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

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StudentMI said:
To actually reach out to people with SSA. Courage is like a dark secret that has to be kept completely private and must never be spoken of. When it is spoken of there is an underlying notion that those in it are ‘sick’.

Speaking of, drop the 12 step nonsense. Homosexuality is not an addiction. If you’re a sex addict go to Sexaholics Anonymous.

Create a real community. Unfortunately it seems like the community aspect is suspect because you don’t want gay people becoming ‘too close.’
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I’m curious, what do you think about the need for a community for SSA attracted but also that not negating SSA people from being part of the larger community? How is that balanced achieved? It’s tricky because being ghettoized is real. This can happen on two levels, sometimes those within a group become isolationist and the larger group can think the smaller is fine because they “have their own thing,” which is also a convenient way to be dismissive. As a Black woman, I notice this phenomenon. The need for solidarity can create an insular group dynamic which is understandable but then it creates a wall to the majority, yet the group was needed because the majority has created a wall. It’s a mess.
 
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That’s a good analysis. To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve given up on Catholic groups for the most part. I have my friends and hobbies.
 
StudentMI said:
That’s a good analysis. To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve given up on Catholic groups for the most part. I have my friends and hobbies.
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I love my parish because there isn’t any need for groups based on identity (that I am aware of). Everyone is well integrated into all the ministries. If a group wanted to start based on a particular identity, it would be welcomed, but SSA and POC are already included and welcomed.
 
They can be librarians, teachers, plumbers, electricians, writers, drivers, travel agents, pilots, and other things too numerous to mention.
 
I guess I don’t see the problem. No one is required to marry. No one is required to enter the priesthood. Single people can do what they like. If they want to marry, they can marry someone of the opposite sex. If they don’t want to marry, they don’t have to.

People were marrying for centuries before the concept of sexual orientation ever arose. No one is attracted to every person of the opposite sex or to every person of the same sex. We can all have a social life without engaging in sex or marrying.
 
JimG said:
I guess I don’t see the problem. No one is required to marry. No one is required to enter the priesthood. Single people can do what they like. If they want to marry, they can marry someone of the opposite sex. If they don’t want to marry, they don’t have to.
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The idea of vocation had only been presented to me as a choice to marry or become religious. The concept of vocation is still new to me as a convert. Even before converting, I always was aware of those two options and thought that’s what Catholics chose between (probably as referenced in movies and TV). I was just considering my own situation and Catholics in my sphere assuming I will marry. I did have one person say I’d make a good sister but I have no inclination to become one nor do I sense a calling. Being single seemed outside of the system so to speak. It just got me thinking about SSA Catholics and how complex that must be in what I understood to be a binary system.

This thread has taught me a lot about vocation. In RCIA it was taught to me as either married or religious. So I assumed everyone must discern one or the other. Also, in Catholic culture and media, there seems to be an emphasis on discerning one or the other. Nobody says you can marry, become religious, or remain single. I guess I classified being a consecrated virgin as religious, so I suppose that’s another thing in the mix (although, I’m not a virgin nor interested).
 
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Yes, I have heard of some who are consecrated virgins as a life commitment, although it seems to me one would not want to make that commitment unless absolutely sure of it.

For myself I never gave any thought to marriage and just assumed I would remain single. But then I got married. Now I’m a widower, and don’t give any thought to marriage. Given my age, it’s a time for thinking about the next life. I just have never seen the need to obsess over sex or the lack thereof.
 
StudentMI said:
To actually reach out to people with SSA. Courage is like a dark secret that has to be kept completely private and must never be spoken of. When it is spoken of there is an underlying notion that those in it are ‘sick’.

Speaking of, drop the 12 step nonsense. Homosexuality is not an addiction. If you’re a sex addict go to Sexaholics Anonymous.

Create a real community. Unfortunately it seems like the community aspect is suspect because you don’t want gay people becoming ‘too close.’
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Out of curiosity, have you checked out one of the newer groups like ‘Eden Invitation’?

www.edeninvitation.com

COMMUNITY | Eden Invitation

Experiencing same sex attraction? Gay and Catholic? We're discipleship in community.
www.edeninvitation.com www.edeninvitation.com

Those people seem joyful and open whenever I see videos of their founders. I’m not sure all the ins and outs of what they do, but they DEFINITELY don’t strike me as “deep dark secret” people. And they’re explicit about wanting to create community although I’m not sure exactly what that looks like.
 
