Read DREADNOUGHTERS' Comments Below and/or Add Your Own V.R.S.N.S.M.V. + S.M.Q.L.I.V.B
Thanks for your though-provoking post. I think it remains open to Catholics to object in good conscience to church teaching. In this lecture published recently in The Tablet, catholic human rights lawyer Aidan O'Neill QC makes a case for principles by which church is able to offer safeguards to those who dissent from the conservative line that homosexuality is sinful and same-sex marriage wrong. He refers to Cardinal Ratzinger, that "over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirements of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of the official church, establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism."
I find all of the aforementioned debate troubling and confronting. First of all Brian, your 'Primacy of Conscience' doctrine, I believe, is complete anathema to the Catholic Church and its teachings. If you are like me, where at the same time you expect and want the Catholic Church to extol the truth, then this 'conscience clause' is ridiculous. What if I, after much rumination and soul searching, decided monotheistic Catholicicism wasn't for me? What if I pick and choose the parts of the Nicene Creed that 'suited me'. Also, I suspect your use of Ratzinger's name was gramatically incorrect or intentionally misleading, as he is an opponent of your ultra liberal concept of conscience.
In every sense homosexual sex is sinful. I try to point this out, of course the retort that comes is that I am not fit to judge. But the Catholic Church is a community, and as a community we should help each other, through mutual spiritual guidance and friendship. I am concerned DREADNOUG
HT celebrates his homosexuality rather than placing it in the 'I am a regretful sinner' category.
It is follish to have a policy of blind tolerance over eccelsiastical obedience, for then what does the Church become? A loose collection of people with vague ideas about doctrine, open to interpretation on the strength of each individual's convictions. The Catholic Church should never reach that point of rampant libertarianism. Unlike your last phrase intimates, I feel you are taking the very easy option NOUGHT. A life of obedient chastity would surely be a hard slog compared to the current pursuit of self contained hedonistic pleasure. Your peculiar position as a tradional Catholic and practicing homosexual seems to be a tangle of contradictions that not even your considerable rhetorical ability can overcome.
"I honestly believe that romance and romantic notions are a nonsense created by heterosexual men to trick heterosexual women into having sex with them. Two men together, freed from the strictures of societal pressure (first dates, third base, engagements, etc. all have layered cultural meanings that do not apply to homosexuals) can happily pair and part with minimal emotional committment."
BTW, that is the kind of post modernist garbage I would expect from an obssesive gender studies lecturer writing a convoluted thesis on 'Lesbianism Conflicting With Modern Culture: Heterosexual Symbols, Practices and Ritual Symbiotically Working Towards Capititalist Oppression of Womyn'.
You seem very cynical about the intentions of heterosexual males.
Sex with my wife is something that I look forward to, but definitely not something I would get married for on it's own. I look forward to companionship, to having someone to curl up with on the couch on a cold day, to waking up next to someone I love every morning, to being able to guiltlessly involve my wife in every aspect of my life. Call those misty eyed emotions whatever you like, but that sentimental emotion is what I call romance.
Romance is definitely not the be all and end all of a relationship, and it is definitely not sacrificial love, but that is not to say that it is a "nonsense" or a fraud.
Wow! I am a purtian first (Brian), then a shameless hedonist faggot (Marcel), then unfair to breeders (Joel).
Brian, happily, George Pell has enunciated and defended a convincing challenge to the primacy of conscience business you advance. He rightly points out that the thing is a safeguard against ultra vires ecclesiastical interference (ie some corrupt Pope legislating simony, etc.) rather than a tool to be used in discerning moral truths.
Marcel, perhaps you haven't read my other posts on homosexuality, or the Cathechism on the same, but I am not ashamed to be homosexual. The Church is not ashamed of me. A sexual orientation is morally neutral. I celebrate me. I celebrate what delights my eyes. A similar thing is at work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. As a neophyte I still sense too much of the iconoclastic Protestant about you. Catholicism is richer, fuller, more humane than narrow sola scriptura cults.
