Vatican City, Jul 11, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The norms regarding gluten and Communion hosts that went viral this weekend are nothing new in the Catholic Church.
On Saturday morning, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a circular letter to bishops reiterating existing norms regarding the matter of the Eucharist, including the norm that Communion hosts must contain some amount of gluten to be valid matter for consecration.
By Saturday night, the (misconstrued) news had spread like wildfire: “Catholic Church bans celiacs from Communion!” many media outlets declared. It was such a hot topic that Twitter declared it a “moment” in world news.
But these were existing norms – there was no change, no announcement of new norms, nor banning of celiacs from the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Gluten-free hosts have always been invalid matter for the sacrifice of the Mass, meaning that Catholics with celiac disease have already grappled with other options for Communion.
Usually, such “reminder” letters are issued when someone, generally a bishop, has raised a question or has been alerted of a possible abuse of the norm.
Still, the letter left lingering questions regarding people with celiac disease (or those with other serious allergies to wheat) and Communion. Here’s what the Church, and Catholics with celiac disease, have to say about going gluten free for Communion.
Why must a Communion host contain at least some gluten?
Wheat bread and wine of the grape are the matter of the sacrament of the Eucharist because Christ instituted the sacrament under these species. Moreover, Christ compared himself to a grain of wheat, and to the vine.
At some point along the line the question of gluten came arose, and whether the bread used for Holy Communion necessitated at least some gluten (and its accompanying protein gliadin) to be considered wheat bread that was valid matter for the sacrament.
A July 2003 circular letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noting documents from the 1980s and ’90s, recalled that “Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.”
It added that “Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread.”
And in 2004 the Congregation for Divine Worship wrote in its instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum that “The bread used in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and recently made so that there is no danger of decomposition. It follows therefore that bread made from another substance, even if it is grain, or if it is mixed with another substance different from wheat to such an extent that it would not commonly be considered wheat bread, does not constitute valid matter for confecting the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Sacrament.”
That said, the Church recognizes that it mustn’t exclude from receiving Communion Catholics with celiac disease, and has made accommodation for those who are unable to consume normal bread.
Options celiacs have for Communion: Advice from a priest with celiac disease
A layperson affected by celiac disease who is unable to receive even a low-gluten host may receive Communion under the species of wine only.
A priest in a similar situation, when taking part in a concelebration, may with permission of the Ordinary receive Communion under the species of wine only. But such a priest may not celebrate the Eucharist individually, nor may he preside at a concelebration.
Father Joseph Faulkner, a priest of the diocese of Lincoln, was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2008.
Already a priest, he had to receive special permission from his diocese to use low-gluten hosts in order to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Fr. Faulkner told CNA he was surprised that the letter regarding communion norms exploded so quickly on Twitter, but he saw it as a teachable moment.
The problem of gluten is especially pressing for priests, who must consume Communion under both species at a Mass which they celebrate individually.
For Father Faulkner, he has found that the best low-gluten hosts are made by the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Missouri. The sister’s website includes a page about proper storage and distribution of low-gluten hosts so as to avoid cross-contamination.
While the hosts are not low-gluten enough to be considered gluten free (which is understood to be less than 20 parts per million), they are low enough to be approved by the Celiac Support Association, which has some of the most stringent guidelines available on what celiacs can safely consume, Father said.
“I throw up if I eat bread, but I consume 8-9 large, low gluten hosts per week, and have done that for 9 years, and I don’t get sick from them,” he told CNA.
Father Faulkner said he recommended that any celiac wary of the low-gluten hosts obtain a few of them, unconsecrated, and try tiny particles to see if they are able to safely consume them.
For celiacs who are unable to receive these low-gluten hosts, Fr. Faulkner said “the safest and most certain thing a person could do would be to ask to receive (the Precious Blood) from a chalice other than the chalice that the priest uses.”
That’s because the chalice of wine that the priest uses contains the frumentum – the little bit of Host dropped in during the Angus Dei. To avoid any cross-contamination, a separate chalice is necessary.
“That’s the most certain way, and when you receive the Precious Blood, you receive Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity, so you don’t have to worry” about only receiving part of the sacrifice, he said.
