The Sheepcat

Thank You, Oratory Choir Toronto

On this Feast of the Holy Family, the patronal feast of our parish, I'm grateful to the Oratory Choir, one of the reasons I kept coming to this church week after week even before I became Catholic.

Until the First Sunday of Advent this year, the 11:00 Sunday morning Mass at Holy Family has been a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, with music provided by the Oratory Choir. In June 2005, attending such a Mass for the first time, I was transported by the beauty of the liturgy. Now that time instead has a Traditional Latin Mass with a chant schola (to which I hope to return someday), but the Oratory Choir can still be heard at Solemn Vespers and Benediction on Sundays at 5:00 pm.

Here are a few highlights from the Oratory Choir's YouTube channel. Thank you, director Peter Bishop. Thank you, Oratory Choir Toronto.

 

 

 

Honouring Fr John Harvey: A Call for More Priests with Courage

Today, the Feast of St John, marks the second anniversary of the death of the co-founder of the Courage Apostolate, Fr John Harvey, OSFS, who so fittingly passed away at the hour of mercy. Here he is relaxing with little Aby at St Norbert's Rectory on his last visit to Toronto, in August 2009.

He was fondly remembered at the next year's Courage conference, not least by those who'd worked closely with him.

In this interview from that time, successor executive director Fr Paul Check said:

Father Harvey is still with us, although he has entered a new chapter in his life. Certainly, there’s a poignancy and sadness at the loss of his physical presence. I also detected a confidence and trust in the people as Courage enters a new chapter, building upon what Father Harvey gave to us and their hope for the future.

Emphatically agreed. Church teaching will stand the test of time -- and God calls people of every age to present it anew. Key to the New Evangelization is explaining how the gift of sexuality is linked to the gift of life; how chastity is part of the good news.

In 2012 one of the best, most concise and powerful contributions to this effort was from Fr Pontifex, in his spoken word video, "(The Church says) Yes to You" (lyrics available at the link). 

 

(A version with Spanish subtitles and lyrics is here, and a behind-the-scenes video is here.)

For more in-depth education, at the invitation of the local ordinary Courage offers four-part training as follows: 

Whenever Courage is invited for a clergy study day, the plan is always to address the question of same-sex attraction from four perspectives: theological anthropology (the natural moral law and Church teaching on homosexuality); psychological sciences (presented by an MD or PhD who works with Courage); witness talk (a testimonial by a Courage member); and a talk specifically about Courage.

If you or a loved one are experiencing same-sex attraction, such that you would be eligible for Courage or EnCourage respectively, why not approach your bishop and request that Fr Check be invited to schedule a presentation? Given that these requests are received from around the world, count on waiting a while for the event. In the meantime, please consider praying for and donating to the apostolate, and contacting the chaplain of the nearest chapter to request an approved member testimony. If you don't have a local chapter but are looking for support, please join a ListServ.

And consider attending our next Courage/EnCourage conference in Mundelein, Illinois, July 25 to July 28, 2013. (If you have a financial barrier, act now to request a scholarship from the head office or your local diocese.)

Separate Courage Latino and Oceania conferences are also available. Kudos to Most Rev Anthony Fisher of the Diocese of Parramatta in Australia for this homily on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Competent pastoral care for persons with same-sex attraction and their families is needed now more than ever. Do you know a priest, deacon, religious, or lay minister who is warm, orthodox, knowledgeable, quick-thinking, and non-squeamish? Might that person have a gift for working with Courage? If so, why not suggest that he or she attend the next conference to develop those gifts? Faithful priests are especially needed as chaplains, because they can hear confessions and celebrate Mass for local groups.

We hear all too frequently about priests who have either given poor guidance ("Why not just try monogamy? Get a boyfriend"); or who have been naive, hoping that all SSA is transient and not quite knowing what to do with those for whom it is deep-seated; or who have been too harsh, reducing homosexuality to a set of policy issues without recognizing that it affects real people in the pews.

As neighbours to one fine seminary and students of another, we are delighted to see the calibre of current candidates for the priesthood, who thirst for authentic tools to meet the needs of the people of God. As often as we can, we let seminarians and priests know about Priests with Courage:

a network of priests committed to ministering to persons struggling with homosexuality with the love of Christ and the full teachings of the Catholic Church, especially in the area of chastity.

