Posted on 03/27/2007 10:09:04 AM PDT by NYer
Q. In your response about whether a homosexual relative’s male partner should be included in family gatherings, you gave the same response we received from other trusted Catholic sources after much prayer. We have held our ground (which was extremely hard) and have become unpopular with that side of the family. Yet, our family is not exposed to this sinful situation because now only the relative, and not his partner, is invited to family gatherings.
Our question is, should we view differently a relative on the other side of the family who has lived with her boyfriend for four years (they have a 3 year old son)? Marriage could remedy their sinful situation. They have always attended family gatherings, and she writes Christmas notes and includes “family” photos. I can see a gradual desensitizing happening, and this is not what we want for our family. What are we to do at this point?
R. Morally speaking, the two situations are virtually the same, though one could argue that the same-sex relationship is worse since it involves acts contrary to nature and it cannot be remedied by marriage. Be that as it may, the heterosexual relative is living in objective mortal sin and to include her in family get-togethers not only signals approval of, or at least indifference to her immoral lifestyle but, as you said, it also desensitizes the moral consciences of those witnessing her actions. For example, how does one tell a teenage daughter or son not to live with another person outside of marriage when they see this relative doing just that and being treated no differently than a married person?
So, no, you should not view the two situations differently, but since you have already, at least publicly, given the appearance of accepting the sinful arrangement of the relative and her boyfriend, it will be, to use your words, “extremely hard” to speak out now against them. If you think you were unpopular with some of the family for your stance on the same-sex couple, wait ‘til you weigh in on the opposite-sex duo. We’re not saying that you shouldn’t be consistent in opposing sexual immorality; you should. But it will be more difficult this time because the latter situation is much more prevalent these days than the former situation, and because many of those who apparently see no moral problem with heterosexual violations, of the divine plan for life and love are still squeamish about accepting homosexual behavior among family members. In other words, while you might get some support for refusing to endorse the same-sex lifestyle, that support will be much less when you object to fornication, even though some family members may agree with you privately.
In making your decision, you will have to ask yourself, Do I want to be popular with family members or with Jesus? Recall that it was Jesus who said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37-38). The Lord also warned: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).
These hard sayings of the Lord are not often quoted these days and, if they should appear in a Sunday Gospel, they are usually ignored or glossed over in the homily because the message might be disturbing to those who think that the strongest words Christ ever spoke were, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Lest anyone think that we dispense this advice from an ivory tower, be it noted that we have for some years declined to invite a daughter’s live-in boyfriend to our home or to family get-togethers. The daughter is welcome as we try to persuade her to abandon her sinful lifestyle, but her male companion is not. Furthermore, we have in recent months declined to attend the weddings of first a nephew and then a niece because they were being married before a justice of the peace, which for baptized Catholics is a mortal sin.
Some family members have taken the same stance, but others have attended the weddings either because they did not want to disturb family harmony, because hey are not sensitive to the obligation of a Catholic to adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church, or because they do not recognize that their cooperation in this sinful event could be a source of scandal.
Are we being judgmental in taking this position? Yes, but not of the motives of the persons involved, which Jesus forbids and on which He alone will render judgment, but rather of their actions, which are contrary to what the Lord teaches. To suggest that one cannot take a stand against violations of the marriage laws of the Church is to say that one cannot take a stand against other moral evils of the time either, such as abortion, racism, and sexual abuse of children.
Thank you. I am currently having difficulties with my son who is living with his girlfriend. I have refused to allow her into my home. My son recently told us he was not going to marry her and now it appears he might. I will still refuse to allow her into my home. My wife and I are besides ourselves with grief.
My DIL did go 2 years w/o speaking to her brother but she couldn't stand it and it made her miserable because she loves him. Her sisters have had numerous live-ins and children by those live-ins, they are still kids and deserve recognition within the family, they didn't choose their circumstances. I have come to love them all and their children and have babysat and welcomed them into my home and, for the most part, they are starting to settle down.
I almost forgot, the one sister was present at an Easter occasion when we had a huge discussion of religion and within a couple of weeks had arranged to attend OCIA and baptize her children. She went through with it too and now those kids are altar servers and very involved with the church. The mother abstains from Eucharist but attends Mass every week and is getting married next month, finally.
