Contrary to the assertion of many in our major media, the only source of genuinely compassionate and dignified teaching on homosexuality and homosexual acts is Holy Mother Church. Our task now, as authentic and obedient Catholics, is to seek to better understand, promote and live that teaching.
Outside of the struggles over abortion and euthanasia, there may be no greater battle in the Church today than the one raging over homosexuality. At a time when the Church faces a righteous tempest about the abuse of altar boys at the hands of priests, when gay rights groups target the Mass for sacrilegious demonstrations and when disobedient clergy preside at same-sex "weddings" it is no wonder traditional Catholics approach the topic carrying little but confusion, frustration and anger. Most Catholics in the pews, and occasionally in the pulpit, do not accept homosexuality, do not want to understand it and wish, mostly, that the topic would go away - or at least back into the closet "where it belongs." Others, a minority, in particular associated with a the gay caucus "Dignity," are only too happy to have the topic discussed - as long as that discussion leads in the direction of the Church changing her doctrine on homosexual acts.
As both a former homosexual activist and current faithful Catholic committed to chastity, I must critique each position and would urge instead that all Catholics, laity and clergy, join together to preach the fullness of the Church's teaching on this matter. I implore this because I believe it to be a declaration filled with dignity, truth and self-respect for all people. One which, if preached in integrity and steadfastness, will bring many to a full life with Jesus Christ.
In making this case I will begin by telling a bit of my own personal history. I do so not to make public that which is and should be private, but because so much of the public discussion on this issue is either biased or aloof from the actual lives of homosexual1 people. I believe offering the witness of my journey from gay activism to chastity is necessary to help fill what has become a great vacuum in the conversation.
My pilgrimage from being a homosexual rights activist to living life as a chaste Catholic began in earnest when I read the writings of a modern day Protestant martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Before reading Bonhoeffer my short Christian life had been marked primarily by my translating sidewalk gay rights activism into similar activism in the Anglican pew. Homosexual orientation, and the life I had built around it, was so central to my primary identity that I could not understand how anyone could object to what I was doing. Disapproval, doubts, objections of all kinds could only be, I felt, the result of either confusion about what scripture says about homosexuality or outright bigotry. After all, I was living proof that homosexual people could live a sexually active life which was both spiritually and temporally satisfying. I had a lover of five years, a condominium in a major urban area, a satisfying job and a church life in the Episcopal Church which, while not perfect, was still a treasure. What more could I want?
Yet, in prayer and in quiet times of reflection, I could not avoid noticing some of thistles which snuck into my "gaily" modeled life.
First, even as committed an activist as myself had to admit the shallowness and sheer improbability of many "gay-friendly" theologians and scholars when it came to scripture and homosexual acts. Beyond the solid observation that scripture does not discuss homosexual orientation per se,2 authors as diverse as John McNeill (formerly S.J), Sylvia Pennington, John Boswell and Virginia Molenkott went wandering into scriptural speculations which, while creative, really asked their audience to suspend belief about the clear meaning of the original text.
For example when discussing what the apostle Paul "really" meant when he condemned homosexual acts in Romans chapter 1 and 1st Corinthians chapter 63 these authors alleged that Paul must have been condemning something other than the homosexual relationship of today since he could not have known anyone of confessed homosexual orientation. An argument for blessing homosexual acts based on this reasoning asked me to conclude that had Paul known of the participants' orientation he would have approved of the acts, even though nothing in his other letters, or the tradition about the man, indicated this would be so. Likewise, the condemnations against homosexual acts in Leviticus were dismissed with the suggestion that the acts condemned there had more to do with ritual prostitution than "loving" homosexuality.
Similarly Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed,4 these authors alleged, not because of homosexual offense but because the people of the towns were greedy, corrupt and inhospitable to strangers. Each of these, while claiming fidelity to traditional scriptural exegesis, really took interpretation in a radically new direction and ignored the strong possibility that greed, selfishness and corruption might have gone part and parcel with homosexual offense. And was it really reasonable to assume that homosexual acts had nothing to do with the city being destroyed, in view of the large part they played in the drama of Lot's departure? So, there were little cracks in the theoretical foundation upon which I had build my life.
There were also problems with how I saw "gay theology" lived out around me. Most gay Christians I knew differed little in their lives from "gay" pagans, agnostics and atheists. Gay Christian worship services, while sometimes worshipful, were also often as sexually charged and "cruisy"5 as most bars I visited. Early on I decided to try to make a nearby non-gay Episcopal parish my spiritual home and my experience there, contrasting sharply with what I saw of gay "worship", forced me to admit that many of my arguments in favor of gay Christianity were modeled more on a theoretical ideal than on practical experience.
