Keeping the Faith

There’s a fairly good article in the Washington Blade on the American bishops’ gay outreach guidelines and the challenges of being both Catholic and gay. Most of the commentary is predictably from the leftish side of the argument, as the more conservative gay Catholics are probably not lining up to be interviewed by the Blade. This comment was really good, although it probably needs a few nuances:

One significant question for Catholics who remain active in the church’s gay ministries is how they reconcile their sexual orientation with the church’s teachings on the matter.

“I know what the church, the hierarchy, the people way up at the top are saying, but for myself it’s a personal issue with me and God,” Silva says about why he chooses to remain a practicing Catholic. “It has nothing to do with what the cardinal, the Pope, the bishops say.”

When he read about the bishops’ plan to vote on the gay ministry document, Silva was dismayed. But placing it in the context of other church teachings on sex, it didn’t seem so harmful, he said.

“They tell straight people not to have sex … without getting married,” Silva says. Discussing the matter is a step in the advancement of gay rights within the church, he says. “It’s a start, it’s a sort of waking up.”

A lot of more secular gays think, as the article’s author does, that the dissonance is between Church teaching and our orientation. The dissonance is really more between the teachings and our sexual choices. The Silva fellow hits on that, pointing out that there is plenty of dissonance between Church teachings and the sexual choices of most straight Catholics. In that context (the bishops also repeated Church teaching against contraception in the same meeting as they discussed ministry to gays), it’s not so much about condemnation as it is about holding up a sexual ideal that society has pretty much rejected, rightly or wrongly. Straight Catholics who are all homophobic need to realize that the Church (for many of the same reasons) also rejects a guy sleeping with his girlfriend, a single man practicing the “solitary vice,” a wife going down on her husband, a married couple using the pill, or a divorced man remarrying while his ex-wife is still alive. Gays aren’t being singled out. If it seems like that, then I think it’s more about homophobia than Church teaching as such.

Another thought occurs from the above selection. Yes, there’s a difference between my faith in God and the things that the Pope and cardinals say, but that doesn’t mean the two don’t have anything to do with each other. Even if they are wrong sometimes or ignorant, they’re still the main teachers of the faith I have. Even if I listen to them with a critical ear (in the good sense), I still ought to listen. Then, weighing their words against what I know from scripture, tradition, and solid theology, my conscience may accept or reject what they are saying, but it’s got to be more than just a knee-jerk reaction. And that goes not just for gay sex, but for straight couples and their contraceptives, too.

Bishops’ Guidelines for Pastoral Ministry to Gays and Lesbians

What about the Bishops’ Conference’s new guidlines for gay and lesbian ministry? Everyone seems to be all worked out about them.  On right-wing blogs and news sites, people are accusing the bishops of betraying Truth (always with capital letters), of soft-pedalling sin, and of capitulating to The Gays. Some of the nervous nellies are even claiming that — gasp — this document is worse than Always Our Children (being part of the Vast Homosexual Conspiracy, I predictably like AOC). Presumably, that’s because the document begins by reiterating Catechism teaching that gays and lesbians have human dignity, too, presumes that sexual orientation is neither a choice nor generally changeable, does not endorse “reparative therapy” pseudo-science, and does not wallow in excessive verbiage about how twisted, warped, and evil we are.

On the other side of the fence, gay activists are making lots of noise about the same document being hateful, homophobic, etc. Presumably that is because this national document doesn’t reject the teaching of the world-wide Church, because it reiterates (in much more careful and considerate language) what the Church has been teaching all along, and because it repeats the standard discipline that if a person has engaged in what the Church considers serious sexual sin (of whatever sort), then confession is necessary before receiving the Eucharist. In other news, the sky is still blue. One valid criticism, I think, is the way the document discourages people coming out: on that, more in a bit.

The document seems very balanced to me. In 25 pages, it sets out a framework of what a ministry should look like if it (a) sets out to help gay Christians in our particular struggles to follow Christ and (b) intends to bill itself as a Catholic ministry. What follows is a listing of the various topics covered by the document, with my own comments on each section.