Gay, Catholic and Doing Fine

[athrock]

The Church might as well be calling him Quasimodo, and making him live in the bell tower, but instead of being infuriated and indignant, the OP is grateful to this church for accepting him despite his "damaged" condition, and happy to forfeit his natural born right as a human to personal happiness of the fullest extent possible.  

This was somebody's self-worth, slowly and purposefully chipped away over many years, and he can't even see it.  Blind is right.  

Thank you very much for the kind words, but I'd like to focus on this passage in particular, because it made me realize something: is there a single other sin within christian doctrine that gets the kind of attention that homosexuality does?

Not today. And why is this? Because the gay community has made the topic unavoidable. So, the Catholic Church sides with the homosexual as a person in need of love, support, etc, but opposes the acts of homosexuality which are intrinsically evil.

But 50 years ago, the Church was siding with the Black community and the Civil Rights movement. It was the same principle at work then as now: the dignity of the individual person was to be upheld.

So, we have a gay catholic living a life of celibacy, which is what the church suggests for gay people... and doesn't that right away strike you as strange? Isn't the christian position that everyone is fundamentally and unavoidably sinful, and that the only way to heaven is to accept Jesus as a sacrifice in recompense to those sins, that you do have and cannot avoid otherwise? Doesn't Catholicism specifically provide confessionals for the purpose of confessing and redressing sins somewhat?

So if the tenets of the church overall are that people will sin, there's nothing that can be done about that, and that the crucifixion is sufficient to erase those sins before god, and if the Catholic church specifically provides a method for dealing with those sins actively committed during the week, which is an implicit acknowledgement that their congregants are sinning, and if all sins are equal before god... why is it that homosexuality gets singled out for special attention, with this demand for celibacy? Couldn't a gay person with an active sex life accept Jesus, go to confession, and be on equal ground in terms of sins as every other christian?

Why do gays need to make extra special preparations to avoid sin, when it's treated as inevitable in every other case?

You fundamentally misunderstand the nature and role of confession. This is why I said you do not know Catholicism.

If a person goes to confession and admits to living with his girlfriend and is unwilling to stop having sex with her, the priest may withhold absolution. Why? Because the person is not committed to CHANGE, to avoiding sin in the future. He is saying, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I'll be sinning again later tonight because I'm not will to give up my sin, but I want to be forgiven anyhow."

Would any of you forgive your own children whose confession and apology for some transgression was so obviously insincere? Hardly.

Similarly, the person who is sexually active in a committed homosexual relationship cannot be forgiven by the Church because there must be the firm intent to avoid the sin in the future. This obviously does not exist within the context of gay marriage or most homosexual relationships. But heterosexuals who are sinning outside of marriage are held to the same standard.

The heterosexual couple can correct this problem by:

1. Living separately and chastely
2. Living jointly and chastely
3. Getting married.

The homosexual couple may choose the first of these two options, but the third is simply not possible because a same-sex couple cannot reproduce. Thus, while the unitive aspect of sexuality might be met, the procreative is not.