"If I must speak the truth, I feel disposed to shun every conference of Bishops, because I never saw a synod brought to a happy outcome, and remedying, and not rather aggravating, existing evils. For rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason - do not think me extravagant for saying so - and a mediator is more likely to incur some imputation himself than to clear up the imputations which others lie under."
St Gregory Nazienzen
382 AD
2 comments:
I was a fool. I was a stupid naive fool to think anything could have changed with this synod. The relatio's statements on homosexuality did not seem to contradict the Church's teachings at all to me. But what do I know?
Fine. If these fools want to wrap themselves in their own self-bestowed theological infallibility, they are welcome to it. Soon they will be nothing more than a conclave of withered old men who reign over an empire of half-naked savages squatting in mud huts, whom they have adopted because their archaic worldview confirms to the bishops' teachings.
I'm done getting my hopes up. This is the last time.
-Sean
I feel for you, kid. I do. It's a rocky roller coaster, being a man who loves men and a man who loves the Church.
http://usmalesf.blogspot.com/2007/01/trembling-before-g-d.html
I just don't see how they can say gay sex is ok without dismantling the whole edifice of Catholic sexual morality. Anymore than they could welcome someone at communion still married to their spouse, despite civil divorce and cohabiting with a new parter.
My own decision, after years of grief, was to part ways with the Church. And after the anger subsided, I realized they had no choice. Any more than Islam can celebrate sculptors or Judaism can say it's ok to be a polytheist.
It's not personal.
For apostolic Christianity (Roman and Greek), the sacramentality of marriage is the issue. Anything that weakens marriage will not be welcome. Cannot be welcome.
The RC Catechism calls both homosexual acts and masturabation "intrinsicially disordered" and evil, for similar reasons: ANY sexual act outside marriage-open-to-conception is ruled out. Otherwise the outcome will be what you have in the West now: sexual chaos.
It's not personal, no matter how it feels. Catholicism isn't anti-gay. It's just deeply pro-marriage. The moral axiom won't allow any deviation without self-destructing. And what would they be left with then?
To be gay and Catholic, I think you either have to be able to try to be celibate (a grim life if not your calling, to put it mildly) or to be able to see yourself as an exception to a rule that the family is incapable of changing and tolerate their necessarily limited viewpoint.
http://usmalesf.blogspot.com/2011/07/ethics-and-eros.html
And really, should they risk unravelling a moral edifice 2000 years in the making for people who are no more than 2 out of 100?
Otherwise, I think you have to go into exile and look for another path. Which is what I did.
None of these, none, are easy. All entail serious loss. And grief. Eventually --and you have to be patient with the rocky process-- you have to decide what you can live with and what you can't.
I feel for you. I do.
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