What is it you would like to see the Church doing here, though? I mean, ok, SSA men are generally speaking excluded from the priesthood, but not religious life, although there are exceptions in both cases. Also, despite some disagreements here, it seems that SSA women can enter religious life and consecrated virginity. Thus no vocation is off limits to them. And some same-sex attracted people marry, although of course that’s an individual choice and something to be very open about with a potential spouse.
Other than to make it clear that they are welcome and loved and to clarify clearly questions like the ones in this thread, I’m not sure what the Church can do. I feel like it’s down to individual people to live the best Christian life they can.
People often speak about the Church, in it’s hierarchical sense “doing something”, but the Church is also all of it’s members.
 
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StudentMI said:
Thats the answer gay people most often receive, my friend. “Go to Courage.”
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Well, that depends on the question surely. It’s an appropriate answer to certain questions isn’t it? What questions do you have in mind for which it’s the oft heard inappropriate answer?
 
catholiclala said:
But would they accept a gay brother or sister? I just searched briefly and got no definitive answer.
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Hi, I’m a Secular Franciscan (freshly professed yesterday), it is for anyone who is Catholic (there are also Anglican and Lutheran fraternity’s out there too).

They do not care if you are Gay or Straight and will never ask but as Christians we are called to live a holy life, which means we try and abstain from sin (we all fail from time to time but we keep trying).

Part of being a Secular Franciscan is to get daily mass (if possible) and regular confession. If you are a committed Christian I think it’s impossible to live a life that is incompatible with those requirements, you will either give up one or the other.
 
StudentMI said:
To actually reach out to people with SSA. Courage is like a dark secret that has to be kept completely private and must never be spoken of. When it is spoken of there is an underlying notion that those in it are ‘sick’.
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Your mileage may vary, but our parish bulletin board has notices up for meetings of Courage and I never got the impression that anyone treats it like a leper colony or is embarrassed by its existence. It’s just one more group. Then again, I live in an urban area, so almost no one is freaked out or shocked to encounter gay people.
 
sealabeag said:
What is it you would like to see the Church doing here, though? I mean, ok, SSA men are generally speaking excluded from the priesthood, but not religious life, although there are exceptions in both cases. Also, despite some disagreements here, it seems that SSA women can enter religious life and consecrated virginity. Thus no vocation is off limits to them. And some same-sex attracted people marry, although of course that’s an individual choice and something to be very open about with a potential spouse.
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This statement, of course, goes against what the Church holds about vocations. Here’s a quote for you:

In 2018, in a series of conversations with the Spanish missionary Fernando Prado which were published under the title The Strength of a Vocation: Consecrated Life Today , the pontiff said there was “no room” for homosexuality in the Catholic Church. “For this reason, the Church urges that persons with this rooted tendency not be accepted into (priestly) ministry or consecrated life,” he said.

Again, just because there is no canon or ex cathedra statement yet, does not make this untrue. In earlier times, people understood logical consequences of truths and did not need explicit pronouncements on every permutation.
 
Nothing I said contradicts the Church’s position on this or anything you quoted? I said that same-sex attracted men are generally excluded from the priesthood, although exceptions to the rule apply - for instance the negative example of men being allowed to enter the priesthood in spite of deeply rooted tendencies or even being active homosexuals, and the positive example (if one wants to call it that) of a man who has always been chaste in spite of such attractions and they are not a particular struggle for him. As I said, there are exceptions, but the rule is that men with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to the priesthood, and I agree with that! So I’m not sure what I said that you think was wrong.
 
SerraSemper said:
Again, just because there is no canon or ex cathedra statement yet, does not make this untrue. In earlier times, people understood logical consequences of truths and did not need explicit pronouncements on every permutation.
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Could you identify and share with us what specific good you are seeking by your words to serve your neighbors with, here, that will help draw them closer to Jesus?

And are you actually putting yourself in the shoes of a person born with SSA, who nonetheless chooses God instead of their own temptations, but then gets coldly and persistently told by a stranger on the Internet that because of an unchosen temptation to one particular sin, they should be excluded from even privately, while living alone as a celibate virgin, consecrating that virginity to Christ?

