I think no matter which way you slice it, this event clearly has some kind of quasi-approval from the Vatican at the very least, and putting it on the official calendar while saying it's not a sponsored event seems to me like they are trying to toe both sides of the line. It's a cop out, to put it simply. Typical of the Vatican these days; unwilling to take a stance on anything that might upset the secular world.
Now THIS made me smile......But therein lies the heart of the problem, right? "But but,.....if it's what I FEEL then it MUST be from God, right? And anyone or anything that disagrees with that MUST be wrong...."
Oh the lengths we go to in order to satiate our passions, and our egos.....
It is a weird argument as well. Say assistants had drafted portions, would St. Paul have not proofread them? Do people regularly put their names to things they do not agree with?
Sounds like Aaron's answer to Moses. "Idunno what happened...they gave me their gold, I threw it in the fire, and this calf just came out!" **Looks around nervously**
This event makes sense. Jubilee is a celebration of forgiveness, and the theological virtues we open the doors to next year are the antidote to "pride" --including the pride of thinking the Church belongs only to the compliant ones. Forgive me for feeling a little bit angry about the controversy. I know the donors and the general American Catholic population doesn't want to hear this. But my experiences are that the Church goes to enormous lengths to conceal the suffering of priests in the rectories, and that this facade of discipline eventually explodes and is taken out on penitents.
It's not that the Church doesn't care for these people. It is that the Church does not actually feel completely confident it has figured out how to navigate the modern world -- thus the overreliance on discipline and attempt to push out any sort of discerning theological formation for lgbt individuals. My local bishop made a very valiant effort to integrate discipline and theology, but you can see the struggle and insecurities in the vocabulary used in the his Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology. He tried, but could not resist redirecting almost every theological point toward as quickly as possible away from discovery in favor of the canonist perspective.
My first exposure to adult content ever was at my local parish in northern VA. Four priests have used confession as an opportunity to try and recruit me to the vocations director. One priest told me to keep silent about sexual orientation --from my family and friends and that if I successfully be quiet, everything will be Ok. I meet with people all the time in this area who have contemplated suicide or are mentally unwell because of their experiences in Church. The jubilee in my mind is a moment for people to be reintroduced to the sacraments and prayer, even when their local parishes have discarded them. You will not have that opportunity to plant the seeds for the Holy Spirit or conversion if you ask them to check their beliefs or experiences at the door. This is an opportunity.
Do you have a preferred saint to intercede for this? If not I will default to the Blessed Virgin Mary (she loves all her children, and wants the younger sons to turn around and come home, *and* the older sons to not be jerks to their younger brothers... My literal two sons cannot stand each other and so my thoughts are often in the second half of the parable.)
Yes! Saint Frances Cabrini and Saint John Bosco! Both served populations that parishes found super undesirable. But in this case, the lesson they teach is how to love your Church despite who may be excluding you.
“she loves all her children, and wants the younger sons to turn around and come home, *and* the older sons to not be jerks to their younger brothers”. Well said, Bridget!
Do the participants of this group come looking for forgiveness of their perverted acts? If so, great. But the impression I get, is this group affirms and seeks acceptance of homosexual acts, transgenderism, etc., in which case they would not be coming seeking forgiveness. A group that works to have the perverse acts of LGBT affirmed by the Church, and one that seeks to support one another in chastity and healing are two very different groups.
That's kinda the point. Around here we're teaching theology through the lens of discipline, filtering it and driving a lot of wrongdoing behind the guise of chastity. I'm not doubting the authenticity of it for many people, but there is not a shortage of people who are made vulnerable to bad things after they are told to hide their "same-sex attraction" and that they are not really gay. We need to really renew the theology of virtue rather than using the limited definition as moderation of our behavior.
Last week, someone told me they didn't believe that pornography was really harmful to the person they are viewing. They said, I don't buy it when the Church tells me that. It's true, in many cases, a lot of people have been able to dramatically improve their quality of life and secure a safer future through this business. But I was curious...what on earth does that have to do with chastity? You're talking about lust, not chastity. We've gotten too hung up on moderating behaviors instead of teaching virtue. No wonder fewer people are listening. Chastity is willing the good for the other person instead of possessing them.
In theology, virtue is the result of an encounter. It's a positive and fundamental orientation of the person toward God.
Vice = when I encounter myself. My own beliefs. My own hopes/desires. Love for myself not as God intended.
The seeds of virtue = when I encounter the dignity of others. When I encounter their faith, hope, and love.
Virtue and Co-creation= When the encounter becomes a fruitful orientation of ourselves and the other for the greater good.
Just a clarification - you are mixing chastity and charity together here as theological terms. The virtue of charity is the virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God - aka willing the good of another.