If every reader of this blog post would share it with one good priest or seminarian, thousands of people could be reached with better pastoral care. In memory of Fr Harvey, will you take up our challenge today? Thank you, and God bless.

The Latest Gay Genetics Claim--Chill, People

So a new study claims to possibly explain why homosexuality occurs. Naturally the news is getting around, and lots of ink will be spilled before this is all over.

• "Scientists May Have Finally Unlocked Puzzle of Why People Are Gay: Lesbians get it from fathers, gay men from mothers?" (US News and World Report)
• "Scientists claim that homosexuality is not genetic — but it arises in the womb" (io9)
• "Homosexuality’s Cause Isn’t Genetics, but the Answer Does Lie in the Womb: As long as natural selection has been an accepted scientific theory, homosexuality has been a riddle for scientists." (Medical Daily)
• "Group of Scientists Believe They Have Unlocked Hereditary Question of Why People are Gay" (Towleroad: A site with homosexual tendencies)
• "Your Womb Could Make Your Kid Gay. Seriously" (CafeMom)
• "Gene Regulation May Explain How Homosexuality Flourishes" (LiveScience.com, which has one of the clearer explanations of the concept, socially liberal biases aside)

What does the study actually say? Well, hardly anyone knows yet, because while its official publication date is yesterday, it's not yet available on the website of The Quarterly Review of Biology. [Update 14 Dec: My dear wife has just pointed out that the paper may have been available all along via the journal's Ahead of Print link, which I confess I overlooked because December 2012 was still not showing up as the latest issue. In any case "Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development" is right there in PDF once you agree to the publisher's terms and conditions.] So except for the futurist publication io9, where associate editor George Dvorsky clearly was given prepublication access to the paper, everyone seems to be relying on the press release from the originating National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), "Study finds epigenetics, not genetics, underlies homosexuality" or the US News, which did a bit of additional follow-up.

With or without data, people will make the predictable overinterpretations, of course. Judging by the URL, io9's original headline apparently said, "Scientists confirm that homosexuality is not genetic — but it arises in the womb." Well, "confirm" has now been backtracked to "claim"; the study could confirm nothing of the kind because it's just not that kind of study. Rather it will present a model, a mathematical system that depends on plenty of assumptions and that might explain what's been observed. Says evolutionary biologist William Rice, the lead author, to US News,

We've found a story that looks really good[.] There's more verification needed, but we point out how we can easily do epigenetic profiles genome-wide. We predict where the epi-marks occur, we just need other studies to look at it empirically. This can be tested and proven within six months. It's easy to test. If it's a bad idea, we can throw it away in short order.

What is this idea? For starters, you need to know that along with genes themselves, which transmit any information that is properly called "genetic," there are "epigenetic" markers that influence how those genes are expressed. Some years ago when I taught a course that touched on debates about genetic determinism, I was quite taken with E. O. Wilson's example:

The same gene can produce different body types depending on environmental conditions. The classic case is the arrowleaf plant. If grown on dry ground, it produces an elephant-ear leaf; if grown in a pond, it puts up leaves like lily pads; and if grown in deeper water, it grows up with slender leaves like eelgrass.

So genes don't tell the whole story. Even identical twins could experience different environments, one of which triggered a particular gene to be expressed and one of which didn't--though to acknowledge that is a far cry from denying that genes are relevant at all, as some social conservatives are tempted to do as soon as the object of potential genetic influence happens to be homosexuality. Take, for example, this choice reaction to the new study from a reader at US News:

These Godless ignorant "scientists-so-called" (I Timothy 6:20) start off with a LIE: "The hereditary link of homosexuality has long been established" - BullS___! It's been "medically & scientifically" PROVEN to be a lifestyle CHOICE, partially based on being over-mothered for boys, & over-"fathered" for girls, but mainly it's just plain SIN against our Holy Creator-God, just like all the other sins we all have committed, and until we "confess our sins", "repent"(turn away from them), and give our whole hearts & lives to God through Jesus Christ, the only One Who suffered and died on that cross to take our sins on Himself and pay for our Salvation and forgiveness, we will continue to live in whatever life of whatever sins we choose to live in. These are the end times...no one knows the day or hour, but we can and are commanded to "know/discern the times". He's coming again soon. Please, turn to Him, trust in & live for Jesus, before it's too late.

