Editorial Our children
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
OUR CHILDREN The principle, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," is a neat formula but not an easy one to put into practice. First, because we are tempted to global condemnation and personal judgment....
...Are there difficult and complex questions the message does not address...
...for either homosexual or heterosexual, "one's total personhood is not reducible to sexual orientation or behavior...
...All of this is doubly complicated in the case of homosexuality, which as a psychosexual orientation is not a sin, although the church teaches that homosexual acts, like all sexual activity outside of marriage, are themselves sinful...
...But should the bishops have put off offering this pastoral word until they reexamined the church's whole teaching on homosexuality?-an undertaking unlikely to be brought to a successful conclusion...
...But that is no reason not to hear and take to heart a message that is brave, timely, and an effort at pastoral healing...
...Avoid stereotyping and condemnation...
...To priests and pastoral ministers, the message counsels welcoming "homosexual persons into the faith community...
...Certainly...
...Seek out those on the margins...
...They do argue that such an orientation need not lead to sexual activity...
...others will criticize it for saying too little...
...To parents of homosexual children and adults it offers this practical advice, "Don't break off contact...
...So the bishops faced a difficult task in writing a statement addressed to the parents of homosexual children and to pastoral ministers {Origins, October 9,1997), more or less based on the premise of loving the homosexual person, while discouraging homosexual acts...
...Contrary to the views of some conservative Christians, the bishops accept that, "generally, homosexual orientation is experienced as a given, not as something freely chosen...
...Second, because effectively dissuading people from sin often seems to require a stigma that attaches to persons...
...Some will criticize the bishops' statement as saying too much for the present moment...
...It is primarily a pastoral message that, by its own account, breaks no new theological ground...
...don't reject your child...
Vol. 124 • November 1997 • No. 20
