Can Someone be "Born Gay?" W/ Fr. Mike Schmitz

because I have have students who come and they're like I just want to know lay down here for me what do you guys believe about this or what do you believe about this and like okay in this one conversation that we get I'm going to go through the thing but I'm not gonna say well we're gonna look here at Leviticus 18 and we're gonna look over here Romans chapter 1 what I want to do is say okay tell me about yourself how is it going yes and just not how's it going you know I'm saying I think taking a holistic interest in the person coming to you not dealing with them as a problem or a problem they have you know external to who they are as a human well that's it yeah and that's called doing I mean that's evangelizing right yes to Friendship every person is called yeah exact people don't send me like how can I help my friend and struggles with porn and you say I say we'll take a holistic interest in their life like what books do they like what Netflix shows are they watching what are they doing next summer well they afraid of like you ought to be interested in them not know how you can fix this part of them yeah and that in the long run will actually be more effective because they'll trust that you love them and what they're good and I wonder if that's part of what he's trying to get at when he says things like God made you this way and there's that because that that's so that's so distorted and it's so destructive just tell us why explain why basically undercuts one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity which is original sin and their recognition that while we're made good we also have the original wound there's there is this tendency that not everything that I want is the right thing not everything just because I experienced in a dryad desire attraction to something doesn't mean that God wants that for me and so like nobody this is deep-seated this is this is ingrained in me this is I've never known not this therefore God in His perfect will made me and this made me this particular way he's like wait so that means that sin means nothing sin is is any sense right because you I'm tempted to look at porn name and made any sense that the distill mhm yeah I have an inclination to chill my anger like yeah I've always been I have always had a short Irish temper exactly who I am and that sense of saying that ultimately you move from which is a positive move acceptance which is okay knowledge about myself I've always struggled with hiding let's go back to the another topic I go I struggled with hiding but I but that's acceptance okay what'll I do with that like in ignite to turn to the Lord to into the church to say what do I do with this turn to the wisdom of the people around me and wisdom of the Ancients to say okay when I'm sure when I experience this thing what is a wise way forward versus I accept this and now accepting it means that I act on it yeah and that's completely different and no one I mean I want to say it's so destructive is let's say just got maybe this way a cuz I'm billion god B because then now I need to find some I don't need to find I have justification for anything I act on yeah as opposed to acknowledges than myself and now I bring it to the Lord yeah again not as a false self but this is really what's inside me one is a way that tries to twist what I find as shame into an app now what I celebrated myself and the other is here's what I find a shame I'm gonna invite the Lord into it to do something with it what is it weather whatever that is to hold me in the midst of it so that I recognize that I'm not identified with my shame because think about the move from shame to pride is I still identified with it like that's still me yeah what I saw is my greatest shame it's now my greatest pride as opposed to this isn't defined me this could be a part of my experience as part of my reality but it doesn't give me my identity and this is the big thing I in the book I was trying to talk about this is like the difference between experience and identity okay so what experience in our life would you ever advocate someone to say you had this experience therefore that is you there's no experience that we'd ever like you know I'm a man I'm an egg I'm angry therefore I'm an angry person like well no you wouldn't say do that I smoked her alright well separate yeah exactly I think that one of the more profound examples I think at least if someone who's been abused hmm that's a it's a big thing that affects one's whole life I can see affects how I look at myself how I see other people how I say God but you wouldn't say yeah that's who you are someone abused you you are an you are a victim and now that's your activist identity because you've never known any relationship that wasn't ain't advice you've never known any prayer that was untainted by this you never known anything that wasn't affected by this you would never encourage someone to use that experience as their identity the response though is these examples you've brought up are all negative experiences hopelessness oh sorry homelessness smoking being abused and what they'll say is your belief that homosexual acts are disordered just comes from your Christian upbringing which is based on a false puritanical religion anyway what you don't understand father Mike is that acting this way is actually a beautiful thing I'm acting out of a good part of me the truest part of me it's not a response to a trauma I've received rather it's when I began engaging in who I truly am when I came out and told people that this is how I've always been and entered into a loving gay relationship that I that I found a freedom that I've never had