When I finish my project I'll have to get back to blogging about queer Catholics.
What?
Seriously - there is a really good film on the subject - gay and Catholic. Whatever that means. In the film, people are talking about their conversion, their return, their coming into Catholicism. The film is called, The Third Way - it is excellent.
The third way is love and acceptance. The Church calls men and women with same sex attraction to sanctity and a chaste life - in love - charity. It makes so much sense. It's not about making gay people straight - it's about becoming saints.
I didn't like the title at first because it seemed to suggest a third sex, so I watched the video. It strikes me the third way means the Catholic Church offers a third way to those who experience same sex attraction. The third way is chastity withing the context, the reality of their cultural experience, so to speak. The world offers an active homosexuality, other churches/programs offer various forms of 'conversion therapy', the Catholic Church offers acceptance, love, and chaste holiness - happiness.
I may not have expressed it very well - just watch the video - here.
Art: Contemporary depiction of "The Call of Matthew" - source.
I think the Third Way is love, acceptance, and openness to the possibility that God can re-order our disordered desires. I have no problem with men and women with same sex attraction seeking, through therapy, prayer, penance, etc., to re-order their disordered attractions. Some call that "conversion therapy" I just call it grace and living the faith. And before you poo poo that or say its impossible let me say that I've seen it happen many times. I know many men who used to consider themselves same sex attracted now consider themselves straight men and live a happy married life with children. Re-ordering our disordered attractions is the point of the spiritual life, and ssa is no exemption.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting story about the ex gay movement and people involved.
DeleteSorry Terry, I don't know how you feel about links so just delete it if you want:
http://www.newsweek.com/ex-ex-gay-pride-249282
One can live their life anyway they choose, and maybe these people are "happy," but I just can't wrap my mind around dragging some poor woman into a fake life and then children. Be ex-gay by yourself all you want...just don't hurt anyone else and don't use people as a "cure," for your own problems.
It's plausible that some people's same-sex attractions are the result of environmental factors and can be changed later in life. I think it's presumptuous to assume that people who have claimed to change their sexual orientation are living a "fake life".
DeleteMichael, you are absolutely right. Thanks for the comment.
DeleteYou are correct. Some may feel it impossible to change the inclination - the Church simply asks that they live chastely as they reform their lives. All single men and women are called to chastity and holiness. Not everyone is amenable to therapy, not everyone can afford it. The grace of God is sufficient. God does re-order our disordered desires through grace - prayer and the sacraments are the means. The recovering alcoholic may want to drink but he abstains. The promiscuous person may want to act out sexually but he abstains out of love for God.
ReplyDeleteI too have friends who left the lifestyle and are married with children - they have not observed chastity according to their state in life however. They have been unfaithful to their wives. They remain married and managed to work through their infidelities. No doubt some men people do marry and find happiness and remain faithful to their spouse.
Terrance Weldon addressed this new "movie" pretty well:
ReplyDelete"There is no “third way” in here – just the same – old, same – old,hate the sin but love the sinner. Far from being “faithful to Catholic teaching (all of it)”, it does nothing of the kind – because Catholic teaching on the subject is so riddled with internal contradictions, it is impossible to be faithful to all of it.
For example, John Paul’s renowned theology of the body makes it crystal clear that celibacy is a gift, which must not be imposed, but can only be embraced by those for whom it is possible. Yet the Catholic Church attempts to impose it absolutely on all gay men and lesbians.
The Catechism states clearly that we much all embrace our sexual identity – but when gay or lesbian Catholics do, as a simple matter of honesty and integrity, we risk being excluded from Catholic employment and lay ministry.
There is indeed a third way, as I have experienced in my own life – but it is not the way promoted in this video. It is however, a way that I have come to after extensive prayer, study and spiritual direction (including a six day silent, directed retreat of such intensity that my regular spiritual director (a Jesuit priest with a doctorate in spirituality) later described as a genuinely mystical experience, a direct encounter with God.
That third way, which has brought me to an ever deeper involvement in the life of the Church and engagement with the scriptures, is to accept the truth of something that Pope Benedict referred to, in a reflection on the execution and later rehabilitation of St Joan of Arc: that sometimes the theologians of the Church are simply wrong – and that on this matter, they clearly are so."
Source: http://queeringthechurch.com/2014/04/29/a-third-way-on-catholic-teaching-and-homosexuality/
Call me crazy Poodle - but I almost wrote that gay people have the gift - the call to chastity and the gift of celibacy. So instead of saying "I'm gay!" You can say, "Yay! I'm celibate and called to be a saint!"
DeleteWorks for me.
All I got was the gift of sarcasm. :'(
Delete*sad poodle*
I wanted a new Ipad and I got this? Goes into the return pile!
DeleteLOL!!!
DeleteI was going to stop commenting on these types of things as it is ridiculous, the theologians ARE wrong that homosexuality in and of itself is a disorder, the Church in many ways (but it is getting much better) has not come to grips about dealing with a healthy "real," sexuality between an opposite sex married couple, much less dealing with this.
ReplyDeleteI think this little video commercial promo for Courage or whatever the intent it, is fine in as an authentic testimony of the people who are presented here. It was their experience, it was their way to come to God, it was their way of dealing with their sexuality. But that is where it ends, it is their individual experience, it is not the experience of all gay Catholics or people, and it should not be presented as the ultimate way to embrace your faith and deal with your sexuality.
I hesitate to label anyone's personal experience as I do not like people to do that to me, however, since they have presented it to us I am going to give my *opinion* on what they represent. In many ways these people felt alone and unhappy and as outsiders, until they embraced the Church(Selmys, who I find very interesting and am astounded by her intellect, always comes off as one of those hyper intellectual girls who embrace sanything they find interesting and intellectually and personally challenging, there were a lot of weird smart girls in college who experimented with their (bi) sexuality, until moving on) Which is wonderful and I am happy for them but I have to wonder if it is more about getting a feeling of acceptance and belonging then it is about anything else. I had to laugh at the guy who equated his sexuality because he just didnt have any guy friends and didnt do guy stuff...(thankfully he was finally taught how to hit a ball and run bases..) really? That is not the experience of ALL gay people at all.
So this is good as far as it goes, showing individual people, and their individual stories and their individual paths to God. The film makers go wrong when they present this as a typical gay experience (ie. people who weren't close to their fathers, or other males and were just big sissies so they subverted this into a "disordered inclination." ) that is becomes condescending and laughable. I am glad everyone on here has found happiness and Christ, but they did it in their own individual way, as we all do.
Your dad called and he disowned you.
DeleteJUST KIDDING!
I have painter's fatigue - madness - I may cut off my ear.
What??? Was it the barbies and the pink tu-tu that I always wore? Darnnit if only I knew how to throw a ball instead of wearing a ballgown all my "problems,"would be solved : )
DeleteAnd Terry, you truly have a line to heaven!
I wont even go into the "many," people who were gay who are now "straight," comment above. I hope that is truly the case for them, but especially their poor wives and families. They can consider themselves as straight as they want to but I think most of those type of experiences are as Terry writes about, filled with episodes of cheating. I would those guys probably have very active Craigslist accounts and I feel sorry for the poor wives and children dragged through a ridiculous charade of a marriage.
ReplyDeleteWell - it worked for me. Which is why I thanked St. Joseph today. I'm a big fat straight man now! What?
ReplyDeleteWell she is a very lucky woman!
DeleteBut please don't tell me you are driving an SUV, drink light beer, wear pleated khakis and bath in AXE cologne! That is going TOO far!
Delete