The phrase “same sex attraction” has different and equivocal meanings. One is a desire for legitimate friendship and marriage based on virtue, the other a desire for sexual pleasure from a person of the same sex. Often the desire for sexual pleasure under the guise of “love” begins in the heart and mind before it is ever carried out in act. We are warned from the Lord Jesus when he says we can commit adultery in the heart. All external sins begin in the heart from killing people to stealing from a bank.
It has been urged by clergy and counselors alike that in dealing with gay persons, Catholics find non-offensive ways to share our their faith and morals teaching. But when the Church clearly says that sexual acts between same sex couples is objectively an immoral act, it will necessarily be offensive to those who deeply believe their sex act is love. Similarly, it is offensive if anyone teaches that Islam believes in killing infidels in order to get to heaven. Even the Lord himself spoke offensively to the Pharisees to spiritually wake them up to reality, even though He failed to change them. But was that His fault? Was St. Paul lacking in compassion and mercy when he twice said “…if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than the one you received, let him be cursed” (Gal. 1. 8-9)? Notice he did not say, “keep in contact or let’s agree to disagree over a nice meal together.”
Preaching the “good news” and kerygma are very helpful to strengthening true believers’ faith or introducing the faith to the interested unchurched or the “pagani.” But once a believer or an institution that claims to live and act for the Church willingly succumbs to theological error and false praxis, handing him or her a document and summoning change is similar to taking a glass of water to put out a forest fire, only worse. It appears to be a form of appeasement much like Chamberlain signing a peace document with Hitler before World War II. It is, however, rightly done in the confessional when people promise to avoid certain sins based on the word of the penitent.
It is said that being in loving relationships with gay siblings shows that we care about them, which will dispose them to hear and follow what we say. However, when someone is locked in a vice that they think is a morally legitimate good, all the kindness in the world normally does not change them. The gay culture is such that it becomes part of a marginalized group because it appears repulsive to those with self-mastery. While Catholics and others engage in homosexual unions, they are still our brothers and sisters, but they are also dead members of the Church and on their way to perdition. However, enjoining or enabling them to become part of my circle of love can cause a great deal of harm to children and adolescents. Being intensely friendly to a son and his lover for example raises a serious problem with other members of a family. Does someone want his children to think love for siblings doing homosexual acts is good? Is not that sending the wrong message to the “little ones?” Is this not “enabling.”
Loving gay friends and children does not mean keeping in the same kind of contact one may have with others. Inviting them to events where they will feel welcomed and loved, as if nothing is wrong seems counter productive to teaching the truth. Hating sin is part of growing in virtue. How someone loves the sinner may be showing him or her tough love. Do we not express reasonable contempt for the mafia, murderers, and thieves? Pope Francis has done this often in speeches to the wealthy of the world as well as with the Roman Curia itself. Why should those who love to do unnatural acts be spoken about with affection or given constant honor and respect publically if what they are doing is living in an intrinsically evil situation?
“Sodomy and sodomite” are offensive words, yet is not that what unnatural sexual expression refers to? Will hiding the word normalize the gay “community?” Are Catholics not supposed to hate sin, and can expressing this hatred of unchaste inauthentic love with reasonable arguments be helpful? Perhaps someone in this culture will not repent, but it does teach others to how important the path to heaven is. Certainly they will not repent if they are shown fawning false kindness. A real problem is many of the gay community but not all already hate the Church because her teachings contradict their lifestyle, and all the kindness in the world will never change that teaching and rarely banish that hatred.
On the one hand, parents, cannot completely cut their blood relations off. On the other hand, they cannot completely accept the situation as it is. There is a middle ground of tolerance yet forcefulness of admonishment, but not each and every time one encounters their adult sons and daughters, friends or ex-spouses. Adolescents are another problem that deserve no toleration lest one gives formal cooperation in evil. Parents must resist this as much as possible. But they should also need to have taught their adolescents about chastity before they became adolescents.
Some friendships need to be terminated lest one become cooperative by seeming acceptance of the homosexual condition. Friendliness is a virtue when prudence dictates its expression. But like alcoholism, a friend must not become an enabler by facilitating someone to eternal death and possible illnesses in this life.
In retrospect, it was only a matter of time before the gay movement within or outside the Catholic ethos would want the rights of marriage, especially financial ones and the esteem of the neighborhoods and the Church. Catholics are in trouble. What else is new?
Father Basil Cole, O.P. is currently a Professor of Moral and Spiritual Theology, Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Father is also author of Music and Morals, The Hidden Enemies of the Priesthood and coauthor of Christian Totality; Theology of Consecrated Life. A native San Franciscan, Father has been a prior in the Western province of the Dominicans, a parish missionary and retreat master, and invited professor of moral and spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome.