A final source of pre-Bonhoeffer doubt came in the relationships I formed with many non-gay, theologically-orthodox, Christians. Here were people who, I had been told, should have hated the very ground I walked upon and despised me for my sexual orientation. After all, hadn't much of the gay flight to the cities been to get away from traditional Christians? Yet the people I encountered loved me - even while they strenuously disagreed with the choices I was making in my life. Agreement, I came to realize, might be nice but it was not a prerequisite for friendship and real affection. The ground was ripe for the Holy Spirit to work a revolution, and that revolution began in a dramatic way, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
I remember the day clearly. It was early in the spring and raining. My then lover and I had spent much of the miserable day in a shopping mall and had split up to pursue our own bargains, his in clothes and mine in books. I was in a secular, discount bookstore, pouring over a disorganized pile of titles when I saw it; The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I opened it, and I can still remember its first sentence as though I were reading it right now:
"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace."6
I was hooked. It was as though those lines had been written just for me at just that time. Scooping together the loose change in my pockets I bought the book, brought it home, and devoured it. Here, from this man martyred on Adolf Hitler's own order, I heard a message which both commanded and terrified me. Would I, could I, give my life for Christ? Where had I compromised? Did being a Christian really mean going along with what my world was telling me, or did being a Christian mean being different, being wholly Christ's?
Swiftly I began reading everything on Bonhoeffer that I could get my hands on. And with Bonhoeffer came other committed Christian authors - some of them Catholic. Augustine's Confessions both convicted me of my own spiritual timidity and encouraged me that God never gives up on us. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle awed me with the depth of communion possible in prayer and Mother Teresa's life and writing showed me the potential fruit of such a prayerful life. . These took residence on my shelf next to Richard Foster, who writes powerfully from the Quaker tradition. His books, in particular Celebration of Discipline and The Challenge of the Disciplined Life, made me want to re-examine the role Christianity played in my all too modern life, specifically in the area of my identity and sexuality.
Gradually I began to understand that my sexuality was not something I owned, but something God owned in me. And that the clear witness of scripture was to a dual purpose for sexuality. Sex, in God's intention, is meant to do two things; provide for the procreation of children and to build up husbands and wives in the love, respect and life of each other. How did this square with the kind of sex with which I was most familiar, particularly in light of its inevitably transient nature? After all, homosexual sex is completely and unalterably divorced from the responsibility of procreation unless a third partner is willing to enter the picture. Is this really how God intended we should use our sexuality?
Finally, after many months of prayer and indecision I could remain dishonest no longer. The life I had been living for so long was a life of cheap grace and I knew it. Bonhoeffer's example, with the others, both encouraged and convicted me. In the light of scripture, tradition, and reflection I could only conclude that God demanded of me the same thing he demands of all unmarried Christians, a chaste life. So it was that I stepped out in faith from almost everything I had heretofore thought most important and dear to me. If Christ wanted chastity I would be chaste - and everything else and everyone else I placed in His hands.
From there my journey to the Catholic Faith was relatively swift, partially drawn along as it was by the three realities which make the Catholic Church so attractive to homosexuals who seek to live in sexual purity and fidelity.
First, the Catholic Church is the only major Christian institution in this country to not only preach the truth of chastity for homosexual people but to offer practical, tangible help for achieving it.
Second, the Catholic Church is the only major Christian institution to recognize that we, as human beings, really do not know what causes homosexuality. Thus Holy Mother Church will not demand heterosexual conversion as a condition of fellowship nor will she decide, in advance, that homosexual people are not capable of being responsible for their own decisions and actions. This position contains, as its corollary, the dramatically counter-cultural notion that homosexual people have as much human dignity as anyone else and deserve not to be patronized, something which my more 'liberally' minded Episcopal Church did (and does still) with depressing regularity.
Finally, the Catholic Church possesses the truth, not simply in this dogma but in all her dogmas. The Catholic Church, I came to see, was meant in itself to be a means of grace in my desire to lead a life closer to God. In her sacraments, particularly Reconciliation and Eucharist, she offered an enormously important avenue for drawing nearer to Jesus. Yes, I had doubts. No one in my family has ever been Catholic. Many of them were, and remain, anti-Catholic. Yet the truth which had drawn me this far would not let me tarry longer than absolutely necessary and I entered the Holy Roman Catholic Church at Easter of 1993.