It seems to me that in your private attempt to make meaning for yourself in living out your own vocation, you have overlaid extra criteria that are not in fact necessary for a simple consecration of virginity. You seem to think these criteria follow logically, and you value logic and truth (and valuing logic and truth is generally good) – but if what seems true to you leads you away from charity, that should be a hint that maybe what you believe isn’t true. Because in God, truth and mercy coincide.

(Cont’d)
 
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(Cont’d)

Again, I think even logic is against you here. A SSA person who for the sake of Christ chooses to abstain from sinful sexual behaviour, while also not wishing to explore marriage to a person of the opposite sex, will by default persist in a commitment to chaste virginity for the sake of Christ. Their virginity seems naturally consecrated, to me; it is inherent in their choice of chaste celibacy for Christ. If you try to tell them their virginity isn’t consecrated, you’re trying to tell a square it isn’t a square, or an oak it isn’t an oak. That is illogical, and oppositional to truth. It is also a failure of justice, to fail to recognize what is already true.

Consecration isn’t a sacrament. It doesn’t actually require a bishop, even if there’s a formal club set up around it that currently involves a bishop. (Similar to how Catholics don’t actually have to join an existing monastery to live in community; monks and nuns are just laypeople, as far as sacramental reality goes. And other laypeople can just choose to live together under their own rule; the only difference is specific rights/responsibilities recognized from the Church if one applies for one’s community to be recognized by Rome and after the given period of time/investigation to make sure you rep Catholicism well by Rome’s standards, they grant it.)

The interfering factor seems to be that you’ve told yourself (maybe even other consecrated virgin friends have told you) some privately invented theology of an internal state of ‘proper affectivity’ required for a consecrated virgin to ‘count’ as a consecrated virgin. But while this might make some sense for a priest (who specifically receives a sacrament of fatherhood) or a married couple (who specifically receive a sacrament of spousal union which is bodily expressed through the sexual act that is most fully lived out when it includes internal feelings conducive to the sexual act)… the only reason of which I’m aware that communities of sacrament-not-involved consecrated lay celibates (eg monks and nuns) are typically cautious about granting entrance to those with SSA, is concern about whether sharing living quarters with many persons of the sex they’re attracted to might put someone at increased temptation, which is the opposite of what a monastery’s sex segregation is supposed to be for. But this factor is obviously irrelevant to consecrated celibate singles living in the world.
 
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Rau said:
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StudentMI:
Thats the answer gay people most often receive, my friend. “Go to Courage.”
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Well, that depends on the question surely. It’s an appropriate answer to certain questions isn’t it? What questions do you have in mind for which it’s the oft heard inappropriate answer?
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Except that StudentMI appears to think that Courage itself is flawed with its 12 step approach which treats homosexuality like an addiction. If the program is flawed, then would “Go to Courage” ever be an appropriate answer?
 
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MNathaniel said:
will by default persist in a commitment to chaste virginity for the sake of Christ. Their virginity seems naturally consecrated, to me; it is inherent in their choice of chaste celibacy for Christ.
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If I understand @SerraSemper, no, not really.

All are called to chastity. What that looks like depends on our state in life. One can make a private vow of chastity and consecrate one’s virginity to Christ. However, the vocation of Consecrated Virginity goes beyond merely making a vow of celibacy: it is celibacy in a marital framework of being married to Christ. One cannot separate this marital aspect from Consecrated Virginity. But one can do a vow of celibacy outside of that vocation and it still be a vocation.
MNathaniel said:
Consecration isn’t a sacrament.
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While it may not have, it came very, very close.
MNathaniel said:
It doesn’t actually require a bishop
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Why, because it’s not a Sacrament? I’m a lay Dominican. My promise isn’t a Sacrament. Does that mean people can become lay Dominicans by reciting the text for the promise in private, or in front of a Benedictine priest? No.

The Congregation of Divine Worship says a bishop is to do it. It may not be a Sacrament, but it is certainly regulated:

https://consecratedvirgins.org/usacv/sites/default/files/documents/VocRes-Decree.pdf

I think you are confusing consecrated virginity with a general vow of celibacy.
 
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