Homosexuality, Identity, and the Grace of Chastity
Courage’s Fr. Paul Check on why chastity is an essential virtue for those with same-sex attraction—and for all Christians.
St. Augustine is famous for having prayed, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” Father Paul Check, the director of Courage, suggests that chastity, like justice and mercy, is indeed part of the Good News of Christ and to ignore it is self-defeating.
The Courage apostolate ministers to people with same-sex attraction who want to live by the Catholic Church’s sexual teachings, providing self-governed and anonymous group meetings around the country.
Father Check, who served as an officer in the Marine Corps prior to being ordained to the priesthood in 1997, spoke recently with Catholic World Report about the Church’s wisdom in not reducing persons to an identity based solely upon their sexual appetites, and how the average Catholic can respond to the aggressive social agenda of the gay lobby.
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CWR: As a result of that, what do you see in the gay lifestyle that then defeats the ability to have a life of authentic happiness?
Father Check: Any action that is contrary to the design or the gift of our humanity is going to put us at cross-purposes with ourselves. Some things are easy to see and they are not at all controversial…for instance, if someone consistently tells lies. Not only are they doing an injustice to the person to whom they are lying, but they are also at cross-purposes with their own humanity, in the sense that the power of communication and speech has been given to us to establish trust, and to form relationships—relationships of friendship and relationships of love. So, if I am consistently lying, then I am at cross-purposes with myself and I will frustrate the very desires that I have for human intimacy and for human affection and to know and be known in a personal way. It is easy to see this with regard to speech. It is also easy to see it with regard to eating. If I’m hungry and I eat an entire chocolate cake and wash it down with a bottle of red wine, it is going to put me at cross-purposes with myself. There is something self-defeating about my own actions.
By analogy, I want to suggest the same thing about the sexual realm. It is very easy for our sexual desires to become misdirected because the fundamental desire of the human heart is for affection, to love and be loved in a personal way, to be known in a personal way. Because that drive is so strong, as it should be, according to the wisdom of God, then we also have to give our own actions and feelings a proper reflection to make sure that we are not engaged in a self-defeating search for happiness in this way. And what makes that difficult, of course, is that the drive for intimacy is strong within us and it is also, like all of the other human faculties, touched by concupiscence, that weakness in the will that can lead us to attempt to fulfill our desires in the wrong way.
When I speak about this, of course—and most of my work is to present to priests and seminarians on the topic of homosexuality—I try to situate it fully in the context of the virtue of chastity. I think that we have to ask the question: do we believe that chastity is part of the Good News? I know we have it magisterially, but do we have that conviction personally and institutionally, or ecclesiastically?
Now, I think that people believe that justice is part of the Good News, and mercy is part of the Good News, and salvation and eternal life are part of the Good News, but what about chastity? Do we see and understand that as a virtue chastity is essential, not only for our salvation, of course, but for our human fulfillment consistent with the Genesis story? The way that we have been told we have been made? So that opens up the question widely—and we can then speak about contraception and cohabitation and many other things related to the virtue of chastity, and indeed we must, in order to situate the topic of homosexuality in its proper context.
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2013-09-03
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