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JohnMPhilomena
Guest
Sounds like the Bill Clinton definition.
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MariaTS
Guest
Wrong: I find the Democratic party distasteful, in fact I find all of the current political parties distasteful. I am a Fascist in that I support the government only funding health-care, military, and a true justice system. Also, I support a national currency. I object to Obama-Pelosi-care and Bill Clinton made everything far too complicated. Also, Clinton supports all forms of intercourse. I have left relationships where people have tried to pressure me into anal or vaginal intercourse, I have been in many different relationships. Mutual masturbation keeps a couple celibate and together. Without some form of divine sexual pleasure, I do not believe that any romantic relationship can work. If you go by “unnatural”, the majority of sex should be banned. However, all types of sex are natural. I just object to most because I do not believe that is what Jesus wants for us. Mutual masturbation has never been condemned by the bible nor has oral intercourse, that’s my point.
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pnewton
Guest
The Catholic Church considers these acts also immoral and disordered. This type of activity is as gravely disordered as any other act of sex outside the confines of marriage.
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MariaTS
Guest
I didn’t say that it was appropriate outside of marriage.
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pnewton
Guest
Since the subject was SSA, that was understood. However, to clarify, the Church teaches (CCC # 2352)
and in 2370
There is only one way than permits procreation and it is not the two you mention.
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MariaTS
Guest
I support homosexual marriage.
And your quotes on teachings by sexually repressed individuals mean nothing.
I will give you a scenario that is backed up by facts:
So 90% of men and 60% of women are going to hell for engaging in masturbation and virtually all married couples are going to hell for engaging in oral sex?
Away from the scenario:
You have only managed to defend the ignorant stance on masturbation being immoral and evil not the ignorant stance on oral sex being immoral and evil. The last quote says that I am going to hell and that I am immoral and evil for undergoing castration. We are discussing same sex attraction, however, and not genital surgeries.
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pnewton
Guest
It is not my postition. It is the postition of the Catholic Church. If you consider the Catholic Church ignorant and repressed, I will remind you that this is a Catholic forum. I presented the Catholic postion and your insult this postition. I assumed your identification as a Catholic meant that you respected that which the Church taught. There is no such thing as homosexual marriage and never will be. God has spoken. We should listen.
BTW - So many try this old trick you pull of labeling those who follow the teaching of God as ignorant. It is and ad hominem attack devoid of logic. It is number one in the liberal hit parade of today.
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MariaTS
Guest
What you present is current Church teaching and it is meant to be changed. Church teaching is not the same as it was 1000 years ago for example.
I am not a liberal, I dislike liberals. Try again.
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pnewton
Guest
Who means to change it? All we have is the present. If this is where God puts us, it is where we are to live.
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LCMS_No_More
Guest
Elucidate.
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Podo2005
Guest
- Thats not true, you could have a very fruitful life being celibate & developing lots of friendships (which would mean you are not alone)
- Hatred is a sin. If anyone on this board has shown/given the impression that catholics hate you then I apologize & ask for your forgiveness… Catholics do not hate people with SSA , any true catholic would be willing to bear this cross with you time after time after time…what catholics do hate though is sin itself (what a person does) which is charitable because if you truly loved someone you would want ( & do everything) with all your heart to help that person overcome their sin which is hurting them in their lives
- Priesthood is not closed to people with SSA (keyword here is attraction), it is closed for someone who is actively engaged in a SS lifestyle but not for a person who struggles but doesnt give in to temptation. Of course it might be difficult to live a celibate life if you have that struggle but you have the comfort of knowing that you have support from others if you so choose that vocation.
Also perhaps God allows you to suffer like this in order to bring some great good out of you? (Or to bring out more of your potential which will lead you closer to becoming a saint?) Just some food for thought( remember St Paul when he said “when I am weak, then I am strong”) although I’ll pray that the Lord sends you the right people who will help you carry your cross. I know how it is to carry the burden of sexual sin/temptation & to be rejected because of it. Know that you are not alone in this struggle & that you will succeed & find happiness beyond your wildest dreams in Christ
Praying for you
Zachary
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Podo2005
Guest
sin is sin … it does not change with time. Homosexual activity was sinful in ancient times, is sinful today and will always remain sinful.
You say it ought to be changed, why?
And you also make the claim that Church teaching is not the same as it was 1000 years ago, do you have any shred of proof that the moral teaching of the Catholic Church has in fact changed?
