Abbey-Roads2

I don’t know.

I’m not implying that the characters of the classic children’s book series are gay - I’m just using their image for fun.  Now Rowlings said Dumbledore is gay, but there is nothing in Harry Potter to indicate anything as to his sexual orientation.  Nevertheless, people are upset with her for saying the headmaster of Hogwarts is gay - due mostly to that gay agenda thing we all talk about.

Most, if not all of us know homosexuals.  They are in our families, amongst our friends and coworkers, they wait upon us in restaurants, we buy their art, we watch their movies, read their books, listen to them preach in Church - they are everywhere.

Hatred.

Many people insist they “hate the sin” but profess to “love the sinner”.  We constantly preach the teaching of scripture and the Church as a defense for our hatred of the sin.  I’m famous for insisting the “G” in “GLBT” means that every gay person embraces all the depraved stuff homosexual sex includes.  (Obviously they don’t.)  I’ve said that without understanding that many gay people resort to anonymous sex in less than desirable circumstances because of the intense societal rejection and subsequent shame they feel because of their homosexual orientation.  I’m not condoning what they do - simply stating a reality.

Is there a gay agenda?  

I think there is in various sectors of the culture.  But I do not believe every homosexual person is a part of it, and may not even condone it.  Certainly everyone deserves protection from discrimination, everyone deserves housing and fundamental human rights, gay people included.  Many gay people just want the issue to go away, to be able to live their lives, just as all of us do.  Yes, there are those who push the envelope, demanding same-sex unions, adoption of children, so on and so forth.  But not every gay person is so politicized as that.  (I am against SS marriage and gay people adopting children.  Of course others disagree with me on that.)

Gay-Catholics.

I’ve made a big deal about how gay-Catholics must drop the term gay because of its political implications and insisting it keeps people in the lifestyle.  Nevertheless, there are sincere individuals who honestly believe they were born homosexual and it is not a choice.  They identify their sexuality as gay.  Who am I to tell them their experience of themselves is incorrect?  I cannot live or understand their experience.  Their experience is the only truth they know of themselves.  I can’t say, “You just think you are gay.”

Perhaps for a very few, it was a choice, although most gay people insist they were born that way.   Perhaps for others, it was a choice not made in total freedom, but a series of conditions in their formative years which led them to certain concessions or accommodations, which necessitated an unconscious choice or decision that they must be gay.  (”Gee, I must be gay because I feel attracted to the same sex.”)   Perhaps this is what many describe as suddenly realizing they are gay.  Thus, acting upon this inclination, especially for a number of years, they may see themselves as constitutionally, or irreversibly homosexual.  The truth is, most gay people do not believe they can change their orientation.

The Catholic attitude.

Whatever the cause of homosexuality, the Roman Catholic Church does not demand that a person with homosexual inclination change his or her orientation.  (Neither does the Church pretend to know the reason people are gay.)  To experience homosexual orientation, or same sex attraction is not in itself sinful.  The Church simply teaches that to act upon homosexual desire, that is, homosexual acts, is sinful.  Unwilling to bind up heavy burdens men are unable to carry, the Church merely teaches that homosexuals are called to chastity.  All men and women are called to live chastely, even in heterosexual marriage, and the single are called to live chastely and celibately, either until heterosexual marriage or for life.  That is all.

Turn it down a few notches.

A reader sent me a post from Mark Shea  regarding the Dumbledore controversy.  Shea’s commenter had the following to write, which had the effect of convicting me in conscience.  He wrote:

“This is why I think it’s so important for Christians to have clearly in their minds the distinction between same sex attraction (which are not sinful) and homosexual acts (which are). Otherwise, it’s hard to see how people struggling with homosexual attraction will get any other message than “It’s not what you do, it’s what you are that’s the problem.”

Dumbledore, so far as we can tell, committed no sin in that department. Christians can acknowledge that. They can also point out (as I tried to do yesterday) that his SSA is, from a literary standpoint, the perfect image of the love of the Same that tempted him to Pureblood racism. It is notable that “love”, not sexual attraction, is the term Rowling uses to describe it.

