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Does God make people gay? A theologian responds

May 22, 2018 CNA Daily News 4

Washington D.C., May 22, 2018 / 04:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Sexual attraction does not define identity, a priest has said, after comments attributed to Pope Francis have prompted questions about Catholic doctrine and the nature of sexual orientation.

“Of course God loves all people. This is his defining characteristic: God is love,” Fr. Thomas Petri, OP, told CNA.

“But he does not love sin, indeed he cannot love sin because sin is not only opposed to God but also opposed to the true good and happiness to which he calls every human person.”  

“So while [God] may love every person, he does not love the things we do that separate us from him and harm our dignity as his children,” added Petri, academic dean of the Dominican-run Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

On Friday, Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of sexual abuser Fr. Fernando Karadima, told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that Pope Francis told him that it did not matter that he was gay.

He said the pope told him, “God made you like that and he loves you like that and I do not care.”

The comments have stirred a controversy about Catholic doctrine on homosexuality, with some media outlets reporting them as a “major shift” in Catholic teaching.

The Vatican does not customarily comment on private conversations involving the pope, and has not confirmed or clarified the remarks Cruz attributed to Pope Francis.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “deep-seated” homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered,” but that people with homosexual tendencies “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.”

“Inasmuch as all of us has proclivities and disordered desires in our lives, we must be always be vigilant against temptation and repent when we fall,” Petri told CNA.

Furthermore, he added, it is “dangerous” to assert that God made anything that is sinful or causes suffering, including disordered desires, addictions, or diseases such as cancer.

Things that are not good cannot come from a God who is all good, Petri noted, although it is ultimately a mystery why God permits sin and disorder to exist in this life.

“The relationship of God’s almighty will and his infinite goodness to the disorder, sin, violence, and evil we experience in this life is question the Catechism of the Catholic Church says is ‘as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious,’” he said.

“What we know,” he added, “is that nothing escapes the providence of God, even disorders, pathologies, sin, and evil. In a very poignant section on providence and the scandal of evil, the Catechism points to the fact that God has created the world and humanity in a state of journeying. Nothing is perfect and so disorders exist.”

However, we can be confident that God works to bring good from the consequences of disorder and evil, “even those who struggle with disordered desires can, by God’s grace, come to embrace their call to be his children and to live in the dignity to which he has called them, even as they may suffer temptation.”

“In fact, it can be in the face of temptation that a person’s reliance on God becomes all the more strong,” he noted.

In his pastoral experience with people who have same-sex attractions, Petri said some have a harder time believing in God’s love than others.

He added that he has found it useful to compare disordered sexual desires to other disordered desires people experience, whether in relation to food, drink, or other things.

Petri noted that confusion sometimes stems from “the tendency to treat [homosexuality] as an identifying trait of the person, as though it is somehow fixed as an ultimate reality for a person,” Petri said.

“It’s not. The identifying trait of each us is that we are loved by God and children of God. Everything else revolves around that.”

“Attractions, sexual or otherwise, are complicated. They come and go, can alternate and shift, and can often be fickle. Our dignity as human beings is that with grace we are called to become masters of our desires and not servants to them.”

 

 

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News Briefs

How Meghan Markle’s Catholic school is celebrating the Royal Wedding

May 18, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Los Angeles, Calif., May 18, 2018 / 04:25 pm (CNA).- Flash mobs, sparkling lemonade, and video toasts to the happy couple are just some of the ways that a Catholic high school in California is celebrating their most popular alumna, soon-to-be royal Meghan Markle.

An American actress best known for her role on the T.V. series “Suits,” Markle attended middle school and high school at Immaculate Heart Catholic school outside of Los Angeles.

The school has taken the highly-anticipated wedding as a chance for celebration, including an outdoor pre-wedding celebration on Tuesday, complete with a group dance, fancy hats, toasts to Markle and both American and British flag-waving.  

Current Immaculate Heart students told media that they take inspiration from the fact that one of their own, who is a U.N. advocate for women and known for her humanitarian work, is being celebrated on the world stage.

“The idea that someone like her, who has had an upbringing so similar to ours, will now be able to voice her concerns on a global platform as an internationally recognized figure is a story that impacts so many young women, especially the young women at our school,” student Mia Speier said in a toast to Markle at the Tuesday event.

“She is from Los Angeles, she’s half black, so I feel like no matter what ethnicity you are, no matter where you’re from, you could actually make a big change in the world,” Immaculate Heart senior Chloe Hightower told “Good Morning America.”

While teachers at the school recalled Markle as a bright and compassionate student with a knack for remembering names and stories, Markle says the teachers made a lasting impression on her as well.

Maria Pollia is an Immaculate Heart theology teacher whom Markle remembers especially fondly. In a recent interview, Markle recalled how Pollia inspired her when she said that “life is about putting others’ needs above your own fears.”

“Yes, make sure you are safe and never, ever put yourself in a compromising situation, but once that is checked off the list, I think it’s really important for us to remember that someone needs us, and that your act of giving/helping/doing can truly become an act of grace once you get out of your head,” Markle recalled in an interview for the book “The Game Changers: Success Secrets from Inspirational Women Changing The Game and Influencing The World.”

Pollia said she was humbled and proud to hear of her impact on Markle, whose humanitarian work since high school has impressed her former teacher.

“This is something that I think really fuels her, her joy and her heart. And I think it’s wonderful to know that she is still that person, and that now with her place in the world, she’ll be able to do that on an even greater scale,” Pollia told CNN. “I think that they are both very aware of that. And I think it’s wonderful that they will be companions to each other on that journey.”

“She’s bringing not just beauty and grace and smarts, but she’s bringing this world consciousness,” Christine Knudsen, another former teacher of Markle’s, told ABC News.

Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry has raised eyebrows not only for her Catholic ties, but also for her being half black, divorced, and an American, obstacles which just a few years ago may have disqualified the couple from ascending to the throne.

Father James Bradley, a Catholic priest in the U.K. and a former Anglican, told CNA in November that the excitement surrounding royal weddings “shows that even when, in some sense, the marriage isn’t everything we would want it to be, society as a whole has a natural inclination towards the good and towards what marriage represents.”

“So people see the goodness of marriage, even people who are opposed to the institution of marriage will cheer when a couple like this get married, or get engaged, because it takes a very hardened heart not to be happy that two people are seeking this good.”

Prince Harry and Markle will be married in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on Saturday.

Immaculate Heart will be hosting a (early) watch party for students and their families – most coverage of the event begins between 1-2 a.m. Pacific time.

 

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