For those who are able to receive the low gluten hosts, travelling with a sleeve of unconsecrated hosts can be a way to ensure that they can receive Communion in different parishes, Fr. Faulkner said.
“Just go up to the pastor and explain, ‘Hi, I’m a celiac, can I have one of these hosts consecrated on a separate paten?’” he said. “Because parishes want to be accommodating, but if they don’t have a celiac in their parish they’re probably not going to stock (low-gluten hosts) in their fridge.”
The lay Catholic experience: What it’s like finding gluten-free Communion
Michelle De Groot is a layperson with celiac disease in the Diocese of Arlington. She said that for a long time, she would approach priests in the sacristy before Mass to ask them to consecrate a separate chalice of wine, so that she could safely receive without cross-contamination.
“That was always kind of stressful because sometimes the priest would understand what I was talking about and sometimes not. And they didn’t always have a second chalice handy,” De Groot told CNA.
“So sometimes I’d just receive anyway from the cup with (the frumentum) and sometimes I’d make a spiritual communion instead,” she said. A spiritual communion is a uniting of oneself to the Sacrifice of the Mass through prayer, and can be made whether one is able to receive Communion or not.
Then, De Groot found out about the low-gluten altar breads made by the Benedictine Sisters. After doing her research, she decided to try these hosts, since they are approved as celiac-safe.
“I’ve never had any symptoms,” she said. De Groot says she also travels with her own supply of low-gluten hosts and a pyx (a small, round container for hosts) that allow her to receive Communion at parishes that may otherwise be unprepared.
She said while her celiac diagnosis was an emotional one for her at first, it has allowed her to establish relationships with priests and Eucharistic ministers at her parish and other churches she frequents.
“At my home (parish), it’s even not the end of the world if i’m running a few minutes late because they know me and my needs – whereas when I was first diagnosed, I had to get to church 15 minutes ahead to give time for the awkward explanations,” she said.
“If anything, celiac has been good for me in terms of my relationship to my parishes – I’m not an isolated stranger there, I’m known!”
Molly O’Connor is also a Catholic with celiac disease, who expressed similar frustrations with trying to make sure the Communion she received was both valid and safe. Having lived in six local Churches throughout the country, she said experiences varied widely from parish to parish.
“I typically just receive the cup at Communion, and I try both to sit in a part of the church where Communion is distributed by a priest so I may receive a blessing and near a cup that doesn’t have part of the host in it. If that sounds complicated, it is!” she said.
Travelling can be difficult, she said, as it can be hard to know whom to approach about receiving Communion. Parishes also often don’t announce whether they have low-gluten hosts, or how low-gluten they are, and not all parishes are conscious about cross-contamination, she said.
The U.S. Bishops issued a letter in 2012, updated in April 2016, regarding low-gluten and gluten-free communion options, as well as guidelines to avoid cross-contamination that can be found here.
O’Connor said the best situations have been when priests consecrate a separate chalice for her, and when parishes announce specifics about low-gluten or gluten-free options.
“As the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith, I think making Communion accessible to celiac and gluten-sensitive Catholics, in a manner consistent with Vatican and the U.S. Bishop’s norms, is paramount,” she said.
“How diminished is our faith life if we are unable to share in the paschal mystery with our fellow Catholics?”
[…]
Russell addresses the question of nature-or-nurture…
In his own works the novelist Andre Gide wrote vicariously about his struggles in a bisexual double life up until the very end. Did God make him that way? What does Gide have to say?
Gide was opposed to sexual license and favored self-control and “sublimating sexual energy into desirable moral and artistic qualities.” Nevertheless, his biographer concludes that Gide,
“…emphatically protests that he has not a word to say against marriage and reproduction (but then) suggests that it would be of benefit to an adolescent, before his desires are fixed, to have a love affair with an older man, instead of with a woman. . . the general principle admitted by Gide, elsewhere in his treatise, that sexual practice tends to stabilize in the direction where it has first found satisfaction; to inoculate a youth with homosexual tastes seems an odd way to prepare him for matrimony” ( Harold March, Gide and the Hound of Heaven [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952], 178).
Better to simply redefine marriage!
