Love, Same-Sex Attraction, and the Catholic Church: An Interview with Fr. Mike Schmitz

[Music] welcome to another interview here at Brandon vote.com I'm excited to bring to you a friend of mine father Mike Schmitz who you probably recognize if you follow anything Catholic online father Mike is one of the most popular and effective evangelist today especially among young people he speaks quite often across the country at big youth and young adult conferences he's also the director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth in Minnesota and in that diocese he also serves as the campus minister at the Newman Catholic campus ministry for the University of Minnesota Duluth father Mike is the host of Ascension presents where he releases very popular short YouTube videos on different spiritual and theological topics but what we're gonna be talking about today is father Mike's new book it's called made for love same-sex attraction and the Catholic Church and it was just released through Ignatius press and the Augustan Institute so before we begin talking about the book father Mike thanks so much for joining us and welcome Thank You Brandon I really I think I appreciate this opportunity to be with you so thanks a ton well first of all this book is amazing I've been telling everyone that I can about it I think it's the number one go-to book on Catholicism and same-sex attraction I think it's certainly the first book that you would want to give to a same-sex attracted person who's also trying to be a faithful Catholic but before we get into the content of the book itself let me first ask why this book I mean what provoked you to write on this subject how did it come about yeah well a thank you for reading it and thank you for that I you know it's funny because ever since I was relatively young I would say maybe maybe teenage years for sure college but but but teenagers I had this awareness that there were some people in my life that I always wondered like I wonder if you know I wonder if this person could experience same-sex traction I wonder if this person you know and so I was also there was that experience of having this question of okay there's people I love and and I think that this might be a reality in their life and then saying okay well how would I explain you know for as a Catholic how would I how would I give any kind of explanation of the church of teachings or here's why or here's what you can do how would I reach out and so this is actually it started from the heart and so it it's kind of interesting because I think a lot of times people will if they know that I've spoken on this topic or if they now written on the topic they would immediately think okay you don't even know anybody who experiences this like how many people do you I'm like well actually the reason I even care about this started 25 years ago when I was like man I want to be able to be in this person's life so I need to know I need to know their heart I need to know what God's heart is on this topic and I really need to know how to explain this because he's at the point at that moment I was like iyx I don't know I don't I don't know how to how how would I explain this and so the book comes out out of all of that actually there's an intermediate step along the way the intermediate step was then I was ordained a priest and I have been working had been working in the in the role that I have now as being a on campus chaplain as well as the director of youth ministry for our diocese and what I saw was there were a ton of really faithful young adults our youth they have encountered the Lord they knew the truth of the Eucharist they knew the truth the church but then something would happen when they would run up against this issue that they would just say that would be they pull the pull the shoot me like yeah I'm out I'm done you know because there was this myth I think probably a misrepresentation of what the church is real teaching in real heart is not just the mind but the what's the heart of the church on this when it comes to people who have this is their experience and I found so many of them saying like okay I'm done that um it was a gosh I don't even know how long ago is now but I was asked to go give a presentation at the net Center and that stands for the National evangelization team down in st. Paul and they said fellow Mike what do you want to preach what do you want to speak on to these you know 1500 2000 kids I said you know this is the thing so it's been on my heart that's we losing so many really amazing faithful young people to this issue because I don't think there's an understanding so I gave a talk that talk became a CD through lighthouse and it's called from love by love for lovin so the nation saw it and said you know what can you make a book out of this talk and they convinced me that was no problem and super easy to do which I found out is not true but the but I was like you know actually I deferred maybe two or three times I said I don't know I mean I there's a talk there but I don't know if I'm the person you know I don't know if I'm the the right person to write this and they're relatively persistent and and I'm grateful that I did down but yeah that's kind of had the genesis of the whole deal you know I'm glad you mentioned that it came about through a lot of these personal experiences you've had over the years but what I found is that this topic has fascinated me not just because I also have same-sex attracted friends and people I love but also because in the last couple years it seems it's emerged as an evangelical issue it's been a stumbling block preventing people from