Yes, the Catholic Church should apologize to gays. But not for the reason you think

[oneofmany]

lifesitenews.com/opinion/should-the-catholic-church-apologize-to-gays

Excellent article. After you read it go to his web site. He had a terrible life living in the gay lifestyle before he came back to the Church .

 

[Lea101]

I don’t really understand. The Church teaches that gay people should lead celibate lives, and apologize for attacking gay people (attacking as in actually discriminating against gay people, not disagreeing with their beliefs).

And then this article says that Church should teach that it’s a choice to be gay and that it should tell gay people to stop being gay?

I am on drowsy medication, forgive me if I misinterpreted.

 

[Bspencer]

i, too, had a hard time following the article- which probably gives some insight into the struggles of the author.

i have attached an article in which Pope Francis comments on apologies to the LGBTQ community

americamagazine.org/content/all-things/keeping-pope-francis-comments-lgbt-community-context

 

[Dorothy]

I don’t really understand. The Church teaches that gay people should lead celibate lives, and apologize for attacking gay people (attacking as in actually discriminating against gay people, not disagreeing with their beliefs).

And then this article says that Church should teach that it’s a choice to be gay and that it should tell gay people to stop being gay?

I am on drowsy medication, forgive me if I misinterpreted.

It is a choice to act on their same sex attractions.

We can’t tell them to “stop being gay!”…but we can lovingly lead them to Jesus Christ, reminding them (and ourselves) that we depend on Him for everything, and that through prayer and the sacraments we can have His Peace that surpasses all understanding.

“Courage” is a Catholic organization in line with Church teachings that is a great help to homosexuals with encouragement and guidance.

This is the site:

couragerc.org

 

[Lea101]

It is a choice to act on their same sex attractions.

We can’t tell them to “stop being gay!”…but we can lovingly lead them to Jesus Christ, reminding them (and ourselves) that we depend on Him for everything, and that through prayer and the sacraments we can have His Peace that surpasses all understanding.

“Courage” is a Catholic organization in line with Church teachings that is a great help to homosexuals with encouragement and guidance.

This is the site:

couragerc.org

Yes, that’s what I have always thought (you can’t stop being sexually/romantically attracted to people of the same sex but you can choose not to act on it). The article used this phrase “leave the gay” which was extremely confusing, if he meant what we think, he would just say to be “chaste” or something??

 

[Dorothy]

Yes, that’s what I have always thought (you can’t stop being sexually/romantically attracted to people of the same sex but you can choose not to act on it). The article used this phrase “leave the gay” which was extremely confusing, if he meant what we think, he would just say to be “chaste” or something??

I think using the word “chaste” is the clearer way to explain.

 

[Strydersroom]

Question: why would you choose not to express love for your spouse? And when do you consider it sin? My husband and I hold hands in public and kiss each other hello and goodbye just like any other couple. SIN! But perhaps my biggest question is why is it so impossible to conceive for just one moment that I actually love my husband and express that exactly the same as any other married couple? I understand that many in the Catholic church cannot agree on whether Adam and eve were literally here or Noah built a literal arc or that the earth is only thousands of years old. News flash, those are all stories not literally true. Yet it seems the older Catholics here are the quickest to point out my only option in life is to be single, chaste, celibate. Can no one here see how torturous and inhumane that is to tell someone?

As hard as it may be to hear, your church is changing from the inside, and not by a horrible big bad boogie man called a gay agenda, but rather by the friends and families of gay people who are waking up and realizing there’s not a damn thing wrong with being gay or “acting” on that which people here immediately think about genitals for some reason.

And I’m so happy to know that children, mine included are realizing and being taught the same thing.

I hope I can continue to be a part of this forum and express my views. It’s just disheartening to see the countless threads bashing and bullying gay people.

A former Catholic kind hearted gay person who I think you’d really like if you got to know me, Marc

 

[JimG]

This is a person who was deep into a homosexual lifestyle and wanted to get out of it. Yet when he approached his parish priests he was told to stay where he was, as a gay man, just practice safe sex. He concludes this way:

“Therefore – Dear Pope Francis: apologize for bad catechesis, for bad pastoral programs, for bad priests, and for the apathetic Bishops who do nothing to correct them. As for the long dead who passed from this life, far too young, because no one ever bothered to tell them the Truth – no amount of apologizing will ever bring them back.”

No one every bothered to tell him—and others—the truth. That’s what he thinks needs an apology.

“One mad mom,” in her own blog, expresses similar sentiments, although she was not so personally affected as this man who looked for guidance and found none.

 

[Havard]

Question: why would you choose not to express love for your spouse? And when do you consider it sin? My husband and I hold hands in public and kiss each other hello and goodbye just like any other couple. SIN! But perhaps my biggest question is why is it so impossible to conceive for just one moment that I actually love my husband and express that exactly the same as any other married couple? I understand that many in the Catholic church cannot agree on whether Adam and eve were literally here or Noah built a literal arc or that the earth is only thousands of years old. News flash, those are all stories not literally true. Yet it seems the older Catholics here are the quickest to point out my only option in life is to be single, chaste, celibate. Can no one here see how torturous and inhumane that is to tell someone?

