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Questions and Answers

Should a homosexual couple that love each other (not “common love” but real love) and want to start a family through adoption be allowed to marry? I am asking this question because I am considering becoming a Catholic priest, and I think we both know that homosexuals are not permitted to marry in the Catholic faith, yet I have always felt that homosexuals should have the right to marry. I have had much tension over this issue so I am asking you because your perspective is unbiased and loving.

Outline of the Answer
• Marriage
• Love
• Sexuality
• Adoption
• The Priest’s Obligation

 
Your question actually has four components to it: marriage, love, sexuality, and adoption. So let’s consider each issue separately.

 
Marriage

In the Catholic Church, marriage—that is, Holy Matrimony—is a sacrament, not a right, and only legally eligible and properly prepared heterosexual Catholic couples have access to it. 

Civil rights, however, are another matter, and if Catholics—or any persons—want to pursue their civil rights outside the Church, then let them do what they want.[1] 

Nevertheless, keep in mind that many things which are legal according to civil law are both illicit according to Church law and also grave sins in the eyes of God. Therefore, even though many individuals enjoy their civil rights in this life, they will pay the price for them in the spiritual realm—and that price can very well be the torment of everlasting separation from God.[2]

  
Love

In regard to love, real love seeks the good of the other [4] while “common love” seeks only its own satisfaction. Modern society has stripped marriage of its religious basis and has perverted it into a concept based in two “partners” being drawn together because of common love. Holy Matrimony, however, is based in a man and a woman being drawn together because of their mutual real love for God. Because gay and lesbian lifestyles reject God’s will, such lifestyles are based in a hatred for God and therefore reject all possibility of Holy Matrimony. After all, anyone committed to real love would be appalled at the idea of leading someone into temptation and sin; consequently, illicit “marriage” and sexual sins have no place in real love.

  
Sexuality

In regard to sexuality, it is a sin to engage in any sexual activity not between a man and a woman in the context of their marriage, and not open to procreation, and not free of lust. This applies to everyone, not just to Catholics. Those who want to commit sin are free [3] to do so, but here again remember that they will pay the price for their sins in the spiritual realm—and that price can very well be the torment of everlasting separation from God.

  
Adoption

In the Catholic Church, adoption serves the purpose of protecting abandoned children from the trauma of being without parental guidance and religious instruction. Adoption, therefore, serves the good of the children. Consequently, it would be a perversion of adoption for adults to adopt a child just to fill their own emotional needs—especially if those needs are unfulfilled only because holy and natural procreation has been rejected.

Moreover, how can those who reject Church law and tradition teach their children to love and to fear God and to keep His commandments? Well, they can’t. They can’t give their children a proper education in anything but sin.

All in all, if parents lead their children astray through false teaching and scandalous example, they share culpability for the children’s sins and will pay the price for those sins in the spiritual realm—and that price can very well be the torment of everlasting separation from God.

 
The Priest’s Obligation

A Catholic priest is obligated to live, preach, and teach real love and true compassion. According to his baptismal vows as a Christian, his personal life must be ordered to real love and to the avoidance of sin. In his liturgical role, he must preach real love as the essence of Christianity. And in his pastoral role he must teach real love to others and never condone sin. All in all, if a priest leads others astray, he shares culpability for their sins and will pay the price for those sins in the spiritual realm—and that price can very well be the torment of everlasting separation from God.

 
Blessing

May your vocation be blessed, may you learn true compassion, and may you be protected from temptation and ultimately arrive safely in the presence of God—regardless of what happens in the social world around you.

 

Who wrote this web page?
 

Notes

1. “We don’t care what you want—or what’s legal or moral. We want what we want, and we will get it, one way or another.” That’s the rallying cry of the disgruntled, stemming from the motto of Satanism: Do what thou wilt.

2. Because our souls do not perish at the death of our bodies, each soul must seek out it’s own fitting place in the spiritual realm. Souls who separate themselves from God in this life by persisting in sin and refusing to repent of it will have no choice but to hide themselves from God in the afterlife—and that “place” of eternal separation from God, to which the soul’s own sins condemn it, is called hell. Souls who do repent of their sins in this life and seek reparation through Christ’s mercy will, after first being cleansed in Purgatory, be received into God’s presence—and that “place” is called heaven.

3. God has given free will to all of us, so everyone is free to choose good or evil.

4. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. I-II, 26, 4.

 


 
Recommended Reading

 

Falling Families, Fallen Children by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D. Do our children see a mother and a father both living in contemplative love for God with a constant awareness of His presence and engaged in an all-out battle with the evil of the world? More often than not our children don’t see living faith. They don’t see protection from evil. They don’t see genuine, fruitful devotion. They don’t see genuine love for God. Instead, they see our external acts of devotion as meaningless because they see all the other things we do that contradict the true faith. Thus we lose credibility—and when parents lose credibility, children become cynical and angry and turn to the social world around them for identity and acceptance. They are children who have more concern for social approval than for loving God. They are fallen children. Let’s bring them back.

Ordering Information

 

Healing by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D. explains how psychological defenses help to protect us from emotional injury. But if you cling to the defense mechanisms that were created in your childhood and carry them on into adulthood—as most everyone does unconsciously—your quest for spiritual healing will be thwarted by overwhelming resentments and conflicts.
   Still, God has been trying to show you that there is more to life than resentment and conflict, something so beautiful and desirable that only one thing can resist its pull: hate.
   So now, and in every moment until you die, you will have a profound choice between your enslavement to old defenses and the beauty of God. That decision has to come from you. You will go where you desire.

Ordering Information

 


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