Priest seeks help in big battle
with gays
By CHUCK COLBERT
Special to National Catholic Reporter
A Catholic priest who has made a career of opposing homosexuality
and preaching that gays and lesbians can change has called Catholics to join
him in a battle with the gay movement.
Make no mistake about it. Its a cultural war between
Christianity and radical liberalism, and Catholics need to wake up to how
serious the conflict is in the year 1998, said 80-year-old Fr. John
Harvey of New York City, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales.
Were in a battle with the gay movement. Believe me
its a big battle, he added.
Those remarks were part of Harveys 30-minute keynote
presentation at the 10th annual Courage conference, held from July 30 to Aug. 2
at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. More than 150 people attended the
event.
Founded in 1980 by the late Cardinal Terence Cooke, then
archbishop of New York, Courage is an international community of men and
women committed to following the magisterial teachings of the Roman Catholic
church [on homosexuality], according to a statement on the Courage Web
page (http://CourageRC.net/).
The conferences commemorative book lists nearly 65 chapters
in 22 states in the United States and five countries -- Canada, the United
Kingdom, Ireland, the Philippines and Australia.
The purpose of Courage is to provide spiritual support for people
striving to live chaste lives through service to others, spiritual
reading, prayer, meditation, individual spiritual direction, frequent
attendance at Mass and the frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and
Holy Eucharist.
To accomplish its purpose, the organization has adopted five
goals: chastity; a life dedicated to Christ; fellowship for mutual sharing of
thoughts and experiences; service to others as role models; and the formation
of chaste friendships necessary in celibate Christian life.
Courage draws an analogy between addictions and illnesses such as
alcoholism and homosexuality. Central to Courages spiritual support,
therefore, is a 12-step program of recovery combined with Catholic
traditions.
Within the last six years Courage has broadened its scope to
Encourage a spiritual support group for parents and relatives of persons
with homosexual tendencies, according to Harvey.
Opposing bishops letter
In his talk, Harvey continued his nearly yearlong crusade against
the U.S. bishops pastoral letter, Always Our Children. He
also discredited parish- and diocesan-based ministries that affirm gays, and he
dismissed homosexual persons who identify themselves as gay or lesbian.
Harvey refused NCR admission to the conference. Following
the event, however, NCR anonymously received tape recordings of talks
given by Harvey and Peter LaBarbera, editor of the Lambda Report on
Homosexual Activism.
Harvey opened the proceedings with a comprehensive critique of
Always Our Children, which is addressed primarily to Catholic
parents of homosexual children. The document was released Oct. 1, 1997, and was
subsequently revised and reissued July 2.
The pastoral letter urges parents to love and accept their gay
sons and daughters.
Harvey objects to the documents use of gay and
lesbian, as well as homosexual orientation, a phrase
Harvey deems a very heavy term indeed.
Gay and lesbian are weighted with the
connotation of lifestyle, with the idea of an active homosexual life, a
condition that if not innate is permanent, according to this type of reasoning,
and an ideology of claimed sexual genital rights among which is the right to
same-sex marriages, he said.
All of those connotations are commonly accepted by the
secular press, he added. And why are we using those words? The
Sacred Congregation of Faith does not use those words. Why did the committee on
marriage and family cling to this ideological terminology?
Why does the committee fail to stress that same-sex
attractions have nothing to do with the meaning of true personhood in the
person who has those attractions. Indeed such attractions are a form of false
identity, which a person may not have chosen and which he can control by the
grace of God.
Harveys point of view, however, seems to be contradicted by
the Vatican itself. More than 20 years ago the Vaticans Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith released a statement based on insights of modern
science. According to contemporary scientific research, the human person
is so profoundly affected by sexuality that it must be considered as one of the
factors that give to each individuals life the principle traits that
distinguish it.
According to Sr. Jeannine Gramick, who has been ministering to gay
and lesbian Catholics for more than 20 years, That statement was the
first time the Vatican talked about homosexuality in terms other than sexual
behavior. It recognized that a homosexual orientation is part of a
persons personality, broadening the teaching from [sexual] activity to
orientation.
In 1986, however, the same Vatican congregation released a letter
that said the homosexual inclination itself must be seen as an objective
disorder. Later documents from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith even justified discrimination against gays in certain circumstances.
Harvey, a moral theologian, is the author of two books, The
Homosexual Person (1987) and The Truth about Homosexuality (1996).
In these two works Harvey argues against homosexuality, gay sex and gay civil
rights, an argument primarily driven by a profound and sincere loyalty to the
magisterium, the teaching authority of the church.
Initially, Courage focused on providing spiritual support for men
and women seeking to live chaste, celibate lives in accord with the
Vaticans prohibition against same-gender sexual activity, as well as
committed relationships.
Now Courage also endorses reparative or
conversion therapy, psychological attempts to change homosexuals
into heterosexuals, in other words to cure gay people.
