Just a clarification (one I used to need, so please don’t be offended): Catholics ARE Christians.

Also, people who identify as gay are certainly welcome in the Catholic Church. Never been otherwise. It’s just that those people have an extra challenge in living up to the sexual standards of the Church. \

I’m not sure when the idea of warning people of the sinfulness of a course of action became “hateful,” but it’s a false impression. Is it hateful to tell a smoker smoking is harmimg them?

Please go to http://couragerc.net/ and try to see a new perspective.

No one is judging cuz we are all sinners and we are able to love each other because of Christ’s love for us as we are. But we are not told to STAY sinners as we are. We are all called to perfection.

Discernment is a blessing and is good to cultivate through discussions and such.

For me, it is too difficult even to print any thought of Jesus discussing much of our human activities, like what is being discussed here, but I can understand the great need of someone who is experiencing heavy pain and suffering – even heavy self-indulgence arising out of the need to try to figure this problematic way of living – to ignore the Truth of His coming and try to find an “as is” acceptance.

He does accept, but He calls for more and we are either going up or down as I believe it has been said that there is no safe middle ground.

Yes, He accepted the sinners, weaklings, sick, rich, dead and dying, etc., and admonished at times too, but He asks for conversion.

There is always diversity in people. Paul’s many letters reflect how hard he had to work at times trying to keep the Christians on the right track…it is very easy to stray from the narrow Way.

I say we all give our problems to Jesus and take His light yolk as He desires. The challenge is to give, unconditionally and totally, our problems to Him and then it is for us to do the accepting of His light yolk whatever it may be. If one can do that, it really works out fine.

Hey, if we want to continue with this interesting subject, should someone start a website for it? I’m feeling like we are taking up some kind of Cyberspace room from the Daily Breakfast and ESPN. I don’t know that side of computers. (I helped develop animation software only by testing and suggesting…not the tech side of it.)

Seems like Michael C hit on what would Jesus think and do or not do as an example for the rest of us. We know that he did not make any statement on this issue at all. He concentrated on much more important issues and was not concerned about something that according to natural scientists occurs in nature approximately 5% to 6& of the time

We should understand that bibical scholars say that the culture of the time was very diverse with a wide variety of viewpoints, especially among the early Christians. Of course there was Paul and Leviticus voicing some of the strongest minority views of their times but it is important to note that they were only two out of many. We did not hear from the other apostles on this issue or from Jesus and there was no commandment addressing this. If God saw this as important he definitely would have put it in his commandments.

Taking extremely selective quotes out of context out of the bible and putting forth ones own interpretation without quoting what Jesus said about loving everyone and everyone having a place at the table is at best disengenous.

I think we should take our lesson from Jesus and refrain from the condemnation/castigation of others to take a step back because he did say something very important about ourselves if we do that judging of others.

God bless one & all,

Jonathan

It was much more important than the sayings on the tea towel I sent t o Fr Roderick. However, to you all, recession or no recession ” lang may yer lum reek” Jim Gordon. Dundee

Lang may yer lum reek: “Long may your chimney smoke” I think was your translation, Fr. Roderick. The chimney continues to smoke here in this very interesting and informative discussion of a very important topic. THANKS for giving a format for our coming together to peek into each other’s heart and mind and share what we find there and what we find in society and in the Word of God. Great differences start to disappear as we try to understand each other.

Not sure where your commentary is coming from, but in the Ignatius Study Bible, the commentary for this passage (Romans 1:27) states that “Homosexual activity is expressly condemned in the Old Testament (Lev 18:22; 20:13) as well as the New Testament (1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10). It is a grave disorder that victimizes both men and women and turns them away from each other and their natural complementarity. For Paul, sexual rebellion against nature (1:26) is the fallout of spiritual rebellion against God (CCC 2357-59).”

Keep in mind that the Catholic Church does NOT condemn homosexuals, but rather, the ACT. It calls the the tendency “disordered”, but that is not to say that homosexuals cannot be good Catholics, assuming they are not ACTING on their orientation.

If you read the commentary on this chapter you see (NAB translation)

“In this passage Paul uses themes and rhetoric common in Jewish-Hellenistic mission proclamation (cf Wisdom 13:1-14:31) to indict especially the non-Jewish world. The close association of idolatry and immorality is basic, but the generalization needs in all fairness to be balanced against the fact that non-Jewish Christian society on many levels displayed moral attitudes and performance whose quality would challenge much of contemporary Christian culture. Romans themselves expressed abhorrence over devotion accorded to animals in Egypt. Paul’s main point is that the wrath of God does not await the end of the world but goes into action at each present moment in humanity’s history when misdirected piety serves as a facade for self-interest.”

