Blessed Sacrament Church

It was recently reported that Pope Francis told a man who identifies as “gay,” that God made him “gay.” According to Juan Carlos Cruz, an abuse victim of a Chilean priest, Pope Francis told him, “Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and he loves you like that, and I do not care. The pope wants you like that, you have to be happy with who you are.” This was not a direct quote but the recollection of Juan Carlos, and the Vatican did not confirm that the Holy Father actually said it.

But the questions remain, does God “make people gay”? Does God “love them like that”? These are very important questions that must be clarified, because the wrong answer has harmful implications.

Father Nick Nelson Handing on the Faith

So first, does God “make people gay”? Meaning does God intentionally create people with a deep-seated attraction to those of the same sex? Does God create them with that desire, and want them to act on that desire? We have to say “no.” God does not make people “gay.” Because if God did make people with homosexual tendencies, it would mean either one of two things:

1) It would mean that he created another type or kind of human person that didn’t exist at the beginning. This means he has changed the plan for humanity and he didn’t bother to tell us. Divine revelation expressed in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture is clear that God made man for woman and woman for man. This is the plan for humanity, the complementarity of the sexes. In the beginning we read, “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). And, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body” (Gen 2:24). If God now makes people “gay,” then there must be another plan, another set of rules for humanity. It would suggest that God has created a different plan for happiness and fulfillment that didn’t exist at the beginning. But the problem with that idea is that God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t change the plan for humanity.

2) If God didn’t change the plan for humanity, and the original plan of the complementarity of the sexes is still in force, then it would mean that God intentionally makes some individuals to be permanently frustrated. If God intentionally makes some people with homosexual desires, but the plan for happiness and fulfillment based off of the complementarity of the sexes hasn’t changed, then that means that God intentionally created some people with unfulfillable desires. And that is not God. God is not vicious like that. He does not intentionally create people whose fulfillment is an impossibility.

Does God love them like that? Well, God loves everyone. He loves us with our disordered passions (“disordered” means not in accord with the “order” or the plan God built into the world). He loves us when we are in the depths of sin, whether that be homosexual sin or any other sin. But that is different from saying that God loves the disordered desire, or that he loves that we commit the sin.

God does not love that our passions are disordered. That was not God’s design but the result of original sin. He does not love that we engage in sinful acts that are contrary to our human nature. Therefore, he does not love that some people have a strong sexual desire for those of the same sex. He does not love that some people engage in sexual acts with members of the same sex. How could he love something that goes contrary to purpose he made us? How could he love something that harms us?

The infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the Catholic Church is clear that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and that every human person is called to chastity. This includes homosexual persons. This is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2357-2359.

To suggest that God made homosexual persons “gay,” or that God loves them like that is wrong and harmful. It gives those who struggle with same-sex attraction the wrong message. It says they should not trust in grace and they should give up the fight. It tells them that their disordered desire is good and should be acted upon. And like any other sin, this sin only leads us to more emptiness and more pain and more suffering.

The common Christian response is, “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” I think it’s even more correct to say, “Hate the sin, because you love the sinner.” This is because the sin is contrary to our good. And to love the sinner means you desire their good, i.e. their relative fulfillment and happiness here one on earth and eternal beatitude in heaven. Therefore, we should hate what is contrary — what leads them away from their good.

I am not attempting a comprehensive article on homosexuality, I’m only attempting to shed some light on the supposed remarks of our Holy Father that have caused some confusion. For a more comprehensive volume on the subject, please see “Made for Love: Same Sex Attraction and the Catholic Church” by Father Mike Schmitz.

Father Nick Nelson is pastor of St. Mary, Cook; St. Martin, Tower; and Holy Cross, Orr. He studied at The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome

There are a lot of things I am OK at, fewer things that I am good at, and very few things I am great at. But there is one thing that I am super great at: foosball.