I think the BIBLE refers to sodomy as a great sin. Using Verbal Engineering and merely referring to Sodomy as homosexuality seems to lessen or dumb it down to something mild. it is not venial but major and . man has free will and he is not a robot but is clearly able to choose the good or the evil. I think alcohol also may play a major role in numbing or clouding the senses. An alcoholic seems to operate in a distorted fashion and he may lose his will power to resist evil. Nancy Roth, BA Biology MAT Guidance Counselor/Univ. of Norte Dame
Nancy, you may have missed something when trying to define all homosexuals are driven to perform sodomy. Lesbians may not be classified as “intrinsically evil”. An excerpt from this article gives a feel as to how the Catholic Church addresses homosexuality…
“When it shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself after 20 years.”
Those words were issued by Pope Francis and reveals that the church holds to the idea that a homosexual can be “converted” in his early years. As Michelle and Marcus Bachmann, who run a “clinic” to “pray the Gay away”.
Then, the beat goes on.
There are former homosexuals and there is emerging scientific evidence to indicate that those with unwanted same-sex attraction can be cured.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0024363918788559
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ex-gays-californias-stay-gay-bill-denies-our-existence
Q: What do Jake Tapper, DA Shapiro and Archbishop Viganò all have in common?
A: They all agree that Cardinal Wuerl is lying about his coverup of sex abuse in the Church.
See Rod Dreher’s site, story of 6 Sep 2028 with video of Tapper embedded.
Yes it is, a mental illness – to say the least. It is this (not so much, anymore) subtle ‘queering’ of the Church’s doctrine and practice which is (no longer subtlety) whistling me to walk out.
So when did mental illness become a sin?
To have same sex attraction is a mental issue, experience by many people that suffered abused in childhood or terrible relationship with father or mother.
The sin is to act on it to have sex with the same sex person. As it is condemned in the Bible.
Deacon Jim you’ve seen the light. Or does the Pontiff see the light but refuses it? Your analysis is spot on. It’s fundamentally [there are rare exceptions] an acquired and grievous habit. I add grievous since it’s not simply the act, which is always serious sin but the inclination itself that is most often a willful deviation of direction to a due end, that end the attraction to the opposite sex. Dr Gerard van den Aardweg a member of the John Paul II Academy on the Family argues that in his book on Gay Ideology. I agree often there are social psychological conditions that mitigate that responsibility in the inclination. But your point is sterling. That the Pontiff admitted a truth but reneged realizing it opened the door to treatment and conversion. He and his cohort are more inclined to sanitize homosexuality, the highly destructive behavior symptomatic of a general loss of faith.
Father Morello,
Thank you very much for your comment. I would like to understand better how someone becomes homosexual. Can you recommend any additional books? Is “The Homosexual Person” by Fr. Harvey still recommended? I have read that some consider its theories outdated. Thank you.
Ted there is an internet online article posted by The Linacre Quarterly 18 July 2013 On the Psychogenesis of Homosexuality Gerard JM van den Aardweg. The same author Dr Aardweg published a book On the origins and Treatment of Homosexuality 1986.
Father Morello, thank you for this information. I read the article you mentioned and I just ordered
The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality by Gerard J. M. van Den Aardweg. Reading the contents of the book on Amazon website, it seemed to me it is very enlightening and a must read for everyone.In it the doctor writes about the origin(s) of same sex attraction and how to cure it.
If it is not normal and there is no cure, then it seems there is very little the Church can offer.
The Church has EVERYTHING to offer. Conversion. Conversion of life. Conversion to the Gospel. Sex is not the core of our existence. Jesus Christ is the core — the heart — of our existence. While a sexual attraction is not likely to be extinguished, it need not be an obsessive-compulsive reality. Unfortunately that is a characteristic of same-sex attraction for many who shoulder it. Obsessive-compulsive sexual desire is not confined by any means to homosexuals, but it is frequently a dark and burdensome reality for them. That need be addressed by developing a deep life of prayer, assent to the truths of the faith without ambiguity, and very frequent reception of the sacraments. It take time, but a thousand years are but a single day in the eye of God.
The Lord who raised Lazarus from the dead, who gave sight to the man born blind, can and will without doubt support and sustain anyone shouldering same-sex attraction who clings to Him.