I agree that it's a case by case thing. If I had a family member who worked for Planned Parenthood or was an abortion "provider," for example, that person would never darken my door.
On the other hand, gay family members who simply appear with a friend and do not do anything improper would probably be welcome; for one thing, perhaps it would keep them in touch with the non-gay world. On the other hand, I would never go to a gay "commitment" ceremony or anything that implied approval, no matter who the family members were.
The same is true of marriages. If a couple is getting married by a JP, they have left the Church anyway. The objective would be to get them back or to make sure that the children, at least, were raised as Catholics until such time as the parents came to their senses. And I would want to remain in contact with them so that I could help this to happen. I'm not sure I'd go to the wedding, but I'd probably send a gift or do something else to stay in touch.
I think it is important to examine each case individually. But it is good to read articles like this because most people don't even think about it. We want our bishops to come down on politicians who support abortion, but we invite a family member who spends her weekends "escorting" girls into abortuaries to spend Easter dinner with us. That's not okay.
I would agree with you ONLY if you took the opportunity of a family gathering to discuss the sinful nature of their relationship with them and ask them to change their ways.
If you view this as being preachy or offensive, then your example of Jesus sitting down with tax collectors is irrelevant.
If I had to exclude all sinners from my life and my gatherings, I'd be a sad and lonely person and I'd have to figure out what to do with myself because I often find myself coming short of perfection.
At this very time, my atheist brother and his wife are staying with us. I love them, I make no bones about my religion and I don't allow them to denigrate God or religion and they accept that and are welcome.
Jesus is depicted as a "guru" who was really the first hippie by many. Little is mentioned about how often he spoke of hell or said "Woe to you" and meant it! Instead, everyone takes verses which seem to emphasize His total tolerance which was not His mission. He loved everyone and wants all to attain heaven but it is our choice. He died for us all but only "the many" choose to follow Him.
Here is just one article on Moral Theology. It is something we have lost as the society has consciously caused us to "accept" things which would have made us recoil in horror years ago.
The essence of the Gospel is Caritas: Love. That is, adoration of God and love of our neighbor. However, that does not mean blind acceptance of anything. Jesus loves the woman caught in adultery, but He told her "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more."
If you attend an event like that described which began this thread, and then left saying those words in total private to the individuals, you would be giving an example directly from the Gospel.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/COOPRTN.htm
I agree with you.
I think what they are both doing is despicable. I will stand my ground on the basis that it will send the wrong message to my other kids. I have let him know ahead of time what he is doing is wrong and still he defies his family and continues with his "choice". I am spent, I don't know what else to say to him. He dishonors us.
Morally speaking, we live in very difficult times. No matter how hard we work to raise our children in the faith, they still must live in the world. Even the author of this piece, is confronting a problem similar to yours.
Ask St. Monica for some assistance. And rest assured of my prayers.
What a wonderful witness. Within my own family, I have a child "living in sin" and is now pregnant with our second grandchild. This has been a serious source of private grief for both me and her father. However, in about 6-7 weeks, she will marry the father of her child and her father will conduct the ceremony. He has done the standard pastoral counseling with both of them and while I don't know the effect on her fiance, I do know the effect on her!
Then we could talk about my sister's children but that could take hours!
Needless to say, shunning a family member simply because their chosen lifestyle at the time is wrong, is unloving and a poor witness to the love of Christ and his forgiveness.
". I will still refuse to allow her into my home. My wife and I are besides ourselves with grief."
How sad for both them and you. There's taking a stand for what is right, which admirable, then there is cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I will pray for you and your son and his girlfriend.
We have three children. Our oldest daughter is gay and lives with another woman and our son lives with his girlfriend. We must have done something right because our youngest daughter is a church going mother of our three beautiful granddaughters.
We have never allowed any relative that is unmarried to sleep together while visiting us, so that has never been an issue. But when our daughter came out we were faced with the problem of how to deal with it.
