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Hi, Kevin —
You said:
If Jesus is the Prince of Peace then:
- Is it wrong to shun people for personal reasons, like if they:
- Do we make peace with them or shun them?
In today's culture this is an extremely important question because our reaction could either repel them further from the Church or:
- drawn them a little closer or
- at least give them an understanding of why the Catholic Church teaches what She does.
The people we meet in school, in the neighborhood, or at work, come from various family backgrounds and have been raised different ways and in different settings and you obviously aren't expected to know everything about them.
Nevertheless, Catholics who wish to be true to their faith can't shy away or rationalize the built-in designs of how God created both a man's body and a woman's body.
That said, my simple answer is:
Don't shun your friendship with a gay or lesbian friend but don't condone [his/her] behavior either.
There is no such thing as gay marriage. The term, in my opinion, is Christian hate speech
and I think it is sad that there are no laws on the books barring the use of such a term.
Marriage is a Christian term. It is a Catholic sacrament. To allow our culture to
re-define our own term is not right.
If same-sex unions, who were never raised or catechized with traditional marriage values, wish to have legal rights, fine, but don't call it marriage, because it is not.
- Two men cannot create new life.
- Two women cannot create new life.
- And neither (a man and a man) or (a woman and a woman), would be able to receive the power pack of sacramental grace that only the sacrament
of Matrimony can provide for a long lasting union.
Only a man and a woman, with God's help, can bring forth new life in the sacrament
of Marriage.
Some will say:
- What's wrong with two people in love?, and
- No one should tell them to stop being in love.
My question back to that questioner is:
- How are you defining love?
- in a sacrificial, total self-giving manner, or
- in a self-pleasuring manner? — which is not love
Just ask Jesus!
The reason why our society has always protected traditional marriage and created laws protecting traditional Christian family life is because of the good it gives back to society: children, the future of that society.
Christian marriage is centered on sacrificial love, not self-pleasuring love.
- A man has found a woman whose presence just makes him feel great even during the times he has to sacrifice for the marriage.
- A woman has found a man whose presence just makes her feel great even during the times she has to sacrifice for the marriage.
It's doable! You just have to pray for the right mate and trust the Lord will answer your prayers. |
You can't have any of this discussion with a gay or lesbian friend if you destroy your relationship with them, so again:
Don't shun your friendship with a gay or lesbian friend but don't condone [his/her] behavior either.
Use your continuing friendship as a means to channel to him or her the value of traditional Christian marriage and the biological and physiological designs of their own body and its complementarity with that of the opposite sex.
Sadly, if parents or their children haven't renewed their covenant with the Lord by going to Mass recently or don't go to the sacrament of Confession any more, they will have an extremely hard,
if not impossible, time understanding the importance of perpetuating Catholic Christian family values for the next generation of Christians.
Personally, I pray daily for those with same-sex attractions:
— that a flood of people of the opposite sex will be brought into their lives
— that they will get involved in the Christian dating culture, and
— that they will have a change of heart, like this person did.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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