Pastoral Ministry to Homosexual Persons

Fr. Bernard Massarini has asked that I post this reflection on famvin. It was translated from the French by Father O’Donnell. Three years have passed since I started working in the area of pastoral service to persons with a homosexual orientation. I have done it as a member of a group called DUEC (Devenir Un En Christ – To Become One in Christ), which has been in existence eighteen years and in which the leadership has already passed from the founder to a new president. The objective of the association is to help Christians for whom homosexuality is an issue, to share about their life of faith and find their just place in the Christian community. This is done this by means of spiritual accompaniment and by the efforts of the members to live out their Christian responsibilities in the various areas of their lives.

We meet in Marseilles each month. There are usually about fifteen people who come, out of a total of forty on the list. I have also been asked to participate in the monthly coordination meeting with those responsible for the local groups, fourteen in all. We meet in Paris.

In addition to the monthly meetings at the local level, the members of the association have developed meetings at the national level with invited speakers. The presentations of theologians, moralists and psychologists help to clarify the experience of homosexuality, which people regularly consult them about. Those who seek help either experience homosexual attractions themselves or they are parents or spouses of homosexual persons. The experts offer a broad context in which questions can be raised serenely. The goal they aim at is living a true Christian life, including facing the contradictions which arise out of each one’s personal experience as the price of fidelity to Christ.

Everyone knows that the pastoral ministry to homosexual persons in the Church is a delicate question. The Catechism delineates Catholic thought about this reality (n. 2357-2359). It describes homosexuality as an orientation “objectively disordered” (2358) and homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered” (2357). A document of the magisterium by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled “Pastoral Ministry in Relation to Homosexual Persons” also has to be taken into account.

In the last several years we’ve seen the Roman authorities withdraw the authorization of several Catholic groups that work with homosexual persons, in particular, DIGNITY and NEW WAY MINISTRIES, both ministering in the United States. The reasons given were that they took too much liberty in transmitting the official teaching of the Church or the ways they proposed to accompany people in these movements were not clear.

Finally we know in France only DAVID ET JONATHAN works in close connection with homosexual persons. It has not been criticized for its actions, even though it has been very active in the struggle for social recognition of homosexuality. It is in a very delicate position in relation to the Church, since it is a Christian association that has expressed its disagreement (explicit dissent) with the thought of the Church.

In recent years in the United States the only presence recognized by the Catholic Church among homosexual persons has come about under the influence of the Charismatic Movement in North America. They come together in an association known as COURAGE. They are present in France too, as are other groups that are involved in the charismatic renewal (especially Daniel Ange, TORRENTS DE VIE). They offer programs based on American psychological schools of thought that identify homosexuality as an illness or as a flaw in the psychological structure of the person, and, on the religious level, as spiritual immaturity. The homosexual person follows a program the outcome of which is supposed to be the reintegration and exercise of normal sexuality.

But the Church in her documents – as cited above – never says that homosexuality is an illness. The Catechism reminds us that its origins remain unexplained. Although the Catechism states that the homosexual tendency is objectively disordered (n. 2358) and the practice of homosexuality is intrinsically disordered (n. 2357), it nevertheless urges a respectful welcome to homosexual persons that is both heartfelt and sensitive. It invites homosexual persons to fulfill the will of God in their lives and to offer the sufferings coming from their situation as a sacrifice to Christ. The Catechism then ends these two paragraphs on the sixth commandment by inviting homosexual persons to chastity.

Our association tries to open a space for homosexual persons or for those who are close to them by avoiding the temptation of speaking definitively about the psychological theories concerning homosexuality. Because of this we hope that each one might go back to his or her daily life and live their baptismal vocation. We try to help by using biblical and spiritual approaches and by a balanced reading of the psychological data, so that each one might integrate all the elements that make up his or her life into a personal vocation.

Following Saint Vincent’s conviction that the poor have been given us as “our lords and masters,” I have to say that the homosexual persons whom I accompany, both men and women, are my lords on my journey, in the sense that I feel called to serve them as I would the Lord, and they are my masters, in the sense that I must accompany them step by step according to their rhythm, not mine.

A few reflections

During these past three years of accompanying the group in Marseilles and of participating in the coordination group in Paris each month and a half, I have met: celibate men or women who live together, also families of whom one of the spouses lives the tension between his or her conjugal life and his or her homosexuality, as well as parents of homosexuals.

Many of those who come to the group are suffering a lot, and they are looking for a place where they can confidently share the burden they carry and their sufferings over many years. They know what the Church says about homosexuality, which nevertheless they experience as an abiding part of their lives.