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LCMS_No_More
Guest
No, but I can see how you inferred that from my statement. I was speaking to something more basic than that. For one thing, it’s not, at its core, a sexual problem. The sexual attractions are a manifestation of the underlying problems of self-hatred, feelings of rejection, depression, etc. which make it extremely difficult to relate to others properly.
I don’t want to get into specifics as this is most certainly NOT a support group for persons with SSA.
SSA, unlike color or gender, is not inherent to a person. The Church calls homosexual inclinations as “objectively disordered” and homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered” and “acts of grave depravity.” That makes a person with SSA either defective or deeply wounded.
Granted, everyone is defective or wounded somehow, but how many are in such a way that they have little hope for a normal life (marriage and family or priesthood)?
There is the tertiary fransiscan order.
Two vocational sacraments: marriage and orders. At this point, I qualify for neither.
And yet…how many of you here, on this board reading this, would react with respect, compassion and sensitivity to a person who befriended you and explained that they have same-sex attractions, are trying to do the right thing and need your support?
Would you give the support this person needs or would you immediately start thinking of ways to avoid this person until they go away?
Somehow, I think a majority of people here, and in the Church at large, would do the latter.
Look, I’m not arguing for same-sex marriage and I’m not trying to make an excuse for engaging in homosexual sex. To be honest, sex among members of the same gender really isn’t all that great. There’s no mutuality to it, it’s all about the finish and has little to do with giving one’s self and enjoying the other person. The other person becomes a tool to that end and little else. The love felt among same-sex couples is riddled with defensive detachments and are generally doomed to failure.
What I am trying to do is get an understanding of why God has abandoned me to this.
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kage_ar
Guest
Both of these - if intended to result in orgasm - are gravely immoral.
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kage_ar
Guest
Actually, there are many disabilities that render one unable to have marital relations.
Christianity is not about getting into “my disability is better than your disability”.
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kage_ar
Guest
When I wrestle with my own cross (severe disability), I have found help in reading the psalms - God knit me together in my mother’s womb. As someone who does knit/crochet, I know what it is like to work on a piece and when it is finished, there are some “imperfections”, some dropped stitches, some missed counts. That does not mean that the finished work is not beautiful and does not have a purpose.
I have also spent much time meditating on both Isaiah 49 and Romans 9 - the clay cannot say to the potter “why have you made me this way”.
For some reason we do not know now, we all have a few dropped stitches - some of us far more than others. It is best to trust the maker. The key is to look at the Stations of the Cross, know when to embrace our own cross and when to let the Cyrene help us to carry it.
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chrysostim83
Guest
Hi LCMS_No_More,
It’s slightly embarrassing to attempt to answer your question here, because one of my vices is writing way too much about SSA on these forums. My only excuse this time is that I used to ask myself the very question you pose, and it seemed like it might be helpful to share some of the answers I came to.
Part of what makes your question so painful is that you believe SSA is a mental illness or (since folks like Nicolosi or Fitzgibbons shy away from putting things bluntly) an emotional condition. We Catholics are under absolutely no obligation to believe that, and in fact it’s a perfectly acceptable option not to because most researchers and psychologists are pretty well convinced that homosexuality is not a disease or an affliction. (Two great resources on the science of sexual orientation: if you have access to a university library, you might try Gonsiorek’s “Demise of the Illness Model” in Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy; and the recently released APA report on “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” is available online.)
So much for the science, but the main reason SSA looks like a cruel joke is the Church’s teaching that the “homosexual inclination” is “objectively disordered.” I have put these two terms in scare quotes because they are rather technical and do not (I think) immediately call to mind the realities to which they refer. To get at these realities, it is important to understand that these terms are meant to describe the will and not, say, the passions or appetites. A person who has a “homosexual inclination” is someone whose will is not very good at resisting the proposal of reason to engage in sexual acts with someone of the same sex. So, for example, many straight people have a “homosexual inclination” because under certain circumstances their reason may propose homogenital act, and their will won’t put up much of a fight. Or again, many gay people do not have a “homosexual inclination” because by the grace of God, their will has been structured so that even though they may experience a strong temptation to engage in a homogenital act, they are for all intents and purposes, incapable of giving in.
With this understanding of “homosexual orientation,” it is much easier to understand why it is “objectively disordered.” Simply put, it’s a Bad Thing to have a will which is not very good at resisting a motive to an intrinsically evil act.