As hard as it may be to hear, your church is changing from the inside, and not by a horrible big bad boogie man called a gay agenda, but rather by the friends and families of gay people who are waking up and realizing there’s not a damn thing wrong with being gay or “acting” on that which people here immediately think about genitals for some reason.

And I’m so happy to know that children, mine included are realizing and being taught the same thing.

I hope I can continue to be a part of this forum and express my views. It’s just disheartening to see the countless threads bashing and bullying gay people.

A former Catholic kind hearted gay person who I think you’d really like if you got to know me, Marc

I would love to grab a beer or a meal with you and your family, Marc. If you live anywhere near SF or plan on a visit, send me a private message.

I disagree with a lot of your points, here’s my quick and dirty response:

-We agree hatred and bullying is wrong
-We disagree that about the idea of an agenda. Gay people are not behind this, though, this issue is being used by professional politicians to divide and score political points)
-We disagree that that celibacy is torture (btw, I’m a celibate man)
-There is a common ground, please stick around, and let’s find it.

May God bless you richly.

 

[GEddie]

I found no confusion in the article (although the recurring advertising material interspersed with it made it hard to follow).

I also don’t think that gay bashing or bullying is present in it, or that the Holy Church needs to apologize in any way. Sin is sin, and it destroys the body. As this fellow saw with his dying friends over the years.

Our LORD never bashed or bullied, but He also was never afraid to say “go and sin no more.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… No one every bothered to tell him—and others—the truth. That’s what he thinks needs an apology.

“One mad mom,” in her own blog, expresses similar sentiments, although she was not so personally affected as this man who looked for guidance and found none.

In my later twenties when I attended a diocesan retreat for the youngish single, the diocesan youth worker tried to explain to the group that I “was gay” because I wasn’t married (I was the oldest there). I wasn’t having any of it and during the coffee break some teenagers came up to me and complemented me on that. (Some of the young still knew then.)

The youth service only got shut down when the boss of it got caught embezzling the funds. (I didn’t understand diocesan youth services or dioceses then.)

I am going to describe the way it looks. It is instructive to compare this with the textbooks, rather than complain that it is not what is in the textbooks. (Some of them.)

Many churchy people in authority to quite a large extent have a sex addiction by proxy which they cloak with other people’s “good marriages”. As a single bloke I find hardly any married Catholic men are any use to me because the only human being they ever bothered to befriend was their wife - not other blokes and especially not ones without “live-in social secretaries”.

Because Catholics won’t talk in appropriate ways in twos, threes and fours (because they are not friends and don’t have as goal to mentor each other), they have to be marshalled into groups to have even good sex explained to them and then the Church that is organising this mistakes the general public for an extension of that.

For some reason the operative word is not so much “gay” as “being/am/are”. Some churchy people having created the image of an acceptable apparently sex-addicted caste, the world wants in on the caste-creating act.

When giving its true teachings to its flock the Church is supposed to be preaching to the converted and as an aid to conversion it is supposed to have a catechumenate. Conversion is supposed to get established by regeneration and sustained by the indwelling Jesus and manifested in fruits (works) of the many Holy Spirit powered gifts.

Effective regeneration at a practical level isn’t an automatic result of the baptism ceremony. The priests in this man’s life story didn’t understand any of that.

Even some official Church publications have in fact called for a post-baptismal catechumenate. (This ought not be seen as a matter of wheeling in a ready-made solution from some movement, which has sometimes been found to not be thorough.)

 

[RPRPsych]

Good article. But we must also remember that for every successful attempt to break free from the gay lifestyle (or any sin, for that matter!) there are bound to be unsuccessful attempts. (Take addictions: medical research shows that even for those who quit alcohol successfully, it takes an average of 4 attempts to get there.) It’s also lamentable that this man was given horrendous advice by heterodox priests, and it’s praiseworthy that he made it out despite such advice.

However, I’m not too big on the whole “culture of corporate apology” thing (we have enough local politicians whining for an apology from the British ), and I don’t think Pope Francis is responsible for the actions of a few stray priests which happened well before his pontificate.

 

[Rau]

…perhaps my biggest question is why is it so impossible to conceive for just one moment that I actually love my husband and express that exactly the same as any other married couple?

I have no reason to doubt your assertion of love, but your other claim is objectively untrue. How is an exchange of semen between men “the same as” marital intercourse?

 

[Lea101]

Question: why would you choose not to express love for your spouse? And when do you consider it sin? My husband and I hold hands in public and kiss each other hello and goodbye just like any other couple. SIN! But perhaps my biggest question is why is it so impossible to conceive for just one moment that I actually love my husband and express that exactly the same as any other married couple? I understand that many in the Catholic church cannot agree on whether Adam and eve were literally here or Noah built a literal arc or that the earth is only thousands of years old. News flash, those are all stories not literally true. Yet it seems the older Catholics here are the quickest to point out my only option in life is to be single, chaste, celibate. Can no one here see how torturous and inhumane that is to tell someone?

