LGBT Catholics: a paradigmatic case of intra-confessional pluralism (original) (raw)
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Reconstructing a Fragmented Self: How LGBT Catholics Negotiate a Coherent Sense of Identity
Proceedings of the Junior College Multi-Disciplinary Conference: Research, Practice and Collaboration, Breaking Barriers, 18-20 September, 2018, pp. 265-275., 2018
This paper explores how lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Catholics deal with the intra-personal conflict that emerges from the incongurence between their faith and their sexuality. When they start experiencing sexual desires for persons of the same sex, their inner state of being is shattered as they are engulfed with feelings of guilt, fear, anger, doubt and anxiety. They have to deal with their apparently irreconcilable sexuality and faith as they feel judged by God and by his Church. The LGBT Catholics in my study are spiritually profound, introspective, faithful beings. Yet they are not afraid to engage with the Church’s teachings to develop their own individual morality. Drawing upon the Catholic tradition itself, they seek to develop an alternative, LGBT-affirming moral hermeneutic, a process aided by therapy, reflection, prayer, priestly advice and other techniques which enable them not only to find themselves but to relocate themselves within Catholicism. Through what Foucault calls “practices of the self” such as self-reflection, self-knowledge and self-examination, individuals engage with the established and prescribed moral code in a process of “moral subjectivation”. Such processes enable them to reconstruct their fragmented self and to ‘reclaim’ their rightful place in religious texts which was denied them through heteronormative theological interpretations.
Chapter 24 The Ambivalent Relationship of LGBT Catholics with the Church Deguara
Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion Volume 31, 2020: A Diversity of Paradigms, 2021
The study explores the ambivalent relationship of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Catholics within the Roman Catholic Church whose teachings on sexuality are a major source of conflict and distress. It analyses the experiences of LGBT believers with a strong attachment to the Church in Malta and, to a lesser extent in Palermo, who now feel marginalised by the Church because of their sexual relationships. They are critical of the Church and feel alienated from it as an institution. As their lifestyle departs from Catholic teachings, they reconstruct their sexual morality which, however, is still inspired by Catholic values. Despite their negative feelings towards it, LGBT Catholics are reluctant to sever their ties completely from the Church, preferring instead to have remained within its fold and to be embraced by it. Study participants may be classified into three overlapping categories in terms of how they relate to the Church, depending on their level of alienation. Assimilators feel at peace with the Church and remain loyal even as they criticise it. Deserters leave the Church, some rather reluctantly, as they feel rejected and judged. Affiliators join LGBT faith-based groups searching for what they did not find within the Church community.
Living in Sin? How Gay Catholics Manage Their Conflicting Sexual and Religious Identities
Religious principles and values provide meaning and affect personal identity. They may also conflict with intimate needs and desires. This article examines how gay Catholics manage conflicting areas between their sexual and religious selves. Eight Polish gays with a Catholic background, who identified themselves as strong believers, shared their experiences during semi-structured interviews that were subjected to interpreta-tive phenomenological analysis. Results showed that internaliza-tion of the principles taught by the Roman Catholic Church triggered a conflict when participants became aware of their homosexuality. They used a number of strategies to reconcile conflicting identities, including limiting their religious involvement , questioning interpretation of the doctrine, undermining priests' authority, trying to reject homosexual attraction, putting trust in God's plan, using professional help, and seeking acceptance from clergy. This study alerts mental health professionals to specific risk factors associated with experiencing a religious conflict, and offers guidelines for counseling and further research.
Destroying False Images of God: The Experiences of LGBT Catholics
Journal of Homosexuality, 2017
This paper is about how lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Catholics imagine God1 1 and how images of God change in parallel with their self-image. The study is based on qualitative research with LGBT Catholics most of whom are members of Drachma LGBTI in Malta or Ali d'Aquila in Palermo, Sicily. LGBT Catholics' image of God changes as they struggle to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, as they go through a process of "conversion" from deviants and sinners to loved children of God. One study participant compares his faith in God to peeling an onion: "With every layer one peels off, one destroys false images of God." Most study participants have moved away from the image of God of a bearded old man and father of creation and moved more towards a conception of God as love once identity conflicts are resolved.
A Longing to Belong:Homosexuals who refuse to leave Catholicism.
