The following is an email that was sent to California Catholic Daily this week:
- Dear CalCatholic,
- I am a regular reader and faithful committed Catholic. I am also a mother of an adult who is living in a same sex relationship. Last year you ran my story (written by Joseph Sciambra) of finding no help in the LA archdiocese except for gay affirming ministries: How many pro-gay Catholic ministries are in LA? I am so excited to report that as of this week we have both the approval of Archbishop Gomez and my local auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell who has appointed our chaplain for our EnCourage chapter. It has been almost 9 years since I started trying to get this group going. We also have received permission from an area parish for a meeting room.
- I know there are so many other parents like myself- heartbroken Catholic parents struggling with this secret that our children are same sex attracted. We so need ministries like this one. Please consider publishing the following or something similar as I’d like to get the word out that we now do exist and I want our contact info out there so other parents know where to go for solid faithful help. In a culture that has only become more hostile we need to support each other to live out Catholic truth.
- Thank you,
- (name withheld)
New EnCourage chapter in the Los Angeles archdiocese
EnCourage is a Roman Catholic apostolate for parents, friends and family members of loved ones with same-sex attractions. EnCourage is a faithful witness to Catholic teaching on sexual morality which meets the needs of its members with charity and compassion.
EnCourage does not embrace the necessity of changing a loved one’s sexual attraction to seek support from our ministry.
EnCourage helps members to focus on their own spiritual development with the goals of achieving peace and complete trust in God’s Providence and His love for us and for the ones we love. EnCourage offers a supportive, confidential environment to share feelings, experiences, information and guidance for maintaining healthy relationships with our loved ones with same-sex attractions.
EnCourage provides members with an understanding of the needs of individuals who experience same-sex attractions and assists members to reach out to their loved ones with true compassion. EnCourage supports the work of Courage, the Roman Catholic apostolate to same-sex -attracted individuals who live chastely in fellowship, truth and love.
If you love our faith and also your loved one with same-sex attractions, you do not have to feel confused or isolated any longer. Be welcomed by a group of committed Catholics who understand your sufferings and who will walk and pray with you on this journey.
If you are in need of guidance and direction, please send us an e-mail.
We will put you in touch with someone who can help you: encourage.losangeles@gmail.com
or 626-667-4673
The first confidential meeting will be in March in the Los Angeles area.
Homosexuals are only 2-3% of the population and the Los Angeles Archdiocese grossly over(mis)represents them in terms of attention and ministry. All people are called to live in accordance with their station in life, whether that be as a celibate religious or a chastely living married or single person.
Archbishop Gomez, enough pandering to homosexuals. The message to them is to live chastely. If they fall, repent and go to confession. God will give them the necessary graces if they ask for them. There, that’s it. See how simple the message is? I just saved the diocese lots of money.
Obviously you have never had a temptation so great it consumes you…it is NOT easy…I am speaking from a straight attraction…no marriage…I was consumed for years, dileriously and prayed daily to be released and I was but have never loved like that again
Anonymous – sounds more like lust and obsession than love. Avail yourself of frequent confession and the graces that flow from it.
Kristen,
I might add that to free yourself from that level of attraction usually requires more than just frequent reception of the sacraments.
Whether the number is 2-3% or a little bit more it’s true we’re a tiny minority. Why then do people make such a big deal about us? I’m sure you know that gay people have been treated horribly and were even imprisoned and murdered during the Holocaust. The fact that this woman feels a need to keep her child’s sexuality a secret speaks volumes. I hope the first, number one message she is sending to her child is “God loves you and I love you.” Anything less is unchristian. I thank God and the Blessed Virgin that when my late girlfriend and I were together both our parents accepted us. No one should have to choose between the one they love and their family.
C&H, it’s not that “people make such a big deal” about homosexuals as it is that homosexuals make such a big deal out of themselves! Let’s face it, those involved in a homosexual lifestyle are sinning, and they cannot force others to embrace their sin.
