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The experience left me angered, saddened and confused. I accept the irregularity of my situation as existing outside of the Church’s normative structures of family life and yet I am resolved, by God’s grace in the life of “complete continence” (Familiaris Consortia 84), to live out my call to holiness as detailed in Lumen Gentium. It is always difficult when visiting a new confessor and language so often fails in our feeble attempts to give a full account of the complexity of our lives: in negotiating how to communicate the resolution of chastity with the reality of weekly failure I wonder whether the poor priest I visited that evening mistook my amendment for Sebastian Flyte’s Augustinian lament: “O God, make me good, but not yet”. I was quite prepared for a pious grumble about “cheap grace”. The refusal to absolve me that evening and the reproach of my relationship as an occasion of sin belongs to a conservative narrative that thinks of homosexuality principally in terms of Cardinal Ratzinger’s “objective disorder”. So to “come out” is always to announce one’s sin: the love, care, and bonds of affection that are Providential in our redemption are less important to the homophobic mind than the presumption of our genital transgressions. This presumption of gay sin is inimical to St Paul’s dogmatic assertion that we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) and is an injustice to the “theology of hospitality” set out in the Synod’s midway Relatio post disceptationem: the same theology that Cardinal Vincent Nichols characterised in his BBC Radio 4 interview as “respect”, “welcome” and “value” and which I believe are the hallmarks of a pastoral language of mercy towards gay folk and their relationships in the Church. I returned to that priest the next afternoon. He distinguished between being refused and deferred absolution, yet this distinction failed to acknowledge my relationship – in Cardinal Peter Erdo’s words from the recent Synod – in the “light of the law of graduality” which Cardinal Nichols explains is a “law of pastoral moral theology which permits people, all of us, to take one step at a time in our search for holiness in our lives.” The grace of sacramental absolution is “sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24) and necessary to the mental health of gay Catholics who labour in faith to integrate their lives to the perfect will of God. I returned to confession and absolution this afternoon with my principal confessor, yet I fear that politicising absolution will serve to destroy the faith of those gay Catholics who, in the words of Pope Francis’ famous “Who am I to judge?” line on gays, “seek God and have good will”. Aaron Saunderson-Cross is a lay Catholic and a lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies Editor's note: Given the absolute confidentiality priests observe with regard to confession, we are unable to ask the priest who denied absolution to this blogger the reasons for his decision. Above: The Vatican has been encouraging Catholics to rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Pope Francis surprised onlookers by making his confession during a penitential liturgy. Photo: CNS/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters Comments To post a comment, please log in or register Home - Terms & Conditions - Accessibility - Contact Us © The Tablet Publishing Company 2013 - 2021, All Rights Reserved Designed, developed and hosted by Digital Virtue