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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I am a twenty-one year old girl, a Catholic Christian, and I feel at peace with myself and with my Faith. However, reading the stories told in your questions and answers, I doubt my situation every time. I’ve been with a wonderful guy for two years, together we discovered the joy of a deeper intimate relationship. We’re not married, we don’t intend to, and right now I don’t even intend to have kids. We have been using condoms since I stopped taking the pill, and we always feel safe and protected from unwanted pregnancies. I have always gone to Sunday Mass. I often go to pray in the afternoon because I like a silent church where I can talk to God better. I love life and I love God, who gives me wonderful moments every day with my family and friends. I think that living according to the dictates and will of the Most High means more than following behavioral rules. I think the kids who write to you don’t fully appreciate life as those who experience all the joys it can give, including sexuality. I think God asks us for Love, Love and more Love. God doesn’t care if you had intercourse before marriage, or if you had it with people of the same sex. I believe that whoever lives according to these ‘laws and moral rules’ and feels like a good Christian is doing everything wrong! God wants more from us, God wants us serene and at peace with others. There are already so many problems in the world, why waste energy and demonize these joys?

Father, I love God and I want to continue to do so, but how can I if my behavior is judged inappropriate?

Help me Father.

 Giulia

Priest’s answer 

Dear Giulia, 

1. You have decided to have sex with your boyfriend. Furthermore, and I thank you for being sincere, there is no talk of marriage between you two. The first thing I’ll tell you is this: we need to see what, according to God, is the meaning of sexual relations. If God had made people sexual only so that they could express their affection to each other, he would have had to clearly separate sex from the procreative capacity. And instead how many precautions not to procreate! You too used the pill before and now you use a condom. Evidently because you know that those potencies are procreative potencies.

2. Don’t you think that these artificial interventions are against the intrinsic meaning of our sexuality? By the way, do you believe that our sexuality was structured by God as we received it for homosexual relationships? St. Paul speaks of homosexual relations as unnatural relations, “Therefore God handed them over to impurity through the lust of their hearts,for the mutual degradation of their bodies… Therefore, God handed them to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relationships for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with the females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with male, and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.” (Rom 1:24-28).

3. You wrote, “I think that living according to the dictates and will of the Most High means more than following behavioral rules.” You are free to think so. Like the rest, you are also free to be a Christian. But Jesus did not say what you say. He said the opposite, “Whoever has my commandments and observes them, is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him” (Jn 14:21). And again, “By this we know that we have known him: if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and there is no truth in him” (1 Jn 2:3-4). 

4. On the other hand, it is also like this in human love: if one calmly displeases the people he loves, one cannot speak of love. If he loved them, he would also love their will and would not hurt them in any way.

5. You also wrote, “I think the kids who write to you don’t fully appreciate life as those who experience all the joys it can give, including sexuality”. Just a few days ago I replied to a girl who wrote to me, “In 2009, after a trip to Medjugorje, I rediscovered the value of faith and since then my boyfriend and I have tried to live in chastity. It was hard, especially because before that trip we had regular intercourse. I certainly do not regret this choice because we realize that our relationship has become more sincere, more true!”. So how can you say that those who write to me do not enjoy life? As you see, they say the opposite!

6. Finally you say, “I think God asks us for Love, Love and more Love. God doesn’t care if you had intercourse before marriage, or if you had it with people of the same sex. I believe that whoever lives according to these ‘laws and moral rules’ and feels like a good Christian is doing everything wrong! God wants more from us, God wants us to be serene and at peace with others”. The Lord asks for Love, with a capital L, as you wrote. But this Love, which in the New Testament is called Charity, indicates God’s own way of loving. And God loves by giving the greatest good which is Himself, His personal presence within us, linked to the observance of his commandments. As you can see, God asks for love that leads to the sanctification of life, not to do what one wants.

8. Regarding homosexual relations, justified by you because God would ask for nothing but love, listen again to what the Holy Scripture says, “Do not be deceived; neither formicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor boy prostitutes, nor sodomites… will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9-11). As you can see, Christians must be “washed”, “sanctified”, “justified” (that is, redeemed from sin). Let’s leave aside the homosexuals’ speech now, but do you, with your behavior, seem to be washed, sanctified, redeemed from sin? You could ask, is this the path to sanctification?

9. Finally  you conclude, “Father, I love God and I want to continue to do so, but how can I if my behavior is judged inappropriate?” The judgment of others cannot prevent us from loving God. The martyrs loved him to the end even though they faced people who hated their behavior. The problem, however, is another: whether we can say we love God when we quietly do what displeases Him, when we do what He has told us not to do, and when we say that those who keep His commandments are doing everything wrong . 

10. I have tried to help you by bringing many arguments. But one more thing remains. Jesus said, ” But whoever lives the truth comes to the light” (Jn 3:21). So I want to tell you, trust the Lord and his commandments. Live according to the truth taught by God. Then you will understand and relish everything.

I assure you of my prayers and bless you. 

Father Angelo