“Gay Catholic” writer Eve Tushnet has done it again—in an October 24th commentary in the Washington Post, Tushnet repeats her years-long promotion of “same-sex love,” asking in the piece’s title “What, exactly, does Pope Francis believe about same-sex love?” and asserting later that “Catholic teaching forbids same-sex marriage but not same-sex love.”
“Same-sex love” is a term that doesn’t seem to raise many secular or cultural eyebrows, of course, but it should be of great concern for Catholics. Behind it is a Pandora’s box of confusion, error, and unreality. Catholics need to address this disarmingly ambiguous concept head-on and make clear that Catholic teaching in no way makes room for such a deceptive Trojan-horse term that ultimately undermines Church teaching on love and sexuality.
Tushnet’s writing is a sort of spear tip for popularizing this false category of love; as recently as September 4, she published a Catholic Herald commentary espousing the same thing, telling readers it’s what “gay Christians” long for and for which Scripture offers “models.” But Tushnet is not the first to assert that there is such a thing as “same-sex love.” She is but one among several Catholic voices to do so previously, all having in the past contributed to the now-dormant “Spiritual Friendship” blog site.
What do Tushnet and the other erstwhile “Spiritual Friendship” writers hope to convey with this term? What kind of love is this—philia, eros, agape? Something novel? That’s the core problem with “same-sex love”—it’s an elastic and unstable thing, masking a fundamental error in thinking in which it is believed “gay” identity and at least some of the attractions and longings associated with homosexuality can be normalized and even encouraged.
That fundamental error is best illuminated via the writing of “Spiritual Friendship” Catholic co-founder Ron Belgau, who used the term “same-sex love” in a 2018 article in Public Discourse, and defined homosexuality to be both a “perversion of marriage” and a “perversion of friendship.” Belgau said that the “normative form of same-sex love between those who are not blood relations is friendship.”
But here is the problem—homosexuality is not defined by the Church as a perversion of either marriage or friendship, or of any form of love, but is defined as a perversion of one of the “natural inclinations” given by God to human nature and which subsists in all human persons—the one and only sexual inclination.
The core error here is that the sexual inclination is decidedly not a form or expression of love itself. Love necessitates the use of human will, and the sexual inclination exists independently from the will itself. It’s just part of human nature, and is “antecedent” to all love. Indeed, this fact was explicitly recognized by Karol Wojtyla in his 1960 work “Love and Responsibility,” in which he devotes an entire initial chapter on the sexual inclination before he ever begins to discuss human love itself.
Belgau, Tushnet, and other “Spiritual Friendship” writers don’t seem to understand this basic truth. Instead, they back-engineer a view of homosexuality from what they perceive as a truth about “other-sex love”—the complementary love between man and woman, eros.
In a 2016 “Spiritual Friendship” blog post, Belgau directly contrasts “same-sex lust” with “same-sex love (friendship).” The reasoning seems to be that, because “other-sex love” (eros) exists, as well as both other-sex lust and same-sex lust, then there must be a category of “same-sex love” as well. But this is a false inference and merely invents a non-existent love, a “same-sex eros,” that has no precedent in our categorizations of love.
The mistake here is that the “same-sex lust” that is homosexuality is not a perversion of love (either eros or friendship), but a perversion of the sexual inclination (something Wojtyla acknowledges as “perversion” in “Love and Responsibility”). This is exactly the case with “other-sex lust” as well. Eros simply has no moral “other-sex” counterpart—it’s a unique form of love that is necessarily and exclusively complementary.
But wait, you may say—didn’t Belgau parenthetically explain that “same-sex love” is a form of “philia,” not eros?
Yes, but here again we encounter the “squishy” quality of the “Spiritual Friendship” view of same-sex love espoused by Tushnet and her like-minded fellow writers—they continually use the term in reference to their various levels of attraction to the same sex (which they would note as eros) while simultaneously continuing, in self-contradictory fashion, to frame this attraction in the context of philia, friendship. Same-sex love in their view denotes an attraction to the same sex that somehow can be “sanctified” as a form of friendship despite the fact that it is inherently derived from and associated with the disordered homosexual inclination.
Belgau says as much in a 2018 Twitter exchange, in which he’s asked whether these “sanctifiable” same-sex attractions are a kind of “chaste eros” or are forms of friendship-love, philia. Belgau says: “I would say a kind of philia. But I don’t think that love divides as neatly into categories as the question suggests.”