Chastity is the virtue of continence and is by definition the virtue opposed to vice of lust. Every single human is called to the virtue of chastity bc it is rightly ordered sexual desire. Single people and vowed people must exercise celibacy to be chaste and in marriage Chastity includes rightly ordered intercourse. But even married people may not lust after their spouse.
Sorry if this was a long comment for just a typo but in case you were interchanging those words on purpose, they’re not the same.
(cited in the Catechism at 2346). CCC 2347 describes the flowering of chastity in its "positive" sense which is what Dan is driving at and I don't think it would be possible to describe the positive sense without calling upon charity. If we were all Oscar the Grouch we would be chaste in a negative sense, because we would not be lusting after anyone physically but we would be lacking the positive sense precisely because of a lack of charity ("have a rotten day!" etc.)
I want to return the convo to my original plea. The LGBT community is exhausted with the abuse. And exhausted with inappropriate issues in confession, or being shoved to seminary. The jubilee is the appropriate time to hold an event.
I don’t mean to be rude but Italian theological essays aren’t accessible to most in this combox 😞
As for abuse in confessionals - that’s an atrociously heinously evil issue that absolutely needs to be addressed. I’m not sure celebrating unchaste acts and lifestyles is the solution best suited to that problem? I also don’t understand what is meant by shoving gay and trans folks into seminaries? Are you saying the church just Tells gay people all they’re good for is the priesthood? This seems … unsound theologically and questionable in reality? Individual experiences not withstanding is there evidence this happening on a large scale?
Well yes to All but the OPs comment read as “what does rejecting porn have to do with Chastity” followed by “chastity is willing the good of the other”
Rejecting porn absolutely has to do with chastity (albeit is not the end, as with what you said about, but it’s definitely not unrelated lol) and willing the good of another is the definition of charity. You can will all the good of all the others and still be unchaste with one’s self. Obviously charity is intertwined with all virtue etc etc but it read as tho those were being used as synonyms or interchangeably which is confusing at best and flat out incorrect at worst.
Largely supporting what you just said. From Pope Francis on chastity: "How many relationships that began in the best of ways have then turned into toxic relationships, of possession of the other...These are loves in which chastity has been missing: a virtue not to be confused with sexual abstinence — chastity is more than sexual abstinence — but rather, to be connected with the will never to possess the other." https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2024/documents/20240117-udienza-generale.html
This is a message that the LGBT community (and really everyone) needs. I remember listening to the radio the day after that General Audience in Rome, and the morning show DJs were commenting on this clip which had caught the attention of the news. The DJs both thought chastity was only about restraint or being a list of prohibited actions, but viewing it in terms of respect had made them think that maybe chastity has value.
Be that as it may, the article is about a particular group on the pilgrimage schedule and the controversy this has caused. If the group is faithful then there is no controversy; if the group dissents from the Church's faith and life then it is not good that they are on the pilgrimage schedule.
The issues in the Church pertaining to those who identify as LGBT-whatever-the-heck-other-letters-and-numbers-they-decide-to-add-to-it are not monolithic. There are very good things you bring up that are worth talking about, but none justify the promotion or inclusion of groups that openly dissent from the Church's faith and life.
The long and the short is that this event is included on the Jubilee calendar, along with those of the farmers, the doctors and nurses, the artists, the students, the schools, the confraternities, the nations et al-- all of which professions and activities and avocations and vocations are in se good. The Pope is responsible, whatever cloud of words Mons Rino chooses to blow about (and notice what he does not say: there is no reason, apart from the prejudices of the homosexual activists, to believe that David and Jonathan are suitable avatars, there is no justification acceptable to Catholics to throw out the Apostle's teaching etc etc etc). The faithful suffer more or less silently and wait for relief, which must come from Heaven.
The LGBT can be quite faithful, in the same way that you or I at times are not. But they are tired of the abuse. Tired of being recruited to go to the vocations director as the only means of redeeming themselves. Tired of being hit on during confession. I've met with about 200 individuals in Arlington and DC who have had disastrous experiences. Largely LGBT or their friends/family who can no longer connect with God through the sacraments because of how it has been weaponized against their loved ones. It's time for us to be humble. Time for a détente, to unite discipline and theology, so that we discern together. To do that we have to accept that the Church has committed many atrocities and recruited many bad men--- but that the exact same system has fostered and built up saints in community. It is time for a Jubilee.
Perhaps I am reading you wrong, so please explain EXACTLY what you mean by "uniting discipline and theology".....how can you be faithful if you disavow the limits on human behavior that God himself has declared as off-limits? It seems to me that individual would be saying "I love you but to hell with your commandments", which even a child can understand makes no sense. Or are you discussing those who have avowed to live chastely with their predilection, who are actively seeking to repent and convert, but continue to face an unjust scrutiny? I am not understanding your position clearly....
