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I'm Not Sure I'm Welcome in the Church
8 years ago
Glimpse The Thoughts of Jack the Beaver
I had a discussion with an individual last night who will remain unnamed for the rest of this journal. I am leaving them unnamed because I want to make this clear my issue is not with them as a person, but their argument. If anyone does goes at who this person is, you are to treat them with respect and kindness. Never to reveal their identity or attack them.
I also want to thank
indagare and 
born2beagator for helping me work through this. I'm not mad at my friend, I'm not. Disappointed and frustrated but I suspect they are by me as well. I just want to stop hurting.
I am a bisexual Christian. I desire to be Catholic. And I do not believe the Church is unequivocally correct on its views on homosexuality. I'm willing to discuss it but as it stands I don't agree with it. I don't like discussing this because frankly I believe such things should be between me and God.
Last night I got into a discussion with a Catholic furry over this and my current relationship. And the reaction I got left me deeply hurt. I was informed that if I didn't change my views, literally change my whole thinking, I couldn't be Catholic. They said at one point they'd be against my conversion. I don't know if they meant they'd try to block it or just that they'd never consider me Catholic but I was crushed.
I spent most of today sobbing. I've finally found a place I felt I belonged. And now I've been told it's doors are barred to me and I was told this by a friend. A friend who told me they were doing this out of love. It didn't feel like love though, it hurt me very deeply.
I think they did mean well but that isn't what came across. What instead came across was "You won't find salvation here." Because if this is true, it's not enough that I behave according to the Church, which I already was. I have to change all of my thinking and behavior completely, change everything so it lines up with the Catcheism of the Church. I wonder of late if this is the only way for me to be accepted.
In case anyone is curios, no if I was in a same-sex relationship I would not take communion. I disagree with the Church's views on that particular issue, but I will abide by their rules. I can disagree with someone and still behave according to their rules if I want to be a part of them.
It's instead the idea that I wouldn't be allowed in. To me this idea is horrifying. The Church should be open to all people, even those who don't believe. And for someone like me, knowing I'd not be allowed in? Well I spent most of today fixating on this and in a blind panic. I want this so badly and yet the door would be shut in my face. Maybe I'm being too sensitive about this, I don't know.
I'm looking for advice here, what do I do? What do I do to be a part of the Church? Can I be? Honest to God I'm dying here, can I be?
I've reached the point where I trust almost no one. I keep my thoughts and feelings bound up inside because I fear something will set someone else off. That I'll say something and my friends will all abandon me. That they'll hate me or tell me I'm flawed beyond repair.
Maybe I should be alone. I can't be hurt then. (sighs) I'm not sure what I'm ranting on right now. I just feel hurt. I want to belong. What do I do?
I also want to thank
indagare and 
born2beagator for helping me work through this. I'm not mad at my friend, I'm not. Disappointed and frustrated but I suspect they are by me as well. I just want to stop hurting.I am a bisexual Christian. I desire to be Catholic. And I do not believe the Church is unequivocally correct on its views on homosexuality. I'm willing to discuss it but as it stands I don't agree with it. I don't like discussing this because frankly I believe such things should be between me and God.
Last night I got into a discussion with a Catholic furry over this and my current relationship. And the reaction I got left me deeply hurt. I was informed that if I didn't change my views, literally change my whole thinking, I couldn't be Catholic. They said at one point they'd be against my conversion. I don't know if they meant they'd try to block it or just that they'd never consider me Catholic but I was crushed.
I spent most of today sobbing. I've finally found a place I felt I belonged. And now I've been told it's doors are barred to me and I was told this by a friend. A friend who told me they were doing this out of love. It didn't feel like love though, it hurt me very deeply.
I think they did mean well but that isn't what came across. What instead came across was "You won't find salvation here." Because if this is true, it's not enough that I behave according to the Church, which I already was. I have to change all of my thinking and behavior completely, change everything so it lines up with the Catcheism of the Church. I wonder of late if this is the only way for me to be accepted.
In case anyone is curios, no if I was in a same-sex relationship I would not take communion. I disagree with the Church's views on that particular issue, but I will abide by their rules. I can disagree with someone and still behave according to their rules if I want to be a part of them.
It's instead the idea that I wouldn't be allowed in. To me this idea is horrifying. The Church should be open to all people, even those who don't believe. And for someone like me, knowing I'd not be allowed in? Well I spent most of today fixating on this and in a blind panic. I want this so badly and yet the door would be shut in my face. Maybe I'm being too sensitive about this, I don't know.
I'm looking for advice here, what do I do? What do I do to be a part of the Church? Can I be? Honest to God I'm dying here, can I be?
I've reached the point where I trust almost no one. I keep my thoughts and feelings bound up inside because I fear something will set someone else off. That I'll say something and my friends will all abandon me. That they'll hate me or tell me I'm flawed beyond repair.
Maybe I should be alone. I can't be hurt then. (sighs) I'm not sure what I'm ranting on right now. I just feel hurt. I want to belong. What do I do?
That said, the Church's teaching is offered to us for our own good. If our own views are in conflict with the Catechism, it's good to ask ourselves why. There are many reasons why people might try to act in opposition to Church teaching (fears of loneliness being one of them), but that doesn't mean that living in a state of sin is excusable. Sin may feel good for a time, but it can never truly make us happy because sin only partially gives us what we want; at the end of the day it leaves us feeling empty because it offers us a cheap counterfeit in place of the legitimate good that we truly desire.
