins that are themselves even more incredibly grave than other grave sins.

Being strongly tempted to view pornography is not the same as being strongly tempted to rape and murder and cannibalize.

We need to bear in mind how serious homosexuality is, without downplaying this sin, and without presuming to judge those who commit it. Suffering from strong temptations to act out on an inclination to homosexuality is far beyond normal struggles against lust.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

The purpose of the cross is sanctification.

It doesn’t matter if one’s cross is constantly crying twins who leave you with no sleep at night, or if it’s homosexuality, or if it’s cancer, of if it’s sitting in prison for life after having murdered someone.

ALL those things, if done in love and in a state of grace, are oriented towards growing ever more in love with God. Suffering without love is pointless, love without suffering is an empty emotion.

Now, is he lamenting not being able to marry, or is he arguing that such an inability is really quite mean and nasty and oh! so ridiculous? The world may never know.

The issue isn’t not being able to marry per se, it is about being told they can’t love and be loved which is a so much more basic emotion. What is the point of suffering without love?

This is an incredibly confusing sentence.

But assuming I understand you: homosexual temptation to lust, even in merely being a temptation, is quite different from heterosexual temptation to lust. The latter is a disordered desire for sex, the former is a disordered desire for disordered sex.

Obviously, it’s not sinful to be tempted to commit a particular sin.

But there is more of a problem when one is tempted to sins that are themselves even more incredibly grave than other grave sins.

Being strongly tempted to view pornography is not the same as being strongly tempted to rape and murder and cannibalize.

We need to bear in mind how serious homosexuality is, without downplaying this sin, and without presuming to judge those who commit it. Suffering from strong temptations to act out on an inclination to homosexuality is far beyond normal struggles against lust.

Distinctions without differences.

CCC:

2351 Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

If you lust for someone who is not your spouse this is a disordered desire for disordered sex. If you lust for nonvaginal sex even with your spouse this is also a disordered desire for disordered sex. If you lust for nonreproductive sex this is a disordered desire for disordered sex.

Can people please stop acting as if gay sex is so different from disordered heterosexual sex? Morally it isn’t.

 

[joseie]

Post no 89:
Whatever I have said is from my’ little bit of experience’ as I mentioned.My giving its details here is relevant for the purpose of this thread? For example my bold statement “No male or female is born as homosexual, that is as somebody who will surely become a homosexual when grownup” is something I am convinced from my experience and not borrowed from some other source.
If my opinion/conclusion or any part of it is not acceptable or is felt as not correct pl. tell it with some reason.I wouldn’t ask you how you got it unless you volunterly disclose it.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

To do His will and to take up their cross and follow Jesus Christ on a daily basis. THAT is God’s plan. Everything else is oriented towards that.

For a non-homosexual, it might be by having a family, and the many, MANY, MANY crosses that that can involve. All of those crosses are a means of sanctification.

The problem here, is I wonder if you aren’t putting worldly standards above God’s standards. Perhaps you’re more interested in whether someone is lonely than whether or not they are truly doing God’s will.

You’ve certainly used a lot of qualifiers when discussing the immorality of homosexuality. Perhaps you see nothing wrong with it?

Well, already we aren’t focusing on God here, but on ourselves and our pleasure.

Eichelbaum I know exactly where Catholic1Seeks is coming from!!!

Mixed message from the “Church” no. 1 - Homosexual is - they have it in black and white. In my generation we followed the faith of Jesus and the Apostles. Homosexual only did. C1S is trying to follow Church documents well! Don’t accuse him of being worldly - accuse them and their father Freud!

Some of the later additions to Church teaching have damned C1S to a caste apart because they are “church teaching”. I suspect C1S doesn’t react to what I write because what I say is so unusual he thinks it must be wrong…

The world, with the willing backing of the worldly section within the Church, drummed it into C1S, who is a fairly young man and doesn’t remember as far back as I do, that it is so necessary to go on about one’s attractions, and that they make one into a caste.

I don’t care about anyone’s “orientations” or “identity” or “lifestyle” (which is vague - I follow the frozen dinner lifestyle!).

Cookie-cutter identikits get to look like the alibis of a cult - we are interested in God calling unique individuals to fruits of holy living. Holy living is not cold shouldering.

I have spent 10 months laboriously explaining same-sex attraction, same-sex sexual attraction, lust, friendship, relating, making time and space for people, being interested in other human beings, etc, and so have a very small and very valiant fraction of people.

Mixed message from the “Church” no. 2 - priests and doting wives hold up as example, the husbands that are no use to the rest of us because the only person they ever bothered to make friends with was their wives. That is “Catholic”! C1S wants what is “Catholic”!

I get accused of not being Catholic because I see round, past and through things, it enables me to “translate” what they say when they say it badly, and be “accepting” of it. However unfashionable it is to offer constructive critique of some of the church documents that are lower in the hierarchy of truths, it is at least honest to do so.

This is not unrespectful, it’s a call to look at meaning. R stands for relate - that means make plain friends with, make real time and space for.

If you’ve got a problem, please negotiate a rewording through the open thread. You can’t negotiate the essence.

Haven’t any Catholics noticed how many people on this earth are cracking up because not enough people will relate with them!!!

I am not getting at anybody in this thread. Just don’t all be so literalist at C1S’s cry !!! C1S must call himself by the category he wants but we should help him realise that there are senses to words and flag up when we are changing sense.