Check out the first chapter of Romans. It was St. Paul, not Jesus, who provided that text, but it still provides evidence of God’s displeasure with homosexual, as well as other impure, acts:

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.“

Seems quite concise, does it not?

I personally am VERY concerned that Catholic hospitals are being forced to provide contraception for their employees.

And masturbation (yes, along with internet porn) is a bigger problem that Christian groups are just starting to tackle in earnest.

A prime reason for the difference: My children are not (potentially) being indoctrinated (in an in-your-face, shove down your throat manner) by society that any of the above are morally acceptable. They don’t have “Fornicator Days” at Disney World…and you don’t see headlines like “Masturbators demand recognition in St. Patrick’s Day parade.”

I hope and pray that we can all learn a little and put Jesus’s personal examples of love, tolerance & social justice into our everyday lives.

I know that Leviticus wrote his hellfire & brimstone view but a very important thing to remember is that you will look in vain for anything that Jesus said in hateful condemnation of gays. Surely if this was an issue of importance, Jesus would have said something about it but he never did.

Jesus silence on this indicates that “what he did talk about”(i.e.- beatitudes/sermon on the mount & others) were what was really important in his and his father’s eyes.

That ain’t ever going to change, Chris.

If it feels OK doesn’t always make it OK. Mutual consent is not the santifying element. Being an adult doesn’t mean we can freely do whatsoever we please.

There are taboos – homosexuality is one of the taboos of society, as is incest, etc. How to fit homosexuality into the structure of society is extremely difficult because it really doesn’t fit there. The Word of God -Who created us – is no longer known or followed by large numbers of people so it is really difficult to get the True message across. So we, as I see it, are trying to live at least side by side until there is that breakthrough to the Truth of the situation. This will happen in God’s time and our prayers will help.

As it has been said, we are all precious lives with restless hearts until we rest in God.

The Love of Neighbor is: genuine caring for the precious life of the gay person, showing them our love and caring and helping them from where THEY are standing, not from where WE are standing. Otherwise it is just “my will against yours, my rule against yours.”

If you take the “Y” or “Why” out of the word “YOUR”, funny enough you get “OUR”.

EACH has to find “Why” the other acts as he/she does, understand that and then we can get down to discussing how to live together in society with Truth and Love and not Falsehood. We already know we CANNOT live just as each one of us wants to command. But do we want to live as the State commands? Remember that the State can take away any rights they give out.

But the Truth given in God’s commands is everlasting and no one can take it away. Let’s get together and find the Truth. None of us wants to live a lie. We all have to go to the Word of God for info. We need to learn state laws also. Let’s start exploring the road to truth, hand in hand.

I’m sure this sounds so Pollyanna to many because it is so alien to try to work together in this competitive, money-before-everything, my-needs-come-first world. I think we’re tired of that way of trying to live.

I would even extend this to non-sexual unions, such as between cohabiting siblings, so that nobody need lose rights under the law.

In The Netherlands same-sex civil unions have the same status as marriage, which means that all the rules for marriage also apply to these unions. Therefore, unions between siblings, even if they are non-sexual are explicitly forbidden.

In my eyes, civil authorities do everything they legally can to erase the differences between a civil union and a ‘marriage’. Which is a kick in the stomach to me, as a Catholic. I don’t want to sound too ‘neo’ but that’s the way how I feel. I personally think it’s an attempt to undermine religious values deliberately, especially here in The Netherlands, one of the most secularized countries in Europe.

To summarise what Michael is using very legal language to explain:

Women priests:

The reason the pope cannot allow the ordination of women is because an earlier pope determined that the limited scriptural references on the subject imply that women cannot be ordained, and that he believed the evidence supporting this interpretation to be so incontrovertible that he invoked papal infallibility to make that interpretation irrevocable.

On the other hand, the rule of priestly celibacy is simply an administrative matter which can be varied to suit the needs of the church.

Is that a correct understanding?

Homosexuality:

While homosexuality is a natural phenomenon, expressing it in homosexual acts violates natural law because that can never lead to the creation of new life.

Is that also correct?

The reasoning behind this view is rather esoteric. If we take the alternative all-encompassing commandment given by Jesus (”Love thy neighbour”), nothing should be considered wrong if it is done with love and does not harm anybody. That would rule out things like cannibalism and pederasty and some, but not all, homosexual acts.

Michael C made the important point that love and tolerance are important qualities demonstrated by Jesus. If any of my children conclude that they are homosexual, they already know that I will continue to love and support them.

Getting back to same-sex marriage, I agree that the Church should continue to recognise marriage only when between two persons open to the possibility of procreative union. Even civil marriage is not allowed in some jurisdictions if one or both parties is not at least open to the possibility; a marriage can be annulled in its absence.