You know that table soccer game that is often found in rec-rooms and bars? Well I am super great at that game. When I was in high school, I had access to a foosball table, and I was never far away from it. You might say that I squandered my high school years on foosball, but by the time I got to college no one could beat me.

Father Richard Kunst Apologetics

I hadn’t played foosball in years until recently, when I was at my sister’s house for a family gathering, when a foosball tournament broke out. No one in my family had a chance; no one even came close. I was the last man standing, and unscathed at that.

I recently brought all of this up at one of the school Masses at Stella Maris Academy, and then I posed this question to the kids: “Do you think Jesus could beat me in foosball?” They all screamed out with a hearty “YES!!” I replied by informing them that there were no foosball tables during the time of Jesus, so do you really think Jesus could beat me? To which they screamed out even louder, “YES!!!”

Why? Because Jesus is God, and you cannot beat God. Amen! Of course we cannot beat God at anything; the last thing in the world anyone should ever want is to have God up against them in anything, because we will always end up the loser, even if it is in foosball.

This interaction with the kids came as a result of the readings we had at that Mass from the First Letter of St. Peter, when our first pope said, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (5:5b). St. Peter was actually referencing a quote from the Old Testament book of Proverbs, which says, “When he [God] is dealing with the arrogant, he is stern, but to the humble he shows kindness” (3:34).

So as Peter says, “God opposes the proud,” and nobody wants God opposing them — not in foosball, not in anything. In fact, if we ponder those words from St. Peter, they are pretty sobering. How do these words apply to us? Well the first thing that comes to my mind is that I am pretty proud of my foosball skills. (Full disclosure: Since I wrote this column, one of my brother priests in the diocese beat me in a game, but I am not saying who.) But I was talking about my skills to make a point in a homily.

There are clear practical examples in our day-to-day life as to how we exhibit being proud. When we talk behind someone’s back and gossip about them, whether it be a coworker, classmate, neighbor, family member, or whoever, in our gossip we are making ourselves out to be better than the person we are disparaging. As I told the kids that morning, if you make fun of schoolmates or do not let them into your circle of friends, you are in essence making yourself out to be better than your classmates, and that is being proud. And if we are proud, God is opposed to us.

Many saints and spiritual authors over the centuries have written about the virtue of humility as the one virtue that ties all other virtues together. If we are not humble, then we cannot excel in any other virtue either. But no words are as compelling as St. Peter’s words, that God actually opposes those who are proud.

Being proud of our country or sports team or even our children and grandchildren is not the same as thinking yourself better than other people. Some pride, like patriotism, is healthy; it is when we start to think that we are better than others that we start to run into serious problems.

So the moral of the story is that you never want God opposed to you in anything, so just be humble.

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Duluth and St. Joseph in Gnesen. Reach him at rbkunst@gmail.com.

Admittedly, I don’t like to be wrong; ask my husband. A while back my son and I had a long disagreement about when I authorized permission for his older brother to leave campus during lunch. I was extremely confident that it was late in his senior year. My younger son believed differently, so he shared incidental evidence over and over again in an attempt to prove I was wrong, and I would not concede.

It was not until that younger son retrieved school documentation with my signature on it that I acknowledged I was wrong. I am horrible with details, so I should have known better than to count on my memory as fact. It is intriguing how evidence can be right in front of me, and I still feel a desire to deny the truth.

Betsy Kneepkens Faith and Family

I try not to be insistently correct, but the sin of pride is challenging, and I have a fallen nature. I find it mindboggling when a simple “I was wrong” has the power to end negative energy and others’ discomfort, yet people, like me, are often reluctant to set the record straight. Unfortunately, at times, an unwillingness to admit you are wrong can dramatically affect the lives of others, and worse yet the sin of pride can have damaging consequences long term.

You can see times when misjudgment had undesirable consequences at the time and changed the course of history. For instance, the music of the Beatles was rejected by their first production company, because the company was confident they would never make it in the music industry. Even more recently J.K. Rowling was turned down by her first 12 publishers, because her work was not deemed worthy of print.

