<– Catholicism and Homosexuality
The Talk is a video released by Procter & Gamble, exposing the hard truths black mothers have to share with their children. While preparing, I asked myself: “What is ‘The Talk’ you would give to young people like you?”
“Why do you write for them?” he asked. “Why do you need to explain yourself to Catholics? You don’t owe them an explanation.”
The great injustice of the publishing industry and the great insult to many writers was that every immigrant’s story had to be a story about immigration. And every gay person’s story had to be a story about coming out.
4 things I realized at ReVoice
ReVoice was organized and directed primarily by gay persons. We’re done waiting for our churches to create spaces for dialogue and welcome. We’re happy to do it ourselves.
Why I Call Myself a “Gay Catholic”
“Gay” is a silly term. That narrow category misses the complexity of the human experience. And given the way that language grows and develops over time, I don’t think it will last the century.
Last week in Crisis Magazine, Anthony Esolen wrote that a son coming out to his father as gay “would be the worst day of the father’s life.”
Mindy Kaling and National Coming Out Day
I often feel this way about the Church as a gay Catholic. The Church doesn’t write many leading roles for me to step into.
Lecture: Catholicism and Homosexuality.
I recently gave a talk in Texas on Catholicism and homosexuality. You can watch the recording here!
Roughly three years ago, I wrote for the first time on Spiritual Friendship. It was a coming out post. And from there I let myself adopt an identity.
Though most people in college saw me as a reliable friend who could be depended on and who had his stuff together, I also had some issues. I wish I had been more open with my friends about them and asked for their help.
My “being open” isn’t a political statement or a challenge to others or a badge of honor; it’s a gradual unfolding, the pulling away of a veil, an added color to the way in which others see me.
Since I’ve ‘come out’, my friends no longer talk about gay people. They talk about me, and they talk with me. They’re forced to break out of their monologues and to engage real people in questions and answers.
Homosexuality and the Resurrection of Disability
But it is to take note of the fact that, as one of my professors once put it, the resurrected Christ is the disabled Christ. He’s the Christ with wounds in His body.
The Education of a Gay Catholic
Again, the burden lifted. began to see myself. I took shape in the mirror, formed by those who saw me before I saw myself. They tell me: there is a meaning to my world, and this meaning is good.
The Coming Out of Christian Doctrine
She nodded her head up and down, smiling tenderly, and responded, “It’s ok. You can say it. You can just say it.”
So How Should You Respond When Someone Tells You a Story Like Mine?
The greatest aid for gay Christians would be for straight Christians to live out the virtues that they insist their gay counterparts commit themselves to.
I’ve come to have a lot more to say about homosexuality than a simple condemnation of “sodomy,” and so has the Church.
There are those who would say that identifying with the word “gay” is a distortion of human identity, that it is reductionistic and confines someone’s entire identity to just one aspect.
Why am I saying this? Why now?
Our hearts should be guarded by gates and not by walls. To be fully human is to have a willingness to open up to others and to allow them to come into you.
Chris Damian 