I also believe unions between any two persons (irrespective of gender or sexuality) should be recognised by the civil authorities, to avoid discrimination. I would even extend this to non-sexual unions, such as between cohabiting siblings, so that nobody need lose rights under the law.

Jim’s comment for DB 551 is worth consideration; that marriage should be solely a religious institution.

If you read the Scriptures in it’s context you see marriage is always between man and woman… And that’s just the way it is.

But, as I wrote in the very beginning of this discussion, and I continue to believe, the Church has every right to say who can and cannot receive the sacrament of marriage. The legal union of same sex individuals is not under their jurisdiction.

Whether you agree that the Church treats homosexuals and lesbians badly or not, you cannot deny the pain of thousands of us who cannot practice our religion because by doing so we have to deny a large part of who we are. That is real pain that is not fixed with platitudes.

@ Jeff, you may think that your sexuality isn’t as important as your race, but in reality, no person should be asked to deny or give up either one. And it may not have been proved, yet, beyond doubt, that people are born gay, but it is very clear that people do not choose to be gay. Why would anyone? Because it’s such a carefree life. That is very naive.

Enough, I’m sorry for having upset everyone with a discussion that I know we probably shouldn’t be having here, but I never give up hope that some day attitudes will evolve.

Thank you for your patience.

Again, as I said–NOT the same as race. So, no–not born gay.

Why are people gay? Psychologists don’t really know.

The Church calls everybody to live a life in chastity and there is no such thing as affirmative action or so for gay people. The same rules apply to everyone. It’s not discrimination, because there are also heterosexuals who cannot marry in the Church and therefore cannot have sex.

So accusing the Church of discriminating is very unfair, you can say a lot about it, but not that she uses two standards for gay and straight people. The definition of a marriage, as it comes to us from the Scriptures, states explicitly that this is between man and woman. The Church cannot change the Scriptures…

It’s not that the Church does not want to change anything, is that she doesn’t have the authority to change this, AFAIK.

I am a convert. I was and am a sinner, an “outcast”. The Lord loves us all and welcomes all of us. However, this welcoming includes living in God’s truth. Jesus came preaching repentance (The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel. (Mk 1:15)); the turning from sin, and the turning to God in righteousness. Jesus didn’t tolerate sin. It cost him the very last drop of his blood in order to reconcile us to the Father. He called every “outcast” from their life of sin to the abundant life of holiness in his Sacred Heart precisely because he loves us and wants us united to the Trinity. He said that if we love him, we will keep his commandments (Jn 14:15)

Thank you for the reminder. I pray that we all will be one in Jesus’ Holy Name.

May God bless you.

A very knowledgable observant person of faith said something interesting to me:

“If someone(i.e.- a noble respected celibate unmarried man) in a position of high position makes a statement about an specific area of human sociology that they have absolutely no experience or direct knowledge in, are they really qualified to make an absolute declaration regarding that area”?

In this modern communication age I feel that if Jesus was here among use that some people in the church would heavily criticize him and try to persecute him for preaching tolerance & love for all mankind & consorting with “outcasts”.

I would again ask all of us to never forget that Jesus said “ALL” are welcome at the table and to always keep in mind that he really meant “All People”.

Peace, tolerance & may God bless us all,
Michael

Michael, you are awesome!! Thanks! And thanks to you all. Hey, life gets too heavy for me too at times. Going thru chemo and radiation but coming out OK so far! Thank God. Maybe this brush with the “mortality reminder” has thrown me into the depts of life! I think of Pat’s dilemma and want to help ease the pain although I know there is plenty of happiness there too as there is in every precious life. Got some big projects at hand so I’ll sign off for a while. Bye, y’all.

About women priests:

Sorry, I am not Father Roderick, but I hope this might help answer your question.

The Pope is a servant of the Truth. He does have the power through his office as Pope to declare teachings concerning faith and morals infallibly (without error). The ordination of women fits into this category. However, since the truth is the truth, the Pope can’t change previously defined doctrine because those doctrines have already been determined as the truth. For example, the Pope could never declare that Jesus is not God for that is against truth revealed by God. The exclusion of women from ordination belongs to this group of defined (thus infallible) doctrines of the Church. It has already been infallibly determined that the Church does not have the authority to ordain women to Holy Orders.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. (Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis #4, emphasis mine)

In response to this precise act of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, explicitly addressed to the entire Catholic Church, all members of the faithful are required to give their assent to the teaching stated therein. To this end, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of the Holy Father, has given an official Reply on the nature. of this assent: it is a matter of full definitive assent, that is to say, irrevocable, to a doctrine taught infallibly by the Church. In fact, as the Reply explains, the definitive nature of this assent derives from the truth of the doctrine itself, since, founded on the written Word of God, and constantly held and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary universal Magisterium (cf. , n. 25). Thus, the Reply specifies that this doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith of the Church…In this case, an act of the ordinary papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church. (Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Reflections on Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, emphasis mine)

As you can see the Church declares this infallibly, thus the Pope could never change it. Married men are different because the exclusion of married men from the priesthood is only a matter of Church discipline not a matter of doctrine. The Pope could allow married men to be priests just as he could change other administrative things as Pope. Of course, there,are married men currently serving in the Roman Rite that converted from the Anglican denomination. Also, the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, which are faithful to the Pope of Rome, allow married priests as a matter of course.

