How has the Catholic Church mistreated gays?

[RACJ]

I don’t think the Catholic Church has mistreated these people. I think it’s a useful but false accusation in the on-going battle to destroy the Church.

You are so very correct. Cardinal O’Connor did yeoman work with AIDS patients in NY. This canard has no basis in truth, and is only used to deceive the ill-informed. Rob

 

[lcburgundy]

In the context of this topic, I would have thought it makes most sense (at least in the first pass) to focus on the **teachings **of “the Church”, and consider whether they constitute a “mistreating”.

A quick summary of relevant teachings:

• SSA is not a sin, and persons experiencing SSA are no less deserving of love and respect;
• Sex outside marriage is wrong;
• Gay couples are not eligible to be married.

And this is in a nutshell why so many people have issues with Catholic teaching on this issue (especially nos. 2 and 3 on your list). For most Catholic vocations, a formal, celibate life is one ordinarily voluntarily undertaken only after careful consideration to one’s calling in life, and may be subject itself to careful examination or screening before you’re accepted into such a calling in the church. Some people are truly called to take on that challenge and calling and it’s a beautiful thing. I know three men quite well (one from high school, and two from college) who have or will be taking those sorts of vows as part of becoming either secular or religious priests. They are great men to do so, and I also know all of them to have had heterosexual desires of varying amounts in life too. But their choice was an actual calling to the priesthood, and I can assure you they (rightly) do rigorous investigation and psychological testing before accepting men into those kinds of vows and vocations these days.

However, homosexual attractions alone will nowadays generally get you excluded from consideration in fulfilling such a vocation in the Church itself (and I wouldn’t challenge the wisdom in having such a policy in general). In contrast, people with exclusively homosexual attraction are basically put into what I call the lay-celibacy-by-default camp, because that is the only valid form of chastity for this group according to official teaching. Exclusive homosexual desires and celibacy must be coincident for such a group. Saying same-sex attracted individuals must be chaste kind of undersells or obscures things, because a) all Catholics of all walks are called to be chaste and b) chastity only takes the form of celibacy for these people, period. Even relationships approximating the intimacy or shared life of a married couple minus sexual contact in a same-sex configuration is essentially verboten, at least to my understanding. The answers to any needs or desires are basically no, never, and nothing, and there is no non-lay station for you. It’s a very difficult message to communicate without turning people off.

(Some do say on these forums and elsewhere that homosexually-attracted individuals can in fact be married to an opposite-sex partner, but I seriously question the judgment of both the opposite-sex individual who would marry such an individual as well as the judgment of a priest who would marry someone who had exclusive homosexual desires, given the invalidity of a marriage that is knowingly entered into where it’s believed there will be no actual intimacy or even a desire for same. One partner using the essentially uninterested other for sexual gratification is not in the Catholic marriage playbook either.)

But having said all that (and now moving on to a second pass), I think Church authorities have made mistakes in the course of communicating and explaining catholic positions in this area. [Mind you, it’s very hard to do so within the restrictions of modern media such as TV etc.] I recall reading a brochure issued in our Diocese that referred to the nature of the relationship shared by a gay couple (and here we can take the case of a committed, monogamous gay couple) as just a “friendship”. Now I understand the use of that word to define boundaries, but the tone failed utterly to show an understanding of the nature and depth of that “friendship”. I though it came across a little insulting and heartless. It was poor communication.

Agreed. As far as I can infer, the official Church teaching is that there is no valid outlet for a need for intimacy if you are SSA has morphed into some Church publications as basically an inability for same-sex attracted individuals to either be capable or have even a valid desire for a shared life or intimacy (even of a non-sexual variety) with another person, at least one that isn’t pathological or a result of some sort of psychological damage.

I have reviewed quite a bit of official Church (e.g., Courage) published material on this, and they certainly promote that kind of thinking in how they present “typical” homosexuals. Common testimonies include people who profess having had hundreds of sex partners, gender confusion, sex addiction, coincident severe drug addiction, and lousy upbringings involving everything from parental negligence to outright incest with misplaced or unmet needs for parental love. No wonder any desire for intimacy would appear disordered, invalid, and/or nonexistent.

This is likely to be my only :twocents: I will ever post on this subject. I am happy to discuss this via PM but will not post about it further within the forum. Further public discussion on these sorts of topics generally seems fruitless to me.

