Oh! Henry

There are a hoard of bloggers jumping all over Bishop Henry of Calgary for a letter he sent out on the subject of Same Sex Marriage. They include Timmy the G and Treehugger at Heart of the Matter, both of whom say they are Catholic, and also The Upper Canadian. To my fresh Catholic eyes, it seems that Timmy and Teresa do not seem to have understood what the good Bishop wrote. The Upper Canadian is on a high hobby horse of his own. How else am I to understand Timmy's question at The Upper Canadian: "Why must a gay Catholic couple accept the fact that their relationship will never be consecrated the same way another couple's will be? What's left for them in their faith if they are told God considers them evil?" One can understand how someone coming from outside could ask that. Does Tim own a copy of the Catechism? Has he ever opened it? It's on the web too, so no excuses. I'll cut him some slack since he admits not being a regular church goer, and from that I'll surmise that he's not a church reader either. But that being the case, why take such tone? Why not seek to understand before hitting the keyboard? I can answer Tim's question. Readers may disagree with me and the Bishop after you read the explanation, but it is my hope that you will at least better understand it. I do not intend in this post to go into the subject of Natural Law or why a gay union can't fulfill marriage, why a man and a women have the potential to do so, and why and how they might fail to fulfill it. If you're curious I suggest thinking about the self control that the deepest self giving requires. The are web resources available. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

#2357: Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

#2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

#2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

It is very difficult for me to see how out of any of this can be read Timmy's suggestion that the Catholic Church "hates" gays and thinks they are "evil." One might disagree with the suggestion that gays should attempt to live a chaste life. One can do that if one is willing to unravel the whole faith. What one cannot take from this suggestion is that it is hypocritical. Why not? Because the church makes exactly the same claim to all unmarried people. Also from the Catechism (from the same section):

#2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ,"[134] the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.

#2349 "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single." Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence: There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others.... This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church.

#2350 Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity.

The teaching here and throughout the Catechism separates the person and the sin. A gay person, even failing to live up to what is asked, is welcome. They are certainly not evil. No sinner is considered to be evil, only the sin. This is no different from the rest of the congregation, who might be struggling with gambling or pornography or what have you. I'm not going to apologize for the sex scandal that has erupted in the Church, or apologize for how it was handled. The Religious people that make up the church are people, just like the rest of us are people. The vocation does not give them immunity from sin or error (don't bring up Papal infallibility- people always bring that up, not realizing that it is very narrowly it is defined). So, yes, they messed up in allowing it to happen and again in not dealing with it effectively. That sex scandal has no bearing on this question, or none that I can see. The teaching in question is much, much older than the scandal. Every time the Catholic Church is attacked this pops up. I understand the sense of betrayal and the disappointment and anger. But attacking the person instead of the argument is a very poor logical tactic. Doing so, however, is much easier than dealing with the actual argument in question. So is bringing up the subject of Leviticus and the bans on things that are allowed today - Leviticus does not apply to the question at all, yeah or nay. It is a historical document with a narrow application. As for the question of coercion, coercion takes many forms. There is no need to read into the Bishop's words policemen breaking into people's homes. When this is the first conclusion reached, it says more about the reader than it does the writer. I'll leave off with a few words from Thomas Merton's book, No Man is an Island:

To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls.

Just in case there is any doubt, that quote is not directed at gays, but at those who cannot see how it is possible for anyone to take issue with the claims of gay lobbyists, except out of hate. Yes, that means The Upper Canadian and others taking this path:

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is merely code. It is insincere at best; at worst, it's a cover for bigotry and intolerance. It means, in truth, "I am about to say some really nasty things about gays and lesbians." It's like saying you love your mother, than proceeding to call her an awful, lazy whore. Sorry, it doesn't wash.

If that were so, how would anyone ever be able to correct anyone about anything? If I say, Micheal, you don't seem to understand Orthodoxy, or the difference between a verb and a noun, will you think that I hate you and your blog? The distinction is basic and you've as a result you've got quite a knot here. ***** John the Mad offers his fine opinions here.