I believe this love letter is prophetic. Prophetic to the wave of healing and freedom the Holy Spirit desires to rush through the body of Christ. Thank you for such vulnerability and for passing through raging waters… and not drowning… because of Jesus :) I’ve been longing for a piece like this to show up on my Substack feed!
Thank you for writing this. I was reading waiting to see if you mentioned Eden Invitation. I got to meet some members at the SEEK conference and it gave me the most hope I’ve ever had for the future of the Church and LGBTQ+ people. I love people who identify as queer, and I strive to do so with the love you so beautifully showed for Fr. Peter. I’m in it for the long haul with them, but if they ever show interest in returning to Jesus and His Church, I’m happy to know of voices like yours and community like Eden Invitation to point them towards. May God bless you!
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I don’t know you, but I’m so grateful for the way that God crafted your heart. I’ll see you in the Eucharist, brother.
From a fellow gay Catholic who has wrestled for decades with these things, thank you for sharing this. It really resonates. I hope we get the blessing of meeting someday 💜
Wow, that was incredibly powerful. Truly. I feel compelled to reply and say thank you. Your spiritual discernment, your skillful writing, your raw vulnerability, your uplifting of our Lord Jesus… I think of St Paul’s image in 2 Corinthians of how we have this treasure in jars of clay so that the surpassing glory would be his. You are one of his precious jars of clay, so clearly displaying the beauty and power and goodness of Jesus - how intimacy with him can speak to and sustain the deepest part of us. Such a needed reminder. Thank you, brother, truly.
I read the whole article and also the article referenced. For 'right wing' Catholics like myself, is there anything you want people like us to consider?
Thanks for reading, and thank you for your question. You got me pondering, so forgive me for the lengthy answer. I'm annoyed by the simplicity in my response, but I think there's some good truth in simplicity. I also don't want to sound pedantic, but the basics are critical here. I've learned there are plenty in these conversations who don't believe in the foundations:
- God is real, loves all of us infinitely and loves into existence. And He created us in His very image, sexuality and all. We sinned, and have a fallen nature as a result. And then God sent his Son to Earth. His Son died for our sins with each and every one of us in mind, with dreams that we can meet him in Heaven at our death.
- Heaven is a gift freely given, but we participate in getting to Heaven by following Christ, His teachings and His Church (even when filled with all sorts of broken people).
- People experience all sorts of sexual desires. These desires aren't willed by the individual and these desires (for the vast majority of people) do not and cannot change. (I could point to some studies if interested)
- Everybody, regardless of experience of sexual desires, is called to chastity. This is not celibacy; it's better defined as integration of one's sexuality into their lives lived out in concurrence with the teachings of the Church (check out CCC on chastity, it's awesome). Yes, the practicals are "no sex outside of a sacramental marriage", but also includes acknowledging our desires and bringing them to light with God (and often others). And instead of either (a) white knuckling these desires to the death or (b) succumbing to them completely, we should attempt to sublimate them toward an ultimate good, i.e. orient them toward Christ and Heaven.
- For most attracted exclusively to the same sex, chastity's fruits are a typically life ordered toward celibacy. This can still take many forms (vocationally or otherwise). For the bi's in the crowd [me], it might mean a marriage where my attractions are at some point laid on the table as part of her and my discernment process and acknowledged (maybe even celebrated for the goods God can bury in there?) as part of a marriage. Or celibacy for the bi's, as well!
- Chastity [integration] can be really fucking hard for queer people. We can spend years (decades) in a closet, suffering all sorts of wounds that are never healed and fester into nastiness. And beginning to find that integration in chastity requires coming out, an incredibly vulnerable act. When we do come out, our long accumulated wounds are raw and bleeding and tender.
- Healing these wounds takes time, community, support, love and a lot of Jesus. And the individuals in the Catholic Church can suck at creating a place of community, support and love, delaying healing or even causing more wounds. When Chastity [integration] is so difficult, celibacy [no sex] seems like a joke. You see this concept sprinkled all over Fr. 'Peter's interview - never coming out to family, friends, formaters…he only mentioned his spiritual director until he hooked up with a guy. Oh, and by the way, there's a whole other rainbow colored community ready to catch us, some living inside our Church, celebrating and indulging every desire and laughing in the face of celibacy.