That's a disciplinary perspective--and needs to be preserved, unlike what many theologians feel. But if we are to look at both discipline and theology together, instead of just saying God made me this way so I have to live like that... you discern slowly. Historically, the Church has supposed that sexual orientation is not something you are born with but that it is either a rebellion, a choice, and for a while they actually suspected it was a type of preferred criminal behavior (like someone who has a knack or craving for theft). So now in the modern world, knowing that at a minimum some people are born with this disposition, the Church doesn't give a carte blanche approval. No. But that reality does fundamentally change the approach just as it has for other issues. The Church's duties are to figure out what one's responsibilities and gifts are. The charisms they now carry because of their sexuality. The Church must figure how to orient the God-given trait toward the good. That's lacking here, and it's given way to abuse of all kinds.
Well, if I understand your point (and that's still a bit questionable, sorry), I can agree that those who are seeking to live chastely, in understanding of what Christ is teaching us through His Church, must be accepted and welcomed just as all sinners, seeking repentance and conversion, are accepted (hopefully, we ALL are seeking that. We all certainly need it.....). If this is what you mean "changing the approach", well of course. But, like one respondent says above, most of these people are not seeking that, they are seeking to join the fold, so to speak, WITHOUT conversion or repentance. They are asking us to just accept their behavior as simply "their choice", and "Well, can't we just agree to disagree and still get along?" This is not possible.
It has nothing to do with the Church not accepting people the way that they are, it has to do with understanding that the choices they make to engage in clearly adulterated behavior (even if they feel some "natural" urge to do so) contravenes the love that Christ is offering, and thus nothing more can be done because they lack faith to repent and are not seeking conversion (which, of course, is the ONLY reason to join ANY faith community). Read the Scriptures about what Christ did when the people lacked faith. You might as well suggest that the Church should try to "change its approach" and seek to "accept" some Klansmen - who REALLY REALLY love Jesus otherwise - as members of the Body of Christ without letting go of their racial hatred ("It's just who they are by nurture" - yes, I have actually heard THAT argument too). Again, this is not possible.
We generally don’t require people to fully convert as if it’s a light switch, and actually recognize via Acts 10 —when Peter was told by the angel to go mingle with the pagans. Initially he protested. But then from his encounter Peter actually came to convert deeper himself. Conversion is a lifetime process, not a legal declaration as in yesterday I was not fully converted but today I met the requirements. However, the English speaking Catholic world has on many occasions taken a different path than the rest of the universal church by demanding such signals from certain groups.
Two examples from Pope Benedict that struck me. 1) when he knowingly gave holy communion to the Protestant Bro. Roger. Who later converted, as he was transformed by that encounter. 2) when he gave communion to the brutal dictator in Cameroon. It was a moment when we can say that brutal man truly met Jesus.
Part of initial conversion is a tacit agreement that what the Church teaches is true, even if the specifics are not known, and the person unknowingly has differing opinions.
For a person to declare themselves to be a devout Catholic and proud of their active homosexuality is the sort of contradiction that indicates either nonexistent catechesis on the subject (and a catechist that needs to be corrected), or a lack of that tacit agreement.
There are plenty of gay people who are working very hard on conversion. There are those who are manifestly not. The only person on the planet who is allowed to suspend the canon law barring giving Holy Communion to those in manifest grave sin is the Pope. Everyone else has to minister to these people *without* doing that.
And it's not like this is impossible. We spend a minute or so receiving Holy Communion, perhaps 5-10 in Confession. Time-wise, the overwhelming majority of what we do as Catholics is not receiving the Sacraments, and are things that even thoroughly unconverted people can join in.
If you would like to discuss theology, it has to be the sort of theology that fully accepts the moral teaching of the Church, with no loopholes or exceptions. I.e. homosexual acts are intrinsically, objectively evil, always and regardless of circumstances.
There's already been an awful lot of teaching surrounding how to handle our sinful inclinations (present from conception thanks to being deprived of sanctifying grace from conception as well as a wide variety of physical problems), and our weakness of will, and darkness of intellect, and still move toward God. That is something I think falls primarily into the realm of mystical theology, which never contradicts moral teaching. It is the practice of Catholic mysticism that enables us to follow Catholic moral teaching, even as Catholic moral teaching exists to make Catholic mysticism possible. And Catholic mysticism is available to everyone.
There has also already been a lot of teaching (and there seems to be a fair amount of development taking place here) regarding healing from the wounds dealt after conception, whether we injured ourselves or were injured by another, or were injured by the vicissitudes of life. It is rooted in repentance of sins, forgiveness of injuries, acceptance of suffering, and a solid dedication to seeking the exact truth and believing it. But of course the details could fill many books.
Several of the relevant concepts are: learning to hate one's own sins, learning to be patient with one's own failings and faults, learning to trust and rely on God in all things both the impossible and the possible, and learning to suffer well, to have our desires unfulfilled for a few minutes or for an entire lifetime.
