A question about Catholisicm

Hmmm. You've got me thinking. Maybe you're right. I'm sorry I accused you of never having read The Bible. Clearly, I was wrong.

I had never considered Jesus' display of anarchy in the temple to be an example for others to follow, I considered it a one off Jesus thing, like being tortured and killed for our sins. If Jesus was trying to set an example, then it would seem that should not be tolerant of others' ways when their ways are sinful.

However, I still see no reason why homosexuality is sinful. Following the Old Testament rules is impractical and I can't imagine God wanting us to follow all of them. Nobody could possibly avoid touching chairs that menstruating women have sat on, just like any two men who are in love with each other could not possibly deny their feelings. Love is natural. And these rules don't protect anyone. Gay sex doesn't hurt anyone. If God objected to it, surely he would give some kind of explanation?

It sounds like we're from two completely different cultures. I live in the UK. In my culture, it's the homophobic and politically incorrect people who are persecuted. Gay people are very accepted on the whole. Obviously, it is hard for any gay person to tell their parents, since their parents will usually be disappointed, and shocked. But the general public don't have a problem with gay people. The only people who don't like gays are the same people who don't like foreigners, and they're just a bunch of brainless idiots who represent (thankfully) a small minority.

Naturally, you and I are not going to understand each other coming from such different cultures. If you have been brought up in a place where people could be killed for being gay, then it is no wonder that you could believe it if you think The Bible tells you homosexuality is a sin. On the other hand, maybe there is something sinful about homosexuality, but I am unable to see it because I've been brought up in a place where it is considered normal.

God must either accept homosexuality, or dislike it. So one of us is right, and the other is wrong!

 

Jesus led by example. No Christian religion teaches anyone to do that. They would rather preach shit they made up.

 

... ... ... True “Christianity” is NOT a religion.

It’s a spiritual journey of love, healing, hope,discovery, and deliverance unlike any human words or emotions can even begin to describe.

Does part of that journey include congregatingwith others to share common practices that purely secular people would call “religious practices”

... ... sure I suppose so.

But people need to wake up. Finding Jesus is is not a “religious” experience. It’s a deeply profound sacred spiritual experience that will completely transform an entire existence, even the most wretched ones (mine included) into a hopeful, optimistic and peaceful one.

It is said that every true man of God is capable of testifying to grace in the way of a miracle.

... ... ...

When I was 4, I lived through a traumatic event that led me to develop a strange fetish to a particular inanimate object in my early teenage years that I’m not comfortable sharing to the general public even in this forum. This combined with the discovery of Pornography at age 10, led me to live a lifestyle of complete and total debauchery and immorality in every sense of the word. It led me to the world of kink, BDSM, and a plethora of things I am extremely embarrassed about at the time I write this but it needs to be said.

My path of destruction in pornography led me to a complete brainwash effect. Let me be perfectly clear when I say this I was not born gay. I was never attracted to men all through my youth, nor at puberty, nor in high school, nor in my college years, nor at any point in my 20s However, roughly two years ago, my lifestyle choices, and ever increasing insatiable porn induced fantasies brought me to a place where I would have had no qualms with homosexual encounters what so ever.

... ... So.

Let me be perfectly clear. And let these words rest in every mortal soul that reads them.

Jesus Christ came to redeem everyone. I confess that I am on a spiritual journey in Christ. One that I am perfectly content in. No human forced anything on me. A priest or pastor didn’t scare me. I wasn’t given ultimatums, or an “intervention”. I was not forced into any kind of “Conversion Therapy”.

I am doing this because I chose so purely out of a profound desire to be the absolute best human being I can possibly be.

At the time of writing this I am presently on my 29th day without ANY form of sexual indulgence. Even longer without effects of pornography. (Months... not sure of the day count) Considering a year ago today I could have easily indulged in these vices ... 8 to 12 ... times per day average, ... well If that is not a miracle, ... I’m not sure what it is.

Amazingly enough, the more I give into this amazing journey the more I get back from it.

Friends. You need to believe me. Anything is possible if you willingly open your heart to the spiritual journey towards Jesus Christ. This human existence is a spiritual warfare from beginning to end. I can attest to this. Even your own orientation that everyone thinks is “genetic” can fluctuate in this war. I am living breathing proof of it.

As part of this journey, yes I confess that I choose to put my faith in the Eucharistic mystery of the catholic church. But NOT as a religious worship or practice. No, the celebration of the Holy Mass is a sacred spiritual mystery that humanity can’t even begin to comprehend with its five senses.

Open your hearts, ...

Want to know Christ more then your next meal, your next drink, or even your next breath. Then you will know that ANYTHING is possible if you truly let God into your lives.

Amen, and God Bless you all.