- The best thing a 'right-wing Catholic' can do is believe in Jesus, love Jesus, and let that love flow out into the people you meet. Because LGBT people exist in your parish. They’ve shared your pews. You have already met a closeted Catholic. Maybe a future priest. You've probably already contributed to their wounds, as have I. But by loving them, being a good friend, being vulnerable yourself and creating space for them to be vulnerable you might create a space for the future Fr. 'Peter's to come out, bring their sexuality to the light rather than fester through seminary and early priesthood, and therefore participate in some small way in the work of the Divine Physician.
“The aim of most men esteemed conscientious and religious, or who are what is called honourable, upright men, is, to all appearance, not how to please God, but how to please themselves without displeasing Him…Nay you see it in religious exertions; of which it too commonly happens that the chief aim is, to attain any how a certain definite end, religious indeed, but of man's own choosing; not, to please God, and next, if possible, to attain it; not, to attain it religiously, or not at all.”
This excellent quote applies to all of us. As a convert and now granny of many, it’s the game I still play every day (often in a tangled, tortured way), but now I can print out JHN’s succinct depiction and use it for my examination of conscience, thanks so much.
And as for you Dave, what an honest, powerful [and necessary!] response. Count on my prayers.
Phew. God bless you, Dave. I’m not great with words myself, but thankfully there’s Scripture. This reminded me, in some ways, of my favorite passage about the thorn in Paul’s side: “Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
“I’m more and more convinced that the closet is pure evil because of his content. My closet, your closet, the closet of any priest or seminarian or lay person. And that closet doesn’t just have to be sexuality. Closets contain all sorts of secrets. And I can’t think of a single good that has come from any of my secrets staying hidden. And the church should talk about that. And not fucking ignore it. …We need voices who are willing to be pastors in this space. And we need them now more than we ever have before.” What you’ve said here is exactly what I teach my (high school) students all the time when same sex attraction comes up in discussion. By then we’ve already discussed the prelapsarian state and the Fall, but the effects of the Fall still cause scandal. It’s the natures of both sin and redemption that people understand even less than same sex attraction. And the answer is always Jesus. The “both/and” tension of our faith never ceases to be mysterious and tense, but that’s because the solution isn’t a formula - it’s a Person to whom we must re-dedicate ourselves every day (and thank God for the Sacraments).
I’m not sure what my point is here, exactly, except that I could listen/read you about this all day for one reason: here you’ve given one of the most raw exhortations of trust in God that I’ve read outside of the saints (I’m not canonizing you, don’t worry, it’s just so rare to read something that is both truly honest and not self-indulgent).
Sorry if my comment is pretty distant and self-congratulatory (when discussing teaching). There’s just so much here that you’ve said so beautifully. I wish I knew you in person as your heart is beautiful.
Anyway, thank you for writing this. You can tell it spilled out of your heart, and I’m truly grateful to have read something so profoundly human.
You brought up some great points, the biggest being “father Peter” didn’t mention Jesus.. and that’s the problem with the Catholic Church in my opinion
I agree to an extent, and please indulge me as I have been pondering even more.
I would say the root of the problem is people on the sexuality spectrum sequestering parts of our sexuality off to (1) others, (2) ourselves and (3) most importantly Jesus. This is the proverbial "closet." I have an enormous amount of sympathy for Fr. 'Peter' because while we queer individuals are sequestering, we are also suffering prolific wounds. The whispered lies that parts of us will never be good enough, parts of us are incapable of being loved by any *anybody* (especially God), that even *unveiling* (let alone acting on) this will completely destroy our lives. When the lies fester they produce rotten fruit, duplicity, and lack of integration. And those fruits ripple into the community, especially as a spiritual leader.
Jesus wants to speak truth into these lies. He loves me so much and wants everything I have, including my sexuality. And He feels exactly the same toward Fr. 'Peter'. He wants to be invited into Fr. 'Peter's' *everything*, especially his closet. Christ wants healing and wholeness and life.