encountering the Lord it's often presented as as a purely moral issue that we need to get people behaving the right way otherwise their souls may be in jeopardy and that that's true I deeply about the moral dimension but I care almost as much about the evangelistic dimension that this seems to be a major obstacle keeping people from from following the Lord at have you experienced the same thing that in fact that you just just framed it that way absolutely so what even like when I find myself speaking on this topic or having conversations or writing a book on the topic it's all about what I see is our parents our culture or someone's experience has made this into an obstacle to following Jesus and so that and that's it it's like well I can't follow Jesus why because if I did then you know blank I'd have to cancel out my deepest identity if they were making their deepest identity being their attraction and so and so part of the initiative the movement behind or the motivation behind this was to be able to exactly what you're saying is to be able to offer there's there's hope exactly in fact there been a number of people who have contacted me since who looked at kind of advance copies or have kind of heard some talks that I'd say this you know very similar things that are written in the book who have said likes it's one of the things I've said in the past is I cannot wait until the church canonize is someone who you know it is known to be to experience seems extraction now I have to always clarify what I mean by all those things like that know they didn't act on it they were chased and whatnot but the reason why is because the Catechism even says is that that men and women who experience same-sex attraction that the Lord is still calling them to be Saints he's still calling them to the heights of holiness and I think the experience though of so many people is well know I'm disqualified if this is my experience and this is who I am and you don't want me like you Church you don't want me God by extension you don't want me which is why I think so many people who make this kind of a stand that says God doesn't make junk you know so God made you intentionally you know this way or that way I think that's why they have such a it's so compelling is because I think the wound is know Jesus must not want me the church must not God must not want me and so when you have someone come along and say no no actually God made you and purpose with this attraction then on one hand it's good because it's it it hopefully heals some of the heart wound on the other hand it's bad because it's theologically wrong or incorrect but that's what I find is so often someone says this experience of mine a is my identity and so therefore B I must not be wanted by God or by His Church in the introduction to the book you recount a conversation with quote-unquote the most important person in your life you don't identify who it is but someone very close to you and this person came out to you and admitted that he was gay but then you asked him this question you said what are you gonna do now and he kind of wasn't sure what you meant by that but you say in the book this is the question faced by every man woman who experiences same-sex attraction what are you gonna do now what do you mean by that and why is it such a pressing question yeah and that's a great question of yours about this question um there's a chapter in the book about acceptance and the virtue of acceptance and what I mean by the virtue is acceptance of acceptance is something I got from Father shoot a Romana Gordini that's it father in regard to Cardini he really wrote about that any growth in the spiritual life begins or every spiritual growth in the spirits life begins by first accepting the reality of your present situation and or even you know expecting the real accepting the reality of your past of your story of what brought you to your present situation because he says until then until that moment I can I can approach the Lord but I'm not approaching the Lord as me are approaching the Lord as the person I think he wants me to be or as someone I think I should be or but not as as me with all my wounds and all my issues and all these kind of things might my history my sins and so acceptance being this first movement well here this this man had experienced acceptance in this area like yeah so this is this is part of my story this is part of my experience is that I experienced same-sex attraction and he said it as if it was like so there's the conclusion that's the end of the story and and so my question of like okay that that's where you're at that's accepting where you're at now but now were you gonna go from here like what are you gonna do with this because I think it's I think there's something in our culture that it has this we have this tendency towards exceptionalism and that exceptionalism is ya X Y or Z is right or wrong and so you know it's always wrong to you know steal or it's always want to lie or it's always right to you know be kind and generous whatever but we have this tendency to say but in but in this case and my actually it's in my case like I'm kind of the exception to the to the rule or it's what I find is sometimes people say well my experience with same-sex attraction makes me the exception and so I because he even said it like what do you mean I I just told you hi I'm gay like well no you just simply told me your experience you just somebody told me that your you've accepted here is my attraction but now I want to know what are you gonna do with this attraction because in the in this case you know here's a man who I know knows who