This is part 3 of a 3-part series responding to the recent statement from the Vatican concerning LGBT marriage in the Church. Parts one & two can be found here

Eliminating Special Treatment

I believe Fr. James Martin accurately described some of the flaws of our approach to this topic. As I described earlier, I think it’s a tragic flaw in many to address homosexual sins as though they are at the absolute peak of some mythical sin hierarchy. We’ve fought for a long time to make it known that same sex activity, while gravely sinful, should not be in some foreign category to sins like fornication, adultery, pornography, and the like. 

And yet, we’ve seen the proverbial pendulum swing back in the other direction to a new type of extreme. Now, it’s as though some people in the LGBT community, and some of those who advocate for them, do want homosexual behavior to be in a class of its own. It’s supposed to be the sin that might need to be completely reconsidered and revised. It requires the utmost sensitivity and care, almost to the point that it ought to be ignored and disregarded because of the emotional toil it creates.

 It seems as though this group fails to acknowledge that other sins are also very convicting and uncomfortable to face. It’s as though other sins don’t also bring great emotional pain, shame, and guilt. As if the rest of us struggling with sin don’t feel compelled to partake in them. As if we, too, don’t feel naturally inclined to things that are “intrinsically disordered,” to quote the Vatican statement.

As if other crosses that God allows in the lives of people are not heavy, too? 

If the good news for sinners enslaved to a certain sin is that “you’re not special,” the bad news for sinners enslaved to a certain sin must be the same: “You’re not special.” 

I love that we have a both/and faith, not an either/or faith.

You are both of the following things: 

1) You are uniquely and wonderfully made. God, the Creator of all the universe, thought the world would be a better place with you in it. He would have sent His only son to suffer and die even if it was just for you and you alone.

2) You, your desires, your feelings, and your struggles do not change the Church, the truth, or the way God calls the Body of Christ to live. No member of the Body is more important than the Body as a whole. And no member can alter or change any part of the guidance given to the Body by the Head, which is Christ, without rejecting the Body and Head altogether. 

You’ll notice that we can talk about all of that without needing to identify any particular sin. I’d venture to guess that a majority of faithful Catholics have gone through, or are currently going through, some type of experience where they struggled with this. I remember adamantly sticking to my unchaste ways for years. I refused to accept Church teaching until I came face to face with them in Scripture and saw others who were fighting to live them out. 

Those things are common to the Christian life. Doubt is common. Struggling to accept the hardship of the cross we are given is common. Unfortunately, abandoning the cross is also common. We want Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Nobody is unique in wanting that. 

The universal struggle

Do you think your cross is unfair? We all do sometimes. Do you think the martyrs felt that before their death? Do you think St. Maximilian Kolbe felt that as he starved in Auschwitz? Do you think widows feel that? Do you think parents who lose children similarly grieve? Do you think priests and religious feel that as they commit to a life of celibacy and potential loneliness? 

We live in a world of victimhood, self-pity, and blaming other people for our unhappiness and adversity. The world teaches us that we are reduced to our sexuality, our race, our gender, etc., and that anyone who doesn’t give us what we’re entitled to, which is without limit, is depriving us of something we are owed.

Well, that’s not what the Church teaches. And that’s not what you’re called to believe. The Church teaches us that we are owed death, eternal death. And if we repent and believe, if we unite our suffering to Christ and submit to how He calls us to live, we can experience the fullness of life in this life and the next. We will live. 

St. Paul teaches us that “some will depart the faith.” And we all know that to be true. Jesus experienced this Himself in John 6. When Jesus shares His teaching on the Eucharist, it makes many people uncomfortable. “How can we eat his flesh and drink his blood?” the crowd of disciples argues back. They quarrel among themselves until finally many say, “This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?” And they walk away. They choose to leave the living, breathing, in the flesh Son of God because the teaching made them uncomfortable, challenged them, and didn’t fit their personal view of who God is and what He asks of us. 

An exception for one is an exception for all

We can’t afford to lose everyone for the sake of trying not to lose a few (in a world of 7 billion people, no group is really a “few,” but it is a minority). Jesus didn’t deprive all of us of the Eucharist for the sake of convincing those disciples to stay. Similarly, we have to be willing to let people choose the world instead of letting the world choose how we evangelize. If the world could dictate how we preached the Gospel, nothing would ever be shared but empty love and niceties that help endorse people’s sinful ways. If we went by worldly logic, we could not:

stand against abortion for the sake of offending abortionists or those who have had abortion

stand against slavery for the sake of not offending those who hold or have held slaves 

stand against adultery for the sake of not offending those who have had affairs 

stand against child abuse for the sake of not offending those who are pedophiles (this is actually happening as news outlets stop using the term pedophile to avoid ostracizing people who molest children)

We don’t let the world dictate our need to share the truth. The truth is not some unbearable, evil, ugly thing like society believes it is. It’s a beautiful thing. The truth is that God loves me. He loves you. He loves us. He loves us so much that He died on the cross for us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. But that demands a response from us. The response is love. The response is repentance. The response is to pick up our cross, no matter what it may be, trusting that when it gets too heavy, we can rely on each other to play Simon of Cyrene and help carry it up to Calvary. 

We get to choose. We get to decide. And the choices we make will dictate our eternity. 

What will you choose to do?