Confidence and trust in Christ make all things possible. Self-acceptance — self-contempt is contrary to Christ.
Sept. 7th: Pope Francis spoken before about homosexual actions being filthy – so it’s hard to imagine that he would have initiated the change in the transcript. If he did not and it was done without his permission, then I wonder who is running things at the Vatican. In some cases I do believe he is either misinformed or uninformed – are those in his close circle keeping important information from him. As far as homosexual behavior goes, I never say it’s not normal – I simply say it is not natural. God created male and female bodies to complement each other – to fit; and for procreation – anything outside of that ‘fit’ is not natural.
Why would anyone be surprised? Why would one ask? When an individual is working out of cognitive dissonance attempting to please everyone and accommodating a tradition he must appear to uphold but does not, he’s going to trip up.
Devious. Disoriented. Disingenuous. Disappointing, profoundly.
Perhaps homosexuality has a demonic element. Pedophilia seems to be a sin so severe that grace is withheld and the millstone is attached. Ergo homosexuals can hope and pray for change – pedos? not so much.
With the above citations in mind, consider the following scientific facts about how gender development can go wrong from the womb. These facts have been obtained from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s medlineplus.gov web site, from the Medical Encyclopedia entry for Intersex which can be read here:
Medical Encyclopedia entry for “Intersex”
The scientific facts:
• A person can be born the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external (outside) genitals that appear male.
• A person can be born with the chromosomes of a man, but the external genitals are incompletely formed, ambiguous, or clearly female.
• A person can be born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. This may be in the same gonad (an ovotestis), or the person might have 1 ovary and 1 testis.
• Many chromosome configurations other than simple 46, XX or 46, XY can result in disorders of sex development. These include 45, XO (only one X chromosome), and 47, XXY, 47, XXX – both cases have an extra sex chromosome, either an X or a Y.
• In many children, the cause of intersex (formerly referred to as hermaphroditism) may remain undetermined, even with modern diagnostic techniques.
Gender development can go wrong from the womb. God Himself took responsibility for Moses’ speech impediment and for the man who was born blind. He allows people to be born with disorders so that “the works of God might be made manifest” in them.
Homosexuality is a disorder. It appears that besides a heterosexual’s own choices leading to homosexuality, one can be born with an inclination to it, or simply be born homosexual. If one is born that way that doesn’t mean homosexuality isn’t a disorder anymore than being born with cystic fibrosis doesn’t mean it isn’t a disorder. Cystic fibrosis and homosexuality are disorders.
Homosexuality is not natural, and homosexual fornication is an abomination. If having cystic fibrosis were somehow satisfying and even pleasurable at times, and it was possible to make choices that led to one’s contracting cystic fibrosis, it would still be a disorder and it would still be idiotic to promote having cystic fibrosis as an alternative lifestyle. In the same way it is idiotic and evil to promote the disorder of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle.
However one contracts homosexuality, whether it was chosen or one was born with it, once one is afflicted with that condition, it isn’t having the condition that is sinful, any more than heterosexuality is sinful. Fornication, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual, is what is sinful.
Homosexuality is the counterfeit to God’s created heterosexuality. The attraction is not a created attraction. Whether one is conceived or develops or is born with incomplete physicality, does not make one have same sex attraction. The conditions listed state the physical condition a person might have, and in no way would any of those conditions make a person same sex attracted. Tue decision as to whether one is male or female would need to be made, but once known, therein lies no reason to not embrace one’s created by God, heterosexuality. Jesus Himself said that God created us male and female, and He knew that hermaphroditism happened to some people. Why God allows that condition, we do not know. God bless, C-Marie
Here is a quote from one of the greatest saints ever regarding homosexuality. St. Catherine relays words of Our Lord, about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referrng to sacred ministers, He said: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [ of fallen human nature]…but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recoginze the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that , for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the jugdment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…It is disagreable to the demon, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being commited. It is true that it is the demons who hit the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demons leave.
