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

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First, it seems to me that straight catholic people are often more concerned with inverts vocations than the inverts themselves. But that may just be an erroneous impression of mine

Secondly, marriage, priesthood and monkhood are not the only three things deserving to be called vocations. Every morally acceptable way of life is a vocation, including professional vocations. An inverted person can have, for example, the vocation of a musician.

Thirdly, if I’m not wrong, the Church allows inverted people to marry people of the opposite sex, as normal straight people do. If the Chruch allows it, it may be that marriage can actually be the vocation of an inverted person. If for example and inverted man finds a straight woman who knows about his condition and is in love with him in spite of it, and really want to marry him, and doesn’t give much importance to sex anyways, then why not?
We could even imagine an inverted man marrying an inverted woman. In this case they could more easily share their burden with each other.

Fourthly, there is also, I think, the option to be a consecrated virgin (leaving in the world, and not in a monastery).

Lastly, let’s not think that there is a very special and specific vocation for inverted people as such. That would be as stupid as thinking that there are specific vocations for bue-eyed people, or for one-handed people. Each individual has his own specific vocation, that doesn’t necessarily depend on such secondary charcteristics.
 
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It’s a particularly sensitive topic because for many years conversion therapy was a thing. And it was a very bad thing. It basically worked by trying to traumatize gay people enough to be afraid of homosexuality.
 
QwertyGirl said:
What do you mean by “inverted”?
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It means homosexual. But I don’t like the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual”, they don’t sound elegant. So I prefer using “straight” and “inverted”.
 
What did the Lord say? “There are some who were born eunuchs.” They may be physically capable of marriage, but if they are psychologically incapable of marriage, they must remain single. Sure it hurts, just like the impotent desire to have families but can’t. The Lord will provide the grace to endure.
 
opop said:
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QwertyGirl:
What do you mean by “inverted”?
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It means homosexual. But I don’t like the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual”, they don’t sound elegant. So I prefer using “straight” and “inverted”.
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You must be from the late 19th or early 20th century. That’s when the term “inverts” was mostly used. Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds co-authored the book Sexual Inversion which came out in its English edition in 1897.
 
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An early treatment towards homosexuals : Doctors use to show homosexual men naked pictures of men and shock them, inflict pain or give them meds to make them violently sick. This sounds like it would fall Way outside of the realm of charity!
 
I don’t think such medical practices were Church approved.
 
Gab123 said:
The problem with homosexuality is it has to be unmasked for what it is, and it has to be denounced and condemned with the same force as condemning pedophilia, as it is becoming a scourge of society and the perversion of the youth and scandalizing children. Not only has the cancer spread inside our schools the agenda is being politically spread globally. Just look what is happening in Latin America. What was before confined to seedy neighborhoods has spread right into the family and every other church. Just today I saw two young girls, probably 14 years old holding hands as a SS couple. There’s the fruit of inclusiveness. I believe that most people living the homosexual lifestyle today is due to cultural influence, nothing else.
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You can believe that homosexuality is caused by nothing more than “cultural influence” if you want, but the lived experiences of millions of gay men and lesbians does not support your theory. When I was growing up more than 40 years ago, there was no gay cultural influence to be found in the remote, rural area where I lived. I had never even met any other gay person that I knew about before I came out when I was 21. Nor was there any Internet for me to find information about other people like me. The only thing I could find about homosexuality was an old book on “abnormal psychology.” But I still turned out gay anyway.
 
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Thorolfr said:
the lived experiences of millions of gay men and lesbians does not support your theory.
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Again, I believe that most people living the homosexual lifestyle today is due to cultural influence. I emphasize living the lifestyle, as opposed to simply having the inclination. Do realize the power and influence of fashion; “monkey see, monkey do”
Thorolfr said:
The only thing I could find about homosexuality was an old book on “abnormal psychology.”
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Yes, the Church still teaches this.
Thorolfr said:
But I still turned out gay anyway.
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Yes. And I turned out attracted to all kinds of sin too. The goal is to not act on the attraction and to uproot any attachment to it…
 
This is why I do not really participate in parish life.
I do support my parish financially but I avoid social activities. I tend to confuse a lot of elderly people who make up the most of the parishioners. I am neither consecrated religious or married. This confuses them a lot.
 
