LET'S HAVE THE LOVING BOLDNESS to go there.
If we don't, the world will continue to decline.
FOR THOSE WHO PROFESS JESUS CHRIST, find one place in all of scripture where homosexuality is approved by God. Indeed, find one place where it is not mentioned and condemned. Old and New Testaments. Jesus had no regard for superficial cultural standards. If it was truth, he would address it. And when you can't, consider on what ground you're standing. Honestly.
Love entails willingness to speak truth we cannot presume to create, but in Whom we are created. For the objective good of the other person. Regardless of how it's received.
This consideration is not ultimately between you and me, but each of us and God. If you want to assume your definition and opinion is sovereign, you are worshiping yourself in the name of God. That is logically necessary. Factual. Biblical. Truth.
Everyone should be familiar with the beautiful truth of our nature, love, desire, sex, and eternity. (CCC 2331-2391) It has not changed in 2000 years. Of relevance to current controversies, this is subscribed to by the pope whom many now invoke (not any man's opinion, Christ's Revelation through his Church):
"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." (CCC 2357)
LOGICALLY, if love means whatever anyone wants it to mean, it means everything. Which is to say, nothing.
Which of us do not have disordered desires meriting our self-control? If one's sexual desires are their own validation of that which is moral, none of us have anything to say to anybody about anything. Pornography. Adultery. Polygamy. Pedophilia. Bestiality. On this last one, there's a website that boasts of marrying about 100 people to their pets. By your own standards, who are you to judge? Is that not intolerant and hateful?
ON STRICTLY A NATURAL, SELF-EVIDENT LEVEL, no argument surpasses the one the body has already made: 1) Same sex bodies do not fit together, nor, 2) Can engagement of their sexual processes ever accomplish what they were undeniably designed to accomplish. The 23 chromosomes in one man's sperm will never compliment another man's sperm.
If you disagree with the natural design of human physiology, that things naturally belong in certain places and not others based upon their undeniable function, you have nothing to say to a surgeon who arbitrarily decides to put a man's liver, for instance, where his heart belongs. Who are you to judge?
And if you dispute even the inherent value of "sexual parts," you've got nothing to say to someone who touches a woman's breast, for instance, versus her shoulder. Again, who are you to judge?
ON THE EVIDENT HARM OF DISORDERED SEXUALITY, please do your own search on "health" and "homosexuality." (overview) Every objective, credible scientific source establishes the dramatically increased incidence of significant physical and mental harm among those given to homosexual desires. Further punctuating why true, authentic love needs to speak out about it.
In none of this did I even mention God nor theology. It's woven into our common sense understanding. Natural physiology and accepted human ethics. Presumed in natural law. The reason by which all homosexual acts are, by definition, unnatural.
FOR UNDERSTANDING ON THE MEANING OF THE CHURCH AS A "HOSPITAL FOR SINNERS," we ought to look to the life of the one who gave us that phrase. St. Augustine. A superstar sinner who became a superstar saint. We ought to embrace not just the aspects of "hospital" that serve our primal interests and agendas, but the full meaning: We don't go to a hospital just to hang out in the lobby and drink coffee, we go mindful that we have a "disease" in need of being diagnosed and "treated."
DEAR POPE, BISHOPS, PRIESTS, AND MINISTERS: When you invoke church as a welcoming "hospital for sinners" (I sure hope so, because that's all of us!) do you mean it? Are you about the healing? Is it actually happening? If our deeply wounded world is pining for healing that can only come from God, and that is your most sacred trust, and you're not about it, how are you not part of the problem?
"More souls go to hell because of the sins of the flesh than for any other reason." ~ Our Lady of Fatima
IN SUM, THE ONLY ORIENTATION THAT MATTERS is the one we all share: From sin to salvation in Jesus Christ. As just one example of this power and possibility, here is the awesome testimony of Joseph Sciambra.
LORD JESUS CHRIST,
We come to You mindful that each of us have disordered desires in need of transformation! Make us aware of the dismal and dark places our disordered desires have brought us. We desire freedom. We desire authentic intimacy. We desire healing. Grant us the true love that pursues the greatest good of ourselves and others, regardless of how we are received!
You are love. We love You. Help us to live in Your love. Now and through all eternity. AMEN