After much discussion and prayer we came to the conclusion that we must treat this sin as we would that of any one else who we invite into our home. You are welcome but you sin is not. If we were to exclude all who sin from our home or our lives, not only is our witness meaningless, but we become hypocritical for we are far from perfect and have sinned also. If we alienate them, who will be the good influence in their lives. Who will be the salt and the light?
They let me know that they bought a brand new house. I asked, "So, you each have you're own room, right?" (always doing it in a gentle, "cute" manner) Then I asked him if he'd let her know "how I was", and he said, "Oh, yeah! She's Catholic, just like you!", so I turned to her and said, "Oh, good! you don't fornicate then!". They laughed and came in for a visit for a few hours. I also managed to throw in there the necessary comments regarding not going to Communion, etc.
I realize this may come off as being "too nice", but sometimes you get more flies with honey.
Also, a few years back when my stepson got married outside of the Church, we had a lot of talks. His fiance was rather anti-Catholic as it turned out, and he'd been floundering away from the Church for a few years, living in a different city with no parish. He wanted a Catholic wedding, but wasn't strong enough or willing to sacrifice marrying her. My husband and I let him know how unhappy we were. I was so torn about even going to the wedding. After counseling with some wise people, we went. God handled it--the new "mother-n-law" acted like I didn't exist (she'd heard about my objections), so I wasn't involved in the wedding one bit--to the point where she tried to keep me out of any photos.
Note the date for this meditation... I was stunned.
Benedictus: Day to Day With Pope Bendict XVI. Magnificat. Ed.: Rev. Peter John Cameron, O.P., Ignatius Press. 2006. pg. 102
Love and Correction. March 27th.
Anger is not necessarily always in contradiction with love. A father, for instance, sometimes has to speak crossly to his son so as to prick his conscience, just BECAUSE he loves him. And he would fall short of his loving obligation and his will to love if, in order to makes things easier for the other person, and also for himself, he avoided the task of putting him right sometimes by making a critical intervention in his life. We know that spoiled children, to whom everthing has been permitted, are often in the end quite unable to come to terms with life, because later on life treats them quite differently, and because they have never learned to discipline themselves, to get themselves on the right track. Or if, for instance, because I want to be nice to him, I give to an addict the drugs he wants instead of weaning him off them (which would seem to him very hard treatment), then in that case you cannot talk of real love. To put it another way: love, in the true sense, is not always a matter of giving way, being soft and just acting nice. In that sense, a sugar-coated Jesus or a God who agrees to everything and is never anything but nice and friendly is no more than a caricature of real love. Because God loves us, because he wants us to grow into the truth, he must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us. God has to do those things we refer to in the image of the "wrath of God," that is, he has to resist us in our attempts to fall from our own best selves and when we pose a threat to ourselves.
Benedictus: Day to Day With Pope Benedict XVI. Magnificat. Ed.: Rev. Peter John Cameron, O.P., Ignatius Press. 2006. pg. 102
Love and Correction. March 27th.
Anger is not necessarily always in contradiction with love. A father, for instance, sometimes has to speak crossly to his son so as to prick his conscience, just because he loves him. And he would fall short of his loving obligation and his will to love if, in order to makes things easier for the other person, and also for himself, he avoided the task of putting him right sometimes by making a critical intervention in his life. We know that spoiled children, to whom everthing has been permitted, are often in the end quite unable to come to terms with life, because later on life treats them quite differently, and because they have never learned to discipline themselves, to get themselves on the right track. Or if, for instance, because I want to be nice to him, I give to an addict the drugs he wants instead of weaning him off them (which would seem to him very hard treatment), then in that case you cannot talk of real love. To put it another way: love, in the true sense, is not always a matter of giving way, being soft and just acting nice. In that sense, a sugar-coated Jesus or a God who agrees to everything and is never anything but nice and friendly is no more than a caricature of real love. Because God loves us, because he wants us to grow into the truth, he must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us. God has to do those things we refer to in the image of the "wrath of God," that is, he has to resist us in our attempts to fall from our own best selves and when we pose a threat to ourselves.
I was given this option as well. It is an eminently reasonable choice. The bond of family unity is a factor needing to be considered.
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