St.Catherine of Siena, El diabolo, in Orbas de Santa Catarina de Siena
There is obvious willfulness in the process of descending into homosexual behavior and making it habitual and developing practices to justify it in one’s mind. There are antecedent behaviors, like the perpetual pursuit of comfort over strenuousity. But most telling it the fact that close to a hundred percent of homosexuals are pro-abortion. Why would this be if they were not intent on lying to themselves?
Of course, there is a particular reason that they’re pro-abortion. For instance, without abortion one of the chief arguments in the Obergefell decision – that a man and woman can choose not to have children – would evaporate. For this reason, after Roe v. Wade is dismantled, Obergefell should fall soon thereafter.
“We shall find out at the day of judgment that the greater number of Christians who are lost were damned because they did not know their own religion.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
“A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.” – St. Jean-Marie Vianney
“an individual is working out of cognitive dissonance attempting to please everyone and accommodating a tradition he must appear to uphold but does not”
this seems like a pretty spot on description
If the author (or anyone else, for that matter) wants to designate something a “mental illness” he needs to either explain the medical criteria he used to justify that conclusion or make a medical argument for why the criteria needs to be changed. Citing Catholicism to challenge science is a losing proposition. Been there, done that, never worked.
The whole Francis world of word-play, omissions, obfuscation, uncorrected reportage, easily used leftist soundbites extracted from statements, ignoring whole bishop’s conferences about sex abuse, is all just par for the course. It’s one part Orwellian New Think, one part egomania, three parts Jesuit pride, two parts South American clericalism, five parts three stooges knowledge of the American Church, 8 parts agrieved South American victim of the evil US, 3 parts general hyperbole, 5.6 parts Trump ego, .05 percent some kind of spirit, holy or otherwise, 4 parts bar bouncer, 12 to 15 parts poor leadership, 0 parts European, 2 parts confused, 140 parts deliberate, 1/32 part St. Peter, and 2 parts rubber band collector. The only thing I know of that might have more parts is a McNugget or a can of spam.
Parts is parts, as the saying goes
Only, you can’t really say zero parts European,
if you consider certain German bishops, for example…
just one example…
In regard to the origins and treatment of unwanted same sex attractions (SSA) in Catholic youth, I recommend the Courage website, http://www.couragerc.net. Courage is the only international Catholic apostolate for those with SSA that is loyal to the Church’s teaching. One would have wished the Holy Father had recommended Courage and its ministry, EnCourage, to parents of children with SSA.
Everybody here is missing the point: A tefacted transcript is not a transcript. Homosexualism is so entrenched in the hierarchy that even the Pope has to make sure that what he says or hears is authentic and uncensored. That’s scary!
Yup, the gays and homosexualists took over awhile back.
Pope knows it, perhaps sympathizes with them.
It is the root cause of all that is exploding before us.
Our Lord will take care of business in His own good time.
Methinks it will be very much sooner rather than later.
Modern psychology agrees with practical unanimity that homosexuality is not a sickness. This does not mean that a child who shows the beginning of a homosexual tendency may not be referred to psychiatry, but that he should not be referred to psychiatry purely and simply on the basis the homosexual tendency itself. That is the legitimate distinction which the Vatican has made, and which I think Pope Francis also endorses.
It is not the role of the Vatican to provide alternative science. The Catechism is not providing alternative science when it tells us that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered (i.e. morally wrong); and it is not providing alternative science when it tells us that the homosexual tendency is intrinsically disordered; when it say intrinsically disordered it is not using this term as a synonymm
for sickness. The Church is pronouncing moral truths grounded in revelation.
I think that this affirmation of the homosexual tendency as intrinsically disordered needs further development, in order to prevent homophobic interpretations, which are widespread and fundamentally wrong.
The homophobic interpretation confuses sin with sinner, confuses the sinful act with the fact of the tendency, confuses the tendency with vice, confuses moral evil with one’s subjective notions about things that one experience as yucky that turn one’s stomach and elicit uncontrolled feelings of hatred which are hypocritically justified according to a twisted notion of Christian morality.
It is unfortunate that modern psychiatry has been co-opted by the PC movement which regards homosexuality as simply another, and valid, alternative life style. This attitude serves no one well and is responsible for such linguistic nonsense as the term homophobia. It also engenders such spectacles as “pride festivals” and other cries for recognition as normalization of behaviors. Although decried today, there was some societal benefit in past decades of awareness of our hairdressers and decorators and the knowledge that the rest were quietly in the closet, without disturbance to the rest of ordered society.
