Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues - Pastoral Guidelines For Ministry to Homosexuals

1414 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church

Typical Pastoral Guidelines For Ministry to Homosexuals

This essay takes a typical Catholic parish and presents the guidelines used by this parish in the treatment of gay/les types. The guidelines illustrate the welcoming attitude of this church toward gays.

The guidelines are pastoral in character, intended to help priests and parish ministers meet their obligation to serve kindly and conscientiously all who turn to the Church with real needs and honest hope. They do not presume any particular social or psychological analysis of sexuality in our society, except for a generally accepted premise that individuals do choose and can change their sexual orientation and must understand it and integrate it into their life of faith and conscience.

The guidelines accept, without elaborating, the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church on sexual morality, conscience, and personal sin. Deeper probing of the ground of this teaching and the contemporary challenges to it must be left to the educational efforts proposed in these guidelines.

The guidelines also accept the teaching of the Catholic Church on social ethics but do not propose a social action agenda. When the voice or action of the Church is needed in the religious or secular forum, appropriate agents of the parish and diocese will be informed and enlisted to uphold basic human and civil rights against social or legal discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or violence.

The guidelines do not resolve the dilemma surrounding terminology. "Homosexual" seems clear and objective but has come to be regarded by some as too clinical and impersonal, with unwarranted implications of pathology, inferiority, or alienation. "Gay" and "l...

... middle of paper ...

...ll establish its own organization and procedures to address its principal tasks:

(a) to inform and advise the bishop on all aspects of this ministry;

(b) to enlist the interest and cooperation of diocesan agencies in implementing these guidelines;

(c) to recommend, promote, or provide, in consultation with these agencies, programs of education and information.

The Pastoral Resource Committee will regularly evaluate and recommend publications to support these education programs or the personal study resources for pastoral ministers.

The Pastoral Resource Committee will evaluate, in accord with these guidelines, organizations to be served, consulted, or enlisted in this ministry.

There we have it - a pastoral approach to gay/les members.

WORKS CITED:

"To Live in Christ Jesus," 1976 US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    In her story Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents what life was like living as a female slave during the 19th century. Born into slavery, she exhibits, to people living in the North who thought slaves were treated fairly and well, how living as a slave, especially as a female slave during that time, was a heinous and horrible experience. Perhaps even harder than it was if one had been a male slave, as female slaves had to deal with issues, such as unwanted sexual attention, sexual victimization and for some the suffering of being separated from their children. Harriet Jacobs shows that despite all of the hardship that she struggled with, having a cause to fight for, that is trying to get your children a better life

    Read More

  • Better to Marry Than to Burn: Clerical Celibacy in Modern Times

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    Described as a “precious jewel” by Pope Paul VI, a vow of celibacy, abstaining from marriage and all sexual activity is required for those choosing a life of service in the Roman Catholic Church (Frazee 108). Perhaps one of the most long standing debates within the Roman Catholic Church is the issue of clerical celibacy, in particular for priests. Many ask, does compulsory celibacy for priest have any place in today’s modern world? Some will argue that compulsory celibacy for priest is essential for priest to adequately serve their parishioners as well as to faithfully serve God. While others suggest that this is an antiquated unnatural practice that is harmful for not only the priest but for the Roman Catholic Church. However, in order to adequately answer this question, it is imperative to understand the history of compulsory clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic faith, as well as the reasoning for the implementation of this practice among clerics.

    Read More

  • Homosexuality Case Study

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although homosexuality is not a mental disorder in and of itself, gay men and other men who have sex with men can present with poorer mental health outcomes as a result of social discrimination, rejection, isolation and marginalization.3 4, 5 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gay men and other MSM are at increased risk for major depression, bipolar disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, the common basis of which is likely homophobia.6 Sustained stress from this can also lead MSM to contemplate suicide or cope through substance use.7 Although providing appropriate mental health support for gay men and other MSM from a clinical perspective is similar to treating anyone else with mental challenges, it is critical to recognize the role that structural and social barriers play in exacerbating negative mental health outcomes among these individuals.

    Read More

  • The Christian Debate on Homosexuality

    2508 Words  | 6 Pages

    The American debate on homosexuality reveals an unquestionable, though awfully uninvited, fusion between religion and politics, revealing a dangerous lack of separation between the church and state. The concern is not about the presence of spirituality in American politics, but the implications institutionalized religion has on the lives and rights of human beings. Nothing hinders the political and social progress of lesbian women and gay men quite like the complexities of religion. Dating back to the beginning of literature itself, homosexuality is far from modern. Nonetheless, homosexuality is currently the most divisive and fiercely debated topic in recent religious discourse. While most Christians maintain allegiance in labeling same-sex relationships as morally wrong, the church is dramatically divided on the proper place for gays and lesbians in American society and of course, American politics.

    Read More

  • Christian Rules and Faith

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sex - The catholics are very strict on sex and its use, they do not condemn that people go out and have sex for the fun of it but love someone and marry before a couple...