before and that's what you're telling me is wrong and so to equate that with these negative experiences is is the problem you have not yet what I have that makes sense and I would say two things to that one is there's a difference between relief and freedom so yeah if I spent my a lot of part of a large part of my life living under the the shame of secrecy living under the shame of like I don't want someone to find this find this out I just I'm dealing with this or I'm wrestling with it privately or yeah I'm feeling the weight and then I could to this place where I've come out and I'm met with welcome I met with the community I met with someone who cares about me and knows this about me because I mean so many people's stories are they just can't find this out about me if they if the people who claim to let me found this out they wouldn't love me anymore and then someone comes out and they find welcome and they find it people do love them that's a relief I'm not living under this shadow under this secret anymore but relief is not the same thing as freedom and relief is not the same thing is actual true peace it feels like peace and it can feel like some freedom to a certain degree but I would I would wonder I would just ask the question is it real now freedom or is it just the fact that you're no longer living in shame which is not something that the Lord or the church was asking you to do in the first place so to play devil's advocate the response might be your psychologizing you were telling me that my experience of freedom is relief but you don't know me yeah and it's also kind of condescending to think that I'm not sophisticated enough to know the difference they could say yes I agree with you that there was a sense of relief and coming out and finding a supportive community and now that that relief has passed I have entered into a deeper freedom than ever and that's a good point and I would acknowledge that like again I wouldn't want it that's one of the things when people say oh criticize me if I believe someone who says that I've always felt this way but yeah I believe that no no no no came from something else I'm like no I I can only trust their experience if someone reports to me here's what they have experienced then like yeah I'm not gonna argue with with that I'm like I say no no no this comes from your father or comes from whatever so you're absolutely right I wouldn't argue with that but I like what you said if you're counseling someone given the fact that you're coming from the premise that this this behavior is wrong yeah then I like what you said I can at least ask the question well yeah you're not telling them you're trying to make there's a distinction here it would be like if tomorrow I can't this is very this is perhaps dis analogous to maybe to dis analogous to be helpful but suppose I've been having doubts of Christianity for awhile and I've got this bloody show thing and Aquinas stuff and now I'm like I'm I don't think God exists and I'm gonna come out there would be a community online that would really be thrilled if I would do this and would welcome me and would praise me and I would want to kind of come up alongside them and hear what they're saying to offset the disapproving voices so yeah there's that sense of relief I would get that but it wouldn't mean freedom also would mean that this battle that you've been engaged in there's a release is really exactly there's no I'm no longer fighting this thing just a relief yeah relief and so yeah lay down my arms and I've laid it down on this one side yep as opposed to okay I have to keep going it's like someone whose would say again it's a negative example but I been really having a tough time of my marriage and our family duties and kids at home and stuff and this other person has been very very attractive to him and just you know what when I do if I can get fully a lot free and I've never felt this way with that with my my current wife if I'm not with my kids and I feel like I have to be someone else but now I don't have to be someone else with her I get to be really who I really am you say okay there's a certain feeling of freedom the certain feeling of release relief because why because I've given in to something that I was battling with that I well you know it's good on this is excellent yeah and then the question is what does God want me to be unhappy I think sometimes you say yes very much yes he would rather you be unhappy and faithful now yeah then happy now and wrong and Damned and destroyed family well even that sense of like going back to the example you had mentioned before I said there's two things one is possibly freedom is mister undescribed or freedom might be word for it I could also say this is really for release the other thing would be someone reports and says I'm in a loving relationship and you don't you're conflating an addiction to Prague Rafi it's to this relationship that is that brings me out of myself yeah that I feel I know I'm welcomed I know I'm known I'm cared for I'm loved like so good I remember the bunch of years ago there was a talk I gave on a college campus and after the talk this young woman stood up like father Mike I you - I remember she said used to I used to listen to your homily podcast all through high school like okay what's coming now and she said and thank you for your talk he's a really respectful I wish I always appreciate this she's like I've been dating this woman for however long and she makes me more generous she makes me more patient she makes me a better person all these kind of things and what do you say to that and I remember I was like well actually everything you described I want to affirm everything you