just because u suffer from homosexuality......

[curtins]

yeah nathan isnt the Magisterium here

[Didymus]

As a seminarian, I have been told quite often that it is natural for priests to be attracted to women. Some people would think, "Oh, I don't really like women much anyways, so maybe I should be a priest." This attitude is actually injurious to the vocation of the priesthood. So for a priest to have an attraction to men would be extremely harmful and unhealthy to the priesthood

[Guest Angelak]

<my whole life i have wanted to fall in love with someone and make them happy. I want to be happy with them too.>

I think a lot of us confuse our longing for intamacy with God (the type we only get after death, with a longing for a relationship. There are all these images of God walking all over the place. When you see good in another, you're seeing a mirror of God. The problem is that the human heart is not capible of loving like God loves. Rather our hearts are more like cupped petals. If our focus is completely on God, than He fills us with His love and we are meant to pour His love from our hearts to the world, especially those who are less able to feel God's love.

The problem is if you enter a relationship where you love the person more than you love God, you make that person an idol. You may be vaguely happy, but there are so many who have to realize that the person doesn't love them the way they long to be loved and that their heart isn't capible of loving them the way they long to be loved.

If marriage is your vocation, its something you do out of love for God. You have to feel that God has called you to marry this individual, that your vocation is to love God through this individual, to bear children to to live out your life in that marital vocation. Homosexual relationships do not fit into this category. They are opposed to God's plan.

<If you are struggling through homosexuality does that mean that god's plan for you is to become a priest?>

Absolutely not! Priests make an additional vow of celebacy to offer up as a sacrifice to sanctify themselves. Their ultimate calling is to act as a spiritual follower to their parish (if they're a parish priest).

There are many corrupt seminaries now where there is gay activity going on. I've had friends who'd left them to find another seminary (these were hetrosexual friends who found that the seminary they entered was more like one big orgy party).

The priesthood is not defined by its celebacy. Now there are also religious orders such as monks and Friars, but again this ends up becoming a temptation for men with same sex attractions as well as women. I've known women who were kicked out of convents because they started making moves on other women. I also know men who were planning on becoming priests and started making moves on other men.

A life as a religious is a difficult one. Especially being that the majority of cases of priests molesting people, these were men molesting teenage boys.

Not being sexually active is not that big of a deal. Every single Catholic is called to live like that and I have no doubt that there are people who are neither called to religious life nor to marriage.

I will say that you definetly need support and community, therefore I recommend finding a local Courage chapter. Unforunately, there are areas where there are none..

We as Catholics who do not suffer with such a tendency need to be open to allowing devout Catholics who suffer with it to enter into our communities and to find support within the parish.


As for counciling. First, you need to focus on cultivating virtue, mainly chastity. Those who are younger seem to find that just through overcoming habbits of sexual activity, masturbation, harbored sexual daydreams, find some healing. Their desire for the same sex may decrease some and they may start feeling some attraction toward the opposite gender.

Those who are older tend to struggle with it more. An aquaintance of mine has been living celebate and chaste for the past 10 years, and he's been going through counciling. He was very happy that he's been able to not masturbate for the past five years. Its only been recently that his attraction to men has decreased, that he sees men differently. About six months after that started he began to feel a mild sexual attraction toward a woman. It seems to be very easy for relapses to occur. Granted some people will take that as "see, you can't treat it. Its not a mental issue." Give me a break though. People who've been depressed can relapse easily as well. Its that way with everything and there are many things we treat that cannot be cured.

Overall, I'd say build your relationship with God. Keep God in your Center and let Him be your guide. Don't force your will upon Him. He's a lot wiser than all of us.

Everyone has a vocation to love and to be loved. It just isn't always sexually. I've found that the times I (as a single woman) get lonely are when I have not little to serve others, when I've become to inwardly focused. Its often then that our sexuality comes out because its a very instinctional form of an expression of love. we have to push ourselves to love non-sexually and correctly. And trust God with your life! Have faith that He wants what is best for you.

[ofpheritup]

[quote name='Angelak' date='Jul 24 2005, 12:24 AM']<my whole life i have wanted to fall in love with someone and make them happy.  I want to be happy with them too.>

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While I appreciate what you are saying it makes me nervous. No one can make you HAPPY but you.

It isn't anyone else's job. And it isn't fair to you for anyone to expect you to make them happy. May I suggest if you find someone who feels that way RUN.

This is why so many marriages fail. We control our own "happiness" that is if we are mature.

And this doesn't apply just to marriage, this applies to all relationships. I can not make my friends happy. I can support. love, encourage, whatever. Ultimately they are responsible for their feelings.

This is what separates the boys from the men, the girls from the women.

Edited July 24, 2005 by ofpheritup