So, how has it been, friends ask from time to time. I tell them it has been rough but wonderful. Nothing could have really prepared me for the strength I would draw from a Catholic relationship with Christ and, likewise, no one could have prepared me for how difficult it would be to lose friends and strain family relationships because of this choice. Anyone who thinks there is a gap between Catholicism and evangelism either is not a Catholic or is not living their Catholic life in a open way. Simply to confess a belief in a Catholic view of Christ, not to mention the Holy Father, Virgin Mary, abortion, birth control, or chaste virtue is to take a counter-cultural position which demands apologetics and explanation. I would urge any Catholic readers who have not done so to give it a try sometime. Faithful Catholics who are homosexual do it every day and find in both the exterior witness and interior dialogue a remarkable path to deeper faith.
Occasionally, I am asked what I expect of the future and I sometimes run out of time trying to answer.. The truth of the Catholic Church's doctrine on the subject of homosexuality and homosexual acts is so profound, and such a real expression of love, that it can easily dominate conversation. Yet it is a teaching which is frequently ignored among traditional Catholics and derided by heterodox church members. In my opinion this is a shame and must be corrected, both for Christ's sake as well as the sake of all those hundreds of thousands who seek a similar message and might enter the Church if they heard it.
In my opinion the Church, both clergy and lay, has an obligation to talk and state the truth of Christ wherever we are and to whomever would hear it. Orientation should not, and cannot be, an issue if we are to be faithful to the One who has called us. Here then is what I would hope Catholics, both lay people and clergy, would do in the future.
First, I hope all Catholics will really learn what the Church teaches about homosexuality. Homosexuality, in the Catholic view, is a tendency toward disordered sexual acts but it is not a sin in and of itself. In this it can be said to be no more sinful than an inclination to heterosexual fornication or adultery. The vast majority of homosexuals cannot be said to choose to have the desires they do and many, in the words of the catechism, find living with them a "trial."7
Second, I hope traditional Catholics will get over being shocked and disapproving that homosexual people exist in our world and culture. This is an attitude which goes beyond simply, and properly, disapproving of homosexual acts; rather it comes perilously close to condemning homosexual people as human beings. I think we must all agree that this is something Jesus Christ does not and would not do and, in fact, warns us away from doing.8 This disposition, I believe, has done much to swell the ranks of homosexual Catholics whose behavior seems bent on hell not simply out of the blindness of sin but also because no one has ever offered them the truth in love. Love without truth can degenerate into selfish violence, but truth without love is brutal.
Third, as hard as it might be, faithful Catholics must learn to recognize that not all homosexuals are child molesters. I understand that the current scandals of priests abusing altar boys has lent a level of popularity to this prejudice, but making the term "pederast" interchangeable with homosexual is not only extremely uncharitable, but borders on slander.
Fourth, I hope Catholic clergy, secular and religious, will be openly more encouraging to homosexual people about both their dignity as human beings, created in the image of God, as well as the vocation of chastity which they share by virtue of that dignity. More homilies preached from this nation's pulpits ought take this admonition from the new Catechism to heart:
"Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead."9
This essential dignity is insulted both when traditional Catholics condemn homosexual people out of hand and when heterodox Catholics patronize us by trying to make believe that homosexual activity - like any genital activity outside of marriage - is not sinful and grievously damaging to our ultimate relationship with God. Ironically enough, both groups are guilty of much the same attitude: defining homosexual people not by the virtue to which they are capable with God's grace, but by activity which that grace can empower them to resist.
Fifth, I hope more bishops, clergy, religious and lay people come to acknowledge and support the powerful ministry of Fr. John Harvey O.S.F.S. and his group, Courage. Starting from a small seed of concern, Fr. Harvey's organization has grown over the years to become a vital and supportive presence to thousands of homosexual people who are either leaving an actively gay life or who struggle privately against an inclination to homosexual sin.
Courage chapters around the country provide an important ministry of compassion because it is often in such places that the bare bones of Church dogma can be fleshed out in chaste friendship. It is not good for a man to be alone, scripture teaches, and groups such as Courage can provide a needed antidote to loneliness or emotional isolation which can inflict many who seek to live a chaste life. The Church recognizes this necessity in her new Catechism:
"Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtue 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."10
Given that this teaching is the authoritative doctrine of the Church on this matter, how is it then that so relatively few of the dioceses and archdiocese in the United States have a Courage chapter? In my opinion, it is nothing short of scandal that all dioceses and archdioceses in the United States have not at least explored beginning a Courage chapter - or have rejected one outright because of "political" pressure either from the left or right. I think to deny homosexual Catholics a haven at the foot of the Cross comes close to being a sin against Charity and provides possible evidence of a disturbingly high meanness of spirit.