Sexual perversion of all sorts is a great problem. It does, after all come under the heading of “Lust” in the ancient list of Deadly Sins. An improper thought, however, surely cannot rank level with actual rape. Nor can “Lust” dominate the stage when six more actors are always performing.
OK, I also believe homosexuality is a mental illness. So when did mental illness become a sin? There is not a cure or treatment for all mental illnesses. Unless it can be cured as an illness we are judgmental to vilify it.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness. It is serious immoral act. A grave evil. People in the Church have been downplaying the evil nature of homosexuality. Only a faithful bishop can heal the person who sincerely wants to stop being a homosexual.
Do homosexuals have a different hormonal balance than heterosexuals?
The temptation to commit homosexual acts may be a mental illness (or, deferring to the greater knowledge of Rusty in his post below, a psychological problem). Temptation isn’t sin. However, committing homosexual acts *is* a sin. And, no, you don’t get to claim, “Well, but if someone is tempted to do it, it’s not a sin, so stop being judgmental.”
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and therapist. I provide Reparative Therapy services for me with unwanted same sex attractions. It is very important that understand that homosexuality is NOT a mental illness from a clinical standpoint and should not be spoken of that way in a cultural perspective. Homosexuality has a “psychological genesis” as the catechism states. A psychological problem is not a psychiatric issue. I can have very low self-esteem which would be a psychological issue. My low self-esteem would not be a mental illness and should not be addressed by a psychiatrist. It is critically important that any individual talking about homosexuality truly know what they are saying, otherwise please don’t say anything. Mis-statements and mis-information on this subject hurts the Church’s credibility tremendously on this topic.
To the article: “Physical factors might be associated with same-sex desires (e.g., genetic or biological predispositions toward homosexuality, even though these have yet to be demonstrated scientifically)……”
“The homosexual condition is a psychological deficit that has a psychological genesis.”
Homosexuality is the counterfeit to God’s creation of heterosexuality. Homosexuality is not caused by genetics nor is its cause biological. Homosexuality is an ingenius insertion into humanity’s desire to have no one but self as the authority to which one submits oneself to.
The inroads by which the pusher of homosexuality works, are to take over a person through emotional upsets, turmoils, traumas, generally with the authority figures in one’s personal life.
It then proceeds to the mind with peaceful images of being with another of the same sex that one is experiencing these upsets with. Then the mind can be worked on by the pusher with images that grow more graphic and sooner or later, the connection with homosexuality is induced, made, and often concretized.
Thus one is caught up in the web of same sex attraction, becomes convinced this is the truth about oneself, and hides the accepted untruth.
The Catholic Church has not made good use of the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to the ordained priests on up to set people free from the insidious lie of homosexuality.
Just to say So sorry you must suffer this way, be chaste and pray, is not God’s solution. His solution is to teach the truth and to set people free!
Homosexuality is a lie that is believed to be a truth by many, plus it is the easy way out rather than the use of the extraordinary powers of the Holy Spirit. If the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is willing as St. Paul was, to free people from this lie, then ever so much glory will be given to God our Father and the “rightness of this counterfeit” will be removed.
God bless, C-Marie
None of us are born perfect. Why is it a lie to say that a person is born predisposed to a same-sex attraction? It is one of the effects of original sin. Not all of its effects will be removed from a person.
Calling it a mental illness diminishes the will to abstain from homosexual acts which can be controlled by the temperance or self-control enabled by the Holy Spirit.
Because we are not born with our sins.
Check out: “Whatever Became of Sin” by Dr. Karl Menninger. It discusses the push to remove homosexuality as a mental illness in the medical field.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness. If it is a mental illness than that means they are born with the affliction. It’s an immoral sin.
The only way to get chastity for the members of the Church is to revisit the Holy Spirit spirituality of the New Testament. It provides the fruit of the Spirit temperance or self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). It is not a Eucharist or Mary based spirituality; and it is not a Christian coated Buddhism or Hinduism.