Now, if my analysis of these moral theological concepts is correct—a big “if”, I’ll grant you—then, far from being a cruel joke, SSA might only be a side effect of something good that God intended you to have. For example, God may intend some people to find greater fulfilment in friendship than marriage, but in a world or culture such as ours, this fundamentally good personality trait is translated into SSA which, in turn, gets translated into a “homosexual inclination” by a slow wearing down of the will by temptation.
Anyway, that’s what I make of homosexuality. I’ll understand if you don’t find any of this convincing, but keep all these possibilities in mind. Before I finish with this post, I want to recommend a couple books that might help you understand the nature of your personal vocation.
Peter Liuzzi, With Listening Hearts, is faithful to the Church in every particular, but more positive and compassionate than Fr Harvey’s books.
Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw, Personal Vocation is the place to start if you want to know about personal vocation and how you discern God’s plan for your life.
It’s slightly embarrassing to attempt to answer your question here, because one of my vices is writing way too much about SSA on these forums. My only excuse this time is that I used to ask myself the very question you pose, and it seemed like it might be helpful to share some of the answers I came to.
Part of what makes your question so painful is that you believe SSA is a mental illness or (since folks like Nicolosi or Fitzgibbons shy away from putting things bluntly) an emotional condition. We Catholics are under absolutely no obligation to believe that, and in fact it’s a perfectly acceptable option not to because most researchers and psychologists are pretty well convinced that homosexuality is not a disease or an affliction. (Two great resources on the science of sexual orientation: if you have access to a university library, you might try Gonsiorek’s “Demise of the Illness Model” in Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy; and the recently released APA report on “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” is available online.)
So much for the science, but the main reason SSA looks like a cruel joke is the Church’s teaching that the “homosexual inclination” is “objectively disordered.” I have put these two terms in scare quotes because they are rather technical and do not (I think) immediately call to mind the realities to which they refer. To get at these realities, it is important to understand that these terms are meant to describe the will and not, say, the passions or appetites. A person who has a “homosexual inclination” is someone whose will is not very good at resisting the proposal of reason to engage in sexual acts with someone of the same sex. So, for example, many straight people have a “homosexual inclination” because under certain circumstances their reason may propose homogenital act, and their will won’t put up much of a fight. Or again, many gay people do not have a “homosexual inclination” because by the grace of God, their will has been structured so that even though they may experience a strong temptation to engage in a homogenital act, they are for all intents and purposes, incapable of giving in.
With this understanding of “homosexual orientation,” it is much easier to understand why it is “objectively disordered.” Simply put, it’s a Bad Thing to have a will which is not very good at resisting a motive to an intrinsically evil act.
Now, if my analysis of these moral theological concepts is correct—a big “if”, I’ll grant you—then, far from being a cruel joke, SSA might only be a side effect of something good that God intended you to have. For example, God may intend some people to find greater fulfilment in friendship than marriage, but in a world or culture such as ours, this fundamentally good personality trait is translated into SSA which, in turn, gets translated into a “homosexual inclination” by a slow wearing down of the will by temptation.
Anyway, that’s what I make of homosexuality. I’ll understand if you don’t find any of this convincing, but keep all these possibilities in mind. Before I finish with this post, I want to recommend a couple books that might help you understand the nature of your personal vocation.
Peter Liuzzi, With Listening Hearts, is faithful to the Church in every particular, but more positive and compassionate than Fr Harvey’s books.
Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw, Personal Vocation is the place to start if you want to know about personal vocation and how you discern God’s plan for your life.
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pnewton
Guest
This too saddens me. I wish those with SSA that strive for holiness and abide by the Church’s teaching, with in the limits of their humanity, were able to pursue a vocation to the priesthood. It seems to me there ought to be some way to waive this prohibition. I will pray that the way you are to go will be opened up for you.
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MariaTS
Guest
I never said any disability is better than another. I am simply pointing out that homosexuality is not a disability and most physically disabled people are able to have successful, meaningful marriages and experience sexual pleasure.
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Chochy
Guest
I don’t know how many others would, but I would try very hard to be respectful and sensitive to you as a friend. I would not want you to go away.
I wish there were more people who had the courage to speak as openly about their sexuality as you have about yours. We could learn a great deal from one another. I suspect that if all of us were honest we would say, that we have also had trouble understanding our sexual expressions from time to time. I certainly have. I cannot say that I understand everything sexual anymore than I can say I understand God completely.
I will not tell you that God has not abandoned you to this. He has allowed that to exist in your heart right now for a reason. I believe He will find a way to help you understand your position in His Kingdom. You belong there no differently than anyone else. May you find love and joy. May you know His peace. Blessings
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