If you want further reading, I would suggest Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and Inter Insigniores.

I hope this helps…

The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. – (Empahsis mine) Humanae Vitae #11
This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act. Humanae Vitae #12

You rightly cite the unitive aspect of marriage. However, one can never separate the unitive and procreative qualities of marriage. A coin has a heads and a tails. It is impossible to separate heads from tails and still have a coin. Just so, one can never separate the unitive and procreative ends of the marital act and still have a morally licit act. The reason homosexual acts are proscribed by the Church:

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2357: …[Homosexuality's] psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (Emphasis mine)

Homosexual acts are sterile, thus cannot be the basis for a union that has procreation as its primary defining and necessary element. Homosexuality may be part of God’s creation as a privation of the good (the good here being a properly ordered sexuality, i.e., chaste heterosexuality) but one could never assert that God intended people to be homosexuals or engage in homosexual acts precisely because they are contrary to human nature. We are all called to chastity according to our state in life.
 
 
@Pat and Mary from SoCal
It is very important to understand that any genetic components to same sex attraction do not make homosexual acts morally licit. To say that since one is “born this way” that they can then morally engage in homosexual acts is wrong. For the same reason you would still condemn the adulterous man who claims he is genetically disposed to many mates, one condemns the one committing homosexual acts. It is by our free will that we act not our genes over and above any “predispositions” we might have. Ultimately, these difficult issues come down to the fact that God is God and we are not. Thus, we must obey the one who created us and loves us.

Anyway it’s been good to talk with you Pat. And thanks for the facts and information, you did your research! It does show there is something different going on inside. What is going on deep inside, like in the soul? That is what really interests me. Gays have always in my mind been ones with an almost insurmountable challenge. Makes me feel God is calling them for something extremely special because He appears to give hard times to those He trusts will come thru for Him at some point. Look at the Saints…many or probably most had hardships, pain, suffering that most of us don’t even know about. But Pat it was through their love and submission to God’s Great Will that made them Saints. Can’t we do that too in this day of so much un-Godliness? Yee Gads, our little life span is less than a blip in eternity.

Well, anyway I wish you the best. My last suggestion: (Sorry, I’m almost through Paul) Ask God for the Truth, no matter what it is, and ask for the strength to accept it. Keep reading His Word. Take the discrimination you spoke of on the chin, suffer it and offer it up for whomever God needs help with (like me!). Show your friends and everyone your aim to do what God wants of you. Everything is possible with Love…and we know God is Love. I’ll be praying for you.

Paul, don’t be put off if we come back to this at a later date…hahaha just a teaser like they do in sequels! (Pat, take the last word and really set him off..God Bless.)

For much of the 20th century, the dominant thinking connected homosexuality to upbringing. Freud, for instance, speculated that overprotective mothers and distant fathers helped make boys gay. It took the American Psychiatric Association until 1973 to remove “homosexuality” from its manual of mental disorders.

Then, in 1991, a neuroscientist in San Diego named Simon LeVay told the world he had found a key difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men he studied. LeVay showed that a tiny clump of neurons of the anterior hypothalamus – which is believed to control sexual behavior – was, on average, more than twice the size in heterosexual men as in homosexual men. LeVay’s findings did not speak directly to the nature-vs.-nurture debate – the clumps could, theoretically, have changed size because of homosexual behavior. But that seemed unlikely, and the study ended up jump-starting the effort to prove a biological basis for homosexuality.

Later that same year, Boston University psychiatrist Richard Pillard and Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey announced the results of their study of male twins. They found that, in identical twins, if one twin was gay, the other had about a 50 percent chance of also being gay. For fraternal twins, the rate was about 20 percent. Because identical twins share their entire genetic makeup while fraternal twins share about half, genes were believed to explain the difference. Most reputable studies find the rate of homosexuality in the general population to be 2 to 4 percent, rather than the popular “1 in 10″ estimate.

In 1993 came the biggest news: Dean Hamer’s discovery of the “gay gene.” In fact, Hamer, a Harvard-trained researcher at the National Cancer Institute, hadn’t quite put it that boldly or imprecisely. He found that gay brothers shared a specific region of the X chromosome, called Xq28, at a higher rate than gay men shared with their straight brothers. Hamer and others suggested this finding would eventually transform our understanding of sexual orientation.