But since our relationship with God is destroyed by mortal sin, our personal knowledge of mystical theology cannot be expected to grow if we don't stop committing mortal sin. This is why it is those people who have learned to live continently with SSA/gender dysphoria, and those who have been healed from it, who will be the reliable sources of development of the Church's understanding of it.
With respect, we do know "[know] that at a minimum some people are born with this disposition." In spite of desperate attempts to show that, it is a claim that holds no scientific water. I've known two sets of identical twins, one of whom struggled with this "disposition" and one who didn't. "Born with it" would require an identical perspective from identical twins.
Sadly, you are correct that entirely too many Catholics have a tendency to misjudge and mistreat people with SSA, but that doesn't change the fact that these attractions are always disordered.
On the other hand, the issue has become so politicized that any position contrary to "born that way" is career suicide for the biologist of psychologist who promotes it.
I once had a very long and fascinating conversation with a psychologist who studied this issue extensively. (I mean, real scientific studies, as much as can be done in a field like psychology) and he had unearthed some fascinating and rational conclusions. When I ask him if he was publishing them, he told me there was simply no way he could, it would destroy his career. This was in the 1990s!
So, until we are willing to have a real, genuine and honest discussion about this issue, I'm afraid the Church finds herself in a difficult position. She can't deny truths of both God and the Natural Law, but if she tries to be open to the conversation, those with a political agenda will quickly misquote and misuse her words to lead more people into darkness.
I appreciate your tone and thoughtfulness. Thank you. We could use more of that. My greatest desire is to get people back to the sacraments, but they want to know that they are safe.
I'm sorry I do not have an english version. But here are the criteria for how the Church has developed and grown (not evolved or changed) it's doctrine over the centuries. There has been immense doctrine change over the centuries. But never an overthrowing of what was already taught. Quoting Saint Vincent de Lerins, , «on condition, however, that it is truly a question of progress in faith and not of change. It is characteristic of progress that every reality develops intrinsically, while change implies the passage of a given thing to something else that is different».
Well my friend, I can't read Italian but, again, before I make any REAL judgement about what you are saying, I would have to ask you to CLEARLY define HOW you think the Church should "progress but not change" and not "overthrow" what has already been taught. I'm just not seeing your point.....
This is essential Catholic theology formation though. That is my frustration with the American Church in particular, which typically does not provide formation beyond the boundaries. At no point has any doctrine of the Church ever stood still.
At all points in the Church’s history, man has dreamed of how to:
-explain it in a deeper way that was previously understood
-sharpened definitions that have become grainy because of cultural changes
-or mature it. Like a toddler understanding becoming more freestanding
To say something is “already clear enough” is a disciplinary stance. But that is not Catholic theology. And in the case of sexuality, a newer understanding that some people are born with this orientation is a deep cut to the Church’s prior explanations. It’s not the first time the Church has had to pivot in how it explains sexuality—it’s actually been done many times. But now the church has to go deeper, sharper, or mature its previous definitions. There shouldn’t be any fear in that. This is a process that is always ongoing.
I find it useless to try to have much of a conversation with someone who believes (and I think, mea culpa, that that is likely to be the correct verb here) that 'theology is a process that is always ongoing'-- which either means so much that it becomes an idol ('God is process') or it means nothing much at all beyond what might be of professional interest to academic theologians. But peace to you and to all of us as we approach the great mystery of Our Lord's Incarnation.
The problem is, with all due respect, that it sounds like you're saying nothing. It is very difficult to understand what you're trying to convey when you speak in such shrouded terms. It's like there is something you're avoiding saying.
I'm not accusing you of anything and believe that you mean well, but I cannot decipher any meaning from what you're saying.
I think that there are so many people in the Church, clergy and lay, who are actively trying to reverse Church teaching, to say something new and contrary to what has been said in the past, that other people wanting to put on the brakes should not be surprising. Every pendulum eventually swings the other way.
Even from a purely practical perspective, how do you correctly develop doctrine when you have that many people throwing cyanide into the soup? But I think this problem is more acute in various official forms of teaching. Us low-level folks should be thinking about this, if only for the practical reason that at least some of us can't muddle through it without thinking about it.
I think no matter which way you slice it, this event clearly has some kind of quasi-approval from the Vatican at the very least, and putting it on the official calendar while saying it's not a sponsored event seems to me like they are trying to toe both sides of the line. It's a cop out, to put it simply. Typical of the Vatican these days; unwilling to take a stance on anything that might upset the secular world.
Well said.
What the Vatican is doing is not sitting well at all with Americans. Please see this note I wrote a few days ago: https://substack.com/@logicalproofofgod/note/c-80490481
And a very typical “SJ” maneuver
> "some of the passages attributed to Paul were probably written by his assistants"
yes, such as his primary assistant who goes by the weird rockstar title "the Paraclete"
Now THIS made me smile......But therein lies the heart of the problem, right? "But but,.....if it's what I FEEL then it MUST be from God, right? And anyone or anything that disagrees with that MUST be wrong...."