The stamp of approval many seek will never happen, get over it. If you love someone, you do your best to help get them to heaven, not justify their sin. You must remove the scales from your eyes and recognize that your homosexual relationship was sinful. Must families accept sin in order to have family harmony? No, and sacrificing moral beliefs to ensure a family member’s presence at the Thanksgiving table is due to weak faith. Being Christian means proclaiming Truth,…
I’m confused. Why do parents of LGBT people need help living out Catholic truth? About one in five catholic parents have at least one LGBT kid. It’s hardly something to be lived in secret, or even an unusual situation.
Because faithful Catholic parents sometimes need assistance countering the pro-homosexual propaganda that their children have been brainwashed to accept and spout, and they need resources and help in attempting to bring their children back to moral and sexual orderedness.
Homosexuality is not normal, not good, not desirable, and not to be promoted. It should be considered unusual in the sense of being deviant and abnormal.
By your strange reckoning, YFC, about 10% of all children are LBGT. You are confused about more than issues parents have.
I don’t think YFC ever said the 10% number was accurate. It’s hard to know. It seems that in every generation,God, in His infinite wisdom decides that a small number of his children will be attracted to their own gender rather than the opposite one. Because gay people (and in this case the mother of a gay person are often “closeted” I’m suspicious of any estimates. Based on looking around at society I’d think 3% to 4% is a good guess, but it is exactly the, a guess.
C&H – you assume that God has put an unnatural sexual attraction into the make up of His children. Blaming God might make you feel better, but know that wherever the inclination came from, you are responsible for carrying that cross and staying away from sin.
No, Dan. Best estimates are that 4% of people are LGBT. So a family of 5 kids would have 4×5% = 20% or 1 in 5.
We could go even further. In a three generation family, 5 siblings each of whom have 5 kids, each of which has a 4% chance of being LGBT. 5x5x 4% = 100% average your extended family has someone who is LGBT.
YFC, your math is better than mine on this score. If sexual orientation followed a binomial distribution, the percentage would be 17% for having one child out of 5 being LGBT using the figure of 4%. Using 3%, the percentage would be 13.3%; and using 2%, 9.2%.
Hi Dan, thanks for adding some statistical information here. I want to be clear that I was not saying that there is a 100% chance that a family will have a gay person within a 3 generation household. I am saying that given assumptions of 5 adult sibs in each generation, 4% chance of LGBT, the AVERAGE family will have 1 gay person. Obviously, as you hint at, there will be some families with 2 or 3 gay members, and therefore 2 or 3 families with no gays….even with my figures.
The % of LGBT in the population is not known with precision. But 4% is about the best estimate we have. Not “gay”, which is about 2%, but LGBT.
quantity does not make this easier…it is unusual…even if every one of my kids was gay, it would NOT be usual.
Three of my parents seven children are gay. Go figure.
YFC,
I might be doing the math wrong, but are you saying that 20% of people have homosexual attraction?
Steve – Keep in mind that the accepted scientific theory is that it’s a scale not an absolute either/or.
Steve – Oh I see what you mean about the math. See my comment about the diffculty in estimating our % of the population. Also, I’ve often wondered if over generations are there significantly more or less gay & lesbian people.
It doesn’t matter how many homosexual people there are. C&H, if you are trying to find strength in numbers, be assured there are more souls in hell than in heaven! Repent while you still can!
Kristin …I don’t know about your population stats but are you assuming here that I need to repent any more than you do? If so why? Oh … one of the basics of our faith is that we’re all sinners and need to repent.
C&H, repent also includes letting go of wrongly held beliefs that homosexual relationships are morally OK. They are not, and hanging onto past sins in this area is leaving that vestige of sin on ones soul. You have wrongly twisted my remarks – all are need of repentance and best to do it while we are still here to do so.
This is why, Kristin, it is imperative to call out heterodox “Catholic” schools as being unfaithful to faith and morals. The attitudes exhibited here are not sprouting in a vacuum, but are being duly cultivated in those gleefully advertised bastions wherein smart business investments are lauded.
Drat! I made a math error. :)
YFC,
Since the parents’ behavior is often the root cause of the issue, it’s important that parents understand the issues and causes so that they can make appropriate changes in behavior to accommodate their child.
Steve, with all due respect where did you get an idea like that.?
