RE: Being Catholic; being gay

[derekohachey]

I ran across this article in "TheSpec" a paper out of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada:

http://www.thespec.com/opinion/artic...olic-being-gay

I couldn't help but post the response following response, but unfortunately the lack of formatting made it a bit hard to read because you don't see the paragraph breaks.

RE: Being Catholic; being gay
Aiden’s story of being Catholic & being gay hit me hard. No one can doubt that Aiden like many others have carried a heavy cross. Historically, gays and lesbians have seldom encountered love from their brothers and sisters in the pews. This trend has been shifting over the last few decades, but what kind of love toward gays and lesbians is developing?

Christianity teaches that God is love, and that the second greatest commandment is to love one another. So what does this “love” mean? One would hope that this means that we help each other fulfill the first greatest commandment: to love God with our whole heart, mind and soul, and that we help each other find our way to Heaven to spend eternity with God.

Our popular culture teaches us that love means that we help each other do whatever we want to do in this world. Love is now understood to be temporal and utilitarian rather than eternal and a gift from God. Today’s love often leads to sin, and when we freely choose to sin, we break our relationship with God and in doing so, we orient our lives towards eternal solitude rather than eternal communion with God.

Aiden states a common modern misconception that Jesus would endorse homosexual behaviour. Jesus directly affirmed the marital formula as being between one man and one woman (Mat 19:5), and emphatically affirmed that sex outside of marriage is gravely sinful. Jesus did not have a problem with challenging the authorities of his day on any unjust practice or discipline, but Jesus did not challenge the Old Testament teaching on homosexuality.

Thankfully God does not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength. Where sin abounds, Grace abounds the more. I sincerely hope and pray that people with same-sex attraction, like Aiden, who have fallen prey to homosexual sins will pick up their crosses and turn towards God.

There is help available: http://www.couragerc.net/

God Bless,
Derek

[Robert Bay]

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