Oh the lengths we go to in order to satiate our passions, and our egos.....
It is a weird argument as well. Say assistants had drafted portions, would St. Paul have not proofread them? Do people regularly put their names to things they do not agree with?
Sounds like Aaron's answer to Moses. "Idunno what happened...they gave me their gold, I threw it in the fire, and this calf just came out!" **Looks around nervously**
This event makes sense. Jubilee is a celebration of forgiveness, and the theological virtues we open the doors to next year are the antidote to "pride" --including the pride of thinking the Church belongs only to the compliant ones. Forgive me for feeling a little bit angry about the controversy. I know the donors and the general American Catholic population doesn't want to hear this. But my experiences are that the Church goes to enormous lengths to conceal the suffering of priests in the rectories, and that this facade of discipline eventually explodes and is taken out on penitents.
It's not that the Church doesn't care for these people. It is that the Church does not actually feel completely confident it has figured out how to navigate the modern world -- thus the overreliance on discipline and attempt to push out any sort of discerning theological formation for lgbt individuals. My local bishop made a very valiant effort to integrate discipline and theology, but you can see the struggle and insecurities in the vocabulary used in the his Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology. He tried, but could not resist redirecting almost every theological point toward as quickly as possible away from discovery in favor of the canonist perspective.
My first exposure to adult content ever was at my local parish in northern VA. Four priests have used confession as an opportunity to try and recruit me to the vocations director. One priest told me to keep silent about sexual orientation --from my family and friends and that if I successfully be quiet, everything will be Ok. I meet with people all the time in this area who have contemplated suicide or are mentally unwell because of their experiences in Church. The jubilee in my mind is a moment for people to be reintroduced to the sacraments and prayer, even when their local parishes have discarded them. You will not have that opportunity to plant the seeds for the Holy Spirit or conversion if you ask them to check their beliefs or experiences at the door. This is an opportunity.
The only times I've ever had a confessor tell me that X and Y were not sins was in the DC archdiocese.
> This is an opportunity.
Do you have a preferred saint to intercede for this? If not I will default to the Blessed Virgin Mary (she loves all her children, and wants the younger sons to turn around and come home, *and* the older sons to not be jerks to their younger brothers... My literal two sons cannot stand each other and so my thoughts are often in the second half of the parable.)
Yes! Saint Frances Cabrini and Saint John Bosco! Both served populations that parishes found super undesirable. But in this case, the lesson they teach is how to love your Church despite who may be excluding you.
“she loves all her children, and wants the younger sons to turn around and come home, *and* the older sons to not be jerks to their younger brothers”. Well said, Bridget!
Do the participants of this group come looking for forgiveness of their perverted acts? If so, great. But the impression I get, is this group affirms and seeks acceptance of homosexual acts, transgenderism, etc., in which case they would not be coming seeking forgiveness. A group that works to have the perverse acts of LGBT affirmed by the Church, and one that seeks to support one another in chastity and healing are two very different groups.
That's kinda the point. Around here we're teaching theology through the lens of discipline, filtering it and driving a lot of wrongdoing behind the guise of chastity. I'm not doubting the authenticity of it for many people, but there is not a shortage of people who are made vulnerable to bad things after they are told to hide their "same-sex attraction" and that they are not really gay. We need to really renew the theology of virtue rather than using the limited definition as moderation of our behavior.
Last week, someone told me they didn't believe that pornography was really harmful to the person they are viewing. They said, I don't buy it when the Church tells me that. It's true, in many cases, a lot of people have been able to dramatically improve their quality of life and secure a safer future through this business. But I was curious...what on earth does that have to do with chastity? You're talking about lust, not chastity. We've gotten too hung up on moderating behaviors instead of teaching virtue. No wonder fewer people are listening. Chastity is willing the good for the other person instead of possessing them.
In theology, virtue is the result of an encounter. It's a positive and fundamental orientation of the person toward God.
Vice = when I encounter myself. My own beliefs. My own hopes/desires. Love for myself not as God intended.
The seeds of virtue = when I encounter the dignity of others. When I encounter their faith, hope, and love.
Virtue and Co-creation= When the encounter becomes a fruitful orientation of ourselves and the other for the greater good.
Just a clarification - you are mixing chastity and charity together here as theological terms. The virtue of charity is the virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God - aka willing the good of another.
Chastity is the virtue of continence and is by definition the virtue opposed to vice of lust. Every single human is called to the virtue of chastity bc it is rightly ordered sexual desire. Single people and vowed people must exercise celibacy to be chaste and in marriage Chastity includes rightly ordered intercourse. But even married people may not lust after their spouse.