Sixth, if there is one overarching teaching that I wish the Church would emphasize in the future, not only for homosexual Catholics, but for all Christendom, it would be the role Christ our Redeemer plays in the formation of our primary identity.
Identity is like a pair of glasses. It is through our understanding of self that we interpret and view God, people and our world. I believe that is why Paul, in writing the Church in Corinth for the second time: "From now on, therefor, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way."11 What was it about the readers that Paul thought would change their way of looking at themselves and each other? It was living in the light of faith in Christ Jesus Consider for a moment this definition of 'gayness" which I have developed after over a decade of reflection on the question:
Being gay means giving oneself over to ones sexual orientation to the point where it becomes a foundation and center of your identity.
That is as simple a definition I can get, and if you doubt its accuracy think about a couple of thoughts that led me to it: One can be a person with a homosexual orientation, but one cannot be gay and be a person with just a homosexual orientation. Because it is in the act of self-identification, 'coming out', which is so important to the Gay community that one sacrifices individual personhood for identity in the group. Homosexual orientation moves from being a peripheral aspect of ones personality to being a defining aspect.
And if you are a Christian who has done this, I believe there is reason to examine your heart for evidence of idolatry. That sounds harsh but I don't mean it to. Just as having to tell a friend their breath is bad means speaking plainly and risking their feelings, so does speaking honestly about something like this. Once a person has made a decision that he or she is not merely homosexually oriented, but is instead gay, then I have observed that orientation tends to be a dominant aspect of their identity and that everything else; society, faith, institutions and even God will probably be viewed, and judged, through that particular lens. Homosexual orientation is not a choice for most people, but being gay certainly is, and it is this choice which drives homosexual groups ranging from Dignity to Act Up.
I believe that we, as Christians, are called to a different identity. Over and over scripture tells us that we are a holy Priesthood12, and that we were bought with a price - a price paid in blood and pain13. How then can we, who live in such a blessed and prosperous nation, not bend our heads humbly to Christ and to His church? It is not only in the teaching on chastity we are guilty of this, but on many other issues we live as though Our Lord matters not, that we may take for granted the price He paid for us. It's almost as though we believe that while His grace is freely given it must therefor not have cost much. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such a wrong understanding of our identity, I believe, is the source of these disastrous errors because rooting ourselves in anything outside of Christ undermines our very efforts at obedience or following Him . If I, whether homosexual or not, do not unite my primary identity first and forever with that of Christ then any notion I might have of ruling or restraining behavior may never succeed. It is to the identity of Christ, His whole self present in the Eucharist and remembered in the Creed, which I must owe my first allegiance. All others, relationships, desires, thoughts and hopes, can only be ordered around that one great truth and exist only in relation to Him.
In the almost three years since pledging myself to a chaste life in obedience to Christ I have communicated about this issue with dozens, if not hundreds of homosexual men and women, people of all faiths and of none. God has seen fit to use some of what I have written to influence a few to reexamine their assumptions about faith, sexuality and identity. Some have been led to change their opinions, others have not, but I have been struck at how few have rejected the teaching of the Church outright. Instead, at the risk of being overly broad, the objections I have faced have been of three general theaters.
First, in an argument based on confusing celibacy and chastity, some advance the notion that while a "few" may be called to be celibate the "vast majority" of homosexual people are not meant to restrain their desires for genital sexuality for a lifetime.
Second is an argument which can be summed up, roughly, as "God made me this way, so what I do in bed must be pleasing to Him." Here too a few raise the objection that to expect all to sacrifice genital sexuality is to ask them to act "unnaturally."
Finally, some advance a line of reasoning which runs something like this: "God is love. What I do with my lover in bed has love as its focus. Therefor God must approve of what we do in bed, or at least not disapprove of it, since God is love."
I have encountered a mix of these almost from the beginning and I thing it might be useful to point out how they might be answered.
People who confuse chastity and celibacy need to be reminded of what the Church actually teaches about the two (paragraphs 2348 - 2350 of the new Catechism would seem to be useful as a resource) and they need to have that distinction brought home in a practical manner. They often need to be reminded, for example, that homosexual people are not the only ones God has apparently called to lifelong chastity as lay people. In the wake of many years of high divorce rates there are a growing number of men and women who, apparently, may remain single all their lives. While it is true that this is not a reality all willingly embrace, it is nonetheless true that the same call of obedient dignity which precludes homosexual genital activity also precludes theirs. Chastity is not a matter of extra-ordinary Grace but is, instead, a de minimis standard for Christian men and women no matter their orientation. An interesting question then becomes, if a heterosexually oriented man or woman can live chastely why do you argue it is impossible for a homosexual man or woman?