Another former “Spiritual Friendship” writer, Melinda Selmys, offered an entire post on this titled “The Fluidity of Eros and Philia,” in which Selmys says “the boundaries that we set up between philia and eros are artificial.” This view is further amplified by other past “Spiritual Friendship” writers like Aaron Taylor, who affirms the category of “same-sex eros,” and Chris Damian, who gave a presentation at the ill-named 2014 “Gay in Christ” conference at Notre Dame on how “same-sex eros” can exist without being “disordered.”
Tushnet and the other “Spiritual Friendship” writers have long embraced this view, in which homosexual sex acts are forbidden, but by which they insist on carving out a place for every other experience of same-sex attraction that they consider to be chaste expressions of their “longing for same-sex love.”
But the smoking gun here is their insistence that the “love” they long for is necessarily same-sex, by their own definition. It’s not “mere” friendship they are interested in, which could be either same-sex or other-sex. Instead, their longing is clearly and inextricably rooted in the experience of the objectively disordered homosexual inclination. The entire “Spiritual Friendship” project has been dedicated to the realization of this unique “giftedness” that same-sex attraction offers them to experience deep and intimate “same-sex love,” something that Tushnet most recently asserts is a project the Church itself should support and encourage for Catholics who “stay gay.” But how can the Church endorse a novel category of “love” that is inescapably rooted in the disorder of same-sex attraction? It cannot.
Though “same-sex love” proves to be a false grail, Tushnet and others of like mind insist that the Church should embrace it because Scripture gives its blessing and approval to it, in the examples of the “same-sex love” of David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi. Tushnet says in her most recent commentary that such examples are “forms of love and kinship that don’t require marriage or sex” and adds that “many people wanted the pope to talk about gay people’s own longing to form a family because they hunger for some acknowledgment that being gay is about more than sexual desire.”
Tushnet has long seemed oblivious to the fact that the Catholic Church teaches against her view, precisely because Church teaching and natural law both make clear that the reality of kinship and family bonds is actually established via—and only through—marriage and procreative sexual relations. The “longing for home, care, devotion, commitment; for love that doesn’t shrink from sacrifice” that Tushnet says is experienced by people with same-sex attraction is rooted in the same human nature in which is rooted the God-given pathway for attaining those good things—through the procreative conjugal union of a man and a woman. “Family” simply doesn’t exist in any other way—families come to be through marriage and sex, not apart from them.
But Tushnet demurs on this, seeing in the above-mentioned Old Testament examples evidence of attractions to the same sex that clearly must be considered holy attractions. Tushnet thinks a distinction must be made between these holy attractions and attractions that are inordinate longings for physical sexual intimacy. She doesn’t seem to understand the simple truth that the bonds of love in these Old Testament examples exist independently from the biological fact of the friends being the same sex, not because the friends find members of the same sex to be sexually attractive to them in any manner whatever.
Instead, Tushnet claims inordinate attractions to persons of the same sex can be made morally acceptable not by changing the “object” of the homosexual inclination from same-sex to other-sex, but instead by changing the “expression” of those attractions:
There is another way for desire to become ordered: same object, different expression. People who long for same-sex love and intimacy should maybe be encouraged to learn how to do that, since it is good, and holy, and beautiful.
But this is simply illusory. There is just no way to “tease out” some experiences of attraction rooted in the homosexual inclination and claim they’re now free from disorder, when the very definition of “objectively disordered” means that those attractions in fact cannot be properly ordered and therefore can’t be expressed toward someone of the same sex.
Unfortunately, the longing for same-sex love expressed by Tushnet remains a misguided attempt to salvage something “ordered” from the disordered homosexual inclination, arising from a fatally flawed understanding of what homosexuality itself really is. Love is a thing; same-sex attraction is a thing. Other-sex love is a thing. But same-sex love is not a thing.
To quote the late songwriter Rich Mullins: “You can argue with your Maker, but you know you just can’t win.”
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And then there’s the science thingy….Research into the genome does point to some genetic markers—but NOT to a gay gene—and that these markers do NOT account for same-sex behavior.
https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html
From the news release: Five of the genetic markers were “significantly” associated with same-sex behavior, the researchers said, but even these are far from being predictive of a person’s sexual preferences. “We scanned the entire human genome and found a handful – five to be precise – of locations that are clearly associated with whether a person reports in engaging in same-sex sexual behavior,” said Andrea Ganna, a biologist at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Finland who co-led the research.
