Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Have you ever noticed the attitudinal difference between those who convert
to the Catholic faith and those who abandon it and convert to some other
faith?
The convert to Catholicism comes into a bit of serenity. He is able to look
at things at arm's length. He sees the good in the faith he left, and he
appreciates that good. That it was admixed with error he regrets, but he is
not so unsure or fearful in his new state that he fails to acknowledge the
good found in his former religion.
How often it is the opposite when the traffic is in the other direction! I
can't remember ever reading complaints about their former faith by new
Catholics, but I have read countless complaints about Catholicism by people
who used to be loyal to Rome.
The convert from Catholicism often is in a position not unlike that of the
young man who, after jilting his girlfriend, finds that he can't say
anything kind about her. Suddenly, all her lights are shadows; he must have
been blinded or tricked by her to have given her any regard.
ONE, TWO, MANY WIVES?
Paul tells Timothy that "a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of
one wife" (1 Tim. 3:2). A footnote in the New International Version
(Evangelical Protestant) explains that this in part was a warning against
polygamy.
I doubt it. The Christians of the first century were not proto-Mormons. You
did not find men taking multiple wives. Even if there had been a few who
did, was there really any likelihood that Christians would be looking among
them for someone to elevate to the episcopate? No way.
So what was Paul saying? He meant that candidates for bishop should not
include men who had been married more than once.
In those days, marriage was understood by all parties to be something of a
concession. If a man became a widower and married a second time, it was
taken as a bit of a character flaw: The fellow should have been grateful
for one marriage and then have resolved to live on his own.
(As Dr. Johnson would put it centuries later, in reference to a man who
remarried shortly after his first wife died: "Sir, it was the triumph of
hope over experience.")
"ACCEPTING" HOMOSEXUALITY
I had a query from a man who has a friend who is a practicing homosexual.
The latter feels unwelcome at the local parish. He does not feel "accepted"
by the other parishioners and thinks he should be--after all, he "was born
this way." My inquirer, who is not himself a homosexual, is so upset at the
perceived inhospitality that he is contemplating leaving the Catholic
Church.
This was my response:
1. No one is born homosexual, just as no one is born an alcoholic. There
may be a genetic tendency toward homosexuality in some people, just as
there seems to be a genetic susceptibility to alcoholism among certain
ethnic groups (such as the Irish, Scandinavians, Russians, and American
Indians).
2. Your friend says he always sensed that he was a homosexual, but his
"always" would not have extended backward past puberty. Pre-adolescents,
almost by definition, are unaware of internal sexual impulses. At best your
friend has retrojected his present state into his earliest years, in order
to justify himself.
3. Your loyalty to him is admirable. Your uncritical loyalty to him is not.
You do him no favor by lending tacit approval to sins he may commit. That
is the opposite of true friendship.
4. The state of being homosexual is not a sin, just as the state of being
an alcoholic is not a sin. But drunkenness is sinful, and homosexual acts
are sinful. Again, you do your friend no favor by letting him think
otherwise.
5. You say that many people at your parish were persistently rude to your
friend. I find this unlikely. While I can imagine one or two people in a
parish snubbing a homosexual or giving him sour looks, my own observation
is that most people who dislike the "gay" lifestyle try to distance
themselves from people they perceive as "gay." It isn't that they interact
rudely with them; they do not interact with them at all. You need to
consider that your friend might have a tendency to overstate what went on,
and, out of sympathy to him, your own observations may not be balanced.
6. Even if your parish were a social house of horrors, that would not
justify your leaving the Church. It might be a good reason to find a
different parish, but abandoning the faith? That indicates you hardly had
much faith to abandon. Someone with a strong faith would say to himself,
"I'm in a parish filled with boors. I'm going to Mass across town from here
on out." I have known people who left the Church upon discovering that a
priest could (and did) commit a sin, but I never have known a person with
substantial faith to do that--such people are not surprised by the human
condition.
IS HOMOSEXUALITY A DISORDER?
The Catechism calls homosexuality "objectively disordered," and it says
homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity" (CCC 2357). Some
people--"gay" activists in particular, but many "straight" sympathizers
too--change this to say that the Church claims that homosexuals themselves
are "intrinsically disordered," and then they reject this characterization.
How can homosexuals be "intrinsically disordered" if "God made them that
way"? Homosexuality "isn't their choice," and nothing should be done to
encourage homosexuals to rid themselves of their homosexuality. Just leave
them as they are. Don't tell them their actions are wrong. Don't try to
modify their behavior. Especially, don't try to change their sexual
orientation. Such is the argument.
But consider kleptomaniacs. Would one say that God "made kleptomaniacs that
way," that "it isn't their choice," and that kleptomania "isn't a topic for
behavior modification"?
Of course not. No one is born a kleptomaniac. For some reason a person
becomes one, and, once he is one, he properly is said to suffer from a
disorder. Merely being a kleptomaniac is no sin; there is no sin in being
tempted to steal. But if one acts out his kleptomania, he commits at least
a material sin and possibly a formal one.
While he may enjoy being a kleptomaniac (or at least has convinced himself
that he enjoys it), he would be better off, objectively, if he were not
one--that is, he would be better off if his behavior were modified and if
he ceased to be a kleptomaniac. Likewise for homosexuality.
CROSS vs. CRUCIFIX
Fundamentalists and Evangelicals say that the Catholic crucifix freezes
salvation history at Good Friday. Their bare cross, on the other hand,
takes that history all the way through Easter. The absence of a corpus
symbolizes the risen Christ.
No, it doesn't. All it can mean is that Christ is not on the cross. But
where is he? Moldering away in the tomb? That's what the skeptic would say,
and he'd have a point.
If you want a symbol for the Resurrection, it can't be either the crucifix
or the bare cross. It must be the empty tomb. I have never seen a church
feature a representation of the tomb on its steeple.
Yes, both the crucifix and bare cross "point" toward the Resurrection, but
they do not artistically show it. The crucifix shows Good Friday. The bare
cross shows--what? The situation on Palm Sunday, as the Romans tidied up
Golgotha in anticipation of whoever would be sent their way next? One could
argue that way.
The bare cross, as an artistic symbol, is vague. The crucifix, pointing to
a narrow sliver of time, is closer to a snapshot. This is why the crucifix
is more appropriate for Mass: Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary, so
why not show that moment on the cross?
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