How to respond to a "lesbian friend"

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Ora, that is acceptance in the ears of the homosexual individual.
 
But what I mean is that your response hasn’t accomplished anything of Christian value, has it?
 
OraLabora said:
Please don’t.

Why betray her trust as well? I’m sure she replied to you expecting that her words were a private communication between the two of you.

This whole thread of Catholic busybodies trying to interfere with someone’s sex life, disordered or not, makes me physically sick.

Whatever happened to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”???

Pharisees!!!
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Although I didn’t respond with a posting, I don’t see how any of the responses were “busybodies.” The OP asked for opinions and many gave of their time to express one. The exchanges made me see how difficult it is to express the Catechism in real world situations.

You seem to view other’s sins as their own private business (at least when it comes to sex). But if someone in your own family were about to enter the world of gay sex or prostitution with all its attendant risks and dangers, would you remain silent?

I understand not wanting government to enter the world of two adults having consensual sex but what of your own friends or family? Isn’t that different? Don’t you tell your siblings or spouse children etc what you think or do you regard their sexual lives and orientation as “their own business?”

dj
 
The greatest commandment is to stand idly by while others wallow in sin…:rolleyes:

St. Francis de Sales says that it is often better to win people over with honey rather than vinegar. So your comments have some merit. But I think he would say that fraternal correction is still needed, but of course we need to be mindful of HOW it is said.

By your logic, Jesus was breaking that greatest commandment when he threw the moneychangers out, correct?
 
djeter said:
You seem to view other’s sins as their own private business (at least when it comes to sex). But if someone in your own family were about to enter the world of gay sex or prostitution with all its attendant risks and dangers, would you remain silent?
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Risk is generally not an issue when it comes to lesbianism. But if one of my own family were to enter the world you describe, for sure I would have something to say about it, especially if it were a close member of my family (say my wife or a sibling), or someone over whom I have parental authority (my children). But we’re not talking about someone close over whom I have parental authority, we’re talking about a long-lost friend who is presumably an adult past the age of consent.
surritter said:
The greatest commandment is to stand idly by while others wallow in sin…:rolleyes:

St. Francis de Sales says that it is often better to win people over with honey rather than vinegar. So your comments have some merit. But I think he would say that fraternal correction is still needed, but of course we need to be mindful of HOW it is said.

By your logic, Jesus was breaking that greatest commandment when he threw the moneychangers out, correct?
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Again we are not Jesus. But to get onto your point about “stand idly by while others wallow in sin”.

We all wallow in sin. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Speck in your eye and log in mine and all that. So who am I to call a brother or sister on their sin? I am not Jesus. I I am not even St. Paul or a community elder. I have no pastoral authority. I have no right to claim moral superiority. I only have the right to try to live the Gospel as best I can, with authority over those whom God gives me influence, namely my own family.

That said if I were to feel that my friend were heading down a slippery slope to perdition, and out of love and charity wanted to say something about it, I would suggest that the first meeting after some years is perhaps not the appropriate moment if one does not want to have exactly the opposite of the desired effect. Remember, if you turn that person off of Christianity, you are expediting her journey to hell. And if you expedite someone’s journey to hell, you yourself will have a lot to answer for on judgement day. I would therefore suggest that this is an area to tread very, very cautiously.

It would be better to save only one, IMHO, than turn off 10,000. It may even be better to save none than turn off one. Not everyone has the charism to adroitly teach or preach on such delicate matters.
 
Betterave said:
You can seriously pose this question? :confused: Most practising Catholics are very shaky on “what the Church thinks” about sex. The chances are extremely good that a lesbian who is not interested in organized religion will not know the Church’s teaching about sex (in any meaningful sense of the word ‘know’).
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I can only imagine that any homosexual WILL know that many religions, including Catholicism, do not support their lifestyle.
 
surritter said:
It’s true that most people “know” what the Church teaches regarding this topic, but the problem is that they think it is an arbitrary teaching. The world needs to know that there is extreme logic behind this teaching, namely that sex and procreation have a natural link, and to distort their connection is unnatural.
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Lots of animals have gay sex. You should preach to them as well that it is unnatural I guess.
 