He said these have “a very small effect” and, combined, explain “considerably less than 1% of the variance in the self-reported same-sex sexual behavior.”
This means that non-genetic factors – such as environment, upbringing, personality, nurture – are far more significant in influencing a person’s choice [!] of sexual partner, just as with most other personality, behavioral and physical human traits, the researchers said.
(Of course, an LGBTQ effort is made to turn even these findings on their head, as also reported in the linked article.)
Who cares? There is no identifiable left-handed “gene,” either, yet we no longer label left-handedness as evil the way Catholic schools did up through the 60s when left-handed children were forced to write with their left hands in a bone-headed attempt to “make them” right-handed. Natural law should reflect what occurs naturally in nature, not something defined by individuals or institutions.
I’m left handed, switched from right-handedness at the age of four, and find your off-handed remark beside the point…
Natural Law refers to “man” as man, as within but also apart from only the animal kingdom, as having a metaphysical dimension above the merely biological or even genetic. More than the sum of the (genetic) parts–just as a “mind” is more than a brain, just as “person” is more than an individual(ism), and just as in real and fecund “marriage,” the “two become one flesh” rather anything less.
Natural Law is not reducible to the (physical) “laws of nature” of Newton and Galileo, and Fr. James Martin, etc. (only “what occurs naturally in nature.”). And that’s the point.
Actually left handed people are more prone to accidental injuries because the world is geared towards right handedness.
It’s not an uncharitable instinct to try to adapt a child to that reality. Unfashionable these days perhaps but not necessarily unkind. Why assume the worst intentions in people?
And that’s in addition to various practical matters: scissors are designed to fit right hands, for example. And writing with the left hand means that the side of the hand brushes across the fresh ink or pencil and ends up smearing the writing, not to mention staining the hand. Also, lefties are sinister, naive, and not dextrous, so one can quite see why people thought it better not to be. 😉
Leslie, hello!
One of my daughters is left handed. She started out ambidextrous but eventually gravitated more to her left hand for handwriting. She also almost chopped off the end of her finger cutting vegetables. Everything is geared towards the righthanded: tools, kitchen counter layouts, etc & it’s just more dangerous for lefthanded folk.
Mrs. Cracker,
I remember reading a sign somewhere: “If the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa, then only left-handed people are in their right minds.”
I still have to think, when giving directions, whether I mean right or left, because of course the mnemonic device they taught us in school when we were little was “remember, you ‘write’ with your ‘right’ hand.” So I have that extra moment where I have to do some mental flipping to get it right. *ahem* I mean, correct.
Joseph Sciambra, who “barely survived ‘gay'” – see https://josephsciambra.com/surviving-gaybarely/ – has an interesting take on ‘The Dangerous Gay Hermeneutics of Eve Tushnet’ – see https://josephsciambra.com/the-dangerous-gay-hermeneutics-of-eve-tushnet/
In the Washington Post article by Tushnet, there are references to “Gay and Catholic”, “LGBT Catholics”, “gay people”, “gay children”, etc.
If there can be “LGBT Catholics”, and in particular, “transgender Catholics”, why not begin acknowledging the ‘existence’ of the other ‘genders’ out there?
Note: How Many Genders Are There In 2020? See https://dudeasks.com/how-many-genders-are-there-in-2020/
Perhaps Tushnet should first consider abandoning terms associated with identity politics and the made-up / Trojan horse terminology of ‘LGBT’ ideologues. Terms such as ‘gay’, ‘transgender’, etc. lock up people within labels.
‘Persons who experience same-sex attraction or issues related to “gender identity” ‘ – such descriptions are better since they make clear that persons are not perceived as having an existence in or a root from ‘identities’ or attractions associated with disorder.
And while at it, she may want to take to heart not only https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html (particularly the three paragraphs of # 3 therein), but also the prudent words reported in https://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/archbishop-chaput-term-lgbtq-catholic-should-not-be-used-in-church-document
Although that is focused on Church documents, the basic principle applies across the board.
And no, saying along with Fr. James Martin that Pope Francis is “the first Pope to use the word ‘gay'” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqy0uHw4dEI – does not tip the scales.
Just because the Pope used a colloquial term (infelicitously?) does not mean the rest of us need to go down that route.