Joel, I never claimed marriage was the 'trick' that heter men use, rather that 'romance' is. You will know that I have a very high regard for heterosexual marriage, I spend half my blog defending it!
Similarly companionship was not attacked. You have not defended 'romance' as popularly conceived, rather put up other, worthy things (marriage, friendship, companionship) and confused them for romance.
Hello, Dreadnought. EssEm here. Thanks for taking my comments so seriously. I have read your post and was writing a rather long reply, but realized that I need to clear up one thing first. It might make my reply much different. I have assumed that you are and intend to keep on being a sexually active homosexual man. Is that assumption correct?
It might be a rather personal question in ordinary circumstances, but your blog is not exactly private space!
Firstly, Marcel, you're a nasty piece of work. Are you going to now publish my details publically? I'm also convinced you're just a proddie who masquerades as an uber-militant catholic to make catholics look bad, which is pathetic. I detect a strong whiff of calvinist…
As a post-ejaculation kisser and a romantic who also loves to be romanced, yet has never met a man that meets my exacting standards, Dreddie doesn't speak for me as a gay man, but I don't want him to shut up as homos need diversity of opinion in this age of sexual enlightenment, even if it seems that dreddie often doesn't have any independent thought, although his intentions are noble.
I reject the stereotype of homosexuality and the "scene" as popular culture tells me I must be a part of, otherwise I am a Morrissey-esque freak who goes home alone. I feel conflicted as a popular culture junkie because of this. I usually am part of the “in” crowd, except when it comes to my own sexuality. I reject t
cont
the notion I cannot love another man, wish to be with him forever and become one half of what dreddie calls "a super-human entity" (I really like that term).
Random homosexual encounters are about your own gratification and while enjoyable, they do leave me with an empty, dirty feeling afterwards and a longing to be able to make a deeper emotional connection with a man, an opinion I formed after becoming sexually active, which totally went against what I believed as a sexually inactive homosexual. Sex is masturbation if there is no emotional connection. In this day and age of HIV/AIDS, I do think it is important for men to overlook their libidos and take care of one another more, which won’t happen if we believe we are unlovable and unable to love. Maybe I am abnormal and my desire to nest with another man is borne of some subconscious need?
My homosexuality doesn't make me different or special. It is within the range of normal sexual and emotional desire. P
cont
Primally, there is no difference between gay and straight love, rather we are socially conditioned to believe it's impossible for two men to love each other. Gay is a label just like Chubby Chaser or MILF addict is. I don't just love men for sexual gratification, mostly I am attracted to what makes a man, his personality, raw sexuality and strength. A great body is just a bonus 
Just like how some hetero men may like dominant women with long slender bodies, or nurturing women with curvy bodies, I like masculine men. Does society say Chubby Chasers and MILF addicts cannot love one another? No.
Marriage and total monogamy aren't for me, they aren't for most people, regardless of sexuality, yet if 2 men feel the need to express their love to one another through Marriage, then I won't stop them. I'll just laugh at their need for tacky and lame ritual. The need that most gay men feel for marriage is for acceptance, usually acceptance within their own famili
cont
families. On one hand, I support gay marriages because of this, but then reject them, because it then sets a standard for other gay men to get married in order to be accepted as “normal” (whatever that means). It could lead to yet another class divide between homosexuals, who are already enough of a fractured group, despite the image of unity presented by the mainstream media.
This blog is great. Superficially Dreddie and I are similar – same age group, same cultural tastes (he has boss taste in music), both homos but beneath the surface he couldn’t be anyone more different than me, there is nobody I disagree with more. It’s excellent.
I've also set a record for post length.
I am not saying you should be ashamed of being homosexual DREADNOUGHT. It is the promiscuity and lifestyle that accompanies your feelings. You are in complete denial. Your website constantly features rampantly sexual posts and obscene language regarding sex. Sado masochism and tales about your lust for men is comparable to the artwork in the Sistine Capel? Hmmm, that's an interesting take on things.
I suggest you read the statements of John Paul II on homosexuality, sex outside marriage and lust. After doing so, perhaps you will accuse the Holy Father of being a Calvinist protestant too.