Jesus is I know has been convicted of the truth about that he founded a church and I know all these things is a good-hearted human being and so I'm like okay what are you gonna do with that cuz it's not just one piece of information I experienced this it's also a whole world of information of I experienced this and the Lord calls me to chastity and I know this is true and he's made me on purpose and yet at the same time we're falling because this is a broken world and you know all these kind of things to be able to say okay now what are you gonna do with the whole story not just with this one part of the story that were tempted in our culture to say that is my deepest identity when it when it just isn't I was recently talking with a Catholic school teacher and she told me that on the first day of school she passed out little note cards I think these kids are maybe you know eight ten maybe young teenagers I can't remember the age exactly passed of all these note cards as you've said I want you to write down the first things that you think about when you hear the word Christianity so just basic word association right so many of the responses predictably people wrote down Jesus or baptism or whatever right she said the two most common responses were anti abortion and anti gay and she said one kid wrote both of those anti-abortion anti-gay and that's it that's all he wrote down and she asked him you know why why the only those two and he said I couldn't think of anything else when I thought of the word Christianity which I mean it's just heartbreaking for ya people like you and I but I think this is the common cultural view of especially the Catholic Church but Christianity in general that Catholicism is anti-gay that it's judgmental that it condemns gay people that wishes they don't exist we hear all of these accusations regularly what do we do with that how would you begin to respond to some of these sentiments yeah that's a great question because I think because there is this kind of the air you breathe kind of a like the the it's the it's the assumption it's the everyone knows that fill-in-the-blank syndrome like well everyone knows that the church is anti whatever everyone knows the church hates gays and then you all of a sudden you I didn't finish kind of the earlier the earlier I didn't finish the story about having in the book this section of Center Aparna took part of trying to say I'm looking forward to the first canonized Saint who experienced names distraction and I've had numbers people come up and say when you said that I was like I'm gonna be that one I'm gonna be the saint like I'm gonna be the one who gives their entire life for Jesus and lives my entire life for Jesus so much so but you know I'm not gonna act on this attraction but I mean I'm gonna act on the call of Jesus and so what I one of the things I what's going to happen and I know what's gonna happen is more and more men and women who experience same-sex attraction but who are faithful Catholics will recognize a call and it has this has to be super Prudential this has to be like very personal and very careful will more and more identify themselves as someone who experiences same sister action but someone who's also choosing Jesus and chastity when we have that what we'll see is I'll wait so you don't they hit sell the place of course they have a place and that sense of one of the actually one of the working titles for the book was it is good that you exist that was gonna be like the title but that's a little bit cumbersome coming out of the mouth and so it's but one of the messages of the book is it's good do you exist there is so much you know in speaking with so many people who experience him see attraction there's so much hurt there's so much brokenness and it's not doesn't even necessarily come from people in their lives pointing a finger and accusing them maybe no one's ever said anything negative ly to them about sexual identity or sexual experience but there's a lot of interior guilt and not or in any guilt there's another interior shame or self accusation that says I'm less than I'm a mistake I wish I was never born and I've talked to so many people who they say you know at some point of their life that's what they were saying because I want to follow Jesus but look here's what I'm at and it's to those people who have such good hearts and such hurt in their past to be able to say no no actually the church says it is good that you exist and we want you because if the church truly is not only the body of Christ but also the family of God which is a was used a ton during the Second Vatican Council if the church truly family of God that means it's like it has to be like a real family which means that we have a ton of good and we have a bunch of bad we have weeds in wheat and we have people who are in process and I just think that's that's such a huge thing to be able to recognize that well all of us I guess are in process and to say to someone okay let's keep walking with you then you're still invited to dinner you're still invited to to share the our life together and I I think they don't I'm kind of waxing poetic a little bit of a road map that maybe I'm rambling that's the word the fancy way to save is rap backing palenik but I think that one of the messages we need to reveal to the world is not a giant no and it's not this kind of like rejection that's one of the reasons why there are some people out there who are who have you know spoken or written from a kind of Catholic perspective who have said we need to build bridges way and we need to do this because why because they've encountered a lot