(‘LGBT’, ‘gay’, ‘transgender’…
Whatever next?
How about trans-racial? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzRxbqvGXzw
What about trans-species? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fSBUbjE20 etc.)
In her article, Tushnet concludes: ‘…We’ve been taught a catechism of “no.” Many people who saw this short video hoped Pope Francis would at last speak to us of the “yes”: about the purpose of our longings, and the guidance the church can give…’
Quite. And then the ‘purpose of longings’ of the gender transcendent mermaids also would need to be catered to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=344vfUOXrtI
As for all this talk of a catechism of ‘no’ – she may want to truly conceive CCC 2359 and drink from the life-giving waters of that catechism of ‘yes’ – https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm
The Lord’s Grace and Love are sufficient beyond imagining for everyone, including those who experience same-sex attraction.
In her article, Tushnet also says: ‘…Rejection by Catholic parents can shatter a child’s trust in God. By speaking for the worth of gay children, whom he calls in the new documentary “children of God,” Francis hopes to restore that trust…’
Re the ‘children of God’ bit, – What Mother Teresa Thought About “Gay People” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=5vuV9lvF53Q
ONLY SAME-SEX LUST …
We knew a mental health counselor who worked with prisoners, some convicted of child molestation. Some offenders were simply sexual opportunists but others sincerely believed that they had offered real love to the children they had sexually abused. They would find children without fathers and provide what they thought was a mutually loving relationship.
It’s not called a disorder for nothing.
What does this mean? What, specifically, is “not called a disorder for nothing”?
Gay people don’t sexually assault children anymore than straight people do. If you believe otherwise, you are wrong. Relying on presumptions and lies told about a group of people used as scapegoats is intellectually dishonest and immoral because such false rhetoric causes genuine harm to gay people.
Did your friend the mental health counselor tell you that every single inmate convicted of child molestation was gay? Or did you fill in the blanks and assume based on ill will against gay people? This is the short-sighted rub of slandering millions of gay people as likely pedophiles. While obsessed with condemning nearly all gay people for something they would never even do, you ignore the actual culprits sexually assaulting children. It is certainly naive, to say the least, to pretend that straight men and women don’t molest children.
You are defending the indefensible here. Thoughtful people who are thinking through the issue carefully understand that clerical sexual abuse is related to gay sexual predation, not heterosexual child abuse. This is not politically correct, of course, but it is true nonetheless. Why are you trying to dismiss people’s legitimate and accurate concerns about the presence of these predators in the church? Why are you giving people a pass simply because they have same-sex attraction?
Jeffrey,
I’m sorry I didn’t make my comments more clear. I was referencing child molestation in general and pedophilia in particular, which most people consider a disorder.
I believe you may have been expecting my comments to specifically reference homosexual offenders due to the title of the article.
My only personal acquaintance with a true pedophile was a married man with children who volunteered at a former parish. He’s now serving what will probably be a life sentence for abusing a number of small children, mostly girls, over decades. He also followed the pattern of befriending childten of single mothers or families who were vulnerable in other ways.
Sorry to have confused you. Comment boxes are not ideal for clarity. God bless!
Why give traction to these bankrupt notions advanced by nominal Catholics? There is enough heterodoxy promulgated by our Catholic hierarchy that we’re having to continually fend off.
Deacon Russell,
First off, thank you for devoting your life to Christ and His bride.
Secondly, thank you for pointing out the untruth of trying to rightly order disordered inclinations by calling it a new category of love.
If Christ and His bride is the fullness of truth, love, goodness, beauty, and home; than I believe He would want all of his children to experience complementarity and procreative love. It would appear to me that a deficient response to Christ’s love is to live out the disordered inclination while the excessive response would be to rationalize a new category of love while abstaining.
Daniel Mattson’s approach is the simpler, more obedient, more faith filled, response to Christ’s love by joining his cross of disordered inclinations to that of Christ’s without suffusing it with the spiritual pride of creating a new category of love. He does not call himself gay.
Furthermore, the psychological expertise of people like the late, great, Catholic, Dr Joseph Nicolosi, should be shared far and wide ( before the same sex attracted totalitarians and their stooges preclude such help ) to those who wish to truly and rightly order their disordered inclinations; if they are tired of carrying around such grievous wounds.
Adding or subtracting from Christ’s love, way, and truth, is a prideful and very dangerous response for not only oneself but for those who might believe one’s new Gospel of love.