Sorry if this was a long comment for just a typo but in case you were interchanging those words on purpose, they’re not the same.
Charity is the form of all the virtues https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3023.htm#article8
(cited in the Catechism at 2346). CCC 2347 describes the flowering of chastity in its "positive" sense which is what Dan is driving at and I don't think it would be possible to describe the positive sense without calling upon charity. If we were all Oscar the Grouch we would be chaste in a negative sense, because we would not be lusting after anyone physically but we would be lacking the positive sense precisely because of a lack of charity ("have a rotten day!" etc.)
Yes exactly! Again, it is tough to find academic moral theology articles in English!! But this in particular is delved into on page 3.
https://www.pusc.it/sites/default/files/cfs/sett18/doc/Yanguas.pdf
I want to return the convo to my original plea. The LGBT community is exhausted with the abuse. And exhausted with inappropriate issues in confession, or being shoved to seminary. The jubilee is the appropriate time to hold an event.
I don’t mean to be rude but Italian theological essays aren’t accessible to most in this combox 😞
As for abuse in confessionals - that’s an atrociously heinously evil issue that absolutely needs to be addressed. I’m not sure celebrating unchaste acts and lifestyles is the solution best suited to that problem? I also don’t understand what is meant by shoving gay and trans folks into seminaries? Are you saying the church just Tells gay people all they’re good for is the priesthood? This seems … unsound theologically and questionable in reality? Individual experiences not withstanding is there evidence this happening on a large scale?
https://translate.google.com/?sl=it&tl=en&op=docs
I have just discovered that there is an option to translate PDFs! "What a time to be alive", as a friend of mine used to exclaim.
Well yes to All but the OPs comment read as “what does rejecting porn have to do with Chastity” followed by “chastity is willing the good of the other”
Rejecting porn absolutely has to do with chastity (albeit is not the end, as with what you said about, but it’s definitely not unrelated lol) and willing the good of another is the definition of charity. You can will all the good of all the others and still be unchaste with one’s self. Obviously charity is intertwined with all virtue etc etc but it read as tho those were being used as synonyms or interchangeably which is confusing at best and flat out incorrect at worst.
Largely supporting what you just said. From Pope Francis on chastity: "How many relationships that began in the best of ways have then turned into toxic relationships, of possession of the other...These are loves in which chastity has been missing: a virtue not to be confused with sexual abstinence — chastity is more than sexual abstinence — but rather, to be connected with the will never to possess the other." https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2024/documents/20240117-udienza-generale.html
This is a message that the LGBT community (and really everyone) needs. I remember listening to the radio the day after that General Audience in Rome, and the morning show DJs were commenting on this clip which had caught the attention of the news. The DJs both thought chastity was only about restraint or being a list of prohibited actions, but viewing it in terms of respect had made them think that maybe chastity has value.
Be that as it may, the article is about a particular group on the pilgrimage schedule and the controversy this has caused. If the group is faithful then there is no controversy; if the group dissents from the Church's faith and life then it is not good that they are on the pilgrimage schedule.
The issues in the Church pertaining to those who identify as LGBT-whatever-the-heck-other-letters-and-numbers-they-decide-to-add-to-it are not monolithic. There are very good things you bring up that are worth talking about, but none justify the promotion or inclusion of groups that openly dissent from the Church's faith and life.
The long and the short is that this event is included on the Jubilee calendar, along with those of the farmers, the doctors and nurses, the artists, the students, the schools, the confraternities, the nations et al-- all of which professions and activities and avocations and vocations are in se good. The Pope is responsible, whatever cloud of words Mons Rino chooses to blow about (and notice what he does not say: there is no reason, apart from the prejudices of the homosexual activists, to believe that David and Jonathan are suitable avatars, there is no justification acceptable to Catholics to throw out the Apostle's teaching etc etc etc). The faithful suffer more or less silently and wait for relief, which must come from Heaven.
The LGBT can be quite faithful, in the same way that you or I at times are not. But they are tired of the abuse. Tired of being recruited to go to the vocations director as the only means of redeeming themselves. Tired of being hit on during confession. I've met with about 200 individuals in Arlington and DC who have had disastrous experiences. Largely LGBT or their friends/family who can no longer connect with God through the sacraments because of how it has been weaponized against their loved ones. It's time for us to be humble. Time for a détente, to unite discipline and theology, so that we discern together. To do that we have to accept that the Church has committed many atrocities and recruited many bad men--- but that the exact same system has fostered and built up saints in community. It is time for a Jubilee.
Perhaps I am reading you wrong, so please explain EXACTLY what you mean by "uniting discipline and theology".....how can you be faithful if you disavow the limits on human behavior that God himself has declared as off-limits? It seems to me that individual would be saying "I love you but to hell with your commandments", which even a child can understand makes no sense. Or are you discussing those who have avowed to live chastely with their predilection, who are actively seeking to repent and convert, but continue to face an unjust scrutiny? I am not understanding your position clearly....