(Okay, dude, I get it that you're angry, and that you want people to recognize the truth about repentance and salvation, but honestly, if you think using a tone like that is likely to get you anywhere with the people you're trying to convert, you're ... ahem, sorely lacking in the virtue of prudence. There are better ways to critique the "born gay" routine.)

Anyway. The puzzle in evolutionary theory with regard to homosexuality is how a tendency towards nonreproductive sexual behaviour could survive in a population. To put it in the starkest terms, if nobody who has a "gay gene" ever had penile-vaginal intercourse, then the gene would die out in a generation because there would be no offspring carrying the gene. In the real world, of course, people carry genes for traits they don't themselves exhibit and sexual behaviour is a good deal more complicated in any case, but on the face of it there would still seem to be an evolutionary disadvantage to any gene that influenced someone towards not reproducing. Various attempts to account for the persistence of homosexuality have suggested, for example, that gay uncles are somehow good for their nieces and nephews, who carry genetic material similar to their own, in a way that yields a net reproductive benefit to the family. Which is pretty much speculative and hardly more convincing than most evolutionary psychology.

The new study might change that, in that it suggests an actual mechanism of action by which a tendency towards homosexuality might be inherited without getting selected out. 

Epi-marks constitute an extra layer of information attached to our genes' backbones that regulates their expression. While genes hold the instructions, epi-marks direct how those instructions are carried out – when, where and how much a gene is expressed during development. Epi-marks are usually produced anew each generation, but recent evidence demonstrates that they sometimes carryover between generations and thus can contribute to similarity among relatives, resembling the effect of shared genes.

Sex-specific epi-marks produced in early fetal development protect each sex from the substantial natural variation in testosterone that occurs during later fetal development. Sex-specific epi-marks stop girl fetuses from being masculinized when they experience atypically high testosterone, and vice versa for boy fetuses. Different epi-marks protect different sex-specific traits from being masculinized or feminized – some affect the genitals, others sexual identity, and yet others affect sexual partner preference. However, when these epi-marks are transmitted across generations from fathers to daughters or mothers to sons, they may cause reversed effects, such as the feminization of some traits in sons, such as sexual preference, and similarly a partial masculinization of daughters.

The study solves the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality, finding that "sexually antagonistic" epi-marks, which normally protect parents from natural variation in sex hormone levels during fetal development, sometimes carryover across generations and cause homosexuality in opposite-sex offspring. The mathematical modeling demonstrates that genes coding for these epi-marks can easily spread in the population because they always increase the fitness of the parent but only rarely escape erasure and reduce fitness in offspring. (Source)

Now first, before anyone flips out, don't read too much into the terms "masculinization" or "feminization," either on my part (Not My Study!) or the researchers'. A Towleroad comboxer who appears to have biological training cautions others:

"Masculinization" and "feminization" does not mean you play more sports or speak with a lisp; it is referring to the biological process by which the sexes are differentiated and developed during maturation. These two terms are simply the shorthand titles for these processes.

Anyway, the researchers' conjecture is interesting. Has it been empirically confirmed? Hardly. Can we expect blazing headlines within the next year if the conjecture is disconfirmed? I doubt it.

Now, should the authors have waited for empirical support before publishing? I don't actually think so, even if they may be wrong. I'm no geneticist, but some ideas are what you might call "interestingly wrong"; regardless of their own merits, they'll stimulate new lines of investigation, as a result of which we'll ultimately understand the natural world a little better.

Whether any of this research will be of practical benefit to people, now that's a different matter. It's what people make of it from a social and moral angle that I find most interesting.

And the moral implications would be pretty negligible in themselves, so far as I can see. As a Catholic I uphold a fundamental distinction between person, inclination, and act. 

