These are my questions based on the beliefs of Catholicism:
- How can our God be loving if he condemns all homosexuals (who carry out the act) to hell?
Any sexual relationship - be it heterosexual or homosexual - that is not open to life and that is geared towards lust is intrinsically evil. While God does understand that ignorance can diminish culpability (moral sin requires full knowledge and deliberate consent) there is an obligation to learn and understand the Sacrament of Matrimony and the meaning of chastity. Overall, any such sexual relationship desecrates the sexual act and gravely offends God. Whoever knows this and still does it is deliberately choosing to offend God based on selfish reasons and is not willing to sacrifice something for the love of God - he/she is rejecting God, and this rejection in this life can reflect, if no repentance is found, eternal rejection upon death.
- Why did the Pope hide the actions of and protect those directly involved the sexual abuse of young boys? I am very sure that our God would not condone the actions of sexual abuse no matter who you are (correct?!), so why didn’t the Pope issue any punishment?
The Pope did not do such thing as hide actions and protect those involved in the scandal. The issue is much, much more complex. I do agree that I would expect a much, much harsher stand on this issue: I would personally immediately laicize the person involved and hand him/her over to the state that they may be put in jail for life, or whatever punishment the state law has. But I am not the Pope, and the Holy See has reasons for handling things the way it does. But the Church condemns as one of the gravest (if not the single gravest) sin these abuses, and of these abusers our Lord said: “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the deep sea”. No matter what, justice is not of this world: God will punish the abusers according to His infallible justice, and anyone who failed at punishing them on earth will also have to pay the price for this, no matter of who he was in this life.
- My mother had a child out of wedlock, so why are we loving a God that will condemn my mother - who is a good woman - to hell?
**So did St. Augustine of Hippo, saint and Doctor of the Church. Saint, which means we know as a fact that He is in heaven. Doctor of the Church because He received extraordinary light from the Holy Spirit.
God knows better. On this matter, it will boil down to understanding of the sin and to whatever repentance she experienced in her soul (and, if Catholic, to whether she confessed this). God never rejects a penitent soul, no matter how harsh the sin. If she was absolved, then in fact she has the assurance that eternal punishment for this sin was already forgiven by God. **
- Why is the Catholic church telling me who I can marry (religion-wise)? Why would a God that loves me send me to hell for not obeying the rules such as those just stated previously?
The Church does not tell you who you can marry religionwise. In fact, the Church provides dispensations to marry non-Catholics and non-Christians. The Church does tell you that you will bring trouble to yourself and to your future kids if you marry someone who lives in error and does not know God’s ways. And you would not, strictly speaking, end in hell for marrying without a dispensation. This is complicated. By the way, keep in mind: God - the God who is fully revealed to the Catholic Church and distorted or partially known by any other church or religion - is infinite wisdom and infinite mercy: if this seems unfair to you, then it is probably something that God would not do.
- Why am I part of a denomination that bans women from being equal to men?
Women are not equal to men. Women are women and men are men. Each has his and her own special gifts, traits, features. Each is called to fulfill a role in life, family, and society. Surely neither is above the other, strictly speaking. But there are roles that are meant for men and roles that are meant for women. Modern XXIst century society has distorted this among many other things, so I wouldn’t take it as a good teacher. Would you? Surely you want to learn more about the figure of the woman in the Catholic Church, beginning with Mary, Elizabeth, and all the saints, especially the Doctors of the Church like Teresa of Avila, the great mystica, and Therese of Lisieux, the little flower that has brought many to holiness and even to canonization.
- Why doesn’t God love everyone? He sure does not love non-believers as it seems like they are going to hell too.
**God loves everyone. If God ceased to love someone, this person would literally cease to exist. God sees everyone’s soul and has created everyone, man and angel, intrinsically good. Thus when angels rebelled and when men sin, God does not cease to love them, because He knows that they are not intrinsically evil. However, regarding men, who have the choice to repent, God so loved sinners that He decided that instead of being a just judge and wiping them out of the face of the earth, He would become man Himself so that He could talk to sinners face to face, teach them, move them to repentance, and in the end, take His own justice upon His own shoulders unto suffering and death. This he did for believers and nonbelievers, and for all sinners.
Do not be mistaken: salvation is fully accessible to those who, through no fault of their own (invincible ignorance) do not know Christ and His church, the Catholic Church.**