There are those who come who have refused to put their faith “on the shelf.” In the face of the rigorous message that the Church continues to transmit, they continue to pray and to make spiritual retreats as well as to meet with a priest from time to time. Some are deeply involved in the development projects of Christian associations.

There are also married persons who experience tensions in their vocation, because at the same time they experience strong attractions to persons of the same sex. Their efforts at fidelity to their vocation (marriage) while living through times of significant tension are often a very difficult interior trial for them.

This question of homosexual orientation is also present in the lives of some priests, who seek the space provided by spiritual accompaniment to speak about what is going on their lives, which then puts them face to face with the same struggles.

Some questions: what to do . . . .

– in relation to those who, continuing their life of commitment in the Church including charitable or social action, have chosen to live with a person of the same sex?

– in relation to those who through the reception of Holy Communion seek the spiritual support and strength to live their unique vocation, which sometimes is very burdensome?

– in relation to those who would like to be healed of what they experience as a burden? What accompaniment can we offer them so that the grace which they long for can be part of their journey?

– in relation to those who, fully sharing their life with a person of the same sex, try well or badly to respond to what they hear as a call, and who at the same time hold on to a life of personal prayer? It often happens that they give up community prayer (the Mass), which they otherwise would experience as a further lack of respect from the Church, or they fear a lack of support from members of the Eucharistic community?

– in relation to those who are seeking and waiting to meet a partner (they are many) and suffer so much from the idea of feeling still more rejected by the Church to which they belong?

– in relation to those who, living together, desire that the blessing of God be given their union, in order that they might, at the heart of the situation which defines them, benefit from the tenderness of the Church expressed by its ministers?

A would-be conclusion

In the face of the longing to follow Christ evident in those who come to the group, I often feel like Jesus before the Syro-Phoenician woman or before the Roman centurion: “I have never found faith like this among the children of Israel.” So it is necessary we take one step at a time in advancing along the road of following Christ.

There are several paths that come to mind as ways to accompany homosexual persons, in order that they might bring their own personal contribution to the construction of the Church.

Very often the difficult personal work that they have had to do, has given them a new sense of regard for themselves and for those whom they have been able to help as members of the movement. They have also been able to draw new energy for living their Christian lives with all its demands.

I would also like to mention a few things we ought to pay attention to as priests:

1) be prudent in the use of our terms: be careful not to speak of “homosexuals,” this way of speaking identifies the person principally with his or her sexual orientation and places him or her in a category. It is preferable to use the expression “homosexual persons.”

2) avoid speaking of homosexuality as abnormal sexuality (this term might be understood, if it is used, in a moral sense rather than in a statistical sense). Based on what we have learned so far, we are more inclined to recognizing homosexual attraction as a variation in the personal structure of the individual, and not as the result of a defect in a person’s psychological make-up.

3) go from an ethic of the least evil to an ethic of the smallest good. In other words don’t start with concessions, particularly in the face of Church teaching that we cannot change. Rather, start with the person, where he or she is today. Accept the reality the person brings, and go from the place where the person actually is, walk in a way which today and always looks to the Gospel of Christ: the call which the person hears and does not wish to see extinguished in him or herself.

For many, this approach has great power, for it enables us to accompany the persons in their journey and to help them find the means suited to living this particular dimension of his or her life in the Church.

Consequently, we have a way to help the people who come to meet with us. If they choose us priests, or the Church, it is above all because of our connection with Jesus and the capacity that we are expected to have to listen with fairness to what they will say to us. Let us be courageous witnesses.

The association Become One In Christ (Devenir Un En Christ) with which I work is characterized by its title DEVENIR UN EN CHRIST: it comes from a letter of Saint Paul who invites us to seek the unity of our being not in dimensions of our social, philosophical or sexual lives, but in our relation to Christ.

Our work consists in helping people with a homosexual orientation (this terminology does not prejudge the question of irreversibility nor the role of sexual expression in the love of a person of the same sex):

– to accept a word coming from a faith perspective ( for example, an invitation to spiritual accompaniment, or to a life of regular prayer, or to biblical, theological and spiritual reflection).
– to embrace the spiritual life, with the help of someone to accompany them, whether the guide be a man or a woman.
– to accept an invitation to the service of others through social, human or cultural promotion.

Three poles: God, self and others. Saint Vincent certainly would take action to effectively serve those who suffer in this way, for the most part in their conscience, to help them recover confidence in their human and Christian vocation.

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FR. Massarni can be reached at waranaka@hotmail.com