https://international.la-croix.com/news/letter-from-rome/the-first-gay-pope/15560?utm_source=NewsLetter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=29Jan22mailjet

Firstly, just to clarify, this La Croix article’s title is grossly misleading for one thing as the two states mentioned in the title of this Letter from Rome by Robert Mickens are completely irreconcilable, that of Francis being Pope as well as “gay”. The latter assertion is frankly none other than a sensationalistic catch-cry to attract prospective readers’ attention. I certainly did not fall for that bait but was instead drawn to the article on the basis of the issue of ministering to LGBTQIers being something of a controversy in recent times.

It appears to me that the issue about gay tendencies is more related to a problem with relational excess that oversteps a healthy boundary set in place by God through the natural law. This boundary I will specify is that set between a healthy unsexualized intimacy and an unhealthy type of intimacy bent upon lustful or sexualized orientations. That said, it must be pointed out that more often than not, gay people have got it more right in relational intimacy terms than alot of other people but they just happen to take things a little too far than is mandated or encoded within the laws of nature. Why do I say that gays tend to have it more together relationally than a vast number who do not identify as gay? Because the latter tend towards the other extreme, that of aloofness, relational coldness, a tendency towards excessive restraint or indifference. And I’m talking here in non-sexual terms. I would say that gays have the relational dynamics thing more perfected on the whole, although not always, but in many instances this can be seen. Their general relational intimacy levels setting aside the sexual domain, more closely resemble or reflect the authentic Christian behavioural ethic insofar as the ideal closeness of relationships within the community are concerned. The sexual aspect is where the excess comes to the fore, in that the natural boundary between proper brotherly or sisterly intimacy and the unnatural extreme of going beyond such healthy intimacy becomes blurred through sexualization. That is why the Church does well to advise those with gay tendencies to cultivate a culture of celibacy as this will allow the intimacy of relational dynamics to flourish and thrive without it becoming degraded through unnecessary sexualization. That is the proper definition of temperance. That doesn’t mean a healthy tactile expression of love and gratitude cannot be present. Quite the contrary. But it does mean that such expressions ought not to become distorted and mangled by lust or deviation towards becoming sexualized. I am of the firm conviction that God meant for the act of sexual intimacy to be exclusively reserved for the consumation of the sacramental marriage between a man and woman for the purposes of developing a flourishing life through procreation and the rearing of a family borne through that procreative intimacy.

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Key Words: Natural Law, Gay, Relational Intimacy, Relational Excess, Sexualization, Temperance, Procreation, Consumation.