What is the vocation of same-sex-attracted Catholics?

[SerraSemper]

Sure, anyone can do anything nowadays. Whether it is right or wrong, we have free will. Whether it is prudent or imprudent or wicked or good. It doesn’t matter. People will do whatever they please. The question is can someone have a vocation, and the answer to that is no. God does not call those who do not have the pre-requisites. I know I don’t have a vocation to be a priest because I am not male. Men know they can’t be a sacred virgin because they are not female. But you still see “ordinations” of women anyway. And men talking about being sacred virgins. Because, you know… we do like to push the envelope. The teachings on the priesthood and marriage are fairly clear in the Church. And yes, I have given declarations of nullity of marriage to certain persons who were on “that side” of the spectrum of homosexuality where it was deep-seated and acted out. Because, even though you won’t find an explicit “Church teaching” [as in “Pope So and So declares that certain people with … cannot validly enter marriage”], the logic is there [the fact that marriage is a heterosexual union between a man and a woman, etc. you know, the marriage that supposed to mirror the marriage of Christ and the Church]. We are not fundamentalists, needing chapter and verse for everything. God gave us brains to figure out logical conclusions.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

What you are really trying to say is that you are a Catholic who wants text and verse for anything to believe it, rather than to accept something that is a logical consequence of the Church’s own teachings.

No, that’s not what I’m saying. I can be convinced by an opinion. You should just acknowledge that it’s an opinion.

 

[Sid]

Odd that you would make that claim. Maybe you should read Pulitzer Prize winning author David Garrow’s book? That would be a start.

 

[MNathaniel]

Anyone can have an opinion on anything. But facts are facts regardless of how someone opines on them. I am not claiming an opinion, I am claiming a fact. The nature of sacred virginity is spousal and hence spousal affectivity is required as a pre-requisite for this vocation by nature.

And that is your opiniiioooooon.

PS I will keep returning to this topic until the site shuts down, to publicly correct you on this. Because unless you can cite an official Church authority excluding SSA people from consecrated virginity, your public attempt to convince SSA people they’re categorically excluded, is inappropriate in the extreme.

Your opinion is your opinion. But trying to force it on others as “fact” sets yourself up as if you think yourself a higher authority than the actual Church authorities who have not seen fit to set this exclusionary criteria.

If your private practice of consecrated virginity is so fragile that it is impacted by a SSA person also undertaking it, please seek help from your spiritual director.

We are not fundamentalists, needing chapter and verse for everything. God gave us brains to figure out logical conclusions.

PS this sounds like your admission that there is no authoritative teaching whatsoever to justify trying to force your opinion on others as “fact”?

You have an opinion – I’ll grant you, a firm opinion that you may consider more coherent and persuasive, from your perspective, than other opinions, and that’s why you personally hold it.

But it is your own private opinion.

Others are allowed theirs.

And again, clearly in practice some people with SSA do become consecrated virgins, so even if some members of the club want criteria to be more exclusionary, there’s clearly more inclusion in reality.

 

[MNathaniel]

Obama

Just so you know, I’m flagging every off-topic post you make. “Off-topic” is against forum rules. Speculating about politician sexual attractions has nothing to do with this thread topic.

 

[StudentMI]

Oh if only I could love this post more than once.

I have no issue with whether SSA people can be considered consecrated virgins or whatever the issue is. The issue I have is with the Church systematically erasing every possible avenue for a vocation for those with SSA outside of “go to Courage and shut up.”

@SerraSemper, what do you think a good vocation is for someone with SSA?

 

[Rau]

Sid:

Sorry, that wasn’t my intent. I was just pointing out a well known case of same sex attraction, and how some people deal with it.

It’s hardly well known.

Nor established fact? Has Obama confirmed it?

 

[Rau]

The rationale that goes for men in the priesthood needing affective maturity and ability to have a sense of spiritual fatherhood is the same for women in sacred virginity needing affective maturity and ability to have a sense of spiritual motherhood.

More assertions without citation.

Let me introduce myself as there is no need for cloisters to jump in… I am a sacred virgin, I am a canon lawyer, I have a diploma from the Vatican on the Theology and Law of Consecrated Life (it confers the status of perita), I am doing a dissertation on the Ordo Virginum… etc. I would hope that I know a bit about my own vocation.

So some citations should be readily available to you?

 

[Rau]

And I’m not sure about consecrated virginity, @Cloisters might know - would a same-sex attracted woman be necessarily excluded from that vocation?

The first step would be for the candidate (for consecrated virgin) to be asked to indicate their sexual inclinations. Does this happen?

 

[SerraSemper]

Well, you could always start with #1 here!

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html

 

[StudentMI]

The first step would be for the candidate to be asked to indicate their sexual inclinations. Does this happen?

I can imagine it does. I know someone who was kicked out of seminary for having SSA despite the fact he was celibate.

 

[StudentMI]

So what vocations are open to those with SSA? Just being a victim soul?

 

[Rau]

This is well known and pertains to the priesthood.

Do I really need to ask that citations be “relevant” ?

I’m not rejecting your assertions, just seeking to establish whether your assertion is personal judgement or an established fact (or practice).

 

[Anesti33]

So what vocations are open to those with SSA? Just being a victim soul?

You are exaggerating.
Holy See:

In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question[9], cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called “gay culture”[10].

The operative words are “practise” and “deep seated” and “support”.

A man or woman who merely “has SSA” will have no problem passing muster as a consecrated religious, deacon, or priest.

 

[StudentMI]

Apparently you’re not familiar with what Bertone said about who is included under the document in question. It completely shuts out people with SSA.

 

[SerraSemper]

The operative words are “practise” and “deep seated” and “support”.

A man or woman who merely “has SSA” will have no problem passing muster as a consecrated religious, deacon, or priest.

That isn’t the tenor, though, of the OP’s question. It is clear they are talking about “deep seated”, etc. Otherwise, they would not be concerned about those with SSA not “having a place” or a “vocation”.

 

[StudentMI]

So what are some good vocations for those with SSA in your opinion?

 

[SerraSemper]

Universal call to holiness. I don’t think people fully appreciate how great our role is on this planet as baptized people called to the heights of prayer.

 

[StudentMI]

You seem to have some sense of entitlement or right to a vocation that simply doesn’t exist in the Kingdom.

Or I’m just calling things as I see them and you don’t like what I’m calling out. Personally I don’t really care about a vocation.

 

[Anesti33]

Anesti33:

You seem to have some sense of entitlement or right to a vocation that simply doesn’t exist in the Kingdom.

Or I’m just calling things as I see them and you don’t like what I’m calling out. Personally I don’t really care about a vocation.

That’s not true, it’s simply that your tone has been hysterical and bitter and you really seem to personalize this, as if the Church is out to get you and yours by pre-emptively barring people who are unfit for a vocation, in part due to massive sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church and caused us to question the very foundations of a vocation.