Revista Palobra "Palabra que Obra", 2014
Despite the fact that many church going members would like gays and lesbians to leave the Catholic Church, there is a sizable amount of them who refuse to leave. Both the Catholic Church and the gay and lesbian community have organized themselves in to groups with the finality of permitting gays and lesbians to remain within the Church, under different conditions. The Catholic sponsored Courage seeks to allow gays and lesbians in as long as they renounce the gay and lesbian life style and attempt to live chastely. The gays and lesbians who reject this option have constituted themselves in to groups like Dignity and Other Sheep which intend to modify the Church´s discriminatory stance on homosexuality in the future by finding ways to circumvent Catholicism’s historically negative attitude towards homosexuality. The biggest hurdle gays and lesbians have in their dealings with the Church is that their sexual actions, the very actions that are an undeniably important part of their persona and which has helped them primarily to define themselves as a minority, are seen as sinful by the Church. In order to revert the perception that homosexual acts equal a sin it is important for the members of the gay and lesbian community to find an explanation to why they have same sex preferences. This thesis is written under the assumption that homosexuality cannot be cured under the guidelines the Church currently offers and as the organization Courage envisions it. Celibacy is undoubtedly an option for the people who wish to pursue it, but not one that many gays and lesbians find realistic in their lives. Their hope is to find ways to justify homosexual relations within Catholicism that have a positive message for homosexuals whether they are single or living as couples. Gays and lesbians that want to be accepted by the Catholic Church have attempted to find the answers that justify their homosexuality, with the hope of undermining the premise that they are acting sinfully. There have been two arguments to justify acceptance on the part of the Church of gays and lesbians: one argument was used by John Boswell who attempted to demonstrate that Christianity had at one time accepted gays and lesbians within its fold, and if it had done so in the past, then it could do so in the present. There are downfalls to this argument, particularly that the Church has used History itself in the guise of tradition to justify the persecution of people who engaged in sodomitical acts for centuries. Another way gays and lesbians have searched for acceptance is by claiming that same sex preference is inborn, thus natural and if it is natural it cannot be sinful. This arguments has several weaknesses as well, which will not be explained fully but can be exemplified with two controversies: the idea that a pedophile or an alcoholic could claim that their desires are genetically predisposed, like homosexuality, and thus makes them less accountable for their actions, can be used to deny homosexuals legal rights. Just because at some point it can be proved that pedophilia is genetic does not mean that society will give them a free pass to engage in sexual intercourse with children, the same with an alcoholic who due to his drinking may be responsible for hurting other people because he drove irresponsibly. It is expected in western society that the individual can and should control urges that damage the fabric of societies well being. These arguments are used against homosexuality as well, if it is genetic they should still restrain themselves from acting on their instincts. The second controversy this argument causes is that if homosexuality is due to genetics the parents of future children will be able to determine the sexual preference of their unborn child, and that would mean that homosexuality would probably disappear even for parents would surely opt for heterosexuality for their children with the best intentions for the welfare of their unborn child. At this moment the arguments may seem moot, particularly because what causes homosexuality has not been determined, so gays and lesbians are left trying to bargain with the Church using the essentialist and constructionist argument when it suits them. This thesis concludes that the best way to get the Church to accept gays and lesbians is using the argument that in essence gays and lesbians are born with those preferences. The argument lessens the guilt of the parties before the Church’s eyes and may be used as a dialogue starter between both parties. This discourse may be perceived as optimistically naïve, but the counter argument, the one that ascertains sexuality can be chosen, and gays and lesbians can change their sexual preferences to become heterosexual brings an ending to any discussion of assimilation between both groups, with the Church alleging that they must become heterosexual once more or else they are breaking the laws of God.
Religious Pluralism from the Catholic Point of View
Verbum Vitae, 2021
The question about how religious pluralism should properly be understood from the Catholic point of view has been asked since the outset of Christianity. It was also formulated in the context of A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb. The present article gives a theological interpretation of the sentence included in the Abu Dhabi document: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” It argues that this passage should be understood correctly within the inclusivist paradigm that recognizes and confers to non-Christian religions and to religious pluralism a status de iure without jeopardizing the foundations of Catholic faith: the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church. In conclusion, the question concerning the application of the assertion to the case of Isl...
Ecumenical Hermeneutics for a Plural Christianity: Reflections on Contextuality and Catholicity
Bangalore Theological Forum, Volume 34, Number 2, December 2002, pages, 89-115, 2002
The plurality of Christianity in general, of theological positions in particular, has become most obvious. Thus, differing ways of Christian life and faith as well as diverging theological reflections based on them can be noted, and their compatibility cannot simply be taken for granted. It has become notorious, especially in the Ecumenical Movement, that an understanding between such divergent manifestations of Christianity is difficult and, indeed, often bound to fail. Ecumenical hermeneutics is an attempt to unveil the reasons for the apparent lack of agreement through the analysis of the divergent ways of understanding Scripture and its tradition, as well as for the difficulty of mutual understanding between Christians. It also seeks to explore the significance of the Ecumenical Movement as an expression of the "hermeneutical community" of the Church and to formulate criteria for discernment. The Commission of Faith and Order (FO) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) dedicated, from 1993 to 1998, a specific study to the subject and published its results. In the article, I present the FO-paper within its history, highlighting what I find most important for the purpose of this study (I). This perspective is then being brought into dialogue with the trinitarian theology of two eminent theologians from two very different contexts. Leonardo Boff (II) and Raimon Panikkar (III). Finally, I shall try to describe the relevance of an ecumenical hermeneutics to this dialogue (IV).
LGBTQI Inclusivity, Homosexuality, and Same-Sex Marriage in the Catholic Church, 2024
This chapter provides the book's overall social background, research gap, objectives, sociological approach, methodology, theoretical foundation, and general arguments. Applying sociologicaltheological perspectives and utilizing the qualitative secondary research method, it contends that resolving the hot-button moral issues such as homosexuality, same-sex union, and the inclusivity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexual (LGBTQI) community in the Catholic Church, which frequently mentioned in Pope Francis's new ecclesial project called Synod on Synodality, requires an inductive theological approach and in-depth sociological study of the moral situation before moral judgment and social action to resolve them.
The Christian Church's Response to Pluralism
2010
In an earlier paper1 outlined the difficulties that are raised for Christian thought and practice by the rise of a pluralist ideology. In this second contribution I propose to address some of those difficulties. I begin, however, by making a point that needs to be heard, especially in relation to religious pluralism. The pluralist agenda has certain important theological consequences. It is a simple matter of fact that traditional Christian theology does not lend itself particularly well to the homogenizing agenda of religious pluraliste. The suggestion that all religions are more or less talking about vaguely the same thing finds itself in difficulty in relation to certain essentially Christian ideas—most notably, the doctrines of the incarnation and the Trinity. Such distinctive doctrines are embarrassing to those who wish to debunk what they term the "myth of Christian uniqueness." We are invited, on the weak and lazy grounds of pragmatism, to abandon those doctrines in...