What are your ideas for the LGBT person's vocation in the Church?

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Title says it all.

With some negative comments in some related threads, I thought I’d start a more positive one.

Beyond refraining from extra-marital sex and same-sex sexual relationships, how do you currently perceive the vocation for single gay people? How do you think the church can better welcome LGBT persons or foster a place for them in the life of the church?

Answering this question requires an honest and sensitive attempt to understand the struggles, challenges, and experiences of LGBT people, especially in the Church.

Thanks!

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What can you tell us that would help us to understand what ideas for LGBT people’s vocation in the Church should be? I would think they could help out in EVERY area of needed help in the Church if possible.
Some people don’t like when the question is referring to LGBT persons particularly, because some people try to ignore that there is a real problem or struggle. (E.g., threads and posts on here that suggests that homophobia is a myth, etc.)

I know that’s not what you’re saying, because we have messaged before, and you are very affirming and positive. But I don’t want others to read your post and think in those terms.

Anyway, I will be away from CAF for a bit as I will be away from the computer. So I won’t answer now. But hopefully others will contribute.
 
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Well I don’t think they should be priests or religious sisters or anything like that given the appearance of that and past sex scandals. As far as I’m aware I don’t think homosexuals can be priests

But we need great devout Catholics of all types.
 
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Take gay people for example.

Their challenges are sometimes similar to other single people in the Church.

But it’s not the exact same. It’s unfair and dishonest to simply minimize or ignore the unique problems of particular groups. Hence the question.
 
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I think we need to raise our understanding of vocation…it’s not a job as a reader or altar server or donut ministry leader.
 
As Eve Tushnet says, no one is called to a vocation of “NO!”

So let’s hear your thoughts on YES – what should LGBT people do, or how can the church better respond to their experiences and struggles?
 
IIt doesn’t matter if it’s not the “exact same”

Why is “exact same” even a criterion?

The Church doesn’t need people because of their gayness, their set of attractions.

If we fully understand what a lay vocation is…we wouldn’t be hanging around parishes looking for our vocations.

The mission of the Church is to re-Christianize every soul on the planet…and that work isn’t going to be done by Father Joe or Sister Teresa…it’s really done by you and by me.
 
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If we fully undertand what a lay vocation is…we wouldn’t be hanging around parishes looking for our vocations.
So how can the church better present the vocation to those who aren’t called to married life or priesthood?
 
it would be nice if gay Catholics spoke out against LGBT culture and how sexualized it is. Their parades are just lust fests

Maybe if gay Catholics spoke about he positives of being a single chaste catholic rather than trying to change church doctrine that would be nice
 
Well I’d like to see gay Catholics actually defend the church instead of trying to get the church to conform to lgbt pro same sex marriage agenda
 
Like I said above…by doubling down on its teaching about the universal call to holiness (which is a term that came out of Vatican II) but it existed in other language before.

Pope Francis’s latest exhortation is exactly an answer to your question.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...tazione-ap_20180319_gaudete-et-exsultate.html

He uses the term “middle class of holiness”.

“7. I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbours, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness”.[4]”
 
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Beyond refraining from extra-marital sex and same-sex sexual relationships, how do you currently perceive the vocation for single gay people?
The vocation of single LGTB Catholics is the same as the vocation of any single Catholics , or if not it should be .
 
Ok.

But that’s not totally relevant to this question.

For a better sense of what I’m asking, I HIGHLY recommend the following:


Or at least this quote from this other article by her:
What would you say to people who believe the Catholic Church is an unwelcoming place?

I mean, it often is unwelcoming, right? The first thing to say is that a lot of the criticism the Catholic Church receives for treatment of her gay members is true. Lots of people I know who were raised Catholic had a much harder time than I did accepting themselves and finding some degree of peace with who they are. When you run into people who have fallen away from the church very violently, often you find that it’s coming from real pain caused by sins committed against them by other people. One of the reasons I wrote the book is to cut down the miseries that gay people experience within the church.

But depending on where the person is coming from, we can talk about more positive stuff too. I think a lot of people have only heard some church leaders give a list of things you can’t do if you’re gay and offer some weak explanations of why you can’t do them. That leaves the question of “what can I do as a gay Christian” completely blank.
 
But unfortunately, I can already tell that plenty of the responses will be knee-jerk ones. Again, I ask those who respond to really consider:
Answering this question requires an honest and sensitive attempt to understand the struggles, challenges, and experiences of LGBT people, especially in the Church.
(From original post)
 
America magazine hmm

They lost credibility when James Martin said that In silence jesus was the voice in father Ferreiras head telling him to trample.

The problem with being too soft on sin is that ends up not being merciful. Imagine if an alcoholic walks into a doctors office and the doctor tells him it’s okay to be just the way you are

The church is a hospital and sometimes the patients don’t like the taste of its medicine
 
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Then look up Eve Tushnet.

Goodness gracious. And in fact, she is a critic of James Martin at times.

Goodness people. Are you scared to read?

Please don’t interact with this thread if you aren’t going to actually be OPEN to the real experiences of gay people (something that, in fact, Fr James Martin DID do with his book).

Those two articles don’t even have anything to do with James Martin.
 
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The problem with being too soft on sin is that ends up not being merciful. Imagine if an alcoholic walks into a doctors office and the doctor tells him it’s okay to be just the way you are
The problem with being too soft on sin is that ends up not being merciful. Imagine if an alcoholic walks into a doctors office and the doctor tells him it’s okay to be just the way you are
Has nothing to do with the two articles I shared. Eve Tushnet is a traditional Catholic who is lesbian and in line with church teaching.
 
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