Please note: This is a Catholic perspective and is written for Catholics. Therefore, the terminology is Catholic as well. Some may not agree with the terminology, but it is designed to help Catholics understand the current issues of Conversion Therapy as they may apply to members of their families.
In Catholicism, any sexual activity outside of a sacramental marriage open to life is a sinful activity. Therefore, the issue is not hetero/homosexual, it is sinner seeking Christ. Sin is a scary word in secular circles, but Christ taught it is only the sinner who can find him, the self righteous cannot.
Many focus on the understanding that sinners go to Hell. However, only sinners go to Heaven. Therefore, it is the sinner who finds Christ; Hell is filled with the self-righteous and the obstinate.
Therefore, Heaven is filled with the sinners who humbly seek Christ. Hell is filled with the self-righteous who were too good to need him and the obstinate who closed their hearts to him.
Further, in Catholicism what is defined as sin is considered a sin, but the question is levels of culpability. For example taking this to the current level: St. James says that those who know more are more responsible. Therefore, a priest or bishop engaging in sexual activity of any type, even so called ‘consensual’ activity suffers the results of a far greater culpability. Someone trying to come to know Christ who fails daily in their desire for chastity as they begin their journey to the deepest levels of Divine wisdom is closer to Heaven than many understand.
Finally, what is important about this understanding is that unless we comprehend Church teaching and teach it correctly, we do one of two things and both are sins. We encourage people into sin through presumption on God's mercy or we discourage people from the path to holiness through despair of salvation which leads to what St. Peter Damien calls impiety. Both sins, which we find in many manners of addressing the issue of homosexuality, are grave sins that we must avoid as much as any sin we teach others to avoid as well.
Sometimes, our culture leads us to be so focused on an issue, we do not see the greater concern behind it. Such is what is happening surrounding the movement behind Garrad Conley’s Boy Erased memoir over the past several years.
Garrad Conley is a gay activist who writes from his experience with conversion therapy, which is therapy designed to change homosexually oriented people to heterosexual orientation. It is also called ex-gay ministry and ex-gay therapy. Conley’s mission, he states, is to end this practice completely. As Catholics, we need to ask if it fits in with our theology.
The focus, obviously, is on these techniques particularly as they were part of a now defunct ministry called Love in Action (LIA). The counselor portrayed in the movie, John Smid, not only now rejects conversion therapy, he is currently in a homosexual marriage. His role at Love in Action was preceded by two failed heterosexual marriages.
Reviews and interviews with Garrad Conley focus on his trauma before, during and after his experiences at Love In Action. He ended up there after being forcefully outed to his parents as a homosexual in the fall of his freshman college year by a male acquaintance who raped him. He further victimized Conley by spreading false reports about him engaging in homosexual activities on campus.
More the book than the movie is a reflection on the tragedy of misunderstood and misrepresented teaching about sin, holiness and redemption.
Conley grew up in a Baptist home. His father is an entrepreneur turned deeply devout and committed Baptist preacher. Despite Garrad’s still current struggle with him because of his opinion of his homosexuality, one can only feel a kind of respect for the man. Garrad portrays him as a loving dad who tried to do what he felt was right for his son and his family within the context of the limited resources he had in a sola scriptura theology.
The story leads one to reflect on the power of Catholic teaching that although not approving of homosexual activity, sees sin and redemption differently than the evangelicals.
The basic premise of conversion therapy as Conley portrays seems to be Christ will only accept you if you are free of this sin. He will help you be free, but until that time, He does not accept you.
Our Catholic faith in its truest form teaches something radically different. God loves you intensely. He sent His Son to bring you salvation. Come to Him as you are and let Him lead you to the ultimate path for all Catholics — holiness of life. One of my favorite sayings to teach is: The devil is most afraid of the worst of all sinners down on his knees in prayer.
In Catholicism, it is not the homosexual who becomes a heterosexual whom Jesus accepts. It is the sinner who comes to the Lord as a sinner who encounters Christ. That conversion is not to heterosexuality, in this case, but to holiness. Garrad reflects a deep desire to find Jesus. Whereas, Smid seems to represent that conditional Jesus who says: “I accept you when you meet my criteria of acceptance.”
This is the painful part of Conley’s story. It seems that Garrad was forced to live in a world that saw Christ’s love as conditional, which is contrary to both Catholic teaching and the Epistles. Sts. Paul and John remind us that nothing can separate us from God’s love (cf Romans 8), for God is love (1John 4:8). Paul also teaches that where sin abounds, grace abounds more.(cf Romans 5:20) Indeed, when we are estranged from God, it is not He who casts us away, it is we who cast ourselves away from Him.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that God’s mercy is present for all but those who remain obstinate in sin. (cf CCC 1037) These choose their own will over God’s mercy and love. They are like a man who holds an umbrella up to block the powerful rays of God’s grace. This was not the pre-trauma Garrad. Indeed, he says at the end of his memoir that the whole Love In Action program took away his ability to know God’s love that he believed in before the trauma began.