 

[Allegra]

I don’t think anyone is facing jail time, but whatever.

The catholic church has absolutely made homosexuality the worst sin of them all, which is insane. (It isn’t just catholics, it’s most Christian groups). You know what’s more common than homosexuality? Premarital sex, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, out of wedlock births, various forms of sex work, etc. But of course, so many Christians are themselves guilty of such things, so they are never mentioned. But homosexuals are the dreaded “other” people, and their sins are “icky”, so there must be a constant focus on denouncing them.

Just look at this site. Every other thread is about abortion or homosexuality. But never are people worried that their child’s teacher is an adulterer, that their next door neighbor is divorced, or that their nephew is cohabiting.

You are seeing what you want to see. There are swarms of threads on adulterer teachers, divorced neighbors, and cohabitating nephews on this site. They are almost a daily occurance. With the exception of divorce, most people are in agreement that those sexual sins are both morally wrong and harmful to society and the individuals who commit them. Homosexuality and abortion get more discussion in the world in general because there are people who not only adamently don’t believe they are sinful, but actually argue that they are not only morally acceptable options but rise to the level of civil rights.

 

[on_the_hill]

And this is in a nutshell why so many people have issues with Catholic teaching on this issue (especially nos. 2 and 3 on your list). For most Catholic vocations, a formal, celibate life is one ordinarily voluntarily undertaken only after careful consideration to one’s calling in life, and may be subject itself to careful examination or screening before you’re accepted into such a calling in the church. Some people are truly called to take on that challenge and calling and it’s a beautiful thing. I know three men quite well (one from high school, and two from college) who have or will be taking those sorts of vows as part of becoming either secular or religious priests. They are great men to do so, and I also know all of them to have had heterosexual desires of varying amounts in life too. But their choice was an actual calling to the priesthood, and I can assure you they (rightly) do rigorous investigation and psychological testing before accepting men into those kinds of vows and vocations these days.

However, homosexual attractions alone will nowadays generally get you excluded from consideration in fulfilling such a vocation in the Church itself (and I wouldn’t challenge the wisdom in having such a policy in general). In contrast, people with exclusively homosexual attraction are basically put into what I call the lay-celibacy-by-default camp, because that is the only valid form of chastity for this group according to official teaching. Exclusive homosexual desires and celibacy must be coincident for such a group. Saying same-sex attracted individuals must be chaste kind of undersells or obscures things, because a) all Catholics of all walks are called to be chaste and b) chastity only takes the form of celibacy for these people, period. Even relationships approximating the intimacy or shared life of a married couple minus sexual contact in a same-sex configuration is essentially verboten, at least to my understanding. The answers to any needs or desires are basically no, never, and nothing, and there is no non-lay station for you. It’s a very difficult message to communicate without turning people off.

(Some do say on these forums and elsewhere that homosexually-attracted individuals can in fact be married to an opposite-sex partner, but I seriously question the judgment of both the opposite-sex individual who would marry such an individual as well as the judgment of a priest who would marry someone who had exclusive homosexual desires, given the invalidity of a marriage that is knowingly entered into where it’s believed there will be no actual intimacy or even a desire for same. One partner using the essentially uninterested other for sexual gratification is not in the Catholic marriage playbook either.)

Agreed. As far as I can infer, the official Church teaching is that there is no valid outlet for a need for intimacy if you are SSA has morphed into some Church publications as basically an inability for same-sex attracted individuals to either be capable or have even a valid desire for a shared life or intimacy (even of a non-sexual variety) with another person, at least one that isn’t pathological or a result of some sort of psychological damage.

I have reviewed quite a bit of official Church (e.g., Courage) published material on this, and they certainly promote that kind of thinking in how they present “typical” homosexuals. Common testimonies include people who profess having had hundreds of sex partners, gender confusion, sex addiction, coincident severe drug addiction, and lousy upbringings involving everything from parental negligence to outright incest with misplaced or unmet needs for parental love. No wonder any desire for intimacy would appear disordered, invalid, and/or nonexistent.

This is likely to be my only :twocents: I will ever post on this subject. I am happy to discuss this via PM but will not post about it further within the forum. Further public discussion on these sorts of topics generally seems fruitless to me.

Well put.