Ministry to homosexuals; chastity and charity

The month of May is dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Mary is honored and prayed to because she brings us to her Son, who is Our Lord. She is his mother and the mother of his body which is the Church. Catholics and other Christians turn to Mary with many requests and in all circumstances, but one reason to pray to Mary is to ask her to protect our chastity. Chastity, as a Christian virtue, is that form of self-control in sexual matters that permits us to live constantly and joyfully with God. The pure of heart, those with undivided hearts, see God. Mary, assumed into heaven, wants us to join her in enjoying the vision of God for all eternity.

Chastity protects human love, which reflects God’s total love for his people. In marriage, spouses act chastely when they give themselves to one another completely. Sexual love mirrors and strengthens the psychological and spiritual union of the husband and wife. Outside the covenant of marriage, the virtue of chastity enables men and women to refrain from sexual intercourse until they are married or even for life, especially if a believer makes a vow of perpetual chastity. A generation ago, public mores in American life more or less supported the Christian sense of chastity and marriage; now it is often assumed that unmarried people will be sexually active. This assumption makes conversion and a constant life with God more difficult.

Even more difficult is the shaping of the Church’s outreach to homosexuals. There are various theories about the causes of homosexual orientation. What is certain is that people who are almost exclusively oriented sexually toward others of their own sex have a right to be respected and to be regarded with compassion and sensitivity. It is never morally justified to abuse a homosexual person physically or verbally because of their sexual orientation. Jokes that wound, epitaphs which hurt, an attitude of disdain or condescension should have no part among those who believe that Jesus calls us to respect and love everyone. That is the first foundation of the Church’s ministry to homosexuals.

The second foundation is the teaching that sexual relations are reserved to those who are married and that acting out homosexually is an objectively sinful act. This teaching is not based on this or that phrase of Holy Scripture but on the Church’s constant teaching about the proper use of the gift of sexuality, on her understanding of marriage and on the lack of complementarity in homosexual genital relations (see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357). This teaching is resented by those who have come to regard homosexuals not as individuals with certain sexual proclivities but as a class of people and a minority often persecuted. Vindication then demands not only that persons be accepted but that their actions be approved. There is great pressure from many sectors of society now to place homosexual relations on a par with normal heterosexual relations. For many homosexual activists, therefore, the Church is unjust and an enemy. This judgment is shared by other groups which find common cause with homosexual activists because they share a similar understanding of human sexuality divorced from the transmission of life.

Within the Church, some Catholics and even a few moral theologians would contest the Church’s teaching on the morality of homosexual genital relations. For several decades, a group called “Dignity” has rejected the Church’s teaching on this issue but also claimed to be fully Catholic. The sticking point is not that some Dignity members might be sexually active. People often sin. The problem is the open rejection of Church teaching and the understanding of the nature of human sexuality behind the teaching. Dignity’s status as a Catholic organization was clarified some years back, but in their own intention they remain openly gay and openly Catholic.

Another group within the Church is called “Courage”. It fully and courageously accepts the Church’s teaching and tries to surround its members with the means to live chastely. Members of Courage, however, do not identify openly with the gay community. Their sexual orientation may be known to their family or close friends, but they live as single people without identifying themselves publicly in terms of sexual orientation. Their spirituality borrows from the twelve-step model created by Alcoholics Anonymous. Because of their “anonymity”, Courage groups are not visible and therefore not well known. Their founder, Fr. John Harvey, has been to Chicago several times, however, and there is a well-established Courage group in the Archdiocese. I have met with their leadership and encouraged them to develop here. They have been the victim of vituperation from some who believe that Courage tries to change its members’ sexual orientation. In fact, it doesn’t. Personally, however, I have often wondered why a supposedly heterosexual man, perhaps married and with children, is admired and celebrated when he declares himself homosexual, but a journey in the opposite direction is excoriated as repressive.

Between Dignity and Courage, there is a third Chicago group which gathers Catholic homosexuals together. The Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach (AGLO) was set up some years ago to minister to homosexual Catholics who want to identify with the gay community but still live chastely according to the moral teaching of the Church. This is a difficult row to hoe, but God’s grace is powerful and will be given to those who ask for it. There is nothing immoral in publicly identifying oneself as “gay” or lesbian, and it seems to me important for the Church to reach out to her sons and daughters who ask for the pastoral and sacramental help necessary to live chastely even in the gay community. This is the purpose of AGLO: to tell those who call themselves gay and lesbian that they too are made in God’s image and likeness and to gather them together in order to help them avoid sin and to strengthen them spiritually.

Are there some in AGLO who take the personal affirmation but reject the moral teaching? Probably. There are heterosexual Catholics in our parishes who do not accept the clear teaching of the Church on the immorality of artificial contraception and who dissent on other matters as well. The Church exists for sinners, and it’s difficult to call people to conversion if you can’t talk to them. AGLO is a way to be in conversation with a group of Catholics whose good will should be presupposed in the way that any person’s good will should be presupposed. I have met with the leaders of AGLO and believe they are persons of good will whom the Church cannot walk away from. Some make daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament to find the grace necessary to live chastely; others find different forms of prayer and good works in order to live with the Lord. AGLO offers catechetical opportunities as well as social occasions.

This ministry, of course, remains full of pitfalls for everyone involved. That is, however, no reason not to support it. The Blessed Virgin Mary protects all her children, including those who are homosexual, and guides them to her divine Son. So should we. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago

 

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