 

I'm late to the conversation here, and I'm neither a Catholic nor gay, but I'd like to add a few points. The OP is framed in terms of Catholics, and may convey the impression that they're particularly hostile toward gays. That's not true. It's my impression that bible-thumping Protestant fundamentalists are even worse in that regard. Catholics, however, are led to the conclusion that practicing homosexuals are committing sin for a whole separate line of reasoning than the Bible. Unlike many Protestant churches, who follow Luther's idea that the Bible is the only source of God's revelation, Catholics also turn to nature and their belief in natural law theology, based on Greco-Roman philosophy called Stoicism that was big about the time the early church was getting its footing in the ancient world. Catholics believe that God communicates his plan through observation of the facts of nature--e.g.,as the song goes: birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Reproduction is a big part of the program. Gays do it too, but it doesn't lead to reproduction, so it's big "No No". This is the same line of thinking that leads Catholics to condemn birth control. It finds support in Romans 1:19-20; "For what can be known of God is in plain sight, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the wold his invisible nature...has been clearly perceived in things that have been made." (in this case, the birds and the bees). An he told the first humans to "be fruitful and multiply" (Ge.1:28). How could they do that if they were gay? As the old saying goes: God didn't create Adam and Steve. Gay sex came to be viewed as "unnatural". Ironically, the same Church instituted celibacy for the priesthood, which seems unnatural as all get out, but that's another issue.

Of course, there are arguments we could make on the other side. Because the human race would become extinct if everybody were gay, there are natural evolutionary mechanism that assure that won't happen--quite apart from moral "do's" and "Don'ts". Natural selection assures that statistically the greater number of humans pass there hetero genes on to their progeny. Homosexual behavior occurs in all mammals, but an exclusively homosexual orientation is statistically limited to a minority, as a natural variant similar to left-handedness. We don't know definitively how nature and nurture enter into it, but I happen to know a couple of gay guys who have been married to women and had larger than usual families.

At the time the Old Testament was written, the Jews were a small, beleagured population in a rough neighborhood trying to survive as a people and the world population wasn't that large either. Being fruitful an multiplying was at a premium for them. They had also endured periods of military defeat in bondage at a time when it was common to humiliate defeated enemies by acts of sodomy, and ritual sex including homosexual acts were part of the rituals of male temple prostitutes. Lying with a man as with a woman meant you were treating a man like a woman, which was thought of a just awful! Ayhow, the Bible came to be taken as God's word for all times instead of the words of humans dealing with the conditions of their own time. And to celibate Catholic theologians, it seemed reasonable to say there was nothing intrinsically wrong with being attracted to men, but it was wrong to act on that attraction. Homosexuals could control themselves and lead lives of celibacy, just the way heterosexual priests could. Sure.. My Catholic mother used to say: "Those rules were made by celibate old men. What do they know?"

 

Ask yourself the opposite question, why are religions that promote liberal views so unpopular?

 

I'm gay and Catholic. There's a real mindbender for you...

 

I'm not really sure of the extent to which catholocism codemns homosexuality but yes I think it should be condemned. It seems like society as a whole has gone gay rights crazy. This is a difficult issue for me to understand, and I am not really sure what it will take for gay men to obtain their "freedom." Maybe it was bad for them to be in the closet. But now that men can be openly gay we can at least openly condemn them.

Sure Jesus has called us to love everyone. But love doesn't mean accepting things that are wrong. If gays are looking for acceptance from the church then they are looking in the wrong place. Society may accept them, employers may accept them, their family may accept them, but God does not.

Now if a gay man was no longer gay and he repented of the deeds that he had done then yes I would forgive him.

I think that condemning christians because they condemn gays or saying that they are misled is ludicrous, and obviously means that anyone who would say such a thing has absolutely no idea of what the message that was preached by Jesus and the apostles actually was. There is no room in the message of the gospel to even cast a shred of doubt as to the absolute immorality of homosexuality.

There have been a few bible verses tossed around in this thread but I am suprised that no one got to romans 1: 26-28

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;"

And then 1corinthians 6: 9-10

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."

I could be nice to gays, to the same extent that a beautiful woman could be nice to a prisonhouse full of male inmates. It just makes me uncomfortable.

 

You should have read a little further in Romans. Paul's point is: we're all sinners and we shouldn't judge others. (Romans 2:1-2). Since you seize on a passage out of context to "openly condemn" a group of your fellow humans when you admit it's "a difficult issue" for you to understand, you're obviously part of the problem of self-righteousness Paul was addressing. As for 1 Corinthians :6-9-10, your translation of the Greek is faulty. The word which you underline is actually malakoi , which was translated "effeminate" in the KJV, literally means "soft" or "flexible" and figuratively may mean morally weak or wanton. The association with gays is tenuous.