By DEXTER DUGGAN
The concerns of people with same-sex attraction (SSA) who follow Church teaching should be remembered at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome, the director of an international apostolate in this area said in an interview.
“My hope is that the voice of the man or woman with same-sex attraction…is a voice that will be heard” there, Fr. Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, told The Wanderer during a June 2 telephone interview.
His organization, headquartered in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., plans to hold an international conference in August near Detroit to help answer questions posed in preparatory documents for the October Synod on the Family.
A flier for the conference referring to these questions says: “The pastoral care of persons with homosexual tendencies poses new challenges today, due to the manner in which their rights are proposed in society. How can the Christian community give pastoral attention to families with persons with homosexual tendencies?”
The conference, “Welcoming and accompanying our brothers and sisters with same-sex attraction,” is set for August 10-12 in Plymouth, Mich. More information is at the Courage website, couragerc.org.
Check said the conference can accommodate up to 400 people. It also is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Detroit and Our Sunday Visitor.
Speakers are to include experts on Christian anthropology, natural law, Scripture, and psychology.
Among them are Thomas Cardinal Collins, archbishop of Toronto; Allen Vigneron, archbishop of Detroit; Msgr. Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.; Janet Smith, Ph.D., a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family; Mary Healy, Ph.D., a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; canonist Edward Peters; Rilene Simpson, a former atheist who returned to the Church after living in a same-sex relationship; as well as Check.
Asked by The Wanderer if Courage has a view of why some people have same-sex attraction, Check replied, “The question of causality is something that the catechism raises without resolving it….We are careful not to impose templates on people” that say, “This is why you feel the way you do.”
Courage International ministers to people seeking to conform their lives to Gospel spirituality.
The late Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York founded Courage because he was aware of the pressures by hostile secular forces to follow their ways.
“He knew that the individual dealing with same-sex attractions truly needed to experience the freedom of interior chastity and in that freedom find the steps necessary to living a fully Christian life in communion with God and others,” the Courage website says.
It adds: “He was concerned that many would not find this path and would be constantly trying to get their needs met in ways that ultimately do not satisfy the desires of the heart.”
In the June 2 interview, Check told The Wanderer, “The word most people associate with the Catholic Church and homosexuality is ‘no’.” However, while unchaste behavior isn’t countenanced, there’s “an invitation to the grace the Gospel holds for all of us.”
Courage members see the “collision” between current cultural forces regarding homosexuality and Church teaching, Check said. “They feel within themselves that collision. But they know the truth and, like all of us, are striving to be faithful” to the truth.
Asked the size of Courage’s membership, Check said that because of the organization’s confidentiality, membership rolls aren’t kept, but it has a presence in about half of the U.S. Catholic dioceses, plus 15 other countries.
With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to issue an opinion later in June on “same-sex marriage,” Check saw the danger of “more confusion.”
“I think it’s going to create more confusion, especially in the hearts and minds of young people, about what authentic identity is…should the Supreme Court declare gay marriage is a civil right,” he said.
However, he said, Courage’s focus “is not on questions of marriage. . . . What we want to do here is remember” Christ’s teachings. “He stretches out His hand to recover people who have stepped over the line of sin,” with the Church having “a clear and welcoming face” to bringing people back, whether from the Seven Deadly Sins or violations of the Ten Commandments.
As for those who’d suggest that Pope Francis is changing the moral foundations of the Church, Check said, “There is no possibility that the Church can change her teachings on human nature . . . and I’m quite sure the Holy Father knows that as well as I do.”
Check said most of his work as executive director of Courage involves helping other priests to understand Church teaching on homosexuality, “so they are better able to care for the souls entrusted to them. . . . It helps people on the ground in very practical ways.”
A book, probably in two volumes, will be produced by San Francisco-based Ignatius Press with the content of the presentations made at the August Michigan conference, he said.
Ordained 18 years ago for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Check said he was appointed in 2008 to be full-time director of Courage International.
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