My specific worry for Fr. 'Peter' is in the voices LGBT Catholics are offered. When the closet holds a festering mess and feels inescapable, when we are at our lowest, the tempter slithers in and in a seducing and sweet voice says: "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods..." (Gen 3) We should be terrified because we know the completion of this story. Yet I understand why Fr. 'Peter' ate the "fruit of the tree". I understand why we all eat of the tree.
That *tempter* is the voice that never mentions Jesus. And that voice hides in the shadows across the Church, across social media, across our culture. And that voice retains its seduction and sweetness, is often bright and alluring, yet never showing its face. The only way out this tempter can promise is to *eat the fruit*. When we are sequestered, wounded, suffering, and the only voice we can hear is so seductive, the fruit certainly looks good...
Yes, Fr. 'Peter' never mentions Jesus, perhaps a symptom of eating of that fruit. But I am truthfully a bit fearful and sadly confident that the only voices shepherding Fr. 'Peter' in the realms of his sexuality are hiding this tempter in the shadows, never mentioning Jesus themselves. That was all I heard myself, unfortunately true of my experience of Chris’ content. Never talking about opening our closets (sexuality or otherwise) to Christ. Never talking about the joy of integration and wholeness and *healing*, even possible in a seemingly unachievable celibacy.
I pray that both Fr. 'Peter' and I might turn our own voices toward the one who says "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet…” (Song 2:14) He finds us "sweet", he pines for just our *voice*...and He wants so much more for us. I pray for my own integration, a journey which has been profoundly healing. And I pray that Fr. 'Peter' might hear that still small voice, not present in the fire and earthquakes and winds. A voice that offers hope, healing, integration, wholeness, peace and eternal life.
Thank you for engaging, for your comment, and for indulging my additional musings. Please pray for both Fr. 'Peter' and I both, and I will pray for you.
I believe this love letter is prophetic. Prophetic to the wave of healing and freedom the Holy Spirit desires to rush through the body of Christ. Thank you for such vulnerability and for passing through raging waters… and not drowning… because of Jesus :) I’ve been longing for a piece like this to show up on my Substack feed!
Thank you for your kind comments. Please pray for me and I will pray for you!
Thank you for writing this. I was reading waiting to see if you mentioned Eden Invitation. I got to meet some members at the SEEK conference and it gave me the most hope I’ve ever had for the future of the Church and LGBTQ+ people. I love people who identify as queer, and I strive to do so with the love you so beautifully showed for Fr. Peter. I’m in it for the long haul with them, but if they ever show interest in returning to Jesus and His Church, I’m happy to know of voices like yours and community like Eden Invitation to point them towards. May God bless you!
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I don’t know you, but I’m so grateful for the way that God crafted your heart. I’ll see you in the Eucharist, brother.
From a fellow gay Catholic who has wrestled for decades with these things, thank you for sharing this. It really resonates. I hope we get the blessing of meeting someday 💜
Thank you for reading and for hanging out in this messy sphere of Catholics with me
This might be one of the most beautiful things I've read on the Internet.
Thank you - please pray for me and I will pray for you as well!
Wow, that was incredibly powerful. Truly. I feel compelled to reply and say thank you. Your spiritual discernment, your skillful writing, your raw vulnerability, your uplifting of our Lord Jesus… I think of St Paul’s image in 2 Corinthians of how we have this treasure in jars of clay so that the surpassing glory would be his. You are one of his precious jars of clay, so clearly displaying the beauty and power and goodness of Jesus - how intimacy with him can speak to and sustain the deepest part of us. Such a needed reminder. Thank you, brother, truly.
Thank you for reading and for your kind thoughts, please pray for me and I’ll pray likewise.
I read the whole article and also the article referenced. For 'right wing' Catholics like myself, is there anything you want people like us to consider?
Thanks for reading, and thank you for your question. You got me pondering, so forgive me for the lengthy answer. I'm annoyed by the simplicity in my response, but I think there's some good truth in simplicity. I also don't want to sound pedantic, but the basics are critical here. I've learned there are plenty in these conversations who don't believe in the foundations:
- God is real, loves all of us infinitely and loves into existence. And He created us in His very image, sexuality and all. We sinned, and have a fallen nature as a result. And then God sent his Son to Earth. His Son died for our sins with each and every one of us in mind, with dreams that we can meet him in Heaven at our death.