I am bogged down in study, I will respond soon, in the meantime, please recall that this is a post on love and we are all mates here. NO NASTY!
At the risk of appearing patronising, marcel, I get the impression that English is not your first language. I hasten to add that this is not because of any mistakes in what you write, but just from the way in which you use the language. If my impression is correct, I would suggest that certain nuances in DN's writing are not apparent to you, which leads to a misunderstanding about what he is trying to convey. As far as I can see, DN is committed to the entire teaching of the Church on faith and morals, and tries to live accordingly. DN does not claim to be a perfect Christian, but then who among us could truthfully make such a claim?
Wow, DN, your comments boards are going like wildfire lately! Congrats! Obviously you've hit upon a rich vein of contentiousness. I say keep digging - makes for interesting reading.
First Essem, I decline to comment on personal matters. This is not a personal blog as such, rather a blog on ideas. As such my ideas must stand and fall on their on merits. I look forward to reading your post. Remember the word limit.
Enfant Terrible, nice new nickname! I disagree wtih your view because it smacks of moral relativism mate. We have a different kind of love because we're different creatures. Conditioning usually has very little to do with anything.
Marcel, if 8 people tell you that you're sick mate, lie the fuck down!
Anonyme, I think you have characterised me correctly.
Calmic, sit back and enjoy the ride mate.
And remember to be nice men!
Hi, Dreadnought. Well, keeping in mind the limits of space, I’ll make my reply to your Sunday post very brief. As you are A. a man of homosexual orientation B. who fully accepts the Church’s teaching, C. you have two choices: 1. to intend to be and to strive to be celibate. Now, and not, like St Augustine, "not yet". (In which case this blog is a near occasion of sin!) Then you’ll have no cosmic conflict, even if you fail. Or 2. to make a case that the teaching somehow does not apply to you. Is there a third way I’ve missed?
Your gay-celebratory blog implies that you are/have been sexually active, though you will neither confirm nor deny that. But your post –a Dreadnought salmagundi, if I may say so—suggests that perhaps you consider homosexuals so different from heteros that #2 might be your strategy. Your thinking eludes me, but I do like your spirit. For my longer responses, I’ll send an email, as you suggest, “mate”. (Avuncular I may be, Aussie I’m not).
EssEm,
I agree with A and B.
I also cautiously agree with C 2) but would add 3) complete rejection of the Church's teachings.
I also demur regarding your characterisation of Church teaching. One is not required, pace 1) to be celibate, rather to be chaste. Re-read the Catechism on this point.
Perhaps you are taking some of the things I write a little too seriously, but I fail to see how one could conclude from any of my posts that I am willfully un-chaste!
Of course I am a 23 year old male, but I refuse to believe that my chastity is any more compromised than that of any other bloke, gay or straight, my age. Or do you believe homosexuals are called to a higher level of chastity than breeders?
Well, Dreadnought, I think I am seeing things a little more clearly. Thanks.
Concerning the alphabet: if you are B, that precludes your C3. Your cautious agreement with C2 is intriguing. Care to elaborate?
You are correct about my vernacular use of "celibate". Chaste is what you must be. And if you are unmarried, that means no "venereal pleasure". Same rule for all unmarrieds, gay and straight.
My guess then is that you are trying to be as chaste as you can be and are sorry when you are not.
If I took some of your texts "too seriously", it's because you may be that extremely rare creature, the self-affirming and unregretful gay Catholic who is trying not to have sex. And your celebration of male-male connection might lead one to assume that you had no interest in abstaining from the ecstatic followthrough.
A higher standard? No and yes. The chastity required of all Catholic unmarrieds is pretty much the same, except that your sexual orientation is --as the Cat
as the Catechism states-- "objectively disordered". Not a sin, but, contrary to your assertion, no cause for celebration.
Straights can finally marry and have legitimate, even sacramental, sex as part of their marital chastity. You, as a gay man, never can.
And that was my original point.