Animals do not have rational souls. They operate on urges in a fallen world just as we are tempted to do. But humans have an intellect and a will, and the ability to overcome urges in order to comply with what the world really should be, were it not for Adam’s sin.
 
kage_ar said:
Animals also defecate wherever they please, eat vomit and kill each other. We are higher than the animals.
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EXACTLY. So the only thing that is guiding their actions is nature…they don’t have the intellect to go against instinct, yet they still have gay sex. This proves that homosexuality is natural or every animal that participates in it has great reason and understanding and uses intellect to choose to have gay sex.
 
OraLabora said:
That said if I were to feel that my friend were heading down a slippery slope to perdition, and out of love and charity wanted to say something about it, I would suggest that the first meeting after some years is perhaps not the appropriate moment if one does not want to have exactly the opposite of the desired effect. Remember, if you turn that person off of Christianity, you are expediting her journey to hell. And if you expedite someone’s journey to hell, you yourself will have a lot to answer for on judgement day. I would therefore suggest that this is an area to tread very, very cautiously.
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Exactly…especially a long lost friend who already has a bad taste in her mouth.
 
KKendra said:
An old time friend from high school reconnected with me recently via email and told me her life story, including the fact that she is now openly lesbian and marrying another woman this Summer. She justifies herself saying that she believes God loves her, but she doesn’t believe in organized religions, who are usually the ones that condemn gay relations. My stands on homosexuality are in line with the Church and would like to tell her how I feel about it and correct her on why it is wrong, but don’t want to sound too judgemental or unloving. I want to make it clear that it is not her, but her sin, that is wrong. How can I put it without sounding arrogant or judgemental? My email might be the last chance someone speaks the truth to her before her marriage. Any help is appreciated!
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Don’t say anything about it. You may have been friends with her in high school, but you are not that close now. People resent it when others tell them how to live who they don’t know very well any more- and people can change A LOT in the years following high school. The gay community tends to be **very **resentful of others trying to tell them how they should live their lives. Pray for her and try to be a good example to her, but I would do my best to ignore her talk about her sexuality.
 
Why do you feel like you have to say something?..You don’t.

She’s gay and in love with a woman and there’s nothing you can do to change that so there’s
no need to ruin a friendship over it.

Be the best friend you can and LOVE her and her new wife.
 
OraLabora said:
Please. My spiritual director is a very orthodox, 72 year-old Benedictine monk. He is not saying “don’t share the Gospel”. He is saying that criticism of one who isn’t there yet, isn’t sharing the Gospel. He is saying that the best way to share the Gospels is to live them and let them shine through your life and let others be attracted to that light.
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Ora,
You started off saying, “This whole thread of Catholic busybodies trying to interfere with someone’s sex life, disordered or not, makes me physically sick.
Whatever happened to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”???
Pharisees!!!”

But I specifically said “don’t correct her, don’t tell her how you feel, ask how she feels and start a dialogue - she has a negative image of organized religion and obviously doesn’t understand that it is about Good News, not condemnation and repression.” When someone casts aspersions on the Church, we shouldn’t respond by criticizing that person, but we should try to help them to see the Church for what it is. That means we have to gently engage in a controversy with this person, even if that makes us unpopular. Your model of living faith seems to exclude the possibility that we will be hated by the world. We can obviously be hated just for being obnoxious, but Jesus talks about being hated for His Name’s sake. What do you think that means? It seems to me as if you’re suggesting we should avoid that at all costs.
In the story of Jesus and the adulteress, Jesus was teaching and was routinely condemned by the Pharisees who put him on the spot. But we aren’t sinless Jesus. We are not even trained in pastoral care. Telling a lesbian that her lifestyle is sending her to hell almost certainly will turn her off even more. If any one of us, a single one, were to stand up and tell the lesbian friend this, we would be no better than a Pharisee casting a stone at the adulteress. Because we are all sinners. None of us have the authority to say to a sinner, what Jesus said to the adulteress.
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You totally miss the main issue here: it’s not about pastoral sensitivity; it’s about the fact that we have no idea whether this woman is headed to hell or not, so we would be lying if we claimed to know that she was.
And pointing fingers is not sharing the gospel. The OP wanted to know how to respond to her lesbian friend’s lifestyle. I suggest with love and prayer. I am not suggesting that she act as an “enabler”. But I am also not suggesting that she stake out a position of moral superiority because she, a Catholic, somehow knows better than her non-believing lesbian friend.
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So you don’t think that the Church, and therefore those who listen to the Church, “knows better” than some random person with same-sex attractions who doesn’t believe in “organized religions”?? Would you perhaps like to severely qualify this claim? We trust in the moral teaching of the Church not because it makes us feel good, not because we want to feel superior to others, but because we believe that it objectively is a morally superior standard. We don’t think it’s better because we believe it, we think it’s better because it comes from our wise and loving Creator and it accords with the sound use of reason. I don’t understand your position at all.
 