God Bless,
Jim Gill
“the reality of kinship and family bonds is actually established via—and only through—marriage and procreative sexual relations.”
I’m not sure about the “only” in this claim. Next month our archbishop will celebrate a pro-adoption Mass at the Cathedral, and I assume it will include an endorsement of kinship and family bonds that have been established outside of procreative sexual relations. In fact, the Church encourages adoption as an alternative to abortion.
Kinship is based on blood. “Family bonds” is more flexible.
Husbands and wives aren’t kin? In-laws aren’t kin?
Adoption is assuredly the exception that proves the rule–it creates an *authentic* legal relationship among the parties that compensates for the lack of actual blood-relatedness. It does so because of the great good of marriage and family in the first place.
Adoption is awesomely beautiful.
The English language only has one word, love, to mean different love for different things. I “love” flowers, but that’s obviously not the same love that I have for my husband, which in turn is not the same love I have for my children, nor the same as their love of candy. But if one examines love in different languages, there are specific words used to define the different types of love. Agape means selfless love. Eros means romantic love. Philia is the love between friends. But the lgbtq idea of “love is love” fails to take this into account and shows ignorance among those who desire to elevate the disorder of homosexuality to something that it is not.
All real love requires the good of the other person first and foremost, which is why there can be no such thing as “same-sex love,” at least not expressed sexually, nor as a mimicry of marital love. To desire the good of another would mean to direct them towards God, and homosexual acts don’t do so. The attraction is a disordered lust, whether supposedly chosen or possibly genetic. Something intrinsically evil cannot be for the good (benefit) of another. As Catholics, we must hate the sin, but love the sinner. For his own benefit.
‘ The two shall become one flesh ..’ – our Lord’s blessing for marriage ;
St.Paul reiterates same , with the added words of eqating marraige to be like the Lord’s sacrifice on The Cross ..
‘Flesh ‘ – a mysterious phrase ..heard first , in the ecstasy of the holy words of Adam – ‘ Love You , thank You , praise You Abba , for this glorious person and creation of Yours ‘ and Eve echoing same …
and the enemy , in envy and hatred , ? already in the tree of knowledge –
‘ it is the role of that woman that I want , to populate everything with mine.. will use lies , divisions , fear , shame ..’
flesh , after The Fall , having become equated with corruption , evil , suffering and need for redemption , promise of glorification ..
Every Holy Mass , to sanctify ‘all generations ‘ , in The Lord –
https://www.ltdw.org/uploads/2/5/1/5/25153387/during_mass_all_generations_are_united_to_christ.pdf
The Church , blessing marriage to be in Oneness , in The Divine Will, to make possible , the sanctification of the ‘flesh ‘ of generations …and every choice , every lie against same , serving not the Kingdom ..
Our Holy Father too has amply clarified same .. ? is it the growth of the
‘flesh ‘ in our ears that harden the hearts , from the millions of hearts that closed their ears to thank The Father , for Life …for every heart beat and for every breath , that has brought the confusions ..
St.Jude, Patron of the ‘impossible ‘ – to help heal all ‘flesh wounds ‘ of
generations as well , to thank The Lord for same ..
and St.Simon , zealous for the glory of The Lord , not of the flesh , ? chose to remain hidden , to let all the glory be for The Lord ..
Glory be !
“We’ve been taught a catechism of ‘no.'”
Of course that model is straight from Scripture, so I am not sure what can or should be done about it.
People including Tushnet have written a lot of helpful stuff, but the spiritual friendship arc is a lot of noise to hide the uncomfortable truth that SSA is a difficult affliction and not a blessing in any way, shape, or form.
Joe,
I agree. It’s a difficult affliction & I think of it that way also. If we consider those who suffer from afflictions it helps us to be more charitable. But of course we can never justify acting out certain behaviors.
It seems to me that the term “family” has been distorted or redefined when speaking about various human associations that have nothing to do with SEX but may include marriage between a man and a woman. For example, the cast of a long running TV series is often referred to as a “family”. I have heard work groups often referred to as a “family”. Mother Angelica’s massively successful work titled, EWTN is referred to almost every day as the EWTN Family. Seems to me that persons who write or speak should use words that reflect their definition instead of blurring the understanding of the reader or the audience.
