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You don’t know whether to laugh or cry at news like this given the current reputation of the Catholic Church:
The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs is borrowing a page from Alcoholics Anonymous by launching a 12-step program that offers pastoral care and support for homosexuals.“It’s not about therapy and not about activism,” said the Rev. Larry Brennan, diocese director of priest formation. “It’s about support.”
…”The exercise of sexuality is reserved for marriage, and that can only happen between a man and a woman,” Brennan said.
Jim Fitzgerald, executive director of Call to Action, a national progressive Catholic group headquartered in Chicago, is skeptical of Twelve Steps of Courage because he contends homosexuality isn’t sinful.
“It restricts people’s freedom to be the kind of person they were created to be,” Fitzgerald said of Courage.
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Do you have the feeling that…The first few years of the program, its going to be a lot of catholic preists attending to the point that it will be standing room only?
Or that a lot of people would like to just push them down a few flights of steps, not just 12???
Need to get Wayne Besen there. He is on Anti ex gay tour to 11 cities. … sorry IPhone won’t switch down to comment
Also about time Catholics for Equality start protesting
It’s perfect since all those dicksfrom the Pope on down to the parish priest could be considered 13th steppers.
No need to protestJust go to the damn meetings and speak truth to bigotry. The miserable closeted lesbians and gays who might show up at such a farce hoping for “change” need the support of group members who know better than to allow lies and deceit to go unchallenged. Just ask yourself WTFWJD?
Well, duh…
Oh yeah and…
Catholics for Equality Press Release on CourageNew Funding for Discredited Catholic “Gay Therapy” Group Poses Broader Questions for American Catholics and the Nation
Courage Apostolate’s Discredited Premises
Used to Influence National and State Public Policy
WASHINGTON (January 21, 2010)- Catholics for Equality, a national political group of Catholics who support full civil equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, today voices concern over recent funding from the Dioceses of Oakland, CA and Colorado Springs, CO for the establishment of chapters of the Courage Apostolate, a discredited reparative therapy program. The funding and endorsement of the discredited program reveals the disturbing trend of some bishops to align themselves more closely with anti-gay extremists than American Catholics and the American public.
The Courage Apostolate’s misuse of the 12-step program holds the premise that same-sex attraction is a disease, similar to alcoholism, and should be “controlled.” Its underlying intrinsic disorder philosophy mirrors the “reparative therapy” programs developed through Evangelical ministries – all of which have been discredited by both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
Recently, the Courage Apostolate’s framing of homosexuality was used by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services in the United States of America Services, in opposition to allowing gay and lesbian solders to serve openly in the military.
“As American Catholics we are embarrassed that leaders of our church would embrace such outdated and discredited theories about human sexuality and the human condition,” says Catholics for Equality Executive Director Phil Attey. “We are further embarrassed and frustrated when these arguments are made in public and used to influence civil law in America. Many American Catholics feel like we’re back in the days of Copernicus when we hear our bishops making erroneous statements like these on behalf of the Catholic community.”
“That more dioceses are funding these programs should be alarming for every Catholic in America,” says Joseph Palacios, Director of the Catholics for Equality Foundation. “It signals that our institutional church is further being taken over by the Catholic fundamentalist movement which is working to return the Roman Catholic Church to the pre-Vatican II attitudes that separated Catholics from the modern world. We fear that if American Catholics do not speak out against these trends and this restorationist movement succeeds, our church will no longer be a home for American Catholic families seeking to be faithful Catholics as well as Americans committed to inclusion and equality for all citizens.”
Catholics for Equality calls on pro-equality Catholics nationwide to ask their pastors if their weekly offerings are being channeled into local Courage Apostolate programs. We also ask every American Catholic to contact their state legislators and members of Congress to counter the harmful influences that the Conference of Bishops, the Courage Apostolate and other discredited reparative therapy programs are having on American public policy regarding legal equality for all Americans.
I know that I’m preaching to the converted hereBut it should be pointed out and reiterated that there is ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ is, like so much of Catholic dogma, (including the soul and the body, God and man) based on a false dichotomy: the idea that sexual identity is separate from intrinsic identity. It is, at best, wrong and cruel to ask people to refrain from seeking sexual and emotional confort in physical reationships with others, whether of the opposite sex (allowed) or the same (forbidden). It is also extremely dangerous to cultivate shame in people: shame about elements of their identity which they cannot and should not change. At worst, it is extremely dangerous. I have no doubt, and I’m sure that many people share my fears, that withholding sex from men of strong libido and distorted sexual self-image leads to pathology. A desire denied becomes an obsession. There IS a link between homosexuality and pedophilia just as there is a link between heterosexuality and pedophila: either sexuality, if denied and suppressed at an early age and combined with strong libido and impulses towards cruelty and sadism, will result in the worst kind of sexual criminal.
The 12 Step program is poisonous to begin withA very thin veneer of non-religion to the contrary, the 12 Step program, at its core, is based on an extremely fundamentalist Christian doctrine: that you are worthless, hopeless and totally incompetent unless some Higher Power (aka God) has total and absolute control over your life.
I am not at all surprised that a Catholic Church — especially the diocese of Colorado Springs, home to some of the most theocratic, Dominionist organizations in the United States — would turn to outright fascism.
