One of Australia’s leading Catholic leaders has said he is happy for gay and lesbian teens to take same-sex partners to school dances after a Melbourne Catholic school, the Academy of Mary Immaculate, initially stopped a female student from taking another girl to her school formal but then relented after 1250 people signed a petition in support of the student. Academy principal Sister Mary Moloney told “The Age” newspaper that the policy of allowing students to take a same-sex partner to formal dances was now permanent. “The philosophy of allowing students to choose whomever they wish to accompany them to our school formal will continue into the future,” Sister Moloney said. When asked about the controversy Archbishop Denis James Hart told reporters: “these are quite often emotional situations and it’s very important that we always have respect for the dignity of the human being involved.” He continued: “The Catholic Church respects any relationship but always sticks quite firmly with its teaching that a relationship in the eyes of the church is heterosexual, between a male and female, and that is something we would always stand by.”
Author’s note:
This acceptance of “gay” dating by both the school and the Archbishop appears to me to be a clear case collusion in something that is “intrinsically disordered” and an “occasion of sin.” Because, unlike opposite sex dating, which can also certainly lead to either lustful desires or actions, homosexual couplings, no matter how seemingly innocuous, when they originate from a place of “gay,” are completely non-redeemable. And, here, I think the setting is all important, because, although I would personally require that certain safeguards be in place, it’s one matter for a same-sex attracted youth to invite another same-sex attracted youth to, for instance, the movies; but, formal public dances are a different story - as they have very charged romantic connotations in Western society; historically, such social gatherings are community spaces at which young people seek and acquire future mates. Consequently, especially when children are involved, to “accept” the idea of a “gay” date, in particular when the “acceptance” is coming from the Church, is to tragically legitimatize and then confirm the homosexual orientation within the confused person. In addition, the mere occasion of a “gay” date, in my opinion is an offense against “interior chastity.”
Currently, in some sectors of Catholicism, there is a concerted effort to reimagine what it is to experience same-sex attraction as a Catholic – more specifically, to embrace the “gay” orientation and to even self-brand oneself with the “gay” label; part and parcel with this movement is a reconsideration that there is “good” in “gay” and that problems only arise when one is sexually active; therefore, its considerably permissible to hold hands, dance, and even kiss; because, in that mindset, the orientation is not the problem only its implementation or mis-implementation; it’s like the “gay” version of the early-1960s Doris Day outlook that got hot and bothered with Rock Hudson, but always remained in the cool innocent – and, certainly never went all the way. As a form of faux-chastity, it successfully keeps things clean and intact, but it also sets up a later reaction that almost always guarantees a violent swerve into promiscuity and perversity; culturally, this phenomena was seen on a wide societal scale, when, in a matter of a few years, the frigidity of the more conservative 1950s unknowingly created the environment for the growth of the sexual revolution.
What is taking place in Australia, I think, is a rather evident example of false-compassion or false-pastoralism; stating the teachings of the Church, but letting the words immediately dissipate into the miasma; in essence, officially upholding “the rules” while ignoring the spirit and real-world application. This is essentially how I was raised in the parochial school system during the 1970s and 80s: often, the doctrine of the Church was simply regurgitated, but, because of the supremacy of our conscience, we were blindly left to make our own way. In terms of homosexuality, the Holy See under St. John Paul foresaw this growing problem; the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Person,” (1986) in terms of permitting a Catholic school “gay” date, this section is particularly pertinent:
“…we wish to make it clear that departure from the Church's teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral. Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral.”
Therefore, providing a sexually confused teenager, who, is currently almost wholly ruled by overwrought emotions and surging hormones, with a stage and forum to state publicly their homosexual identity is tantamount to institutionalized child abuse. Because, when a child, is convinced enough that he or she is “gay,” by bringing a same-sex partner into the vicious minefield that is high school, the last thing anyone in authority should do is further reconfirm the orientation by becoming weepingly paternalist and sickeningly compassionate; for, this is not compassion, but sheer capitulation to the homosexual agenda.