of people who say all the Catholic Church says is no and I think the true message of the Catholic Church is the message of Jesus which is know come follow me you can I want you like I'm actually after you and ultimately that is good you exist please be mine one thing I love about your book and it's a little different than a lot of other recent books coming out on faith and homosexuality is that you do have a lot of the theory and the abstract you know pondering but there's a really really practical section at the back of the book which is just a question-and-answer session and you you quickly but but substantially go through some of these very common questions we've all heard them we've all asked we're all wondering what to do how to answer them but you tackle a bunch of them and so I was hoping here for the next few questions here we could go through some of these common questions people are asking ok so first up what do you do if a loved one comes out to you as gay or lesbian they have this conversation you had with the most important person in your life maybe whether it's expected or unexpected they just they just tell you this is something that I'm that's part of my life that that is maybe even part of my identity what do you say what's the first move for you yeah I would say that in that kind of situation this person has just entrusted to you it just entrusted you with something that is is very very dear is very precious when I say precious I mean it's it's uh it's close to their heart they agnew know one way to say it might be they've just entrusted you with a very very important piece of their heart it's important piece of their story and so they now share this what would your response be if someone handed you something that you realized was very important very precious very valuable but also very fragile because at that moment what someone's oftentimes doing is they're presenting themselves it's not just here's some information about me by the way you know I also was born in December and I like long walks on the beach it's it's something very important and I've just entrusted this to you and your response now is going to be either it's gonna be ingrained in my heart in my mind in my memory is that response one of love or is that response one of rejection because there are there are so many people men and women who have come out to family members to friends and the immediate thing was what they received ileus but they were perceived was was rejection was discussed now what it might have actually been was concerned I might have been fear it might have been not knowing what to do and I got dog people on the other end you know who've received that that news like I I don't know what to do and so they panic but it I talked to people who was awful to have awful stories of being kicked out of their homes sort of being of the families you know there the parents tell their siblings don't talk to so-and-so ever again and that's just that's not the right so what is the right the right is I I acknowledge the fact this is valuable information that comes right from your heart and this is a you've just done me the honor of sharing a part of your heart with me so at this moment you probably don't need me to give any kind of lesson probably don't need me to say anything with regard to but you know the church teaches but I think at this moment you just need me to see you and that's one of the things as I know I remember talking to a man who said growing up that being surrounded by loving family going to youth group being in a church that really loved and cared about him and even being a really talented skilled like a man that a young man that people just liked a lot but he would cry he weep I mean tell his mom and mom who said what are you talking about like what what is going on like everyone loves you and he would say but if they if they really knew me they wouldn't and this is this this like heartbreaking moment that I think so many people who experience same-sex attraction have gone through its this yet everything on the surface can be like I can be successful and people can like me people can know me and whatever there's kind of things but if they really if they knew this one thing about me they would instantly reject me yeah I know they'll I know you let me down but if you knew this you wouldn't love me anymore and so knowing that what's my response my response is gonna be oh I need to remind you in this moment and now just share this valuable and possibly fragile thing with me I need you to know that that has not changed my love for you I think that's one of the most important parts right away here's another quick question from your book what if somebody comes to you and they say I'm gay this is part of my identity this is who I am and if you don't embrace this homosexual identity then you don't really love me because this is who I am do you say to that that's a really good question because what's happening where it comes from is that I is that connection between my attraction and my deepest identity in because of that work almost kind of put in a little bit of a bind that that bind being that you that then I have to say I see your deepest identity as this attraction as well but I think as not Nigel I was gonna say ask Catholics bad thing I don't think just as Catholics I think as human beings who love other human beings there is virtually nothing that we would say this one element of your experience or of your character or who you are that completely defines you and and gives you your identity I mean as Christians we would say being adopted sons and daughters of God is maybe the