Part 2: Vocations to love & relationship for faithful LGBT Christians

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There is often a difference between common usage definitions and specialized technical definitions. Celibacy may be defined in canon law in a particular way; dictionary definitions are derived from the way the word is used in everyday settings.

For example, pro-life people often say that abortion is murder, using an everyday definition; however, the legal definition of murder is unlawful killing, which clearly excludes abortion as murder.

Even in this thread, the word celibate has been used as it would be if it were defined "unmarried and abstaining from sexual relations Nathan than the technical definition used when dealing with canon law.

I notice that you didn’t call any of those people out for using the word in its everyday sense.
 
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Annie said:
There is often a difference between common usage definitions and specialized technical definitions.
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Yes. They are words of art and mean specific things in Catholicism. And you were insistent on the secular definition. It ultimately muddies the definition on a Catholic forum, like saying annulment instead of declaration of nullity, or the marital act needs to be procreative instead of ordered to procreation.
Annie said:
notice that you didn’t call any of those people out for using the word in its everyday sense.
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The didn’t incorrectly define the term while trying to make a point while taking the thread off topic. I said maybe the priest knew his audience and you said may have known his audience so I have no idea why you kept posting. I’m not going to reply to you further unless you are on topic. Most posters can’t seem to manage that so I’m pretty sure we’re done here.
 
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catholic1seeks,

I thought of a possible solution for you. Since you are constantly referencing Eve Tushnet, why not enter into a Josephite marriage with her?
 
Don’t say that. Hurry and change the post before they flag you and you get banned.
 
Are you serious? Please tell me you’re not one of those people who thinks, “There’s two single people - they can get married,” never mind how either person feels. No, just no.
 
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BlueMaxx said:
Your being a tad pedantic Bruised Reed
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If I were really pedantic my post count would be at least twice what it is.
BlueMaxx said:
It is not about playing a “gotcha game” of being right in order to win some sort of internet boobie prize.

I think you knew the posters intent…but seemed to come loaded for bear
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Nope. Catholics on this site need to use the correct terms and as consistently as possible. When we use what I call “verbal shorthand” it perpetuates misunderstanding. Declaration of nullity, not annulment. Ordered to procreation, not procreative. When I’m not on CAF or other Catholic site, I am more fluid but here we need to use the correct terms so we all get in the habit of using them here and with other Catholics. I didn’t know these things at one time and I’ve also been on here long enough to know that using the incorrect terms lead to confusion and even doubt.
 
One problem: Something very similar was suggested earlier or maybe it was on the previous thread that got hijacked, that a gay man and a lesbian can get married and maybe, just maybe they will fall in love and not be gay anymore.
 
I really don’t know. A friend of mine married a girl that “returned” to hetero, she really regretted her previous relationships (could I add it caused him grief?). They are married now. So sometimes attraction isn’t necessarily “carved in stone” or “for life”. [I don’t mean to be going against 1-3.]

I’ve seen lots of “couples” who broke up for the only reason they didn’t see any realistic possibility of constituting a family at that point in time. Because expectations play an important role in the present, and as a general rule the greatest expectation is constituting a family (the aim?). [3 here becomes complex without ‘co-adoption’ with “vocation” meaning “state of life” this goes a beyond normal matrimony/celibacy and the closest “state of life” recognized by the church is actually that for the divorced who entered a second relationship. Without the OP being more specific…]

The OP states a specific expectation that (somehow) forgoes the “gift of life” which I consider a superior good to expect. And I consider the “gift of life” of such importance that it would prompt a continued revaluation of one’s own attraction over anything else. And such would also be the case in straight catholic relationships (amazingly?) - If you don’t have an outlook on having children you don’t marry and thus no co-habitation.

Addressing the question (4) directly: thinking of ‘Deus Caritas Est’ by Benedict XVI the hypothetical relationship described would mainly go along Philia&Caritas and remits Eros to a ‘unclear’ role (although the OP states an ‘intimacy’ clearly possessing body and attraction, adding ‘close’ to ‘intimacy’ results in “playing with fire” 🤭 ).
 
Just to add:

By commandment agape would take precedence over eros and philia, while being closely related to caritas. How the OP proposes to harmonize agape with caritas in this case is perhaps the first question and remains somewhat unclear to me.
 
adgloriam said:
I really don’t know. A friend of mine married a girl that “returned” to hetero, she really regretted her previous relationships (could I add it caused him grief?). They are married now. So sometimes attraction isn’t necessarily “carved in stone” or “for life”. [I don’t mean to be going against 1-3.]
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I am not sure you’re clear on the distinction between action and attraction, in what you just posted. The fact that a woman had a relationship with another woman is NO INDICATION AT ALL that she wasn’t attracted to men, at that time – no more than eating Raisin Bran indicates that you hate Cheerios. (Indeed, one might eat Raisin Bran despite liking Cheerios more.) The story you described does not involve, so far as I can tell, any attractions changing at all.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
does not involve, so far as I can tell, any attractions changing at all.
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adgloriam said:
she really regretted her previous relationships
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relationship/SSA (let me complete, add slash SSA at the end.) She regretted the involvement and the SSA underlying -having explicitly said so- taking the conscious decision it wasn’t what she wanted. That she wanted and was attracted to something else, never to go back, to go forth.

Yes, I was with both of them talking frankly about the subject. [At that point it doesn’t(didn’t) make much sense asking about SSA wanting to isolate it from the whole. They’re happy to this day, match made in heaven, I really think they fulfill each other, a sweat couple of kids.]
 
I guess I’m still confused about what you mean, or what she meant. To me, it makes no sense to say that she “regretted the SSA underlying”. How can one regret something one does not choose?
 
Prodigal_Son said:
“regretted the SSA underlying”. How can one regret something one does not choose?
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In her case she expressed having “given in” to a certain amount of pressure in a context of some inexperience and emotional need. A potential “initial attraction” giving place to a “latter repulsion”.

Since you went with the “foods analogy” it’s known we can “nauseate/sicken” certain dishes.

But that is also limiting, the “marital act” -being a better expression- can be profoundly tied to a lifelong project, and you can completely repudiate earlier appetites and experiences.

Going one step further -this is a catholic forum- “everything being grace” can remit to motions of “grace” in the “soul” and thus divine operations and changes in our “innermost being” of which attraction is just one of many dimensions.
 
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