    Read More

  • The Impact Of Cellphones On Society

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though cell phone was created in recent decades, it continues to grow in level of it 's capabilities. Cellphone used to be for calling, then it changed to texting that took a longer time, and now it 's easy as touch of a screen or verbally communicate on the screen. We 're surrounded by technology wherever we go and we feel sense of satisfication or security from these devices. There 's even accessories that help us stay connected by syncing our cellphones like Apple Watch, Mac, or iPads to our phones where we can easily view and reply to a text.

    Read More

  • Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    Towards Understanding, (1999). Towards Understanding: A study of factors specific to the Catholic Church which might lead to sexual abuse by priests and religious (National Committee for Professional Standards, Sydney).

    Read More

  • Family Ethics: Navigating Faith in a Secular World

    2502 Words  | 6 Pages

    The author then turns her attention to five practices that can assist in carrying out the task of being a Christian in this postmodern world: having sex, eating, tithing, serving and praying. “In the context of this book I consider sex as fundamental to the practices of relationship and compassion, eating as a dimension of practicing relationship and justice, tithing in relation to the practice of simplicity, serving as a way of practicing compassion, and praying as a form centering. All five can be seen as practices of resistance embedded in ordinary life marked by Christian commitments to God and neighbor” (98). The author maintains faithful sexual practice in a marriage fosters ethical goods such as: vulnerability, self-sacrifice, self-love, and bodily belonging with one’s spouse. The common and ordinary practice of eating a meal as a family around the dinner table is noted as a necessary practice. Eating meals together is associated not only with strong families but with strong communities, concretized in Catholic teaching by the Eucharist. “The majority of American

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis on Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” focuses on a woman named Louise Mallard and her reaction to finding out about her husband’s death. The descriptions that the author uses in the story have significance in the plot because they foreshadow the ending.

    Read More

  • A Life of Celibacy; Buddhism and Sex

    1901 Words  | 4 Pages

    Celibacy is an age-old, multi-religious practice to which both men and women, abstain from sexual relations as because of religious vows . But most monastic celibacy implies a devaluing, and hostile attitude towards the world, life, the body, sex, and the opposite gender. Which directly conflicts with both monastic and buddhist life. Monasticism as a whole often carries a reputation of being ...

    Read More

  • Essay on Setting in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    Setting exists in every form of fiction, representing elements of time, place, and social context throughout the work. These elements can create particular moods, character qualities, or features of theme. Throughout Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," differing amounts and types of the setting are revealed as the plot develops. This story deals with a young woman's emotional state as she discovers her own independence in her husband's death, then her "tragic" discovery that he is actually alive. The constituents of setting reveal certain characteristics about the main character, Louise Mallard, and are functionally important to the story structure. The entire action takes place in the springtime of a year in the 1890s, in the timeframe of about an hour, in a house belonging to the Mallards. All of these aspects of setting become extremely relevant and significant as the meaning of the story unfolds.

    Read More

  • Sacred Sexuality

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most of the dominant religions in the world today are preaching the suppression of the sexual urge or the channeling of that urge into socially acceptable forms. For example, Roman Catholics used to be very sexually explicit and open people. After a man who, in his youth, was sexually explicit converted to Catholicism and pledged selibacy for himself; he became a priest by the name of St Augustus. St. Augustus arose the birth of moral laws in Christianity when the first law he brought into public light was that there would be no fornication unless it was for strictly procreational reasons. In any case, this moral law led to making adultary illegal, just as it is by today's standards.

    Read More

  • Cell Phone Use in Teens

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    One advantage of having a cell phone is that its very helpful when a person needs to contact a friend or a family member (9). For example, when someone is lost in a place they have never been in. But now a days people owning a cell phone can never get lost because now phones have a map that tells you where your location is. Now a phone can also be a credit/debit card swiper for someone's business.

    Read More

  • Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

    3600 Words  | 8 Pages

    In order to discuss the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation, it is necessary to first examine the differences between multiple definitions that are often mistakenly interchanged: sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined by LeVay (2011) as “the trait that predisposes us to experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex as ourselves, to persons of the other sex, or to both sexes” (p. 1). The typical categories of sexual orientation are homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Vrangalova and Savin-Williams (2012) found that most people identify as heterosexual, but there are also groups of people that identify as mostly heterosexual and mostly gay within the three traditional categories (p. 89). This is to say that there are not three concrete groups, but sexual orientation is a continuum and one can even fluctuate on it over time. LeVay (2011) also defines gender as “the ...

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Christian Morality

    1383 Words  | 3 Pages

    When considering morality, worthy to note first is that similar to Christian ethics, morality also embodies a specifically Christian distinction. Studying a master theologian such as St. Thomas Aquinas and gathering modern perspectives from James Keenan, S. J. and David Cloutier serve to build a foundation of the high goal of Christian morality. Morality is a primary goal of the faith community, because it is the vehicle for reaching human fulfillment and happiness. Therefore, great value can be placed on foundations of Christian morality such as the breakdown of law from Aquinas, the cultivation of virtues, the role of conscience in achieving morality, and the subject of sin described by Keenan.

    Read More

More about Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues - Pastoral Guidelines For Ministry to Homosexuals

Open Document