By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Every one of us searches for comfort in this world, one example being that we all experience weariness and a need for sleep. No one has yet denied the experience of pleasure upon arising from bed after a good period of needed rest. All of our physical needs are like this: Our pleasure indicates that we have received something we were made to need. We did not make ourselves and so our bodily experiences and responses give us a key to unpacking the will of the One who made us.
One of the first comforts that each of us experiences is being nursed by our mothers. But then we move on and grow and as we do we must face the fact that we need more than these comforts, this life. God always stands ready and waiting for us to turn to Him in this need. To demonstrate His will, God draws upon this powerful experience of pleasure and comfort from very early in our lives.
The satisfaction of a nursed child is a symbol of His promise that He Himself will be our greatest Comfort and Protector. In Christ through His Eucharist we are given true life, nourished, strengthened, and preserved in health along our earthly journey to Him.
But pleasure is not according to God an end in itself. What is our end and our destiny? If it is God, then we must guard against the temptation to substitute any lesser pleasure for the greatest One: God Himself, the source of all other pleasures. And we must learn the life we seek can be lost through some things that may be pleasurable as all gifts are and yet also sinful.
Anything comforting that God gave us can be used sinfully, whether in speech through lying, the marital act by fornication or drugs, or alcohol because of addiction.
In our day it is human sexuality that is very much a battleground, having lost for many its God-given purpose in procreation. Think of how many years so many of us nearly apologized for a mere mention in marriage preparation that marriage was “also” for having children? We are paying a very dear price for our betrayal. The marital act is always ordered toward the procreation of new human life.
Confusion about this has fueled the idea that two men or two women can simulate marriage through sexual coupling. Pope Benedict predicted in 2005 that the time would come when the Church would no longer be able to state publicly the Church teaching that homosexual acts are an objective disorder in the structuring of human existence.
Little more than ten years later his prediction has come true. A young man named Jeramy on Twitter wrote, “The true disorder is saying two people who love each other in a loving committed relationship is a disorder” and the world congratulates him for this confusion of genital expression as always necessary for any kind of love even outside of marriage between one man and one woman in marriage. Addiction to sex is a problem even in marriage, but outside of it any genital expression is proscribed by Almighty God.
What I call “opportunistic ambiguity” is gaining ground within the Church because of Internet personalities such as Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, and Fr. James Martin, SJ. Catholics are well advised to avoid these two when they stray off Church teaching territory and into personal opinion. When in doubt: If you can’t find a statement in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it’s safe to presume that it’s not official Church teaching and probably unfaithful to Scripture and Tradition.
Jesus did not die on the cross to raise false hopes or comforts but through suffering and death to give the real hope: resurrection and life. The Church already has the real comfort of Jesus Christ, His Presence and teaching, so we don’t need to create false hopes through ambiguity. Such ambiguity is given great room to play with hearts and minds when exploiting statements like a recent one by Pope Francis that Catholics should apologize to “gays” for injustices of the past.
Few made note of the fact that he quickly followed that with a list of other groups that have also been ill-served through history. Instead there were voices even calling for the Church to apologize for official teaching, and that even though Pope Francis repeatedly references the Catechism on this issue.
At least two bishops in the United States are talking like they’ve lost contact with reality, calling Catholics responsible for the assassination of homosexuals at a club in Orlando and saying that Church teaching on same-sex attraction is destructive for homosexuals.
As I tweeted:
“It’s not possible for me to ask forgiveness for teaching as Jesus does; to do so would be to renounce Him which I cannot do.”
“Traffic here on Twitter proves people think Pope’s ‘apology’ talk means abandon Catholic teaching & approve of homosexual behavior. Disaster.”
As we were reminded on a recent Sunday with the proclamation of the Gospel, “the kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for” those who reject the Gospel.
So, in answer to those who continue to enable and lure the confused and the weak in a betrayal both of Christ and the souls He sends us to save, we must say no: Two men or two women engaged together in genital expression is sinful and a mutual sterile stimulation only, not a God-given loving self-gift open to life. Using and being used by others does not lift us out of the experience of solitude but merely deepens it.
Christ died to give all of Himself for all so that all might give themselves wholly to Him. We owe others complete faithfulness to that which Christ desires for them, not what we think is best.
@MCITLFrAphorism
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