Considering that the Eucharist is the True Body and Blood of Christ (see John 6, etc.) and Mary is the Mother of God (see Luke 1-2, etc), and considering the Eucharist is given by the power of the Holy Spirit and Mary is with Child by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no conflict or tension between the three. To imply so is to read Scripture poorly and to misunderstand Catholicism quite overtly.
I think labelling homosexuality as a “mental illness” is quite condescending on your part. Don’t attempt to label something that you don’t understand, especially when your limited understanding comes from a single line in the Old Testament. Being gay is completely normal and is found in all animals, which shows that it is not a choice or illness, as they cannot grasp the idea of God or sin, let alone turning their backs on Him. My God is a God of love, and he sent his only son to spread this message. I understand what a mental illness is, and sexuality, whether evident from early stages of childhood or “20 years later”, is not on this list – attempting to convert or “pray the gay away” is quite, to say the very least, immoral, unloving and completely messed up, considering you are changing someone’s entire human experience and tainting them as Other, which, I believe my God of love would not approve. From my understanding as a Christian, the pain and anguish and horror of this torture is the work of Satan.
Conversion therapy is a form of torture, and according to Dr. Robert Spitzer’s study on 143 “ex-gays” who went through Conversion Therapy, 89% of the men still had feelings of attraction to people of the same-sex – many that are “cured” end up admitting years later that they did it to get out of the torture. The success rate of Conversion Therapy ranges from 11% to 37% anyway. Conversion Therapy is very counter-productive in fact. Many people involved in Conversion Therapy have committed or attempted suicide.
Homosexuals are not born that way. The choose to be “gay”. Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. It is a sin to be gay.
The Catholic World Report states here that it welcomes “a civilized and helpful level of discussion” and does not permit comments that are “needlessly combative or inflammatory”. OK … Sounds good. Meanwhile, I’ve just been going through the comments you permit. And so I read here that gay people (often called “homosexualists” on this site) are: mentally ill, sick, demonic, abnormal, a counterfeit version of humanity, major sinners, wilfully deviant, obsessive-compulsive, 100% pro-abortion perverts, typically hairdressers and decorators, who commit filthy acts condemned by the Pope and “who took over a while back”. Right. This sort of language must add up to the sort of “discussion” that you wish to promote about those of your fellow human-beings (including some Catholics, you know) who are … “homosexualists”. But I am more than a bit intrigued that you seek to characterise it as … “civilised and helpful”. Really? Civilised and helpful?? Please – in this context, I’m an ignorant Jewish outsider, indeed, a rabbi – but I’m rather interested in the way that religious people talk about the issue of homosexuality. In fact, I myself find the sort of anti-homosexual vocabulary which I encounter here more than a little “combative and inflammatory”. Clearly, however, the CWR takes a view diametrically at odds with my impressions. And so I want to ask: how is it civilised and helpful to talk about gay people in this way?
Rabbi we’re not living in an antiseptic morally neutral world. A Catholic forum open to discussion has to give a degree of leeway. Otherwise over editing tends to shape discussion into a panel for a completely neutral professional psychiatric analysis of homosexuality, which this forum is not. Sigmund Freud an agnostic perhaps atheist Jew made such a clinical assessment in Analysis Terminable and Interminable. His findings [he treated homosexual patients] were that it’s a form of immaturity, remaining in an adolescent state. The basis for that opinion is “For the psychical field, the biological field does in fact play the part of the underlying bedrock” (Freud Terminable 1937 The Standard Edition London: Hogarth 1971 PP 253). He perceived a natural tendency toward opposite sex attraction. Not for same sex attraction. Dr Gerard van den Aardweg has a similar assessment. Either homosexual behavior is natural or it is not. Here we’re primarily approaching the issue from a traditionally Roman Catholic perspective similar to Jewish tradition. Rather than simply criticizing comments why not add your own perspective?
In the old testament Yaweh condemned homosexual relationships. You as a Jewish rabbi must accept this since it’s coming from Yaweh.
LC is intrinsically disordered and everyone in it has been subject to long and intense malformation. The rot is endemic. There is no charism, and the lie is still peddled that the Maciel mess has been cleaned up. The priests of the LC have grave need of prayers. May they have the courage to get out.