This past Sunday, the priest celebrating the Mass I attended preached on boldness in God’s love. He illustrated boldness by citing both the Gospel and the bishop of Springfield, Illinois. In boldness, Jesus Christ radically demonstrated His love by interacting and spending time with all kinds of marginalized people in society; in boldness, Bishop Paprocki has decreed that priests of his diocese are not to offer Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick, or a Catholic funeral to people in same-sex “marriages” unless they make a specific repentance. 1
I admired the boldness of this priest in engaging in a divisive social issue, and for doing so in a way that did not contradict Church teaching, that affirmed the teaching on marriage, and yet called for better pastoral treatment of LGBT people. The timing of this priest’s homily was excellent while the timing of Bishop Paprocki’s statement was, let’s say, the opposite of pastoral. He released his remarks just days before members of the LGBT community, allies, and supporters would celebrate Pride around the country.
Fr. James Martin, SJ, just released a new book on ministry with the LGBT community, and you can read the introduction for free. 2 Among his opening remarks, Fr. Jim says that calling people their preferred name is important in establishing a rapport and building a relationship; for example, if you meet a new friend named Christopher who asks you to call him Chris, but you call him Christopher anyway, that can be annoying to Chris and prevent the growth of a relationship. With the LGBT community, the Church and its members and ministers would do well to acknowledge this preferred self-description and begin using it. Likewise, the Church and its members and ministers would do well to acknowledge the celebration of Pride, and support the LGBT community in its celebration, rather than use the timing to deepen the gulf. While we cannot support certain activism among Pride, i.e. advocating for gay marriage, we can support their expression and community; I was delighted by the tweets (albeit, small, passive gestures) I saw from a couple great Chicago priests I know who did this well:
Praying everyone who is going to #Chicago #Pride2017 will be safe! Visit one of our many Catholic Church to find refreshment in God! pic.twitter.com/5rbCTRsylj
— Fr. Peter Wojcik (@ChicagoPriest) June 25, 2017
To all my LGBT friends celebrating #Pride2017, ENJOY! A day for celebrating and remembering we all are created in God's image! 🏳️🌈
— Fr. Matt O'Donnell (@FrMattODonnell) June 25, 2017
I think a major first step in constructing better pastoral ministry and inclusion to LGBT people comes in our response to and understanding of sin, especially sexually. Everyday married people in the Church receive the Eucharist without extra attention from pastors and Eucharistic Ministers. Though they may be on birth control or using contraception, they typically are not scrutinized (except perhaps if they take clear, overt stances against Church teaching) and receive Communion rather indiscriminately. When it comes to LGBT people, there can be extra scrutiny, often connected largely to the possibility that they are participating in homosexual activity or an irregular “marriage” or union. At times, such increased scrutiny may cause withholding of communion, but some LGBT people may simply stay away in order to avoid a potentially awkward confrontation. This elevated scrutiny, to me, seems incongruous and undue.
When it comes to sexual activity, our Catechism lists seven ways (CCC 2351-2357) that we can misuse sexuality such that we become unchaste. Homosexual activity is listed there, as are porn, masturbation, and lust, among other things. The Catechism does not create a hierarchy of sexual sins and does not differentiate any of these unchaste actions as worse than any others. Each our sexual shortcomings which we must reconcile. While LGBT people, being unmarried, are called to celibacy in order to live out chaste sexuality, heterosexual people are also called to chastity -- married people to chaste sexuality with their spouse and unmarried people to patient celibacy as they discern single or married life.
Sexual temptation and sin are something that all children of God face. We are all called to pursue self-mastery of our sexual impulses and strive for a whole and integrated sexuality in expressing ourselves. These challenges may manifest differently for each person, and on the road to the ideal in Christ, we all must admit our shortcomings and seek reconciliation with others and with God. In our Eucharistic living, our carefully formed Catholic conscience must point us toward the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist to help us constantly convert to God, whether we are single or married, heterosexual or identify as LGBT. Such repentance of heart is a difficult process to quantify and describe, and making specific demands of how and when it happens feels like a regulation of grace.
I will say that, personally, I have some frictions I’m constantly mulling. I support equal rights for LGBT people -- legal union, tax benefits, hospital visitation, etc. -- but cannot call their union “marriage” or acknowledge it sacramentally as the same as opposite-sex marriage3; I desire inclusion of LGBT people in all areas of society, but I cannot encourage or condone hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgeries that change the sex in which God created people, especially when those interventions are done with children and young people; I struggle to engage in LGBT culture not because I think it’s wrong or evil but because the usual noise and color and vibrancy of it just isn’t my social preference as a more low-key, mostly introverted person.
However, on the whole, I seek Pope Francis’ “field hospital mentality” that emphasizes how the Church and its ministry must be a place of encounter, first and foremost. The metaphor cites the battlefield where a wounded soldier limps back to the medical tent; the medic then doesn’t ask “Why did you get hurt? How did you let that happen?” but rather first triages the injuries and treats the wounds. Similarly, our Church’s pastoral response, across the board and specifically to LGBT people, should be focused first on charity in receiving and supporting people who seek Christ; instead of questioning how they’ve gotten into that state, we first welcome them and be the hands and feet of Christ in serving them with hospitality.
As LGBT people consider their relationship to the Church, our emphasis should be on invitation, welcome, and evangelization. We should be a manifestation of the Gospel and Kingdom by our commitment to charity, our desire for justice, and our constant desire to give praise and thanks to God in liturgy and Sacraments. The Church does not need to harp insistently on social teachings that wider society already knows, especially in a climate in which it seems to only further fuel the culture wars without necessarily informing and forming people. The impulse to catechize and shape should focus first on the kerygmatic truths of our faith and the grace of striving to live in Christ. None of this is the silver bullet that squares the tension of homosexual activity and same-sex unions with the teachings of the Church; continuing to engage with that remains a significant challenge for our community but should not deter efforts to strengthen our community together.
I am not the most vociferous and successful ally or advocate for LGBT people. I don’t know many LGBT people. I haven’t worked with or ministered with many LGBT people. But I admire the few with whom I’ve worked and value their trust, and I desire, though often imperfectly and incompletely, to do well by their witness.
1 The official statement from the bishop and his diocese can be found here. A news story covering the decree can be found here.↩
2 Fr. Jim is a prolific Catholic writer/commenter, and I have mixed feelings about his work. Sometimes, it feels like there’s a quantity over quality element to it. However, he does an excellent job in being visible, active, and accessible to Catholics and others alike on all kinds of media platforms (especially Twitter and Facebook). On the whole, I think his dogged work is an asset to the Church, and especially to its public image.↩
3 A few years ago, I expressed on the blog how the Church’s potential to acknowledge and consecrate same-sex unions would be more akin to Holy Orders than to Matrimony in the way that it celebrates service to the Church. I think same-sex couples can commit to each other in service in a way that resembles the selfless self-gift of an ordained person, even if it doesn’t reflect the procreative-and-unitive nature of the Sacrament of Matrimony.↩
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