The Catholic Church: RUN! Do Not Walk, to the Nearest Exit!

Father Geoff Farrow - who ran afoul of the Catholic Church hierarchy because of his support for gay rights and marriage equality - has a timely post on his blog that looks at the recent remarks by Pope Francis which some are foolishly trying to claim mark a new era for the Church's treatment of gays.  Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents, Farrow concludes that NOTHING HAS CHANGED.  Thus, if one is a gay Catholic, the best thing to do is head for the door.  As I tell those who contact me about coming out and finding self-acceptance, only a masochist would remain in a Church that teaches that one is inherently disordered.  Here are highlights from Farrow's post:

Yesterday my phone rang, it was a reporter from a news station in Fresno asking for an interview on the pope Francis’ statement on gay priests. Later, Telemundo called asking to arrange for a camera crew to interview me at home. I sighed as I poured myself a cup of coffee and then read through the statement.

Bottom line: It is a way of appearing to change everything without changing anything.

Substitute the word “straight” for “gay” and you begin to see the problem; in fact, whenever an issue arises regarding gender orientation, simply do that: Substitute the word “straight” for “gay.” Does the statement still make sense?

It only makes sense if you believe that being gay is somehow disordered or defective. The official teaching of the Catholic church is precisely just that. The Official Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2357 states:

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Here is the translation of what the pope is saying in plain English, taken directly from the Catholic Catechism:

2359   Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Bottom line:  "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." Under no circumstances can they be approved. Homosexual persons are called to chastity.

Forget whatever your sexual orientation is, could you live this way? Could you spend your entire life without intimately loving someone else? Could YOU?

Catholic moral theology isolates sex as “an act” and in doing this, it thereby effectively de-humanizes sex by removing it from its natural context, i.e. a relationship. 

At best, Francis is signaling a gentle course correction for Catholic bishops on this issue. When you’re an infallible institution, you can’t admit you made a mistake, you can’t admit that you have been wrong. Individual lives that are ruined or destroyed are unfortunate “collateral damage” that are sacrificed for the reputation of the institution.

But make no mistake, this pope’s congenial words offer ZERO relief for LGBT Catholics. They make no attempt to repair past evils inflicted on innocent people and so my advice is: leave! If you are LGBT leave the Catholic church, you can do better. If you are the parent or a family member of an LGBT person: leave! Your loved ones deserve better. If you are the parent of a child, leave! Your children absolutely deserve a healthier development. To raise an LGBT child in the Catholic church today constitutes de facto child abuse. 

I totally agree with his view that raising a gay child in the Catholic Church is de facto child abuse.  The same, of course, holds for the Southern Baptist Convention and other anti-gay denominations.