By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — The director of an international ministry to Catholics who want to follow Church teaching on same-sex attractions has been “very pleasantly surprised by . . . what a welcome reception we get to the message that we bring,” despite secular culture’s goal to define homosexual activity as normal.
Fr. Philip Bochanski, the new executive director of Courage International (couragerc.org), headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., spoke with The Wanderer shortly before the organization’s three-day “Truth and Love Conference 2017” began here at St. Paul’s Church.
Bochanski said about 250 people including clergy and lay professionals were expected to attend the international gathering from January 9 through 11 on providing pastoral care. A brochure described the conference as aimed at “welcoming and accompanying our brothers and sisters with same-sex attractions or confusion regarding sexual identity.”
With such challenging events as the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing “same-sex marriage” in its 2015 Obergefell decision, “I really welcome the conversation that’s emerging in the culture. . . . It’s a time when people are certainly thinking about these issues,” Bochanski said.
Courage members are giving “outstanding testimony to what joy and peace and freedom they’re experiencing” by living a chaste life, he said.
As of last fall, 114 U.S. dioceses and archdioceses had Courage chapters, with the creation of more chapters on the horizon, he said, adding that 13 other countries also have chapters.
When The Wanderer mentioned powerful social pressures being exerted to make a homosexual inclination seem desirable, Bochanski said the Catholic Church historically has been countercultural.
The Church has “had the responsibility to speak the truth. We hear a lot from St. Paul’s admonition . . . to speak the truth in love. . . . God calls us to chastity” because He knows that will set people free, Bochanski said.
Following the Commandments is “going to lead to our joy and our fulfillment, in this life and especially the life to come,” he said, following “the plan that God has worked out for us.”
Asked what Courage believes about the cause of same-sex attractions, Bochanski said that “the psychological genesis of homosexuality is really unexplained. . . . Wherever it comes from, we rely on the good collaboration” of those who can inquire into the explanation scientifically.
“When a person is willing to open themselves to God’s grace…and look at the big picture of their lives,” rather than focusing only on one area, they can appreciate “being created in the image and likeness of God,” he said.
“. . . Our goal is always to learn from the word of God” and personal experiences, and to “being spiritual fathers of those who come to us,” he said.
A Growing Apostolate
Topics for sessions at the Phoenix conference were to include, “Christian Anthropology and the Gift of Chastity,” “Captivated by Truth: Why the Church’s Truth About Homosexuality Has Set Me Free,” “Transgender Surgery and Christian Anthropology,” “Providing Patient-Centered HIV and AIDS Care in the Era of Effective Treatment,” and “Who Am I to Judge? Sharing the Good News of Chastity in a Relativistic Culture.”
Also, “Discerning One’s Vocation amid the Experience of Same-Sex Attractions,” “Same-Sex Attractions, Gender, and the Theology of the Body,” “The Emperor’s (New) New Clothes: A Look at the Logic of the (Not So) New ‘Gender Ideology’,” “Changing the Conversation: How Recent Secular Research on Same-Sex Attracted Persons Supports Catholic Teaching,” and “The Catholic Approach to Cooperation With Evil and Its Application to Gender-Related Issues.”
Bochanski had been chaplain to the Courage chapter in Philadelphia from 2009 to 2014, then became associate director of Courage International at the Connecticut headquarters at the beginning of 2015.
His predecessor as executive director, Fr. Paul Check, became rector of St. John Fisher Seminary Residence in Stamford, Conn., as January began after he led Courage since 2008.
A news release about Bochanski’s becoming Courage’s third executive director said:
“During his tenure as associate director, Fr. Bochanski has been instrumental in implementing ‘Clergy Study Days,’ which provide continuing formation for the priests of a diocese about the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, how to present that teaching in a clear and compassionate way, and how to provide authentic pastoral care to men and women who experience same-sex attractions.
“Additionally, Fr. Bochanski travels widely to speak to deacons, seminarians, lay missionaries, and others involved in pastoral ministry,” the release said.
Courage International was founded in 1980 at the direction of New York’s Terence Cardinal Cooke, under the leadership of Fr. John Harvey, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales.
The news release said that by the time Harvey was succeeded as executive director by Check in 2008, “the apostolate had spread to dozens of chapters throughout the United States and around the world, including Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. It had also grown to include EnCourage, an outreach to parents and spouses whose loved ones are in homosexual relationships.”
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