EssEm, perhaps we are reading a different Catechism, for in mine it states that 'homosexual acts' rather than the homosexual orientation, are 'intrinsically disordered'.
It is this sublime difference which underpins my perhaps peculiar take on being a gay Catholic.
I don't see a conflict between your faith and your sexuality. It isn't for The Church to judge. A higher power than they will (And I'm sure you'll not be found wanting!)
The differences that define Hetero and Homo love are just as wide as the differences between love between individuals, I feel. The Boy is far more romantic than I, and it isn't about getting Sex, because I'm more keen than he, anyway.
As for the "layers" that Homosexual men cast off, could it not also be said that they cast these off for a new set of social standards or "layers"?
Yes Keri, it can indeed be said. One such 'layer' is 'gay marriage'. Why cast off years of sexual/social restrictions just to bind ourselves with some new silliness?!
"I challenge any homo to claim that what he feels at the point of ejaculation and immediately thereafter is love defined romantically."
From a 31 year old atheist gay male who has been in a relationship for 8 years.. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
So you've accepted the challenge Maddy, but does that mean you feel love when you blow?
I don't feel much besides ecstacy at that point (you know how it is) but as I look in to my partner's eyes when it happens I know if feels a lot different to sharing it with a "non-romantic" partner (and no, it's not an open relationship).
Good, open-relationships are bullshit. Kinda like an open prison or an open football game where players change places randomly.
Aha! It is not love then! I've allowed sentimentality and tenderness, but love was the thing at issue Maddy. So how does that prove me wrong?
Maybe you need to define what you mean by "love defined romantically" then - I would have thought this would certainly include sentimentality and tenderness... Are you saying that no-one (hetero/homo) feels "love defined romantically" at this time (your challenge 'any homo' would suggest otherwise..)?
PS I note with interest your choice of using relationships and prison as a metaphor. A Freudian slip perhaps? hehe
You commented twice, a Freudian stutter? Parapraxes? Hee hee!
The point Maddy, was that homos do not love with their bodies, they love by their bodies...
i can't help but think that (for all your verbosity) like the protestant fundamentalist in order to reconcile your catholicism with your gaiety you have to bend over backward and twist sideways.
your seeming love for the ultra-montanism of senor escriva must surely give the lie to the fact that the hierarchy will tolerate your perversion (as they see it).
if for once you would ever admit to your opus dei superior that you felt "holding your cock in your hand"is one of the places where our Blessed Lord would be made known unto you then I am sure thye would offer a deeply penitential lesson with appropriate discipline. which would no doubt appeal to you.
in other words stop rationalising and grow up!!
Thanks Stephen, verbosity is a sin I too readily commit.
Thank you also for demonstrating the kind of vacuous nonsense that passes for religious debate in 'gay' circles. You've even appealed to Dan Brown-style tactics, oooeer Opus Dei, get the Grand Inquisitor's robes down, we're havin' a burnin'.
Like most anti-Catholics, you pretend to have vast and extraordinary knowledge of intimate Catholic details. I challenge you to become a Catholic, make a serious examination of conscience and then find a confessor and approach him, in the spirit of complete remorse and sincere love, telling him about 'holding your cock in your hand', etc.
I can assure you, as a representative of Christ Who is Love, his reaction will blow your narrow-minded socks off
You'll also have defeated yourself, the first step in overcoming the self-referential verbosity of modern moral confusion.
Hi John!
Just want to say, I must disagree with your denigration of romance as something invented by heterosexual men as a tool to bed women. Just read the Song of Songs. I challenge you to find a more romantic book in the world than that!
I do find your defense of the Dreadhotties somewhat perplexing. I would think that this falls under occasion of sin? I try my best to stay away from material that would cause me to sin. For me, that's written material, but for visual people I would think some of your pictures may tempt them to unchaste behavior.
You are very well-written and your devotion to our beloved John Paul the Great is palpable!
Thanks for your time.
Joye, I have stepped back from my defence of the DREADHOTTIES and you'll notice that I no longer post them.