• A person with homosexual inclinations (including yours truly, let me point out for the benefit of readers who are new here) has intrinsic dignity, being made in the image and likeness of God.
• A homosexual inclination is "objectively disordered," (CCC 2358) that is, disordered in the object towards which it tends. But it's not considered sinful to experience the desire.
• "Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. ... Under no circumstances can they be approved" (CCC 2357).

Whether or not anyone likes this approach and the philosophical distinction that underlies it, it's stable in the face of new empirical claims (which the new paper does not supply in any event). With or without an acknowledgment of some genetic influence on homosexual desires, the intrinsic dignity of the person with those desires would remain unaltered, as would the moral logic against homosexual acts.

Look, to use an imperfect analogy (and yeah, some people will hate it, I know, 'cause I used to hate it myself), we know that a tendency towards alcoholism is sometimes inherited. With or without that tendency, the person who drinks to excess is still valuable. At the same time, any genetic tendency doesn't alter the disordered nature of the act of drinking to the point of intoxication, though it may mean a particular person is less culpable for it.

Crudely put: We're not responsible for our desires; we're responsible for how we act on our desires. This study doesn't change that.

Now I can sympathize with a certain skittishness over at Towleroad, where comboxer Joshyboy wonders if all this research will be misused.

Although it's an exciting prospect to think that there could be scientific data that will make a strong case to show that being gay is a natural occurance. I am secretly praying that there isn't a gay "gene".

Just think, if it turns out to be the case - super conservatives will label being gay as a "genetic disorder"! They will find ways of isolating this "gene" and eliminating it in young children or even unborn babys, effectively "curing" the child of potential homosexuality...my thinking is that it all leads to a very scary place.

I can't speak for all conservatives, but I can assure Joshyboy that orthodox Catholics will defend the rights of anyone with the "wrong" genetic or epigenetic material.

The study will be published soon enough. When it does come out, I hope people will take the long view.

Want to Do Something Constructive about LGBTQ+ Pride Events?

Around this time of year I hear a fair amount of grumbling from social conservatives understandably dismayed that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, you-name-it Pride parade takes over the downtown core for an afternoon. If you wish to safeguard your kids' innocence, it's a good day to avoid the area altogether. And in cities such as ours the Pride Parade is only the very visible climax of a whole week of events celebrating queer sexuality.

What can you do about Pride? You can choose some form of private fasting or sacrifice and join in prayers of reparation.

Now in its very final stretch is a campaign, sponsored by Courage Toronto and EnCourage Toronto, of Prayers of Reparation for Pride Toronto 2012.

Courage is the official Catholic apostolate for persons with same-sex attraction (SSA); within that, EnCourage is the official Catholic apostolate for loved ones of persons with SSA. In the Archdiocese of Toronto, these are the only approved ministries concerned with SSA. The two groups collaborate in the Courage Reparational Group Toronto, a group of men and women who desire to unite themselves with Our Lord particularly in their weakness while praying for the conversion and healing of those who struggle with same-sex desires.

The campaign is based on a "theology of weakness." Says the founder of the original Courage Reparational Prayer Group, "We offer up our own pain and struggle, and unite it with the passion of Jesus to bring life to others. It gives meaning to our suffering."

The Toronto campaign, which has drawn volunteers from around the world, covers the 240 hours from the opening of Pride Toronto 2012, which took place at 8:00 am Friday, June 22, until 8:00 am Monday, July 2. (This runs after the official close of Pride, but the parties planned for after the parade surely present many occasions of sin.) Key events such as the Pride Parade called for extra volunteers. There's a sign-up sheet where you can commit to an hour praying in the presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle (or better yet, at Exposition).

At the core are three prayer intentions:

Charity: We repent of any ways in which persons with SSA or gender identity conflicts have been the object of unjust discrimination, including violent malice in speech or in action, and have been abandoned, rejected, or denied unconditional love. We affirm that there is a place in the Church for persons with SSA and gender identity conflicts, who are included in the universal call to holiness.