one thing it's important that defines us more than anything else but but to say this one attraction defines me and gives me my identity I think if you were to stop and just actually you know in a moment of calm now you're not right away but in moment of calm to be able to say um can I question that like can I can I challenge that I want to see you you know Jonathan has more than I want to see it's more like I want to actually have a relationship with a human being who might also experience same-sex attraction do I have to just see you as your sexuality do I just have to do I have to just see you as Jonathan the gay man or are you gonna from now on gonna be Jonathan my gay friend can't you just be Jonathan my friend and there's C in that what's happened is I think most people of like a goodwill and whatnot who aren't in a place of because now if Jonathan our friend here is is still in a place of woundedness and still in a place where he's challenging your love from that might not be the right moment to kind of push back a little bit but if he's in a place of relative security I think he would say you know you're right actually I do want you to treat me like a friend not your gay friend because why because every one of us know is that we want to be truly known not just caricatured and and I think that when we give ourselves a label like it or not whether the label is awesome or the label is is awful I think we caricature ourselves so here's this your friend who says this is who I Deepa my deepest identity therefore if you don't accept the label or don't accept the identity my attraction you're not accept you're rejecting me first thing would try to be at some point to establish that distinction between my experience and my identity but the second thing would if there's a relationship going on would be the asked as the most polite gentle and whatever way possible real way possible are you saying that I have to accept everything about you including your identity and celebrate it but you're not willing to accept everything about me which me which might be like my having an opinion about this topic which might my opinion might be your sexual attraction is not your identity so it's kind of like a almost a trying to say can can we have a two-way street here can we actually basically can we have a relationship or is it just you telling me what how I need to behave and I you know I mean in so many words does that makes any sense that come across the right way I'm not sure yeah it totally did I think that's very helpful I found that this is often the central point of discontent whenever we associate our attraction with their identity you can't move forward from there and so that link is the one that needs to be addressed and broken if we're gonna make progress in our relationship yeah yeah I totally agree because then also it makes this obstacle for what I would just call common sense so even though it's all those questions that last chapter I had originally I'm not sure if it's still in the final draft but I'd put in a like all of these questions and answers or the answers to all these questions are really just common sense if you just substitute someone saying I'm gay for anything else you would know exactly what to do like you you bit oh it's really clear but again this kind of sense of like this is my identity now and I'm like wow I can't have an opinion about your identity I can't have a I can't challenge your identity which makes sense I guess it was accurate but if it's actually I want to call you on and I want to actually have a relationship with you Jonathan you know and that's a I mentioned this in this in the book too at one point there's some siblings involved and and there's a sibling who said well you know mom and dad had better uh they better I just want them to change or something like this they better accept me and his sister said uh yeah that's not gonna happen and and he said what are you talking about and she said if they love me they'll accept me and she said it so rightly so wisely like spoken to his into his heart to his mind and she said are you telling me that you you want mom and dad to accept you for who you are and what you believe but you're not willing to accept them unless they change who they are and what they believe and he was like uh anyway I mean to his credit was like yeah I can't do that can i and it was it was such a good breakthrough moment this clear someone who's common sense who loves him just kind of spoke into this and said we still love you but listen we will change or we will not change but we'll continue to love you that's not even that's not even on them that's not even up for a debate but we question is will you still love us and that's Matt that can kind of gets to the heart of a lot of these things it's like no no what I'm looking I'm gonna continue to love you will you continue to love me okay here's another question another popular common one hear it all the time usually whenever the church comes up in the news or the churches protesting attempts to legalize same-sex marriage inevitably someone will throw down the Pope Francis card where they're in their early interview on the airplane he said you know Who am I Who am I to judge you know or they'll say Jesus himself said judge not so why is the church judging LGBT people what do you say to that yeah that's a great question I think Pope Francis is taken out of context a number of times and that in that quote I believe he was spawning - it was a question about a priest right I I think slowly I was a priest who was accused of being in a same-sex relationship who was involved in the Vatican