A DREADNOUGHTER, using arguments advanced by JPII about love and the image, convinced me that gratuitous posting of near naked men is probably not the best way to demonstrate Christian affection.
I'll blog on the topic, in greater detail, soon.
I think you're talking about romance in a different sense. I don't deny strong emotion, passion and the agape-mediated eros that Benedict XVI discussed in 'Deus Caritas Est'.
I was, rather, speaking of something more akin to shmaltz. Hallmark-style nonsense. Not robust, serious, affection.
Thanks for reading. You're very welcome here
What a curious site! A young, hip Australian with one foot planted in the gay community and another in the Church. Having read "The Silence of Sodom", I realize that such curious creatures are neither unique nor new. Withall, I still can't fathom how the possessor of such a baroque--no, rococo--psyche can continue for long without damage. Admittedly, some can practice Orwellian 'doublethink' to the point of dissociation; e.g., priests orating against gays on Sunday after fellating them Saturday. You're too smart for that, however. (continued)
All in all, gays who remain with the most anti-gay institution in history--excepting a mid-twentieth century regime 'im Mitteleuropa'--strike me as a strange lot. A conservative gay Catholic is reminiscent of Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky's description of Soviet man: someone who thinks one thing, says another thing, and does a third thing.
Perhaps I am anti-Catholic but if so, then no more than is warrented. My attitude towards religion in general is a mix of Sanatyana and (Leo) Strauss; i.e., a measured appreciation combined with the knowledge that the masses would run amok were they not frightened with fears and encouraged with hopes.
To conclude, at 24 you have a lot of living to do yet. I hope that eventually you will be able to throw off a closed and crippling system of thought .
Hate is never warranted, Tom. Complexity is nothing to be laughed at. Religion gives good men wings and teaches all of us to worship something larger than the ego.
I hope I can, eventually, throw off a closed and crippling system of though, but it will be hedonism, not Catholicism
John,
I cannot help having some problems with this post, though I think a large part is quite simply the difference between the way men think and the way women think.
You challenge your readers to declare that they kiss after orgasm. Well, I am willing to make that declaration. My beloved and I kiss regularly after we make love (and yes, I definitely prefer that word, which has no etymological links to making babies at all - try reading some books written before our generation - there was one which had reference to two women "making love to the baby", when in context it was obvious that it as reference to the normal gooey-mushy "coochy-coochy-coo" noises women make over babies...).
Perhaps for two men it is sex and not lovemaking... for two women, I would contend, it is lovemaking and not sex. In any case, all your examples of how homosexuality is different from "normal" couples are entirely 100% opposite from what is in my own experience...
In any case, my points are:
1) "making love" has never been a reference to making babies, and has only recently been corrupted to mean sexual intercourse. It should mean any display of affection - just like the word "gay" should mean "happy".
2) Romance is not just "nonsense" created by heterosexual men to get women into bed. It is a process fundamentally important to the female psyche, which gives us a sense of value in our relationships.
3) "I challenge any homo to claim that what he feels at the point of ejaculation and immediately thereafter is love defined romantically." If you get rid of your sex-specific words, I can answer this challenge. "Homo" is gender-neutral - I am a lesbian, and I can categorically state that my felings for my beloved post-orgasm are most certainly romantic.
4) Your statement that true love is about the pleasure of the other and not the self, to me, is self-evident. However, I would suggest, that given that both parties feel the same way, it can almost be said that if your partner is giving you pleasure, then, by inference, you are also giving them the pleasure of knowing that you are happy.
And my final statement:
I never knew that gay men were so different to us lesbians... I had thought that both men and women tended toward androgyny in homosexuality, but for certain your mindset is completely alien to me.
I truly hope you find happiness... but I do not think you will find it in the same way I have.
God bless you...
I wasn't talking about etymologies Anon. I've read Austen, et al too
1. I mean making babies. We cannot make babies without an opposite sex partner. This is a huge point, from which everything else flows.