- Heaven is a gift freely given, but we participate in getting to Heaven by following Christ, His teachings and His Church (even when filled with all sorts of broken people).
- People experience all sorts of sexual desires. These desires aren't willed by the individual and these desires (for the vast majority of people) do not and cannot change. (I could point to some studies if interested)
- Everybody, regardless of experience of sexual desires, is called to chastity. This is not celibacy; it's better defined as integration of one's sexuality into their lives lived out in concurrence with the teachings of the Church (check out CCC on chastity, it's awesome). Yes, the practicals are "no sex outside of a sacramental marriage", but also includes acknowledging our desires and bringing them to light with God (and often others). And instead of either (a) white knuckling these desires to the death or (b) succumbing to them completely, we should attempt to sublimate them toward an ultimate good, i.e. orient them toward Christ and Heaven.
- For most attracted exclusively to the same sex, chastity's fruits are a typically life ordered toward celibacy. This can still take many forms (vocationally or otherwise). For the bi's in the crowd [me], it might mean a marriage where my attractions are at some point laid on the table as part of her and my discernment process and acknowledged (maybe even celebrated for the goods God can bury in there?) as part of a marriage. Or celibacy for the bi's, as well!
- Chastity [integration] can be really fucking hard for queer people. We can spend years (decades) in a closet, suffering all sorts of wounds that are never healed and fester into nastiness. And beginning to find that integration in chastity requires coming out, an incredibly vulnerable act. When we do come out, our long accumulated wounds are raw and bleeding and tender.
- Healing these wounds takes time, community, support, love and a lot of Jesus. And the individuals in the Catholic Church can suck at creating a place of community, support and love, delaying healing or even causing more wounds. When Chastity [integration] is so difficult, celibacy [no sex] seems like a joke. You see this concept sprinkled all over Fr. 'Peter's interview - never coming out to family, friends, formaters…he only mentioned his spiritual director until he hooked up with a guy. Oh, and by the way, there's a whole other rainbow colored community ready to catch us, some living inside our Church, celebrating and indulging every desire and laughing in the face of celibacy.
- The best thing a 'right-wing Catholic' can do is believe in Jesus, love Jesus, and let that love flow out into the people you meet. Because LGBT people exist in your parish. They’ve shared your pews. You have already met a closeted Catholic. Maybe a future priest. You've probably already contributed to their wounds, as have I. But by loving them, being a good friend, being vulnerable yourself and creating space for them to be vulnerable you might create a space for the future Fr. 'Peter's to come out, bring their sexuality to the light rather than fester through seminary and early priesthood, and therefore participate in some small way in the work of the Divine Physician.
“The aim of most men esteemed conscientious and religious, or who are what is called honourable, upright men, is, to all appearance, not how to please God, but how to please themselves without displeasing Him…Nay you see it in religious exertions; of which it too commonly happens that the chief aim is, to attain any how a certain definite end, religious indeed, but of man's own choosing; not, to please God, and next, if possible, to attain it; not, to attain it religiously, or not at all.”
This excellent quote applies to all of us. As a convert and now granny of many, it’s the game I still play every day (often in a tangled, tortured way), but now I can print out JHN’s succinct depiction and use it for my examination of conscience, thanks so much.
And as for you Dave, what an honest, powerful [and necessary!] response. Count on my prayers.
God Bless you, thank you for sharing this!
Thank you for reading. Please pray for me, I’ll be sure to pray for you as well.
Phew. God bless you, Dave. I’m not great with words myself, but thankfully there’s Scripture. This reminded me, in some ways, of my favorite passage about the thorn in Paul’s side: “Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
“I’m more and more convinced that the closet is pure evil because of his content. My closet, your closet, the closet of any priest or seminarian or lay person. And that closet doesn’t just have to be sexuality. Closets contain all sorts of secrets. And I can’t think of a single good that has come from any of my secrets staying hidden. And the church should talk about that. And not fucking ignore it. …We need voices who are willing to be pastors in this space. And we need them now more than we ever have before.” What you’ve said here is exactly what I teach my (high school) students all the time when same sex attraction comes up in discussion. By then we’ve already discussed the prelapsarian state and the Fall, but the effects of the Fall still cause scandal. It’s the natures of both sin and redemption that people understand even less than same sex attraction. And the answer is always Jesus. The “both/and” tension of our faith never ceases to be mysterious and tense, but that’s because the solution isn’t a formula - it’s a Person to whom we must re-dedicate ourselves every day (and thank God for the Sacraments).