That's a disciplinary perspective--and needs to be preserved, unlike what many theologians feel. But if we are to look at both discipline and theology together, instead of just saying God made me this way so I have to live like that... you discern slowly. Historically, the Church has supposed that sexual orientation is not something you are born with but that it is either a rebellion, a choice, and for a while they actually suspected it was a type of preferred criminal behavior (like someone who has a knack or craving for theft). So now in the modern world, knowing that at a minimum some people are born with this disposition, the Church doesn't give a carte blanche approval. No. But that reality does fundamentally change the approach just as it has for other issues. The Church's duties are to figure out what one's responsibilities and gifts are. The charisms they now carry because of their sexuality. The Church must figure how to orient the God-given trait toward the good. That's lacking here, and it's given way to abuse of all kinds.
Well, if I understand your point (and that's still a bit questionable, sorry), I can agree that those who are seeking to live chastely, in understanding of what Christ is teaching us through His Church, must be accepted and welcomed just as all sinners, seeking repentance and conversion, are accepted (hopefully, we ALL are seeking that. We all certainly need it.....). If this is what you mean "changing the approach", well of course. But, like one respondent says above, most of these people are not seeking that, they are seeking to join the fold, so to speak, WITHOUT conversion or repentance. They are asking us to just accept their behavior as simply "their choice", and "Well, can't we just agree to disagree and still get along?" This is not possible.
It has nothing to do with the Church not accepting people the way that they are, it has to do with understanding that the choices they make to engage in clearly adulterated behavior (even if they feel some "natural" urge to do so) contravenes the love that Christ is offering, and thus nothing more can be done because they lack faith to repent and are not seeking conversion (which, of course, is the ONLY reason to join ANY faith community). Read the Scriptures about what Christ did when the people lacked faith. You might as well suggest that the Church should try to "change its approach" and seek to "accept" some Klansmen - who REALLY REALLY love Jesus otherwise - as members of the Body of Christ without letting go of their racial hatred ("It's just who they are by nurture" - yes, I have actually heard THAT argument too). Again, this is not possible.
We generally don’t require people to fully convert as if it’s a light switch, and actually recognize via Acts 10 —when Peter was told by the angel to go mingle with the pagans. Initially he protested. But then from his encounter Peter actually came to convert deeper himself. Conversion is a lifetime process, not a legal declaration as in yesterday I was not fully converted but today I met the requirements. However, the English speaking Catholic world has on many occasions taken a different path than the rest of the universal church by demanding such signals from certain groups.
Two examples from Pope Benedict that struck me. 1) when he knowingly gave holy communion to the Protestant Bro. Roger. Who later converted, as he was transformed by that encounter. 2) when he gave communion to the brutal dictator in Cameroon. It was a moment when we can say that brutal man truly met Jesus.
Part of initial conversion is a tacit agreement that what the Church teaches is true, even if the specifics are not known, and the person unknowingly has differing opinions.
For a person to declare themselves to be a devout Catholic and proud of their active homosexuality is the sort of contradiction that indicates either nonexistent catechesis on the subject (and a catechist that needs to be corrected), or a lack of that tacit agreement.
There are plenty of gay people who are working very hard on conversion. There are those who are manifestly not. The only person on the planet who is allowed to suspend the canon law barring giving Holy Communion to those in manifest grave sin is the Pope. Everyone else has to minister to these people *without* doing that.
And it's not like this is impossible. We spend a minute or so receiving Holy Communion, perhaps 5-10 in Confession. Time-wise, the overwhelming majority of what we do as Catholics is not receiving the Sacraments, and are things that even thoroughly unconverted people can join in.
If you would like to discuss theology, it has to be the sort of theology that fully accepts the moral teaching of the Church, with no loopholes or exceptions. I.e. homosexual acts are intrinsically, objectively evil, always and regardless of circumstances.
There's already been an awful lot of teaching surrounding how to handle our sinful inclinations (present from conception thanks to being deprived of sanctifying grace from conception as well as a wide variety of physical problems), and our weakness of will, and darkness of intellect, and still move toward God. That is something I think falls primarily into the realm of mystical theology, which never contradicts moral teaching. It is the practice of Catholic mysticism that enables us to follow Catholic moral teaching, even as Catholic moral teaching exists to make Catholic mysticism possible. And Catholic mysticism is available to everyone.
There has also already been a lot of teaching (and there seems to be a fair amount of development taking place here) regarding healing from the wounds dealt after conception, whether we injured ourselves or were injured by another, or were injured by the vicissitudes of life. It is rooted in repentance of sins, forgiveness of injuries, acceptance of suffering, and a solid dedication to seeking the exact truth and believing it. But of course the details could fill many books.
