Why I Write, Why I Fight
By: Patrick Flores
Tags: LGBTQ, Life, Faithfullylgbt, Reaching Out, Storytelling

Pushing Catholics Out the Door

A note from the outset. This post has nothing to do with Catholic Church teaching. It has everything to do with the Catholics who believe it, though.

I once knew a priest who put a sign at all the exits of his church that said “Judas left the Mass early too.”

For those of you who don’t know, that’s called being a wolf.

Jesus once told a parable about sheep who wandered away. The point of the story was that they were worth braving the wolves and going after, not that we should shame them as they go. Catholics have never been afraid of guilt. But shaming others should terrify us.

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments surrounding California’s Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage. All over social media, everyone has been quick to take a side. I can only speak for my tribe, and I have to say, Catholics, it wasn’t pretty. In the rush to stand for morality, it became clear there was an us, and a them. Like if you’re with us. Want to comment that you disagree? You must be for incest and beastiality too! Baha! We have logic!

We’re still working on love.

Jesus once told his disciples to be as clever as serpents. I think that’s what the priest with his signs thought he was doing. Toss out a quip, and maybe people will rethink things. It also helps if you can make them look ridiculous in the process. That’s what I saw most people trying to do on Facebook today. We forget that when Jesus said that though, he said the reason was because he was sending us out in the midst of wolves. Why? To rescue the sheep that had wandered away.

I have a friend named Max who is gay. He grew up at the parish I attend. Not feeling very welcomed there because he was gay, he stopped going to church and stopped calling himself Catholic because people told him he no longer was. I was humbled and inspired when he decided that, for Lent, he was going to try being Catholic again. Follow the teachings. Go to Mass. Start praying again.

I cringed when I started seeing the debate and quips and memes being shared and liked around social media today, because I knew Max would be seeing it all too. With there being only days left in Lent, what effect would it have on him? I asked how he was taking it all. His response was simple.

I probably won’t be around [our church] much when I get back from studying abroad. But that was something I was considering anyway. I might try another Catholic Church where nobody knows me and maybe I can still find a community with some solid half-brothers and half-sisters from there who will edify me rather than turn me away. But I can’t put myself in the building itself with so much disillusionment from my mentors, etc. This is the important thing I need my fellow Christians to hear. You may think the most loving thing for you to do is to rebuke someone in truth on Facebook, but it’s not. I get sucked into it all the time. The desire to debate, to be right, to win one for God, is so damn tempting. We become convinced that the only way people will see their sin is if we point it out to them.

I asked Max what he meant by disillusioned with his mentors.

Throughout my time there at church, I confided in a lot of people I considered mentors. People whose advice I trusted. It’s really easy when you are younger in your faith, you put those who are older in their faith on a pedestal. You think they have such a grasp on truth but moreover you feel like maybe you mean enough to them that no matter what, they would never do anything to hurt you. They’ve heard you out before, so you assume that they are the type of person that will always be ready to listen and receive you with open arms. With the whole Church backdrop, you assume they are more virtuous and expect some sort of unconditional love or acceptance. You assume that they would be this way in general, not just when you are a troubled teen coming to them for help and not just out of a temporary obligation. In essence, you see them as a Christ figure because of some good done for you through them by God. Disillusionment is when you realize that your expectations were unrealistic. That these people are fallen just like you, and that the damage they do to you when God isn’t working through them tarnishes your memory of the times that He does. In a sense, it is a rude awakening that you cannot rely on people, but God alone. And once you experience it with one mentor or someone you would consider a brother or sister, it makes you fear the rest. The more it continues to happen, the greater the fear. Fearing the people that are supposed to make up the Mystical Body of Christ makes the relationship with God difficult.

There is so much that breaks my heart about that, I don’t even know where to begin. Most of it speaks for itself.

But here’s what I want you to hear. I have no doubt that the people who talked to Max through the years thought that if they were unflinching and articulate and used the phrase love the sinner, hate the sin enough, that it was indeed the most loving thing they could do. But did it work? I have yet to see a time that phrase ever did. (By the way, Ghandi said it, not Jesus.)

I suppose the thing that has upset me most about all of this is the joy with which people seem to be taking in the debate. It feels good to show that there are good guys and bad guys, and know you’re on the team wearing white. I know. I do it. I just get worked up over stuff like immigration and war and more than same-sex marriage.

At the end of the day, it is not a matter of who can win an argument. It is about who cares that there are gay Catholics out there seeing what you are posting on Facebook and everywhere else, and they feel like all you are doing is telling them they’re not welcome in our Church. At all. And, if you’re not posting your clever quotes and creative memes for them, then what are you posting them for? Just to congratulate yourself for being right? And if you are posting for those that disagree with you, then ask yourself, is it honestly going to help them, or just remind them that you still think there is an us and a them?

As for me, I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing you can do is just shut up and say I love you.

Should Catholics leave Mass early? Nope. Have I? Yep. So what are you going to do? Insult me as I go, or go after me? Right now, all I can think of is my friend who wanted to try and become Catholic again by Easter, but when Holy Week came, he felt like the Catholics from our parish came and pushed him back out the door. If he decides that’s where he is going to stay, that would make him a sheep separated from the flock. The question is, when you find him, are you going to be a shepherd or a wolf?

Originally published in March of 2013