Courage Apostolate

Fr. Paul Check

Catholic ministry to those with same sex attractions.

Courage Conference began Thursday July 17.  Details here.

Fr. Paul Check has a great interview here.

With priests like Fr. Check and other Courage chaplains around the country, the Church is in good hands.  With membership in Courage growing, the witness of men and women living in fidelity to Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage prevails.

A couple of quotes from the Fr. Check interview.

Within the apostolate, we’ve grown considerably, and I think that’s a testimony to the veracity of the Church’s teaching. Many people have lived one way and discovered through experience that the promise [of happiness] was not fulfilled, and they’ve had a change of heart. They have looked to the Church to assist in confirming what they’ve experienced interiorly. 

And then the other thing is that we have Courage members who are willing to give their testimony in a public forum. Many members have a sense that now is the time to give witness, and at no small cost or sacrifice, by going public. - NCRegister

Going public is a huge sacrifice.  People who do so in support of Courage Apostolate need our prayer.

Contraception, the original sin of the sexual revolution.

And then, of course, there’s the whole contraception question, which has made this all the more difficult, because so many Catholics, including, sadly, many priests, have it settled in their minds that deliberately sterile sex promotes the human good. But it doesn’t. We know through Revelation, reason and lived experience. 

Once we have the idea that deliberately sterile sex within marriage is good, then it’s a very short step to same-sex union. What contraception does is remove the distinctively male and female aspect, the complementarity, of sex. Once you give up that ground philosophically, you wind up where we are culturally. Some of that has seeped into the minds and hearts of Catholics. - NCR

On the language used in the Catechism.

Hypothetically, if you could revise the Catechism, would you replace the phrase “objectively disordered,” and if so, with what? 

I know that phrase falls very hard on the ears, and not just on the ears of people who are dissenting from the Church’s teaching or inclined to dissent. There are many good people who say that this phrase is difficult. Of course, it is not a moral judgment, but an anthropological judgment meaning the erotic attraction to a person of the same sex can never be fulfilled in a way consistent without nature. That’s what it means: that people are out of harmony with their nature. 

But the good in the phrase is that it’s very clear, and while it can be hard on ears, its clarity has brought to many people a deeper or more thoughtful reflection on what the Church teaches and why. 

As long as we are careful to make the three-part distinction that the Catechism does make [person, inclination and action], then I think we can use that phrase. Now, that doesn’t mean it needs to be used all the time or from the pulpit on Sunday, but certainly in a Christian anthropology or ethics classes it has its place. - NCR

Read the entire interview - it should answer many of your questions on same sex attraction and the Catholic Church.

If you never hear another word from me or read another post on this blog, please remember that Courage Apostolate is the best ministry available for same sex attracted persons in the Catholic Church.

I'll be praying in union with those at the conference this weekend.