So: can everybody turn it down a few notches? These are not the greatest books of all time. Rowling is neither a true or false prophet. Be aware that persons who are grappling with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality are getting a loud and clear message in the comboxes: It doesn’t matter whether you live chastely or not, if you are SSA then you are irredeemable. I doubt that’s the message anybody intends to send, but it’s being sent (and heard) nonetheless.” - Bleak But True

Yeah, I don’t know why anyone is gay - I don’t live their lives.  I apologize if it seems like I was trying to do so.  I apologize for not respecting your humanity.  Gay people know the teaching of the Church, they don’t need me pounding it home to them, Christ simply asks that I love them as he does, and pray for them.

[Thank you Susan for the Mark Shea link.) 

The California wildfires.

Watching the news coverage, most of the evacuees were asked what they salvaged when they only had minutes or hours to flee their homes.  Most took very little, and their greatest concern was to rescue their families, children, and pets.  I thought back to the post Fr. Zuhlsdorf  wrote a week or so ago about this exact same topic.  I wondered if his readers in California remembered it, and if they thought Fr. Z’s post may have been prophetic?

Cruel judgement.

Mixed in with some of the news coverage was a brief piece about a radio talk show host.  The host was making fun of the wealthy residents, especially the Malibu celebrity community, mocking their potential need for aid, assistance, and shelter.  Elsewhere, on a couple of websites I read things like, “this is God’s judgement on the California sinners”, or “these people brought it on themselves because they built in a fire zone”, etc.   With comments like these, no wonder so many in our society hate Christians.  Where is the charity?

These people, no matter how affluent nor what their lifestyle, have lost home, property, possessions, and in most cases, a huge interruption in their abilty to earn a living - if not their entire livelihood.  If winter rains come, even more may be lost to mudslides.  What is wrong with people that they can so easily make light of others suffering such loss?

Loving our neighbor.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord anxiously proclaims, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Luke 12)  Our Lord is speaking of the fire of Divine love, the burning fires of charity, which at its core is the burning desire for the salvation of souls.  Indeed, it seems the fire of love has grown cold today, even in the hearts of Christians.

The love of Christians could ignite, and like the California wildfire, set the blaze, engulfing the dry wood of those alienated from the Church, in and through our patience, our understanding and our love.  If only we stopped continually condemning others, dictating how they should be living, and try to love them as God loves them, perhaps this would spark the fires of belief in hearts grown cold and indifferent.

Charity is not an emotion.

I’m at fault - I’ve failed to understand the immense love God has for every person, no matter what their religion, no matter if a person is an athiest, an agnostic, or an enemy of the Church.  God loves the homosexual, the woman who has an abortion - God loves the sinner.  I don’t think we comprehend that in all of its depth.  I don’t think we truly realize that God permits the rain to fall on the good and the bad, producing the harvest for both.  I don’t think we fully comprehend how he permits the weeds to grow amongst the wheat.  We hear “hate the sin” and we end up hating the sinner.

It is difficult to comprehend, but when Jesus cries out in today’s Gospel, “I have a baptism to endure, and what anguish I feel until it is accomplished” he is speaking of his passion.  In his immense love, he gave himself into the hands of the impious, to be mocked, scourged, beaten, and crucified.  Totally abandoned, rejected even by his own, he cried out from the depths of his Sacred Heart, “I thirst” echoing that same thirst for love his persecutors experienced.  Yet more deeply, the very thirst of God - for love and for souls.

“You will all come to the same end unless you repent.”

We can’t know this however, until we lose everything we possess and cherish, and realize we are no better than those we condemn or hate.  Our knowledge of dogma and theology is nothing with out love.  How are men and women ever going to be attracted to Christ and his Church if we do not have love?  The commandments, dogma, theology, and threats of damnation rarely attract the unconverted.  Love, that is charity, does.

Suffering is a great equalizer.  May all of us who profess to be Christian be blessed by the Cross that we may understand the sufferings of others.