A Response to the New Oxford Review (Part 5)

Sodom & the City of God

The Church’s teaching about human sexuality is true, and anyone who seriously studies it will discover this. But the word “fag” does not draw attention to the “Splendor of Truth” revealed in Christ. In my own life, to the degree that I allowed myself to be dominated by emotion, I descended into a thick moral fog. If I had focused more on how I felt than on what I believed to be true, I would not have become chaste, and I would not have become Catholic. And so those who wish to defend truth should not go out of their way to stir up powerful emotions which will only muddy the waters and obscure the beauty of the truth.
     For Catholics, truth is never purely abstract: it is always incarnate. The Word of God became flesh in the Virgin’s womb. We receive His body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine. A priest pronounces the words of absolution in His name. His holiness is revealed in the lives of the saints. But when it comes to the Church’s teaching about same-sex attraction, we have presently a great disadvantage: those who choose to embrace the world’s teaching will find an abundance of role models, whether in the media, in the schools, or even in their own parish, for many parishes today have no shortage of publicly proclaimed dissidents. But those who choose to live a life of chastity will have the greatest difficulty finding any role models at all. Here, the Church’s teaching is almost always presented in the abstract, without in-the-flesh-models. And so it is quite common that those who realize they have same-sex attractions see no choice but to follow the world, because it is only the world that offers them role models.
     In combating this, I greatly appreciate the NOR’s willingness to publish a first-person story from a Courage member. But is the mere temptation (never acted on) to have sex with a man so shameful (in a time when a large percentage of Catholics cohabit openly before marriage) that the NOR editors must offer me anonymity, lest I experience some horrible backlash from their readers?
     Actually, I know perfectly well why the NOR editors would offer anonymity, and I would not blame any Courage member who took them up on the offer. There is a tendency to assume that a man who admits to having homosexual temptations is automatically some kind of sex maniac. When I was in college, I belonged to an Evangelical Protestant Bible study group. We were broken up into same-sex prayer and accountability groups, facilitated by an older leader. I eventually told the group of my struggles with homosexuality; the group was generally supportive, although a number of the members seemed rather pleased at their ability to show Christian love to such a notorious sinner.
     One night when I was absent, the leader pointed out to the group that they acted as though they extended great charity to me. But in fact I was not looking at pornography at all, while many of the guys in the group were; and I had never had sex by any definition, though the majority of the guys had engaged in “inappropriately physical” relationships with their girlfriends, and still struggled with such boundaries in present relationships.
     The Church teaches that “the human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life” (“Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” 1986, #16).
     While I was writing this article, I called a friend (who also struggles with same sex attractions, and also has never acted on those temptations), and we talked about this. At one point in the conversation, he exclaimed, “I’m tired of acting like I’m doing something wrong when I’m not.” And that, I think, is the rub. For many Christians, same-sex attractions are almost as shameful as same-sex acts. Thus, even the temptation cannot be admitted, leaving many unable to find support from the Christian community. I am prepared to agree with the NOR editors that there may be a time to shame those who engage in same-sex acts. But if our Church culture is almost as ready to shame chaste men with same sex attractions, I think we need to carefully re-examine our consciences, especially when there is often less shame attached to actual fornication or adultery than to being a chaste homosexual.
     I do not mean that most Catholics reflectively believe this to be true; but many act unreflectively as if it were true. The fact that the NOR editors recognize that a chaste man who resists homosexual temptations might be afraid to admit to an orthodox Catholic audience that he has been tempted only underscores this point: Christians’ efforts to shame those who engage in homosexual acts spread their net of shame far too wide. In the last 30 years, the efforts to shame the unchaste have largely failed; but the chaste are still ashamed, and so the Church fights the gay liberation movement with its best weapons — saints in the making who struggle with same sex attractions — hidden far from the front lines.

Copyright © 2003 by Ron Belgau