Those who try to move along the line of homosexuality being God-given also need to be reminded of certain basic facts. First, that homosexual people are not mentioned in the bible at all and had God really created an entire third gender of human beings wouldn't He have said something about it? Second, just because something exists does not prove that it exists as God envisioned it. In fact, scripture and dogma teach something quite opposite; death, disease and pain came upon not only human beings but all of Creation because of Adam's sin14. We bear this fallen Creation both in our bodies and in our minds, down into our very genes if the evidence of such diseases as hemophilia and Tay-Sachs are to be believed. Finally, the fact that most homosexual people cannot recall ever deciding to be homosexual does not mean that God loves homosexual sex any more than He loves adultery, fornication or idolatry. Orientation may not be a choice. Actions almost always are.
The third line of reasoning can best be addressed by probing what is meant by "love," both in the mind of the person(s) engaged in the conversation and in the mind of Christ as well as the Magesterium of the Church. If one truly "loves" another person, does one willingly join them in activity which frequently causes harm? (Even before the arrival of HIV, sexually transmitted disease in homosexually active men was the subject of epidemiological and other medical concern). If one "loves" the other person, does one demand that they serve as your sexual object? Can sexually active homosexuality ever be more than this, given that there can be no other ultimate object than pleasure? After all, it was after I began to get a better idea of how Christ loved me, and loved my then-sexual partner, that I stopped having sex with him.
I have left love for the end because, in the end, that is what this debate is really all about. There is an old saying that all the best lies have an element of truth and that is no where better illustrated than in this discussion. Gay activists often appeal to the public mind by defending their "right to love whom they choose," In doing so they count on both the muddled understanding of love which is so much abroad right now, as well as the lie that all loves are equal. In one sense they are correct. All human love, and our desire for love, seeks to find and imitate the Divine Love which we all, somehow, know exists.
But where they teach truth in generality there is falsehood in their specific. As much as gay activists might wish to claim gay love imitates the divine it is simply not so. At the heart of the divine love is the transcendent desire to lose self in the good of the other and, as both my life's experience and reason have taught me, an actively homosexual life precludes that desire.
Christ told us, just before he showed us, that there is no greater love than that we lay down our lives for our friends.15 The greatest love is His, the perfect sacrifice of self that others might benefit. It is this most holy, most difficult, most chaste form of love to which homosexual men and women are called. We are summoned, like the apostle Paul, to pour ourselves out for the Good of the Kingdom, sharing with many the talents and fruit which, had we been heterosexually oriented, we might have primarily shared with spouse and children. Chastity, to paraphrase Fr. Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, cannot be without being watered regularly with charity.
I do not mean to write glibly about this particular Cross. If my words here sound bloodless or impersonal it is only because I do not wish to make myself the focus. The story of the emotional struggle and sacrifice which have come with this path is long and deep enough that it cannot be fully told here. However, although I have not dwelt on all the gory emotional details, faithful Catholics need to know that there are devoted, chaste homosexuals in their parishes, religious orders and apostolates and that many of us live lives of deep sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom. Most of us are quiet. Many of us you will never know. But all of us stand in need of your prayers, charity and good will.
I would like to leave you will two quotes which are relevant to my life and.I believe, the lives of many homosexual Catholics. The first is from Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisted. Julia is the speaker and the occasion is her decision not to marry her lover, after their affair and divorcing their original spouses.. It is a speech that has to do with the choices each of us face, whether to serve God or another. .
"...How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I am not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw today there was one thing unforgivable....the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I am not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's."16
The second is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship:
"And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we will have to go to Him, for only He knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us to follow him, knows the journey's end. But we do know it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy."17
1 The cause of brevity and more readable prose demand use the term "homosexual" for homosexually oriented men and women throughout the piece. Readers should not think, however, that all homosexually oriented people can- or should- be defined entirely by their sexual orientation.
2 This is not surprising considering that even now there is no universally accepted definition of "sexual orientation," much less what causes it and whether or not it may be changed.
3 Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 6: 8-11
4 Genesis 19: 1-25
5 Cruising is a practice among sexually active gay men of seeking out partners for sex. A "cruisy" place or event is one where a lot of 'cruising" takes place.
6 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Collier Press, Page 45.
7 Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2358
8 Matthew 7:1-5; Luke 6:36-37
9 Catechism of the Catholic Church #358.
10 Catechism of the Catholic Church #2359
112nd Corinthians 5:16
12 1 Peter 2:9
13 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 7:22-24
14 Romans 5:12; Romans 8: 20-23
15 John 15: 13
16 Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, Little Brown and Company, pg. 340
17 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Collier Press, Page 41.