2. My view on this has mellowed a bit.
3. I have to take your word for it. However, you're the first person (male or female) who has answered in this manner.
4. Yes, but if sex were only for giving pleasure we'd not be having a debate.
5. Okay. I wish you the best also. I like men, real men, androgyny interests me aesthetically, but not sexually.
As someone I love dearly writes:
May the Blessed Virgin enfold you in her mantle
My apologies for misreading you... I distinctly read the etymologies part, there, but it's easy to read things differently.
The book I was referring to was "Anne of Green Gables", and I honestly can't remember if that one was an Austin or not (ages since I read it), but yes, it's of her ilk, if not her herself.
It's easier for two girls to decide to start a family than two guys - the sacrifice made by a friend to help in the process is a lot less (5 minutes as opposed to 9 months). This obviously means that I am going to have a slightly different opinion about the procreative part of a relationship. I still don't understand how a harder time making a baby makes a love less legitimate, though... and I thought this page was talking more about love and comitment... be they to a partner or to your church.
As for the androgyny... again, you and I are completely different. I tend to think a girl who looks very, very girly is more beautiful... my partner is absolutely gorgeous, and most of my straight male friends think it isn't fair that I've got a better looking girlfriend than they do... but in terms of personality, the only thing more annoying than a ditzy girly-girl is a muscle-brained macho man... somewhere just on the feminine side of androgyny to me is easier to get on with (perhaps because I am around about there, too). It's interesting that you find it the other way around - androgyny for looks and fully masculine for personality. But as my dad would say: "It'd be a boring world if we were all the same".
Thank you for writing back to me. You're so completely different from anyone I hang around with, and it is refreshing to be able to hear those differences without descending to ad hominem attacks. So thank you, and God Bless.
Wow, the detailed and precise use of the English language here overwhelms me. I thought I was a clear thinker, but you guys are rather sophisticated.
I am intrigued by expressions of faith in the trenches of life. This blog certainly is in the proverbial trenches.
So, keep on defending the faith.
Tim
PS The font on these comments are hell-a-small! My eyes hurt.
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Christ, the light of the world, has been used in modern mythology in much the same way as the sun was in ancient Greece. It was given the honorary mythological job of having something to do with a chariot drawn across the sky, but the Greeks believed that light comes out of the eyes and the planets revolved around the earth, so the sun was not regarded as being the source of all daylight. De'Dondi's clock, a reconstruction of which is housed at the Smithsonian Insitute, shows the calculations the ancient Greeks used to show the workings of the presumed epicycles of the planets. In this way, it can be shown that you can literally find loopholes in a solar-like system, so long as you only view the process as occurring from your point of view.
Anyway, the word "demonstrate" comes from de- "monstrate". The "monstrate" comes from "monstrare" which has been used to derive "monster" and the Christian "monstrance". It is also rather similar to "demon". We're warned in 1 John 2:16 not to "make a showy display" of our means of life. Demonstrating basically means de-monstrifying things or pretending things are better than they are. Ezekiel 13:10 says: "Because they lead my people astray, saying, 'Peace,' when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash". Isaiah 57:8 says: "Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols." Psalms 141:3 shows that our doorposts are our lips and in the Gospels we are our own house. In verse 13 of Isaiah 57, it says: "When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away." If there is anything right inside your door as you leave the house, or even a collection of things (as opposed to following the Jewish custom of putting your identifying mark ON the doorpost) that you are using as a reminder, then this is probably going to be most insightful as to why you feel the way you do about negotiating public places. A lot of people have agoraphobia to some degree and the typical way of coping with it is to have something with you in public that represents movement that carries you (vehicular object, concept or friend). Psalms 20:7 says: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God." This shows the prevalence of relying on vehicular things to help us through life (spirituality involves spirit or movement) instead of relying on the superlative force of God's Holy Spirit asked for in faith.
Proverbs 24:27 says: "Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house."
It is refreshing to find your blog. I admire you and will keep you in my prayers. Sex has become a very demanding false God and we need more voices showing how to keep life in spiritual perspective. We all need to remember Peter. It is only when we take our eyes off Christ that we sink beneath the waves.
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