Is St. Monica Now Obsolete?
St. Anthony Messenger follows up on its “accept homosexuality” line (see above) in its Q&A section in its August issue. The question: “[One of my sons] recently told me he thinks he is gay. I cried and cried when he told me. Then I told him that I would fight him all the way with the power of prayer. I talk to God every minute that I am not busy and ask him for a miracle…. To which saint should I be praying so that he won’t be gay?”
Fr. Pat McCloskey, O.F.M., the Editor of St. Anthony Messenger, answers the lady’s question: On the one hand he says, “Homosexual actions…are wrong.” But on the other hand he says, “Rather than seek to identify the saint whose intercessions can change your son, you are better off to pray that you will have the strength to deal with your son as a gay person….”
Isn’t that interesting!
Imagine instead that the son revealed that he’s getting involved with drugs or has a drinking problem or finds that he has the urge to steal things or is thinking of joining the neo-Nazis. Would Fr. Pat have advised her not to seek a saint who could change the son’s proclivities but rather merely to pray to find the strength to deal with the son just as he is? We doubt it.
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Review of Confessions of a Parish Priest by Andrew Greeley, A Path From Rome by Anthony Kenny, and Catholic America by John Cogley
The Catholic Church has nothing to learn from other religions doctrinally.
Neither the words “homosexual” or “homosexuality” nor their equivalents in any language known to me existed before the late 19th century.