Message to the Synodal Process

One of the first catechism lessons I had was before I made my First Confession. I was seven years of age at the time. We were taught, that to receive the sacrament worthily, there were four necessary requirements: Confession, Contrition, Satisfaction, and Absolution.

These ‘requirements’ I would suggest are necessary for the Church to receive Forgiveness from the LGBTQIA+ community.

As a gay man and priest, I have worked in the LGBTQIA+ community for over forty years. Most of that time I was ministering and caring for those sick and dying from HIV/AIDS. I witnessed first-hand the soul destruction of gay men dying, by the Church they too loved.

I with thousands of others have waited for the ‘Confession’ by my Church of this sin.

In the 1986 letter on ‘The pastoral care of Homosexual people’ issued by Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul 11, the Church blamed those dying for their disease. This was a new low. The Church does not blame anybody for their illness. Alcoholics are not blamed for kidney cancer or smokers for lung cancer. After telling us as a sexual minority in the same letter, that we are disordered in our nature and evil in our love, this blaming the sick for their sickness was scandalous, causing unspeakable pain to those dying.

I want the Church, to have ‘Contrition’ and confess this sin by saying, ‘Sorry.’ To receive forgiveness, the Church must change this teaching as a matter of urgency. In doing so we would have the ‘Satisfaction’ of knowing that children would no longer be poisoned by such toxic teachings They would be free to access the Love of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church. We as a LGBTQIA+ community would then be free to forgive as we are forgiven.