It’s the two mixed messages together.

And another thing, there are interests, to harness our aptitudes and flair of all kinds, beyond both sexuality and conformity to religion: anything from plane spotting, raising animals, crafts, you name it. If people are too unfriendly to join in we can constructively do some of these on our own. Branching out makes a great tree!

 

[Rau]

Post no 89:
Whatever I have said is from my’ little bit of experience’ as I mentioned.My giving its details here is relevant for the purpose of this thread? For example my bold statement “No male or female is born as homosexual, that is as somebody who will surely become a homosexual when grownup” is something I am convinced from my experience and not borrowed from some other source.
If my opinion/conclusion or any part of it is not acceptable or is felt as not correct pl. tell it with some reason.I wouldn’t ask you how you got it unless you volunterly disclose it.

You draw no conclusions at all, given you reference no evidence from which to draw them. Thus, you are merely making assertions; merely expressing opinions. Assertions and opinions (absent a stated basis) tend not to be persuasive, tend to carry little weight, in a discussion forum such as this.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… homosexual temptation to lust, even in merely being a temptation, is quite different from heterosexual temptation to lust. The latter is a disordered desire for sex, the former is a disordered desire for disordered sex.

Obviously, it’s not sinful to be tempted to commit a particular sin. …

We need to bear in mind how serious homosexuality is, without downplaying this sin, and without presuming to judge those who commit it. Suffering from strong temptations to act out on an inclination to homosexuality is far beyond normal struggles against lust.

At least the disorder is an extra layer - when present. “Far beyond” in a vague sense maybe. Given that a temptation is a temptation.

“Developmental” doesn’t mean it doesn’t look like one was born with it (what about those cysts?) and it doesn’t mean one “ought to” grow “out of it” (it may lessen but the managing is more important) (what one “ought to” do is manage). Care ought to be taken to not be “having a go” at people.

Joie de Vivre’s last two paragraphs also say it in a very real nuance, as does the quoted portion of para 2351.

To avoid “making oneself morally superior” to those who insist on “identifying with their orientations” one has to do a combination of things - don’t minimise the value of the JdV/2351 view and show Catholic1Seeks a wider variety of models of what it is to be Catholic.

People of all kinds have often helped me not to have an “issue”. With God’s help I manage, amazingly well, day by day! I suspect everywhere Catholic1Seeks looks (especially away from the forum) he finds people who help him to have an issue.

As a hypothesis: as I don’t actually act bisexual, don’t happen to be a person that is keen on applying “orientation identity categories” to myself, don’t worry about whether I have attractions (note the plain word attractions by itself), don’t advertise whether I dabble in lust at all or how little or how much, don’t often confess my sins (if any) in public, manage my relationship with God and with the world as thoughtfully as I can moment by moment, etc etc etc, I’m all the things that are unfashionable, voila, just a bloke, not got round to getting married yet. My life’s ahead of me and the world’s my oyster.

Where did the phrase “Catholic angst” come from? My parents and grandparents were utterly unconventional in their demure, “square” way.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

In any case none of this works without Holy Spirit power and regeneration in Jesus.

Catholic1Seeks, have people talked to you enough about Holy Spirit power and regeneration in Jesus? All Catholics needed these but most I know don’t talk about it.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

…

“Developmental” doesn’t mean it doesn’t look like one was born with it (what about those cysts?) and it doesn’t mean one “ought to” grow “out of it” (it may lessen but the managing is more important) (what one “ought to” do is manage). …

Additionally, if one has practiced, there is the imprint in one’s kinetic and sensory memory.

Then if it wasn’t genuinely consensual, the shame that belongs to the party that should have known better, is dumped on one.

So yes, one feels.

Can someone help me out, in St Paul it doesn’t say “you are” but “you were”?

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Just to keep another couple of points in view:

• in my day ordinary folks didn’t need what has become known as “identity politics”
• there were people who called themselves or whom others called “queers” but (at least to youngsters) it was assumed to be something they did during their time off
• does that mean that if such a one had been to confession the clergy didn’t set it in concrete against him for the rest of his life?

Obviously in society there were some people with an ulterior motive in those days.

But Catholic1Seeks strikes me as just an ordinary bloke that has got caught up in things (or thinks he might).

Now some people adopt an explicit “celibate gay Christian” image as an advertisement to others, by their own deliberate mental effort understanding something different by “gay” than is sometimes taken.

The lay Christian calling is hours of intercession and supplication (e.g by muttering Our Fathers whilst one does things) and staying close to Scriptures. Maybe the odd thread in “Prayer intentions” will attract you or me to add a line. And just doing something ordinary but constructive with time (genuine hobbies are permitted). The lay Christian calling is not obsessing with anything.

If Catholics who cold shoulder the lonely are held up by the parish priest as the best models yes “the Church is placing a heavy burden on us”.

It’s up to lonely folks like you and me Catholic1Seeks to be extra determined and creative. I joined some secular classes but also I discovered a person who prays at home and wouldn’t mind company at the time.

Give time time. It took me from the age of 10 to 31 to keep being told by the Church that there was no more catechesis for me, and even then it was a bit - ahem! Some folks make it all sound a bit slap bang wallop! Are there questions about how to cope with bad family dynamics or bad workplace dynamics and not despair in God’s help? Those are God’s real testing grounds, most of the time.