Not. Surprised. At. All.
I’ll accept this as a good ideajust as soon as the Catholic Church sets up a 12 step program for Peadophile Priests. How do these guys think they hold ANY credibility when it comes to anything related to “sex.”
Bad. Really bad. But better than a promised “cure.”The only real answer, of course, is to encourage people to live their humanity to its depth and fullness, including living with love and integrity with whatever sexual orientation we find ourselves to have, however it is that it came about.
But, I have to say that telling people “This is something inherent in you that will be true of you forever, and if you find it incompatible with living a life as God wants you to, here is a support group that recognizes that what you are dealing with is real and you need a loving community to support you in doing it” is a hell of a lot better than “Sexual orientation is just a habit and we promise to cure you of it so you can be straight.”
On the one hand, this sort of community-assisted chastity is fully in line with the sexual rules that the Roman Catholic priesthood and most of its religious orders agree to live by, so in principle and theory, they aren’t demanding of these people anything they aren’t demanding of themselves.
On the other hand, by every measure, the Roman Catholic priesthood is utter failures at meeting these demands on themselves, and that’s not just the whole pedophilia horror, but the consensual adult relationships priests have all the time, both gay and straight.
Frankly, if this was combined with a public support for equal civil rights for all, and the lines between “being gay is real and we are here to support you in not engaging in sexual behavior if you don’t want it” and “being gay is just a behavior” are not blurred, I could support this. People have a right to be celibate, just as people have a right to choose not to drink.
But at the same time, just like with drinking, it needs to be paired with “and there are people who are perfectly capable of doing this (drinking, gay relationships, macrame, whatever) in healthy, happy, and responsible ways. We wish them well; they just aren’t us.”
Most of the members of AA that I’ve met are quite clear that is their personal relationship with alcohol that is the issue, not something evil and wrong with everyone else who doesn’t have the problem.
I can even support a clearly articulated “if you won’t play by our rules, you can’t be in our club” to the degree it is paired with, “and as long as you aren’t in our club, we have no right to or interest in telling you how to live your life.”
So for me, it isn’t this 12-step program that’s offensive or problematical – it’s the whole morass of hypocritical sexual moral policing and stupid outdated and inconsistent rules that even they themselves aren’t following. Talk about deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing wrong with deck chairs in tidy rows, but perspective matters.
I’d be a lot more comfortable with my gay lifestyleIf these damn bigots would just STFU. Doesn’t that count?
Nope. Sorry, it does not count.Unless said gay lifestyle is a CHASTE gay lifestyle. Just like the fathers and brothers and nuns. Now go and sin no more.
The jokes really do just write themselves with this mob, don’t they?
Very well put.The Catholic church, which preposterously insists in the existence of the Trinity (and has been unable to make sense of it in 2000 years of trying), claims that even though the three “persons” of God are separate and distinct they are also one and the same, seems unable or unwilling to grasp the concept that human identity is integral, not a collection of separate bits.
I beg to differ12-Steps can be helpful to both addicts and those affected by them. Surrendering to a higher power is not the same as affirming that you are worthless, hopeless and incompetent. It is recognizing your own fallibility, affirming that it is okay to be human, and “letting go” of the pressure to be required to fix everything using your own limited resources.
Ideally, the approach is affirming and liberating. But not all programs are ideal. If a 12-step program has made you or a loved one feel worthless and incompetent, I fear they are incredibly off-message compared to the ones I’m familiar with, and they really need to alter their approach.
YMMV.
How about AA?Are they off-message? I find all 12-step programs to be shame-based and that is why they plain did not work for me. I think it is a failed model for recovery. I think the focus needs to switch to harm reduction, not this “you need god in your life” crap that all 12-step programs are based on.
“Slips”I bet there will be many relapses. Those stories could actually make such meetings extremely interesting.
“I relapsed 15 minutes before the meeting with Father Ted over there. And then, 5 minutes ago, Archbishop Steve and I were in the closet over there making out.”
Google Ads at it againIs anyone else getting a banner ad at the bottom of this page for PortraitOfOurLord.com “Unique Catholic Art and Holy Cards”? There are times when automated keyword searches fail. I find this one hilarious.
But before we write this one off…I think this could turn into a good thing for gay Catholics. Isn’t it usually better to meet new friends in person than some anonymous picture on catholicmantrackr.com?
I can’t seem to get the Neil Patrick Harris episode of “Will & Grace” out of my head.
“Surrendering to a higher power is not the same as affirming that you are worthless, hopeless and incompetent.”Yes, it is. 12 Step programs depend on the dysfunctional belief that you cannot recover unless you surrender. That doctrine is at the very heart of fundamentalist Christianity. Consider the official steps as presented by AA:
2 – You are incapable of managing recovery without supernatural assistance.
3 – Give up your life to God (there is no further mention of this “higher power” nonsense, only God.)
5 – Confess your sins to God.
6 – Again, surrender your all to God.
7 – Addiction is a sin; beg God to remove this sin.
11 – Pray, meditate and do all the other things expected of devoutly religious people. Faking it does not count!
12 – Be born again.
No matter how you try to twist it, this is fundamentalist Protestant Christianity at its worst.