It seems to me that Eve Tushnet and her fellow “Spiritual Friendship” propagandists seek to throw Paragraph 2359 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church down a memory hole. That paragraph clearly and unambiguously states:
“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”
Absolutely nothing there about “same-sex love” or “same-sex eros” or “same-sex philia.”
Former US congressman Michelle Bachman and her husband Marcus established a “clinic” in Minnesota that had the slogan “Pray the Gay away”. That clinic attempts to evangelize Gays to become straight. The clinic was hit with a violation by not keeping all client’s records. The staff consists of 22 “councilors” with a concentration in religious conversion. Leading mental health experts today strongly condemned the Christian counseling center owned by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus for engaging in a discredited therapy designed to convert gays to straights through prayer and self-reflection. Leading mental health experts today strongly condemned the Christian counseling center owned by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus for engaging in a discredited therapy designed to convert gays to straights through prayer and self-reflection. Bachmann is Silent on Allegations Her Clinic Offers Gay Conversion Therapy. Seems we can’t see a way to accept Gays. What is the alternative?
Pray for them, that they may be healed of their disordered appetites or that they may be given the grace to resist the temptation to commit abominable sins?
And quit calling them “Gays” (capitalized, no less) as if their desire to commit particular sins were the most important things about them
I’m sure those same “leading mental health experts” are anti-Christian, anti-religious, and of the opinion that perversion is perfectly normal.
‘Conversion therapy’ is a loaded term.
Just because some people go over-board with dubious practices does not mean that every one working in this area should be tarred with the same brush.
Nor would it be right to blindly label every approach taken to help people deal with unwanted homosexual attractions as “conversion therapy.” The ‘gay’/’LGBT’ lobbies of course have a vested interest in ensuring that people stay locked up within labels and attractions associated with disorder.
Without necessarily endorsing / condemning or holding any brief from the below, just putting it out there for what it is worth:
1) https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/16/feminist-pro-gay-mother-trans-child-critiques-bans-conversion-therapy/
2) https://www.hli.org/resources/ex-gays/
3) https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/clc-blog/id/95/title/-conversion-therapy-ban-threatens-churches
4) https://brothersroad.org/what-about-therapy/
5) https://www.therapeuticchoice.com/
6) https://www.restoredhopenetwork.org/frequently-asked-questions
The CCC speaks of those with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies.
Which begs the question whether there can be people with such tendencies which are transitory and if yes, what help, if any, can be held out to them too if they seek it?
“…Seems we can’t see a way to accept Gays…”
See my previous comment further above regarding terminology. People who experience same-sex attraction are accepted just like anybody else.
That said, recall Amoris Laetitia paragraph 297 – http://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf :
“…if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, or wants to impose something other than what the Church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; this is a case of something which separates from the community (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a person needs to listen once more to the Gospel message and its call to conversion. Yet even for that person there can be some way of taking part in the life of community, social service, prayer meetings or another way that his or her own initiative, together with the discernment of the parish priest, may suggest…”
Additionally:
“Can I Be Gay and Catholic?” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct8stB59jiM
“Freedom from the homosexual lifestyle” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZcNEfSum0k
When you cut and paste what others – particularly the discredited Brian Ross – have written you need to provide attribution unless you enjoy being a plagiarist as well, morgan.
I don’t know anything about the particular
clinic you mentioned but do we have a right to decide which behaviors adults can seek treatment for and which they may not? If they are uncomfortable with their gender there’s nothing to stop them from treatment. Why is it different if they wish to change their sexual attractions?
Labeling homosexuality a “disorder” is a theocratic construct completely debunked by medicine and science. Just as most people are right handed and a small percentage are left handed (without any evidence of existence of a left or right handed “gene”), having a sexual orientation different from the majority does not itself make it “disordered.” Given that it is neither chosen nor contagious nor changeable, it’s hard to see how gay people falling in love with each other (whether platonically, romantically, emotionally, or otherwise)results in any objective harm to anyone. His Holiness continues to gently push the church in this direction and will, undoubtedly, be quoted by future popes in ever more substantial teachings.The writing is plainly on the wall.
Both the left and right hands are ordered toward holding, grasping, etc.; the fact that one is more dominant in some fashion or another does not undermine or changed the telos of the hand. But to say that the male and female sexual organs, which are ordered toward sexual union and reproduction, just as fully function as (and at) what they are while actually engaging in sterile acts mimicking male-female intercourse is misleading, illogical, and, yes, disordered.
