Renew The Church! – website and Blog

Human sexuality as created and intended, is sacred – a gift from God, and a reflection of God.   This is why sins against sexuality as God intends are particularly offensive and grave.  And among sins against sexuality as God intends, the rejection of the divine creation of reciprocal complementarity of the sexes, the masculine and the feminine mutual potency in human sexuality, is especially egregious.

The Latest Trauma on the Subject:

Church Militant website has a deeply troubling headline, “IRISH BISHOPS SELL OUT MARRIAGE FOR MONEY.”  One more knife in the heart of faithful Catholics is twisted in the twisted contortions of the Church in Ireland in her dealings with the advancing “Freedom From God NOW” movement.  (I just made that name up; the actual movement is very real and present, however.)

In exchange for no, not 30 pieces of silver, but €1.4 million, the Church’s Catholic Marriage Care Service – “ACCORD” – in Ireland has agreed to counsel same-sex couples and to provide “marriage” preparation for them.  Pause, please, and let that sink in for a moment or two.

From ACCORD’s website, we read,

From small beginnings and limited funds ACCORD has developed and grown to become the largest and only nationwide marriage care service in Ireland. The organisation has always endeavoured to meet the challenges presented to ensure it is focused and able to meet the needs of clients.

This is made possible with the support of our funders –

The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference
The Family Support Agency
Health Service Executive
DHSSPS and relevant Trusts in Northern Ireland.

Yes, Bishops of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference are holding hands with the Irish secular state in helping to grow legitimacy and stability for same-sex activity and even the (self-contradiction) of same-sex “marriage,” in their country, in the once Catholic nation of Ireland.

Same-sex coupling, and what they call marriage, are growing.  Both are being “normalized” and welcomed in the social and legal and increasingly the religious “communities” around the world.  Any sort of discrimination or overt non-acceptance of the “LGBTQ” lifestyle, is or may soon be criminal or at least socially repugnant and unacceptable among the people who they think “matter” in society.

The Trauma, Because Same-Sex Intimacy is Wrong

St. Paul saw a turning to same-sex relationships even in his day.  He wrote:

Rom 1:20  Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;
Rom 1:21  for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.
Rom 1:22  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
Rom 1:24  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
Rom 1:25  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
Rom 1:26  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
Rom 1:27  and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
Rom 1:28  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.

What is So Wrong?

What is so wrong about same-sex desires?  Why does it matter?  Why does the Church say, of the very desire, that it is “intrinsically disordered” and of the acts, “grave depravity”? (CCC 2357)  Why does Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans, describe it as he does in the passage above?  The answer may be found in Paul’s description of the moment of choice, when men chose to depart the good and turn to the evil:

… for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools,… (Rom 1:21-22)

In the early moments of creation, God made human persons in His divine image and likeness, His “likeness” being especially linked to the separation of humanity into two different kinds – male and female – the two possessing in their natures a reciprocal complementarity that attracted them each to the other, and in the union of the two was the potency, with the cooperation of God Himself, for the creation of new human persons also in the divine image and likeness.  The two, in other words, were made sharers in God’s work of filling the earth and bringing creation to fruition: multitudes of human persons covering the earth, sharing in the divine will, in divine love, in union with divine happiness, glorifying God in His creation before all the angels, before all creation.

This gift and His others gifts, God set within Adam and Eve.  They did not embrace and guard His gifts; they fell, and in falling, the whole creation was subjected to futility – to death – to inner frustration, conflict and confusion.  And in the fall, they both lost the divine likeness given them by God.  That likeness, disfigured by sin, would not be recovered until Christ established it again in humanity, by opening the door for us to His life.

But confusion, disfigurement, disorder, futility – these describe the choice for a homosexual lifestyle: the gift of the divine likeness is again rejected in this choice: His way is not received and embraced with thanksgiving in this choice; He is again is rejected.  The gift is rejected; specifically, His gift enabling the miraculous participation in the divine creation itself, through the reciprocal complementarity of the male with the female, embracing the potency infused by God, embracing human oneness in a manner and with a heart like unto His own, it is all rejected.  God Himself is in this way rejected, in preference for one’s self-will, indeed lusting for an image of oneself, male with male, female with female, to mutually dishonor and become one flesh with an image of oneself. 

In this way, rejecting God’s glory, man glorifies himself and thus dishonors God deeply, intrinsically, a sin and an act of disorder at the foundation of one’s being human.  It is deeply, deeply wrong about a matter so deeply, deeply important: fidelity to the divine image and likeness.  As the Catechism teaches concerning homosexual acts: “Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC 2357)

Our Call to Mercy, and Witness

Jn 8:10  Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?
Jn 8:11  She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”

The Church calls us to be merciful, and to love with His love all for whom He died!  Sexual temptations can be very, very strong, as are the pains of loneliness and isolation.  The Church – the members of His Church – must reach out with compassion to all who are apart from His love and truth.  As much as we can, we must try to help “come home” the many who are lost in these dark times.  We must try to help them “go, and sin no more.”  The Catechism closes the section with this:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. 

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Amen to that.