�鶹��

Available for over a year

This weekend London’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival is taking place. Yesterday on this programme there was a discussion about one of its films. One speaker mentioned some Churches attempting to cure homosexuality through so-called conversion therapy, because they claim being gay is sinful. My church, the Catholic Church, doesn’t as far as I know endorse conversion therapy. But it’s currently embroiled in a row over same-sex blessings after a Vatican department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith affirmed the Church’s historic teaching and put out a statement saying they were unacceptable. It maintains that a couple is blessed through marriage – but at the same time recognizes only heterosexual marriage as part of God’s plan for the world. Meanwhile the Church says that gay individuals should not be rejected. But by denying them when they wish to be with those they love, individuals do feel rejected. Many Catholics felt that under Pope Francis the Church was becoming more humane in its attitude towards gay and lesbian people. After all, Pope Francis famously said “Who am I to judge?” when asked about their status. And in a documentary film being released on Monday he will say that civil unions give gay couples the legal protection they need. Some 30 years ago, a dying work colleague of mine was cared for in his last months by his gay partner. This tender and selfless love was just what Churches advocate as to how we Christians should try to live. Around the same time the late Cardinal Basil Hume was writing about gay people. He was responding to a Vatican document that was highly critical of homosexuality. But Hume said that “In whatever context it arises, and always respecting the appropriate manner of its expression, love between two persons, whether of the same sex or a different sex, is to be treasured and respected”. For many Catholics, Hume’s thoughts struck a chord then and still do today. And those Catholics have expressed great distress at the latest utterances from the Vatican. Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church through what is called the magisterium – the body of its teaching. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t have boundaries. Catholics also believe that the Spirit is to be found in what is called the Sensus Fidelium – the collective thinking of the faithful, the people in the pews. This may be a moment when the Sensus Fidelium urges that theology on this issue develops. That’s in the light of what we now know about what it means to be gay, about human nature and human love. And love, as Cardinal Hume said, is to be treasured.