bureaucracy right and this had been like 20 or 30 years prior and apparently to all accounts this man had repented of his unchastity and the breaking is about two celibate promise of celibacy and was living a chaste life and and so here he has a position in the Vatican what about this guy who has this history of XY and Z working the Vatican Who am I to judge meaning on the surface everything we know about this man is that he is a celibate and he's serving the Lord as best he can like that's what the context as I understand it is so the who might to judge is not I don't think this is wrong who might a judge is actually it seems like this man all that we know is he's growing forward in growing with the Lord the judge not that our Lord commands us to judge not is he's talking specifically I know you know this Brandon he's talking specifically about what we don't know which is the human heart because in that same sermon on Sermon on the Mount Jesus it essentially commands us to judge as well he says you'll know a tree by its fruit and you have to be able to stay away from you no false prophets stay away from and like Wade saying if I'm gonna call prophet false that means I have to judge whether that prophet is true prophet or a false prophet what's the difference the difference is we can only judge what we know I can never judge what I don't know it's what I can know where I can see is I can see okay these are some actions as person is is taking and those are actions that are inconsistent with the Lord's teaching or the church is teaching okay so I can judge that that this is a life that's not living in consistency with following after the Lord what I can judge is what I don't know which is the heart of that person and I think every single one of us when we're really honest with ourselves we recognize that there's a radical difference and we see it really clearly I think I think it's really easy to see in other area yeah I totally agree let's wrap up here with a final question maybe a few closing words let me put you in this hypothetical scenario so imagine you're sitting face-to-face with a same sac same-sex attracted person who is also trying to be faithful to Jesus and the church and you and you just have a couple minutes with them maybe they've just revealed to you that they have a same-sex attraction so what guiding words would you offer them yeah and then when this happens to me on a regular basis regular basis and it's so is one of the persons I do is want to encourage I sometimes wish my name is Barnabas because I just what a gift in the New Testament to T'Pol Barnabas must amend his name means sudden of encouragement because I want to encourage that a it's good that you exist be this is amazing that the Lord has placed his love and a love for him in your heart that don't don't brush by that that's not a small thing that is a gift of it's a miracle that you recognize and are responding to God's love in your life and you want to like what do i do would I would I take these next steps where I'm supposed to go so those that first of affirmation good that you exist secondly this encouragement of like pointing out that this is God working in your life that third thing is um so I would like to do what I do is then ask them the question like what what do you think or where are you at is there anything you want to share with me about this because I could have you know how frustrating it is when someone answers a question that you didn't ask and so I could give all this advice about here's what you should do next next next but the real thing is okay so I don't know what firm you I want to encourage you to continue following the Lord but you have any fears about like what are you thinking what are you afraid of right now because he is it when you said when he told me this I kind of noticed that it seemed like you were a little bit maybe a little angry still so want to talk about that and so a lot of times I'll just again as I said I'll firm I'll encourage but then I'll ask [Music] how are you doing with this because you're my brother or you're my sister in the Lord and God has a plan for you and that plan is to be a saint so how can how do you want me to help you right now I think that's where how I typically run those conversations if I if run a conversation is a phrase that I'd like to use it good well listen thanks so much father Mike for joining us and sharing us about your new book and I want to encourage everyone watching this listen there's been a lot of books in the last several years that have come out on this topic even more even specifically on Catholicism and homosexuality or Catholicism and in same-sex attraction I've read many of them I've reviewed several of them here on the blog this one's the best one this one's the best one and I mean that for several reasons I think it captures the right balance between the compassion the sensitivity toward people with same-sex attraction but also the the doctrinal and the intellectual explanations of what the Church teaches and why and so if there's one book you want to get on this topic this is the one this is the one so again it's called made for love same-sex attraction and the Catholic Church it's published by Ignatius press and the Augusta Institute and again father Mike thanks so much for joining us really appreciate it oh it's my honor Brandon thank you [Music]

Channel: Brandon Vogt

Views: 54,810

Keywords: Homosexuality, Catholicism, Catholic Church, LGBT, Love, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents

Id: oXcFVwq3epo

Length: 34min 50sec (2090 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2018