C&H,
It comes, in part, from the work of Dr. Elizabeth Moberly and has since been advanced by others including Fr. John Harvey of Courage and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
Joseph Nicolosi, co-founder of the so-called National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) died today. May he rest in peace.
YFC,
Thank you for making me aware of Dr. Nicolosi’s death. I actually met him 30 years ago back before I knew about his work with homosexual orientation.
No one knows what causes homosexuality – or for that matter – heterosexuality. There is no evidence that parental behavior causes homosexuality. However, if there is a lot of evidence that parental behavior (acceptance vs rejection) influences the medical and psychological outcomes of their children. If this effort is one aimed at family rejection of their LGBT family members, it makes their lives a lot more difficult.
We do know that heterosexuality is normative and that homosexuality is deviant. We do know that heterosexuality accords with nature and that homosexuality is contrary to nature. We do know that God wills for men and women to marry each other and that he abhors homosexual relations.
The cause of heterosexuality is the natures of male and female; the nature of sex. The cause of homosexuality is some as-yet unknown defect in an organism such that it doesn’t attain normal or perfect expression of its nature as male or female.
If “heterosexuality accords with nature and homosexuality is contrary to nature”, how is it that in every animal species studied there exists some form or another of same sex sexual behavior?
To say that the cause of heterosexuality is the natures of male and female is to make quite a circular argument. It explains nothing.
I assure you that for a gay person, being gay is not “deviant”. It is quite natural, and most do not experience it as something to what God wills.
YFC,
Regarding your conversation with Sawyer, I always thought it obvious that heterosexuality is based in genetics and results from evolution and natural selection. We know from medicine and biology that the male sex organ is made for the female sex organ. Its clear that nature fashioned these organs for each other and for reproduction.
The occurrence of homosexual behavior in species other than humans is not evidence that homosexuality accords with nature; it is evidence that defects that causes homosexuality in humans also occur in other species.
Arguing that male and female sexual natures are the cause of heterosexuality is not circular reasoning; it is to recognize the final causality inherent in the natures of male and female. Heterosexuality is caused by male and female because to be heterosexual is entailed by male and female. You are thinking only of efficient causation; think rather about final causation.
Feelings do not determine truth. That is your primary error.
YFC,
No evidence? I thought I just cited some. Based on your comments, though, it seems that you might not be very familiar with Courage. I recommend checking it out: I suspect you might really like it.
If I were homosexual, that’s exactly the place where I would be.
Courage exhibits little of its named charism. It meets in secret at secret times and in secret places.
And to the citation of courage for scientific evicdence, they are not scientists.
YFC,
Yes, you’re correct about Courage not being academic and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I cited Fr. Harvey only because he found Moberly’s work to be effective in his ministry.
About Courage having courage, I know they advertize in a local parish where I live. However, I can see why they might be secretive if they’re either in San Francisco or in the sticks of Fresno. Regretfully, the issue of homosexuality is high politicized and the topic can be very dangerous for all concerned.
YFC,
Oh, but I forgot to add that Dr. Moberly, NARTH, and others have done pioneering work On the subject..
Pioneers have been known to eat each other alive. Have you never heard of the Donner Party?
YFC,
Okay, you got me to laugh.
In fact, I’m not even sure how to respond to your comment.
The Donner party?!?!?! :)
How crude and cowardly, YFC. The Donner Party didn’t eat each other “alive”.
God bless you!
To quote the old native phrase, first walk a mile in their shoes.
” EnCourage is a faithful witness to Catholic teaching on sexual morality which meets the needs of its members with charity and compassion.”
Amen
Kristen, free yourself from judgementalism. Persons suffering wtih same-sex attractions who are trying to live chaste lifestyles often require counseling. We lost a great hero yesterday, Dr. Joseph Nicholosi who passed away from complications of the flu. He had just turned 70. He started the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and has helped thousands of men and women heal from and even overcome their same sex attractions. I hope the CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC DAILY writes an article this week in tribute to this great Catholic man.
We welcome any story submissions at info@cal-catholic.com.
Pointing out truth is not judgementalism, NARTH Follower. It’s what Dr. Nicholosi did, and it freed many people from lifestyles that were detrimental to their souls.