Ruthie_again said:
This is tough!

To jump right into it would probably make her feel like you are attacking her. I’d start with how good it is to hear from her, and how much she has meant to you. Maybe include some of your fond memories of her.

Then say that you have deepened your Catholic faith, and that you hope she hasn’t fallen for the popular lie that the Church is homophobic.

Then say that you believe her marriage will be wrong - but that won’t change your love for her. Offer to explain why, then end the letter and let her respond.

I hope that she becomes curious, and takes a step towards God. But don’t be disappointed if she doesn’t reply; and don’t be too hurt if she responds badly. You will have tried.

Praying for both of you,

Ruthie
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Write the letter, then don’t mail it. Put it in a drawer and continue to love your friend. Keep the hating the sin part to yourself and share the part about loving the sinner.

Your example will tell her more about how Jesus loves her and her spouse than any explanation of how you can be justified in your hating her sins and how doing so makes you a better person and a more loving friend.

Peace
 
portarica said:
Write the letter, then don’t mail it. Put it in a drawer and continue to love your friend. Keep the hating the sin part to yourself and share the part about loving the sinner.

Your example will tell her more about how Jesus loves her and her spouse than any explanation of how you can be justified in your hating her sins and how doing so makes you a better person and a more loving friend.

Peace
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So portarica, are you saying that our culture – which applauds these homosexual unions as being fair, just, and within the bounds of natural love – is simply displaying Christian love for these people and their “spouses”?
 
hellopeople said:
I can only imagine that any homosexual WILL know that many religions, including Catholicism, do not support their lifestyle.
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They will obviously know that, but the point is that they will likely have no understanding of the reasons for that lack of support. They will think what they’ve been told to think by people who unfortunately don’t know what they’re talking about and are not interested in knowing, in actually understanding. It’s ironic, because the person living a homosexual lifestyle will typically be an anti-religion bigot who dismisses organized religion simply because it is counter to what they want to do with themselves. And they’ll rationalize their ignorant bigotry by claiming that religious people are all bigots - but that claim itself is just ignorant bigotry. Do you see my point? (And I hope it goes without saying that this doesn’t apply to all those who experience same-sex attractions, or even all those who act on them, although the convenience of this kind of rationalization is hard to avoid for the latter group.)

I don’t want to sound snide, but you yourself are obviously a good example of someone who is quite lacking in understanding of the Church’s position. That’s obvious from your posts here. (I’m not condemning you, we’re all ignorant about many things, but fortunately none of us is ignorant about everything, and hopefully you’re here in the hopes of improving your understanding.)
 
surritter said:
So portarica, are you saying that our culture – which applauds these homosexual unions as being fair, just, and within the bounds of natural love – is simply displaying Christian love for these people and their “spouses”?
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No I am saying to put your faith into action and actually love the person so much that they can’t mistake it for anything other than the beauty of catholicism.

Or you can call them what ever names you like to call people and see if it gets better results.

It is the result you are concerned with, isn’t it? If we know we are right it doesn’t reinforce our views if we shout them as opposed to whispering them so our friends have to lean toward us and find out we do really love the sinner.

Peace
 
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