This is the backstory of Garrad’s struggle.
We have a wonderful gift called the sacraments and every Catholic knows the first step back to God is through the sacrament of reconciliation, one of the two sacraments of healing. It is where we can come before the Lord through the ministry of the Church and seek forgiveness for and healing from our sins. This is a gift that Baptists do not have and did not exist in Love In Action.
This is the power of our faith and our teaching. Once we take that first step, we enter the world of forgiveness. St Alphonsus of Liguori taught that the minute you are sorry for a sin, you are forgiven. Any thinking that continues to condemn you afterwards is not of God.
Reflect attentively, O Devout Soul on the teaching commonly given by the spiritual masters: namely, that you should at once turn to God after you have been unfaithful to Him, even though it be the hundredth time in the day, and you should be at peace again after your faults and after recommending yourself to God.
(Liguori, Alponsus Saint, How to Converse with God, Chapter 11, Kindle Version; Tan Books, Charlotte, NC; 2015)
He also taught to speak to God as you would a good friend and share with Him everything about you and your life. These are recourses that Garrad and others did not have as they struggled with their feelings and their temptations. They could have used the advice of the great doctor of the Church.
Please do not let his title undermine your prayer. St Alphonsus Liguori had an intense and not always successful struggle against sin at times as did all saints. However, I think if Garrad Conley had this type of saint to reach out to in his struggles with his own sexuality, he would see himself and God in a different way. Baptists, reject our theology of saints.
St. Alphonsus Liguori died prior to the ratification of the US Constitution, so some of his writing today would shock the sensibility of today’s PC environment.
Garrad’s memoir leads us to reflect upon the Catholic call to chastity. In a sacramental marriage, that means being faithful and loving to your spouse within a Christ centered union open to life. However, for those who are not married, it means to cultivate a deep communion with Christ through the sacraments and prayer and do it within strong Christ centered friendships. The Church acknowledges the struggle of both homosexuals and heterosexuals to live in chastity, but she knows, the importance of friendship and community as an element to Catholic living. The Church teaches that they are essential to living a chaste life.
The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends, who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality. Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion. CCC 2347
Therefore, a strong same sex friendship that is Christ centered will bring one to the deepest level of human spirituality that the same friendship sexualized will not. This is not the superficial WWJD relationship, but one modeled better by the young David and Jonathan which, contrary to the teachings of gay theologians, was not a sexual relationship. So, to be in a deep personal, though not sexual, union is not something to be avoided but to be embraced in Catholicism, even if it is same sex. What makes it holy is not the friendship, per se, but the Christ centered element of it, where all have as their highest priority loving Christ.
Our faith gives us all the tools to bring our human struggles before the Lord and open ourselves to His grace in our lives. Love In Action, not having these tools, apparently robbed Garrad Conley, who uses much Catholic imagery in his book, of the ability to experience this. It is obvious in his quest for Christ post LIA, he found himself in the Catholic Church among other venues.
Sadly, some in our Church cheapen the great gifts we have in Catholicism by embracing secular understandings and terminology of human sexuality and robbing from the full understanding in the path to Christ. The faith, however, remains. Those who seek to know and find it — even if they live a lifestyle outside of what they believe Christ wants — can call out to him and know that He will respond leading the way to the Father. He will help them with his grace to let go of that which is an obstacle to holiness and union with Christ.
The Church does not focus on sexuality, but dispassion. The road to holiness is through a way of living where we replace our attachment to worldly things and philosophies with an attachment to Christ. Therefore, the solution is not to become more complicit to worldly ideas in our actions, but to be more docile to the working of grace and holiness in our lives.
St. Maximus the Confessor said it well in the Eighth Century:
It is through our fulfilling of the commandments that the Lord makes us dispassionate and it is through his divine teachings that he gives us the light of spiritual knowledge.
(#77 1st Century; Four Centuries on Love; Lulu books; reprint from the Great Library Collection from R.P. Pryne)
To assume one can easily change his or her sexual orientation through such a program as conversion therapy is problematic. The venerable Matt Talbot, who struggled with alcohol addiction, once said: “Never think harshly of a person because of the drink. It is easier to get out of hell then it is to give up the drink. For me, it was only possible with the help of God and our Blessed Mother”. Obviously, many will protest of the comparison, but that is not the point. If he says to not condemn those who struggle with one inclination, can we assume for those seeking to live a holy life while struggling with homosexual inclinations it is any different?
St. Alphonsus Liguori taught:
Mary obtains salvation for all who have recourse to her. Oh! If all sinners had recourse to Mary, who would ever be lost? … He who is protected by her will be saved; he who is not will be lost.
May we never forget the gift the Lord has given to all sinners in the Catholic Church and never be shy to proclaim them. Otherwise, the only recourse for sinners will do more harm than good. Keeping in mind that Jesus came to bring sinners, not the obstinate or self-righteous, to Heaven through the quest for holiness.
Photo: Soul Carried to Heaven, William-Adolphe Bouguereau [Public domain]
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