As hard as it may be to hear, your church is changing from the inside, and not by a horrible big bad boogie man called a gay agenda, but rather by the friends and families of gay people who are waking up and realizing there’s not a damn thing wrong with being gay or “acting” on that which people here immediately think about genitals for some reason.

And I’m so happy to know that children, mine included are realizing and being taught the same thing.

I hope I can continue to be a part of this forum and express my views. It’s just disheartening to see the countless threads bashing and bullying gay people.

A former Catholic kind hearted gay person who I think you’d really like if you got to know me, Marc

I would agree wth you that there are gay people who genuinely love their partners and want to spend the rest of their lives with them.

However, I don’t think celibacy is torture, I know gay people who are doing it and are perfectly fine. You don’t need sex to survive

I do get that it’s incredibly difficult though, to be single when your heart is yearning for a relationship and it seems so so unfair because it’s not like you choose to be gay.

It’s obviously hard to understand if you are agnostic, you would need to study about theology of the body etc to be able to “get” marriage and sex in the church.

To sum up, basically gay people who are celibate made the choice for God, if you are against that and religion, obviously the Church cannot force you to be a certain way. So honestly, while I’m upset that there are people that treated you unkindly, you can’t whine about the Church’s stance on marriage. You’re not even Catholic! Most people are on your side and are against religion and at the end of the day, you do you, and when we die, God will judge us fairly

 

[oneofmany]

barnesandnoble.com/w/swallowed-by-satan-joseph-c-sciambra/1114176533?ean=2940016016917

Here is his book, “Swallowed by satan”. He got into the gay lifestyle as a young boy then into gay sex porn. He says he wanted a priest to tell him the truth about being gay, that is the apology he is saying the Church needs to make.

Maybe if he was young and had someone to talk to about his feelings he would not have gone the way he did.

He now ministers to gay men I believe in San Francisco telling them there is a better way.

 

[oneofmany]

youtube.com/watch?v=5BpuQkmv8BU

Here he is on youtube.

More on youtube–

youtube.com/watch?v=B6dqbz37-EY

 

[Anglewannabe]

He says he wanted a priest to tell him the truth about being gay, that is the apology he is saying the Church needs to make.

Well, I am a heterosexual woman and perhaps the church should apologies to me too because I am asking in all honesty. “exactly what does he mean when he says the truth about being gay”

His article is implying there is exactly one well know truth about being gay that all priest know (perhaps learnt in the seminary ) that no one ever told him. No one ever told it to me either

 

[Anglewannabe]

This is a person who was deep into a homosexual lifestyle and wanted to get out of it. Yet when he approached his parish priests he was told to stay where he was, as a gay man, just practice safe sex. .

If that is the case, my heart bleeds for him but… I would not say he is the only person who received bad advice from a priest. I have struggles as well, and I can honestly say I had to search high and low before I found a nun who could help me. Sadly, homosexuality is NOT the only sin priest have trouble giving practical too

 

[Anglewannabe]

Question: why would you choose not to express love for your spouse? And when do you consider it sin?

Absolutely nothing wrong with loving your spouse. However I firmly believe a spouse has to be of the opposite sex

But perhaps my biggest question is why is it so impossible to conceive for just one moment that I actually love my husband and express that exactly the same as any other married couple?

Because it is not a healthy love. It is disordered

Yet it seems the older Catholics here are the quickest to point out my only option in life is to be single, chaste, celibate. Can no one here see how torturous and inhumane that is to tell someone?

I am single, chaste and celibate and do NOT feel tortured in the least

As hard as it may be to hear, your church is changing from the inside, and not by a horrible big bad boogie man called a gay agenda, but rather by the friends and families of gay people who are waking up and realizing there's not a damn thing wrong with being gay or "acting" on that which people here immediately think about genitals for some reason.

News flash for you. Our church has always had struggles and divides on the inside. Jesus even told us something to the effect that ‘Father’s will be separated from children’. It just so happens that in our current culture, one of the divides is over homosexuality.

Another news flash for you. God leads our church. Some parishes will disappear (IMO probably the ones that accept homosexuality) and other parishes will appear (probably the ones that accept God’s teachings

And I’m so happy to know that children, mine included are realizing and being taught the same thing.

And I am saddened by it

I hope I can continue to be a part of this forum and express my views. It’s just disheartening to see the countless threads bashing and bullying gay people…

Well…IMO yes you can stay, but I will be standing up for God’s teachings. Just curious though, why would you want to stay if you feel so mistreated?

A former Catholic kind hearted gay person who I think you’d really like if you got to know me, Marc

And the more I like you, the more I will try to lead you away from sin.

You may find my post offensive. Admittedly, I do not have the best Dale Carnegie skills, however, I did make all these points in the hopes of helping you see there is a better way.

 

[oneofmany]

Well, I am a heterosexual woman and perhaps the church should apologies to me too because I am asking in all honesty. “exactly what does he mean when he says the truth about being gay”

His article is implying there is exactly one well know truth about being gay that all priest know (perhaps learnt in the seminary ) that no one ever told him. No one ever told it to me either

The Church says gay sex is disordered but the priests he went to for guidance told him he had no other choice so he needed to deal with it. He found other priests who saw him as more than a gay man, they saw him as a man.