Gab123 said:
Yes, the Church still teaches this.
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It doesn’t say anything about homosexuality being a “psychological disorder”, though, at least the way that psycholocigcal disorders are commonly understood. While a desire to have sex with someone of the same sex is “disordered” in the natural law sense (i.e., since sex is ordered towards procreation, a desire for sex with someone or something with whom it is metaphysically impossible to procreate would make no sense… the desire is not properly directed), there are plenty of desires that are disordered in a similar way that are not considered psychological disorders.

Be watchful that you do not confuse Freudian psychology with Church teaching. The Church always saw homosexual activity as wrong and even perverse, but it’s treatment and the penances related to it were comparable to penances for other sins. Attacking homosexuality as a psychological disorder actually weakened our stance, and more importantly, it turned the way we viewed LGB/SSA people as people with a particular temptation we may or may not share (i.e., regular people like us) to just plain icky people, and it’s very difficult to answer for our claims all many of us had prior to the rise of the gay rights movement and liberalization of sexuality was “ick”.
 
Gab123 said:
In other words, sanctify yourself. Live your regular daily work life as a doctor, as a teacher, a laborer, HVAC technician, as an expression of the way you live your personal life as a friend, brother, relative, etc. all in the spirit of sanctification with Jesus Christ as Lord and center of everything you do. this is the call for everyone, not just specific groups of people… no special vocation other than the Christian vocation of living a life of humility, purity of intention and love. In other words, the vocation of becoming a SAINT.
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This is all well and good, but it misses a certain point. Consider the rough analogy with the alcoholic. Alcoholics may have a particular struggle with alcohol. This means then that something like “drink in moderation” is out of the question for them, but if they live in a culture where any social gathering has alcohol a a feature, it will affect what they do in their day to day life and socialization.

Yet people know at this point that such people do need good support networks, family support, etc. They also have to come up with ways to live their Christian social lives that may not be the usual way. Even back then people in the Church understood this. Certain theology textbooks in the 19th century dealing with pastoral life, for example, had to consider how an alcoholic who is affected by the smell of alcohol would be able to attend Sunday mass if the sacrament under the accidents of the wine came close enough to him. A general “just be holy” does not address the particular struggle of the alcoholic. It does not address how he can specifically overcome his temptation and be a part of Christian society, especially if it is one where alcohol is a part of one’s social life. The Church, and Christians as a whole, easily recognized this, hence support networks for recovering alocholics, AA etc.

But if this is true for the alcoholic, how much more so for the SSA/LGB individual? For in the case of the latter, the desires have a far greater relational impact in that with some rare exceptions, sacramental avenues related to vocation (marriage and holy orders) are not typically available to them as a viable option. This is not to say that I think SSA/LGB people are particularly helpless (they have a backbone of their own, after all), or that I think they are the same as addicts, but they do have a particular struggle that makes certain things more difficult for them in the Church’s social life, the way we currently have it.
 
Edward_H said:
They have a vocation already, likely as a single lay person…who lives out their vocation in the world like 99% of Catholics.

Note the latest from Pope Francis on this topic.

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/05/24/pope-doesnt-want-practicing-gays-in-seminaries-reports-say/
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From that link, Pope Francis says

“men with “deeply rooted” homosexual tendencies, or who “practice homosexual acts,” shouldn’t be allowed into the seminary”.

I’ve spoken with seminarians. Eliminating Men with tendency or action to same sex attraction from seminaries, will solve the current problem of straight men not entering or remaining in seminary.
 
That is very unfortunate. However, I wasn’t refering to a shock therapy like that, but something more like conductual-behavioral therapy, something that changes, through talking and mental exercises, the sexual tendency of the individual. I know this kind of thing works with numerous mental problems (I experienced it myself) so maybe it works here too
 
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