In both of these cases, the decision makers were arrogantly confident in their judgment, which ultimately came at a high cost to the respective organizations. Other misjudgments had dire outcomes. One of the more notable goes to the owners of the “unsinkable” Titanic, whose confident decision to purchase just 20 lifeboats because you would never need them was later responsible for the demise of over 1,000 travelers. This decision is particularly heartbreaking since the owners knew that the designer of the ship made room for 64 lifeboats, the capacity of which was more than enough to bring all passengers to safety.

This month Catholics celebrate the 50th anniversary of what I think is one of the richest and most prophetic encyclicals of modern times, Humanae Vitae.

Because of the insistent decision of a small group of men, mainly theologians and clergy, Catholics either don’t know this document exists or have ignored the message altogether. The teachings found in this document, however, ought not to be overlooked. Humanae Vitae beautifully articulates the reasons to be faithful to God’s plan for man, woman, the meaning of marriage, the conjugal union, and the fruits of this union.

In a logical and pastoral way, Pope Paul VI explains to the faithful the propose for the church’s prohibition of artificial contraception. The pope also illuminates the importance of respecting God’s design for responsible parenting by managing family planning effectively in accord with the nature of our natural reproductive systems. Pope Paul wants us to know that God has a plan for married couples to manage their fertility and that God’s design of the human person permits that.

These men, confident and dare I say shortsighted, proclaimed in churches and to the media before the document was officially released that the children of God could dissent from this particular teaching. The dissenters focused the conversation on how the faithful could reject this doctrine and paid very little attention on what the encyclical had to say.

In a somewhat unprecedented way, Pope Paul VI included in his writing what the cultural consequences would be if society ignored this message of the church. Unfortunately, these leaders of dissent avoided Pope Paul’s notice of social ills, and nearly the whole world has adopted a lifestyle that ignores God’s plan for the regulation of birth and accepts without question horrific consequences that are now our reality.

In chapter 17 of Pope Paul’s work he proclaimed that ignoring God’s design for marriage and the conjugal union will create suffering. He mentions that accepting artificial contraception will “lead to conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality” and decrease the respect for the woman, treating her as an “instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.” He went on to say governments will use contraception as a weapon for governing or their authority. Furthermore, Pope Paul talked about how the culture will decide that the individual has the total domain of their bodies to the exclusion of others, their children, and their spouse.

The gravity of these men’s dissenting decisions has had a devastating impact on our culture that is undeniable. We live now with a divorce rate over 50 percent. The number of children born in a single parent home has skyrocketed. Two hundred babies are aborted for every 1,000 children that get to live. Sex trafficking, domestic abuse, pornography, hooking up, sexually transmitted disease, and infidelity are commonplace. Overwhelmingly families are smaller. As a result, support systems are diminishing, entitlement increasing, and loneliness with a high rate of depression plague so many lives. The list sadly goes on and on, all foretold in that teaching written 50 years ago.

That group of men who thought their decision to teach people to dissent from church teaching half a century ago was right have almost all died. There are just a few those individuals still alive, and I wonder if they ever think about the connection of their decision and the suffering people endure. I also think about what sort of impact it would have if those last few men got together to discuss the long-term effects of their decision and if they could have been wrong.

I often contemplate what impact these few men could have on society now if they would go public and proclaim they made a mistake. To me, the evidence is extremely clear. The path these men encouraged went a direction they did not calculate. The good they thought they could bring to the human condition is woefully overestimated. What a bold and courageous statement it would be if these last few living men stood up and said they were wrong and the church was right. I am just left imagining what kind of impact their words would have and the potential to change the course of history.

Betsy Kneepkens is director of the Office of Marriage, Family and Life for the Diocese of Duluth and a mother of six.