If this issue is troubling your heart, I recommend you watch the following two videos. Fr. Mike Schmitz, a very well respected priest in the Catholic Church, was part of the production of both of them.
The Third Way: Homosexuality and the Catholic Church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgDLWOFCRA
Fr Mike Schmitz: Love and Same-Sex Attraction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWZ171V0wEQ
Just remember that the Christian faith is about humble submission to the will of God. We must allow ourselves to be transformed by God's grace. The process of transformation might be painful, but the result is very much worth it.
Faith isn't individualistic, as some in the comments here say. The Church is a Divine Family, and faith is meant to be expressed in community. It's not "me and Jesus;" it's "me and Christ, including His Body which is the universal Church." You can't accept Christ fully without accepting the Church.
That is a main reason why concepts of sin are usually very obvious menmade constructions.
This has nothing to do with any faith in a deity or in a God in general.
It is only about how human creation of in-group and out-group thinking works and celebration of very specific images work.
What you have here is a particular case of individuality vs. imagination.
I give you a very big extreme: Someone pointed out with the sin/salvation and damnation idea of some minor interpretations of christianty:
When a mother believes in heaven and hell, but her beloved son is a sinner. Will she watch her son to burn for all eternity from the heavens? Will she forget that she was a loving mother and become a mindless shell - basically as decoration in heaven like a chair is standing in a room?
The problem here is the idea _HOW_ a person actually works.
And what salvation and damnation mean as concepts for the individual.
When same sex relationships for example is a sin (which didn't hurt anyone) - The concept is most likely a sin, because some old men, who wrote the holy texts were just disgusted by it - like pork meat from "dirty" pigs.
This means nothing under the light of reason.
It is more something you can shake your head about or being angry that the writers were so "blasphemous" to put their personal tastes upon God's preferences. As they would be more credible/authorities to talk about - when they usually didn't get that diseases are caused by bacteria and not by evil spirits or curses.
The absurdity is - that I usually do not argue against the concepts of deities - but about the absurdity that people really try to be authorities about them.
NOBODY should be able to dictate your faith to you. Your connection to God is a personal and individual thing. He would not have created you with some fundamental flaw that He (apparently) detests. You can't have unconditional love with caveats, it literally doesn't work that way, so don't let anyone else tell you how to worship. Clearly this friend is letting their personal feelings interfere with their ability to separate church from wrote and scripture. This is not the person you should be taking religious cues from, no offense to them.
After all, the way I see it, the bible didn't invent God. All religious texts are written by men, who passed this information down through CENTURIES of old text and word-of-mouth. But your personal connection to your faith is a stronger and more honest expression of worship than any book, after all, your belief and faith in Him should be more important than your trust in a book.
Hopefully that made sense?
Secondly, you have received a mish-mash of advice here on this subject already. Some of it is good. Some of it is very, very bad. God loves us individually and we each need an individual relationship with Him. But He also created us to be communal creatures and He gives us religious impulses. We are to meet Him in community; we are to be One Body with Him in Christ. Your faith journey is not one that is to be walked alone, nor is it a path you have to beat out by yourself. Twenty centuries of Christians precede you who have beaten out the path and shown us the way. It is Pride alone to think that we in this time know better about good and evil than those Christians of twenty centuries who came before us. The Wisdom of the Holy Spirit speaks through those Ages and through the Church. We do not always hear it clearly (and let's be honest, not all Christians or clergy speak it clearly either).
Conversion to Catholicism is not something that happens in a single moment. You become a member of the Church in moment, but true conversion is a lifetime endeavor. When I was trying to join the Church, I did not agree with its teachings on homosexuality either, and I struggled with how to understand them. It took a while before I found my peace there and let go of the things holding me back. Part of being a Christian is to till the earth of your soul; Jesus wants to sow the seeds of discipleship in us, but we must till the earth of our soul, uproot the rocks of attachment to the things of the world, and uproot the thorns of attraction to sin and pride that choke the faith in us. The garden bed of my soul needs a lot of work and I'm a poor an unworthy servant.
Pope Francis describes the Church as a Hospital for Sinners. The best part of the Church is that we don't have to stay sinners. Let yourself be healed and you will be. You are always welcome. *hugs*
Dominus tecum
If you wish to send me your note please do so.
Blind faith is not what should be asked of anybody. But trust, even when we do not understand, that with time, patience, and study, we can come to understand and to learn... that is what we should each have. It is hard to do and requires us to humble ourselves, but it is the logical conclusion of accepting that the Catholic Church is what she claims she is.
I was welcomed into the Church despite my struggles to understand and my initial disagreements. Nor do I even agree with everything that comes forth from the mouths of Bishops (that is not how the teachings of the Church work). But the longer we hold disagreements in our heart, the more we pride our own intellect over that of twenty centuries of Christians before us and the Holy Spirit who is active in all of us and them, the more the disagreements will drive a wedge between us and the faith until we either learn to live with the discomfort or remove ourselves from the assembly.
I am happy to help you understand these things. I do not expect you to change your mind right away, Jack; I certainly did not (it was probably nine years after my first desire to join the Church that I finally gave way to her). But I am still here and happier for it.
I'll send you a note with the personal stuff in a few minutes.
Dominus tecum