I’m not sure what my point is here, exactly, except that I could listen/read you about this all day for one reason: here you’ve given one of the most raw exhortations of trust in God that I’ve read outside of the saints (I’m not canonizing you, don’t worry, it’s just so rare to read something that is both truly honest and not self-indulgent).
Sorry if my comment is pretty distant and self-congratulatory (when discussing teaching). There’s just so much here that you’ve said so beautifully. I wish I knew you in person as your heart is beautiful.
Anyway, thank you for writing this. You can tell it spilled out of your heart, and I’m truly grateful to have read something so profoundly human.
Thank you for your very kind comments, I really appreciate them. And I didn't read a distant or self-congratulatory tone!
Thank you for your teaching - I'll pray for you and your students, and please pray for me.
You brought up some great points, the biggest being “father Peter” didn’t mention Jesus.. and that’s the problem with the Catholic Church in my opinion
I think that’s not the Church, but “Fr Peter,” which is an enormous part of the problem (and the obvious difference between him and the author).
I agree to an extent, and please indulge me as I have been pondering even more.
I would say the root of the problem is people on the sexuality spectrum sequestering parts of our sexuality off to (1) others, (2) ourselves and (3) most importantly Jesus. This is the proverbial "closet." I have an enormous amount of sympathy for Fr. 'Peter' because while we queer individuals are sequestering, we are also suffering prolific wounds. The whispered lies that parts of us will never be good enough, parts of us are incapable of being loved by any *anybody* (especially God), that even *unveiling* (let alone acting on) this will completely destroy our lives. When the lies fester they produce rotten fruit, duplicity, and lack of integration. And those fruits ripple into the community, especially as a spiritual leader.
Jesus wants to speak truth into these lies. He loves me so much and wants everything I have, including my sexuality. And He feels exactly the same toward Fr. 'Peter'. He wants to be invited into Fr. 'Peter's' *everything*, especially his closet. Christ wants healing and wholeness and life.
My specific worry for Fr. 'Peter' is in the voices LGBT Catholics are offered. When the closet holds a festering mess and feels inescapable, when we are at our lowest, the tempter slithers in and in a seducing and sweet voice says: "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods..." (Gen 3) We should be terrified because we know the completion of this story. Yet I understand why Fr. 'Peter' ate the "fruit of the tree". I understand why we all eat of the tree.
That *tempter* is the voice that never mentions Jesus. And that voice hides in the shadows across the Church, across social media, across our culture. And that voice retains its seduction and sweetness, is often bright and alluring, yet never showing its face. The only way out this tempter can promise is to *eat the fruit*. When we are sequestered, wounded, suffering, and the only voice we can hear is so seductive, the fruit certainly looks good...
Yes, Fr. 'Peter' never mentions Jesus, perhaps a symptom of eating of that fruit. But I am truthfully a bit fearful and sadly confident that the only voices shepherding Fr. 'Peter' in the realms of his sexuality are hiding this tempter in the shadows, never mentioning Jesus themselves. That was all I heard myself, unfortunately true of my experience of Chris’ content. Never talking about opening our closets (sexuality or otherwise) to Christ. Never talking about the joy of integration and wholeness and *healing*, even possible in a seemingly unachievable celibacy.
I pray that both Fr. 'Peter' and I might turn our own voices toward the one who says "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet…” (Song 2:14) He finds us "sweet", he pines for just our *voice*...and He wants so much more for us. I pray for my own integration, a journey which has been profoundly healing. And I pray that Fr. 'Peter' might hear that still small voice, not present in the fire and earthquakes and winds. A voice that offers hope, healing, integration, wholeness, peace and eternal life.
Thank you for engaging, for your comment, and for indulging my additional musings. Please pray for both Fr. 'Peter' and I both, and I will pray for you.
Thank you for reading, and wishing you the best on your own journey