Clarity: We repent of any distortions of Church teaching as properly expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2357 to 2359. We affirm that same-sex acts cannot be approved under any circumstances; that same-sex inclinations are objectively disordered, a sign of concupiscence and not in and of themselves sinful; and that persons, regardless of their inclinations and acts, are made in the image of God, have intrinsic dignity, and are to be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Chastity: We repent of any sins against God’s plan for male and female complementarity and the gift of human life, including, but not limited to immodesty, masturbation, artificial birth control and artificial reproductive technologies, abortion, pornography, sexual abuse, adultery, fornication, polygamy, prostitution, no-fault divorce, and same-sex acts. We affirm the unitive and procreative meanings of authentic married love; and the treasure of holy celibacy as lived by single persons, religious, and priests.

Many pro-family people have been inspired by the example of 40 Days for Life, in which prayer vigils are held outside abortion clinics. Sometimes 40 Days yields a visible result such as a mother giving the thumbs up to declare she's chosen to keep the baby, a driver who stays seated in her parked car and then drives away without having gone into the building, a passerby who unburdens himself about the child he paid to have killed twenty years ago, . . . but often we won't find out in this lifetime what effect our prayers have had.

If you pray for the intentions listed in reparation for Pride, the results will tend to be ones you won't be present to see with your own eyes. A troubled high school student who is consoled by the memory of a kind word when she is feeling harassed and unloved. A cruising ground aficionado who, after yet another episode of meaningless sex, asks himself, "What am I doing here?" A gay activist who, looking for ammunition against those dreadful Catholic bigots, decides to inspect the Catechism for himself. Trust that God will use your prayers!

I know from previous years that I tend to feel a spiritual heaviness from this season's continual social pressures to accept gay ideology. What a relief then to cast such troubles at the foot of the Cross! I can attest how much better I feel having taken extra advantage of the opportunity to adore the Blessed Sacrament this week. It is such a privilege to intercede for people who experience same-sex attraction (whether or not they're trying to practise chastity).

Thanks, by the way, to SoCon for promoting the campaign.

Note: If you've read this post too late to sign up for the Toronto campaign, plenty of other cities have Pride events for which reparational prayers would help. Why not start an international campaign of prayer for your own city?

Interview with Michael Coren about Pride

Today I talked with Sun News Network's Michael Coren on his show, The Arena, about my attitudes to Pride and same-sex relationships. I used to treat Pride as a kind of holy day of obligation for myself, and I objected when gay acquaintances announced they had other plans. By the time I last attended, though, in 2000, after my conversion was well underway, I had major reservations about the event. I was so uncomfortable I realized I could not go back.

As to the headlines, I don't use terms like "reformed homosexual" myself, as the noun tends to reduce a person to a set of sexual inclinations. In a similar way I say in the clip: I'm not gay, I'm not ex-gay; I'm a person who experiences some same-sex attraction.

UPDATE (28 June 2012): Tune in to The Arena tonight when Michael welcomes Melinda Selmys from Sexual Authenticity. While we don't share her vocabulary, we believe she's genuinely trying to think with the mind of the Church as she grapples with interesting questions about identity and desire.

Meanwhile, a reader asked if there's anything I wished I'd said. Second thoughts abound, of course, but if I could do it over I'd be explicit about God. It was the security of a newly rediscovered relationship with God that made it possible for me to look dispassionately at the question of whether gay sex was actually any good for me (or anyone). And has given a community of same-sex-attracted folk the strength to resist the insistent cultural rationalizations for simply yielding to our desires.

I readily acknowledge there can indeed be love between same-sex partners, so it would have been good for me to say that without prompting. But what such a relationship lacks relative to marriage is the fruitful tension arising from sexual complementarity, a tension that draws the husband out of himself and the wife out of herself. (Ending up married not just to a woman but to a real girly-girl has made me especially conscious of this, so she and I will surely have more to say about complementarity in future.)

What I was starting to say when the show ran out of time was that the highest fulfilment of the marital act is the conception of a child. The act itself is oriented towards new life outside ourselves even when circumstances render conception unlikely or impossible, so it calls us to self-giving in a way that an intrinsically, structurally sterile act cannot. And it's in self-giving that any of us, whatever our sexual desires may be, can find fulfilment.

Any further questions, dear viewers, that you'd like to raise?