Several of the relevant concepts are: learning to hate one's own sins, learning to be patient with one's own failings and faults, learning to trust and rely on God in all things both the impossible and the possible, and learning to suffer well, to have our desires unfulfilled for a few minutes or for an entire lifetime.
But since our relationship with God is destroyed by mortal sin, our personal knowledge of mystical theology cannot be expected to grow if we don't stop committing mortal sin. This is why it is those people who have learned to live continently with SSA/gender dysphoria, and those who have been healed from it, who will be the reliable sources of development of the Church's understanding of it.
Dan,
With respect, we do know "[know] that at a minimum some people are born with this disposition." In spite of desperate attempts to show that, it is a claim that holds no scientific water. I've known two sets of identical twins, one of whom struggled with this "disposition" and one who didn't. "Born with it" would require an identical perspective from identical twins.
Sadly, you are correct that entirely too many Catholics have a tendency to misjudge and mistreat people with SSA, but that doesn't change the fact that these attractions are always disordered.
On the other hand, the issue has become so politicized that any position contrary to "born that way" is career suicide for the biologist of psychologist who promotes it.
I once had a very long and fascinating conversation with a psychologist who studied this issue extensively. (I mean, real scientific studies, as much as can be done in a field like psychology) and he had unearthed some fascinating and rational conclusions. When I ask him if he was publishing them, he told me there was simply no way he could, it would destroy his career. This was in the 1990s!
So, until we are willing to have a real, genuine and honest discussion about this issue, I'm afraid the Church finds herself in a difficult position. She can't deny truths of both God and the Natural Law, but if she tries to be open to the conversation, those with a political agenda will quickly misquote and misuse her words to lead more people into darkness.
I appreciate your tone and thoughtfulness. Thank you. We could use more of that. My greatest desire is to get people back to the sacraments, but they want to know that they are safe.
I'm sorry I do not have an english version. But here are the criteria for how the Church has developed and grown (not evolved or changed) it's doctrine over the centuries. There has been immense doctrine change over the centuries. But never an overthrowing of what was already taught. Quoting Saint Vincent de Lerins, , «on condition, however, that it is truly a question of progress in faith and not of change. It is characteristic of progress that every reality develops intrinsically, while change implies the passage of a given thing to something else that is different».
https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/it/2016/04/28/news/l-evoluzione-della-dottrina-spiegata-da-civilta-cattolica-1.35020142/?ref=62
Well my friend, I can't read Italian but, again, before I make any REAL judgement about what you are saying, I would have to ask you to CLEARLY define HOW you think the Church should "progress but not change" and not "overthrow" what has already been taught. I'm just not seeing your point.....
This is essential Catholic theology formation though. That is my frustration with the American Church in particular, which typically does not provide formation beyond the boundaries. At no point has any doctrine of the Church ever stood still.
At all points in the Church’s history, man has dreamed of how to:
-explain it in a deeper way that was previously understood
-sharpened definitions that have become grainy because of cultural changes
-or mature it. Like a toddler understanding becoming more freestanding
To say something is “already clear enough” is a disciplinary stance. But that is not Catholic theology. And in the case of sexuality, a newer understanding that some people are born with this orientation is a deep cut to the Church’s prior explanations. It’s not the first time the Church has had to pivot in how it explains sexuality—it’s actually been done many times. But now the church has to go deeper, sharper, or mature its previous definitions. There shouldn’t be any fear in that. This is a process that is always ongoing.
I find it useless to try to have much of a conversation with someone who believes (and I think, mea culpa, that that is likely to be the correct verb here) that 'theology is a process that is always ongoing'-- which either means so much that it becomes an idol ('God is process') or it means nothing much at all beyond what might be of professional interest to academic theologians. But peace to you and to all of us as we approach the great mystery of Our Lord's Incarnation.
The problem is, with all due respect, that it sounds like you're saying nothing. It is very difficult to understand what you're trying to convey when you speak in such shrouded terms. It's like there is something you're avoiding saying.
I'm not accusing you of anything and believe that you mean well, but I cannot decipher any meaning from what you're saying.
I think that there are so many people in the Church, clergy and lay, who are actively trying to reverse Church teaching, to say something new and contrary to what has been said in the past, that other people wanting to put on the brakes should not be surprising. Every pendulum eventually swings the other way.
Even from a purely practical perspective, how do you correctly develop doctrine when you have that many people throwing cyanide into the soup? But I think this problem is more acute in various official forms of teaching. Us low-level folks should be thinking about this, if only for the practical reason that at least some of us can't muddle through it without thinking about it.
As long as Luce is watching over the Jubilee, all will be well!
:D
brilliant :)
🤣
Is there a link to sign up? Will it be entirely in Italian or multilingual?
And now it seems to be gone:
https://x.com/NovusOrdoWatch/status/1866534448801423687