described is it sounds like a good relationship where this person is calling you out of yourself this person is making you more generous more patient you have to die to yourself you have to truly choose to love them in so many ways everything you describe the church can affirm what you haven't described is a genital sexual relationship and that's what the church would say is problematic so it's so when someone says but look at all these great things and say everything you pointed to we would say yes it's this particular expression that we'd say and at this point is where love stops and in some way you creeps in and we can say that but any different relationship that you'd say I love what you've said before we've been on a panel discussion before a single conference and I remember you said this is not us right and then right it's just us can you talk about that and that's and that's the distinction is I think in so many ways we okay this whole different topic but what I keep calling in my mind I tend to tarry anism and when that is is I get my identity from the group I'm part of and so my identity is on part of this group so I am either my race or I am my gender or I am my class or I am my nationality whatever that thing is like that is my deepest thing and everyone else is other yeah that's why you talked about like or people in our culture now talk about like you knows what communism started creepin always honestly the evil of communists people talk about being other denotes that sense of like oh your other INGOs people people like okay yes and the church others them because they're not part of the Group fine but here's what the church actually does the church never approaches groups search only approaches individuals and the Lord doesn't love y'all I was the Lord loves you specifically and so that sense of like when we evangelize when we approach people or a relationship when doing ministry it's not who you are your group and now how do i as a my group talk to you as your group so how do I so white heterosexual male talk to you like you know here's this african-american homosexual female like no how do how does father Mike talk to Jane you know as opposed to because okay so other so then we tend to at least use words that say well those people like so here you and I were talking right now and whoever is watching or listening to this would say there you are - sis exactly great white males you know from the Western world who have this vision talking about these people who aren't in the room with them and so it's they are talking about that these others and we are talking about them and as long as we do that we will get anywhere because ultimately what happens is it's us in them it's there for a lot of our conversations maybe we've failed and up to this point I have to be it's all about us in that sense of you I have wounds that you don't have and you have one said I don't have you have strengths I don't have an I have strengths you don't have and someone who wrestles with or experiences at same-sex attraction is not something I experience or struggle with but that doesn't mean that their author I think I don't want to say this like this it's just like it's not them it's just us was it first Corinthians that says there's no trial that's come upon you that's not common to all human beings looks like okay no trial meaning everyone has their thing and that it's just like I don't know I don't know I mean that's I'm singing inelegantly I know well let me tell you an inelegant story that I think speaking to what you're saying I was a student book conference and after the talk a teenager came up to me and we were chatting for a while and he shared with me that he had same-sex attraction now this can be this might be misunderstood but I'm gonna try and set as was like I get that if somebody's experiencing this that this is a very profound part of them and it ought to be respected and received and reverenced but for whatever reason I mean I said I said okay you think you're special you know think I have that I'm dealing with and I bet I hugged him you know I think I've hugged him first and it was in that lovely yeah smiling conversation that I was able to then say that but he later told me that that was extinction a book about it in that book he said it was it was the guy who wrote confessions of a gate oh yeah yeah yeah and he said that it was a very liberating kind of mode yeah but it was but I think so he would see that the way I wanted to receive it like I love you I reverence what you're saying dude yeah it's not us and then it's not me and you it's it's it's sauce yeah yeah that's so good and that's I want to say almost everyone who comes and talks to me about this is like yeah and going to like gets another yes um no not like yeah that's just missing the same profound huge you've revealed this to me about yourself but that sense of yeah alright brother and I remember hearing someone say this they and they said when they came out to one of their good friends who said it's Catholic young men the friend said okay if it wasn't this it would be something else yo thanks for watching you can watch the entire episode on youtube if you want you can listen to it at the Matt Fred show by subscribing on iTunes or wherever yet listen to your podcasts and feel free to support me patreon.com slash Matt Fred

Channel: Pints With Aquinas

Views: 511,023

Rating: 4.670506 out of 5

Keywords: Homosexuality, Fradd, Schmitz, Gay, Lesbian, LGBT, Christian, Catholic, Pride, Born Gay, Orthodox, Church, Priest, Fr. Mike, Sex, Sexuality, Chastity, The Bible, Podcast, Teaching, Church Teaching

Id: s3HGxmFEkYg

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019