Further, to talk of “falling in love” is another sleight of hand, as if authentic and properly ordered love (even erotic/sexual love) is ultimately a matter of emotions and passions beyond our control, is to posit an anthropology that treats men and women as rutting animals rather than creatures possessing rational intellect and free will. Even lust (whether heterosexual or homosexual) is rooted in one’s will, in what one chooses to desire, pursue, attain.
Finally, despite the convoluted and tortured language used by Francis (which I discuss here), the pope does state, quite clearly (especially for him): “And that doesn’t mean to approve of homosexual acts, not at all.” No, the writing is not “plainly on the wall”; rather, we are just having to endure and work through the confusing (but not entirely obscure) remarks of Pope Francis.
Yes, and with the three human faculties identified by St. Augustine: the “intellect” is also “ordered toward holding, grasping, etc.”, served by the “memory” (prior to the cancel-culture!), but–despite any level of evidence or reasoned discovery–also (in a fallen world) vulnerable to a flawed/anesthetized “will” to either accept demonstrated or self-evident truths, or not.
Labeling homosexuality a “disorder” is a theocratic construct completely debunked by medicine and science.
The decision by the APA to remove homosexual behavior from the list of psychological disorders in the DSM back in 1973 wasn’t based on medicine or science. Claiming otherwise is simply nonsense. People who freely choose to engage in immoral, destructive, dangerous sexual behavior are mentally ill, plain and simple.
Those ignorant of the rationale behind this decision should edify themselves by reading: The American Psychological Association and the Deceptive Science on Homosexuality:
A Comprehensive Review of the Evidence
Given that it is neither chosen nor contagious nor changeable,(sic)
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Based on the Christian humanism that affirms ‘philia’ and ‘caritas’, Pope Francis has acted and pronounced well on homosexuality. Indeed, he declared some years ago, in Castilian: “¿Cómo puede haber un amor malo?” / How can there be bad love? No way, of course.
Christianity is not to Judaism an appendage, fortunately. Love in Christ is the fundamental principle of Christianity. The Torah advances homophobia. However, homophobia contradicts Christian ‘caritas’. Jesus never condemned any homosexual. He did not condemn anyone.
Theological moralists, such as those of the article, make a display of their high-falutin notions, but seem woefully short of ‘philia’ and ‘caritas’. With their logomachies, they presume to nail down Truth and its corollaries. What arrogance! Echoes of the Inquisition. Horrid.
Thank Dawg such individuals no longer have any power. They missed their century, by quite a few.
What matters is love. There are homosexual couples who in their compassionate love for each other, are models of ‘philia’ and ‘caritas’.
“He did not condemn anyone.”
Matthew 23 begs to differ. Others are in line. You might also want to read Romans 1.
“The Torah advances homophobia.”
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.” — Jesus Christ. The “law”, just to be clear, is “the Torah”.
“Theological moralists, such as those of the article, make a display of their high-falutin notions…”
Translation: “I’m not equipped to deal with the Church clear teaching about homosexuality and marriage.”
“What matters is love.” You’ve obviously never read the bible. Jesus spends a considerable amount of vh time earning people about the eternal consequences of unrepentant sin. And Romans chapter 1 is the definitive explanation and condemnation of homosexuality.
Jesus rebuked religious leaders for their contemptuousness, hypocrisy, and dehumanizing “outsiders” considered to be unfit for moral society.
Jesus taught not to behave like the publicly religious who relied on legalism to (mis)characterize others and their actions. Their shortcoming in morality sprang from undeserved piety and custom of simply ignoring others’ innate dignity and respectability.
And you were saying God has called you to…?
We truly love others when we desire their good, i.e. help them get to heaven. Homosexual acts aren’t expressions of love, they are lustful impulses carried out, and this is condemned by God. Couples finding themselves in this situation are really only exploiting one another. It’s akin to married hetero couples who artificially contracept. They ultimately use the other person for their own selfish, immoral pleasure.
We are ALL called to be chaste, including those suffering from same-sex attraction.
I’m faithful to God’s teaching (for those who don’t already know, the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ that teaches all through Scripture, Revelation, and the Holy Spirit) on homosexuality. What I don’t understand is when you say that the natural sexual inclination is “‘antecedent’ to all love”. I’m sorry if this was already asked, but how would sexual inclination be antecedent to non-Ethos love? Thanks and God bless!