To say that the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae was controversial would be a gross understatement. Blessed Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae (“of human life”) on July 25, 1968. It was addressed to “all men of good will” and was subtitled “on the regulation of birth.” The encyclical did not teach anything new but reaffirmed Catholic teaching on the relationship of human persons to God and one another as manifested within Christian marriage. Nevertheless, it became the spark that ignited widespread dissent, especially on its reaffirmation of the constant teaching of the Church on artificial birth control (i.e. contraception).

Father Anthony Craig Guest columnist

What led up to this widespread dissent was a perfect storm of social and political factors that challenged man’s dignity. Up until 1930, there was a constant moral rejection of contraception across the board among Christians. There were concerns of over-population stemming from Anglican scholar Thomas Malthus’ book entitled, “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” This work predicted that the world’s population would grow faster than the means to support it.

Malthus himself opposed contraception, favoring rather delayed marriage. Debate began immediately after its publication, especially in Britain. Pressure was laid upon the Church of England to make a response to these concerns. The Anglican Church’s Lambeth Conference in 1930 approved contraception, but under strict conditions. When this became public, the Catholic Church also needed to respond to this question about regulation of birth.

The same year as the Lambeth Conference, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Casti Canubii, which reaffirmed the traditional teaching on marriage. It also rejected abortion, eugenics, and contraception, stating: “Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature” (56). Later, Pius XII in 1951 reiterated that couples within marriage could regulate when they had children by having sex during those times when the wife is naturally infertile. This led to a question about the use of the Pill to prevent ovulation and simply extend the infertile period.

In 1963, Pope John XXIII established a commission to study the question of birth control. After his death, the commission was expanded by his successor Paul VI. In 1966, the commission produced a majority report that endorsed artificial contraception and a minority report that did not. These reports were not to be published, but to put pressure on the pontiff’s response, they were leaked to the press in 1967. This attempt to pressure Paul VI did not work.

Humanae Vitae came out in 1968 reaffirming church teaching that within marriage, sex has two purposes. One was procreative and the other unitive. By God’s design, these purposes were to always go together. He acknowledged that couples can use the gift of reason to decide on having more children, but this must ensure that the means they employ be in harmony with God’s plan. While this was meant to reaffirm church teaching, it clashed with the spirit of “free-love” rampant in 1968.

The reaction to the encyclical was widespread, contentious, and immediate. As a result, Paul VI spent the rest of his ten years as pope never to write another encyclical. Despite this reaction, he displayed his courage in regards to this encyclical in his homily on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul on June 29, 1978.

The homily consisted mainly of the resume of the major documents of his pontificate. He was sitting in front of the altar of St. Peter and reading from his prepared manuscript. He announced the name of each of the various documents that he issued. When he came to Humanae Vitae, he put down the papers he was holding, he looked up, and with an enormous amount of sincerity said, “Humanae Vitae. I did not betray the truth. I did not betray the truth.” Then he picked the papers up and continued his discourse.

Loyal to his memory, how can we be faithful to the truth and not in any way diminish the integrity of the moral principles and teachings embedded in that encyclical?

In this 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, one opportunity to understand better the way a Catholic married couple can remain faithful to the truth is an event this summer entitled “Celebrate ’68.” Natural Family planning is the way a couple can remain faithful to the truth of marriage and family life. Here in the Diocese of Duluth, Northland Family Programs seeks to assist women and couples in their reproductive health by sharing the wisdom found in the Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System. The event “Celebrate ‘68” will be at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Crosslake on July 21 at 4 p.m. This event will be filled with live music, dinner, and great speakers. This is co-sponsored by the Diocese of Duluth Office of Marriage, Family, and Life. Thus, it will be a way to faithfully follow God’s plan. This is one way to emulate the courage Paul VI displayed in issuing Humanae Vitae as he was a great herald of the truth of God’s plan for marriage and the family.

Father Anthony Craig, S.T.L., is assistant director of the Diocese of Duluth Office of Marriage, Family, and Life.