Who Am I to Judge?

I had a rather nasty comment from a person who claims to be a priest with regard to my forthcoming marriage. It is a shame, really, that he would say what he said as a comment rather than as an email. I believe he has commented here before, never in a manner which is supportive but nearly constantly critical. I guess that this blog makes him feel a bit uncomfortable.

I found the image and quote to the left on Google and thought it might do this individual some good to read it once more. There is quite a lot of depth in Pope Francis's now famous quote. For a gay man, what does 'searching for the Lord' mean? Where could it lead him to in life? What is 'good will'? What avenues could searching for the Lord and 'good will' lead to?

I find it rather disconcerting that a priest should say my forthcoming marriage is not 'natural' but I wouldn't find this attitude disconcerting from say, an atheist. After all, there is nothing 'natural' about a man taking vows of celibacy in the Priesthood is there? It goes against man's natural inclination ordered towards woman and to raising a family. For a priest to be faithful to his vows is impossible without complete dependence on supernatural grace. There is, of course, the possibility that the priest in question either sees celibacy as the 'natural' state of man - which I doubt - or the alternative, that celibacy is impossible because it is not natural. What would that opinion mean for the vocation of the Priesthood were it to be widely held? Sacraments are not natural. They are supernatural.

As for 'grounds for annulment', I hear it said in some quarters that '50%' of all Catholic marriages have 'grounds for annulment', despite these couples having made vows before God and witnesses that they chose this state of life and glorious Sacrament freely and with total consent, aware of the gravity of the vows they were making at the time until they realise they were not later. There is, too, the possibility that the priest concerned believes that grace does not build upon nature, or that the perversities of our wounded human nature can never know Christ's healing touch, or that he believes that our human nature is completely depraved or corrupted, beyond redemption, that we are what we are and that is it and Our Lord is completely indifferent to our bodies, what we do with them, our souls and even to how we live out our sexuality.

We hear so much about the Church's 'pastoral care' of homosexuals. Does it end, for some priests, when the homosexual of good will who searches for the Lord gradually realises or accepts or discerns that his happiness, his vocation and salvation is best served by his marriage to a woman? At what point does a priest say, "Oh no, that is impossible", even though the 'natural state' of a man is ordered towards woman and the inclination towards same-sex attraction is instrinsically disordered, if not, by its own nature, necessarily sinful.

If that man and that woman live out their vocation to marriage in such manner that brings glory to Christ and His Church, is the said priest ever to congratulate the couple on their happy and fruitful marriage or does he continue to sit around at home carping at that which he cannot understand because despite having been a priest for years, he still doesn't believe in grace, or the power of love, let alone in 'miracles', which are but a blunt abbreviation for God's power at work in human life in such manner that defies natural expectation, human opinion and what we consider to be 'natural'?