The organizations Web site includes links to
ex-gay and conversion therapy resources such as The
National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, Exodus
International, Homosexual Anonymous and Stonewall Revisited.
The personal story-of-the-month for the Stonewall organization,
for example, features the former drag queen John Paulk. John and Anne Paulk, a
married couple, are ex-gays, pictured on the Aug. 17 cover of
Newsweek magazine with a lead story about the Christian rights
national advertising campaign that portrays gays and lesbians as both sinful
and sick.
In the lives of some, one sees an effort to gradually move
away from the homosexual feelings ... to heterosexual feelings and
desires, said Harvey at the Worcester conference. Every man or
woman has a right to make that effort if he so chooses, but no obligation to do
so, he said.
No one may be morally required to come out of the condition.
One should proceed with great caution. There is no guarantee that you will make
it, despite your best efforts, Harvey said last year in a telephone
interview with this writer.
But, he added, Ive personally watched four
people come out of the condition during a ministry that spans 40
years.
Yet, the overall cure rate, according to the
ex-gay organizations and even some conversion therapists
themselves, is about 30 to 40 percent.
No scientific evidence
The American Psychiatric Association, however, has stated
there is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of
reparative therapy as a treatment to change ones sexual
orientation.
Although a few studies have been conducted, none was a
peer-review, published scientific study, rigorously conducted with random
sampling techniques and control groups, demonstrating either the success of
conversion therapy or its harmfulness.
One of the studies is by Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder, both
psychologists. They have interviewed 100 people who have undergone conversion
therapy.
While the vast majority of people remain homosexual, say Shidlo
and Schroeder, a handful seem to have changed their sexual
orientation.
They have gone through total existence changes in how they
place their sexuality in the context of who they are, Shidlo said in the
July 27 issue of Newsweek.
Many more, however, were psychologically harmed by the
therapies, which can include powerful drugs and even shock treatment,
wrote Mark Miller in Newsweek.
Still, Harvey insists parents should seek help from reparative
therapists and therapists, Catholic or not, who agree with the
churchs teaching on the immorality of homogenital activity.
Harvey also took issue with the advice contained in Always
Our Children to seek help from special diocesan gay and lesbian
ministries. The term gay and lesbian ministries is an
oxymoron, Harvey said.
As our experience has shown, he said, such
ministries do not provide a spiritual program for chaste living.
I see nothing of that in the National Association of
[Catholic] Gay and Lesbian Diocesan Ministries. I see nothing of that in the
New Ways Ministry programs. Its simply not there.
These ministries encourage individuals to define their
personhood by their homosexual attractions and label themselves according to an
objectively disordered inclination, he said.
What the church calls an objective disorder,
people use as a label for themselves, Harvey added.
Harvey also lashed out against P-FLAG -- Parents and Friends of
Lesbians and Gays. Why dont the bishops warn us about P-FLAG? They
ought to. Its a perfectly pagan organization, he said.
No scientific evidence
The three-day conference included presentations, speeches,
workshops, vespers, Mass, private confessions, testimonials and social time,
according to promotional literature.
Other speakers who addressed the gathering included Joe Dallas,
the founder of Genesis Counseling in Southern California; and Peter LaBarbera,
editor of the Lambda Report on Homosexual Activism.
Published by Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, the
bimonthly report is dedicated to exposing and opposing the
gay agenda, according to LaBarbera, the organizations
president. LaBarbera works out of the office of the Washington-based Family
Research Council, one of the 15 organizations, along with Americans for Truth
About Homosexuality, associated with the anti-gay national ad campaign.
LaBarbera, 36, a former Catholic and born-again Christian,
delivered an address in Worcester titled, The Gay Activists
Movement in Politics and Culture. LaBarbera critiqued the gay movement,
covering everything from the idea of gay identity and personhood, to
nondiscrimination policies and legislation, to gay relationships and gay
families, to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth.
Like Harvey, LaBarbera voiced concerns about young people,
expressing disbelief in the very idea of lesbian and gay youth.
LaBarberas presentation included the showing of a short
video clip from the 6th annual Massachusetts gay/straight youth pride march and
rally, held this spring in Boston. Addressing the crowd and identifying herself
as a lesbian, one 16-year old high school student from Harvard, Mass., said:
I like girls. Im gay. The woman also said that she had an
awareness of her sexual orientation since the age of 7.
We need to assert that there is no such thing as a gay
youth, LaBarbera said at the Worcester conference, suggesting the need to
find a way to say to these kids, Just say no to
homosexuality.
On the other hand, Harvey, who seems to acknowledge the reality of
gay and lesbian youth, said: A young person who says he is gay or lesbian
deprives herself or himself of a true vision of his or her own dignity as
person, however strong same-sex attractions may be. ... He should try to say,
Thats not a part of my real personhood.
National Catholic Reporter, September 4,
1998
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