Why do we treat homosexual sins differently than other sins?

A mere five to ten years ago, the following was considered a tolerant and acceptable stance: Openly supporting and promoting natural marriage, while also being kind and loving towards our homosexual brothers and sisters. Today, that same stance is considered "bigoted hate", and its purveyors must be silenced, shamed, and ruined. To hold such a stance (publicly) is now unacceptable. The haters include the Catholic Church and all faithful Christians who speak up against gay "marriage".

The reaction to the simple and clear teaching on homosexuality is so visceral, so violent, so dark, that even otherwise outspoken and proud Catholics are gun shy on this particular issue, telling me that they are afraid to say anything, nervous to be labeled as evil and heartless, preferring to stay silent. This bullying is occurring in the whole western world at the moment, and it's so awful that even some gay people have (mostly quietly, for their own protection) decried what they see happening.

The Church is pretty much the only voice in the world that is not afraid to speak up against this sin (as she has done with other popular sins in the past), standing clearly for what is True. When the Pope and other Church leaders are bold, the rest of the flock finds the courage to speak as well.

But here's something that I don't understand, and it's perplexed me for years. For some reason, many faithful Catholics treat the sin of homosexual acts and gay "marriage" differently than any other sin, sexual or otherwise.

No faithful Catholic is afraid to say boldly that lying, cheating, stealing, blasphemy, greed, adultery, abuse, fornication, abortion, surrogacy, human cloning, contraception/sterilization -- all are grave sins. All have serious spiritual consequences, and we cringe and hurt to see our loved ones committing any of those sins. We hate those sins! We love the people, but we would never hesitate to speak or write on the wrongness and even the evil of those sins, many of which we have ourselves repented of.

But for some reason, active homosexuality sort of gets a pass, and we're told not to be so hung up on the gay "marriage" issue. I've even been told (more than once) that we should not be voting against gay "marriage" or engaging this issue in the public square, because to do so would make Catholics look "mean" and it will make people dislike us! There is a certain sympathy about this particular sin, and a reluctance to condemn it forcefully, that I don't see in any other area.

After the tragic vote in Ireland ushering in genderless marriage, I was heartened to hear the clarion statement given by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, calling it "a defeat for humanity". There is no question where the Church stands, and firmly. Yet, while I rejoice in the Cardinal's courage, other Catholics believe that statements like this are unhelpful at best, cruel and harmful at worst. They have great concern that such blunt and sweeping statements will not be received well by the LGBT community, that those souls will turn away from the Church, and that evangelization efforts will be hampered.

Here's what doesn't make sense to me about that. Let's say that a once-Catholic nation had been the very first in the world to pass a referendum in which the populace overwhelmingly and joyfully approved abortion. Or adultery. Or euthanasia. Or fill-in-the-blank sin.

Would a forceful Vatican statement against any of those sins be met with disappointment or frustration by the faithful? Would any of my Catholic friends be saying, "We really should not speak that way about [lying, cheating, stealing, blasphemy, greed, adultery, abuse, fornication, abortion, surrogacy, human cloning, contraception/sterilization] because we will offend and alienate [women, doctors, young people, corporate heads, pagans, adulterers, surrogates, etc.]."  Probably not, and yet those groups of people might feel excluded or marginalized or unloved, too. (I'm not being sarcastic, I really mean that.) So, is it that we think of active homosexuality as somehow different from other sins? Or even worse -- is there a sort of soft bigotry going on, where we don't think gay people are capable of hearing and handling the Truth as well as everyone else can?

I've been told that we need to love people, not "condemn" people or make them feel "unwelcome" by speaking Truth out loud and unvarnished. Yet, this is a false dichotomy! We don't choose between Love and Truth. We choose both Love and Truth. In his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis goes over this, time and again.

There is a micro way to talk about things and a macro way. In the micro, we speak personally to individuals, we get to know them for their own sake, we laugh with them, break bread with them, love them. When sensitive questions arise or questions are asked, we speak the Truth. We are gentle and kind and respectful to all, and if we are not, then woe to us! It will not go well with us as we stand at our Judgement.

But in the macro, the Church as Teacher needs to be unambiguous and clear (and we laity have every right and obligation to repeat that Truth). The moral law is a beacon. It is True for everyone, and when the moral law is transgressed by entire nations, then yes, it is a blow not just to the Church, but to all of humanity. We say this clearly. We don't mince words. We speak the Truth in season and out. Who else will? Who else has been charged by Christ to do so? When we watch a traditionally Catholic nation embrace grave sin with shouts of celebration, we should be heartened, not concerned, to hear our Church speak with a clarion call, denouncing the evil we see.

In the macro, there are millions who do not understand that the Church will never change her teaching on homosexual sin. Most people assume change is coming just around the corner and so settle comfortably in their sin, even feeling "a step ahead" of the lagging Church. In the west, the comfort level for this sin is growing, and more people, not fewer, are becoming lost. If it were any other grave sin, every faithful Catholic would be fighting hard against it, and vocally.

One more thought, and it's personal. For every sinner that is "turned off" or stung by the Church pronouncing unambiguous Truth, there are others, like I was, who desperately need to hear it.

When I was in high school and in the midst of grave sin, I turned to the girl I saw as the most serious and devout of my Catholic friends. I asked her what I should do, whether I should continue on as I had been, down this sinful path (but one I was happy to be on). I will never forget her response. I even remember where I was standing. She placed her hand gently on my forearm, gave me a loving smile, looked me straight in the eye and said: "Leila, I just want you to be happy. You do what makes you happy."

At that moment, I decided to stop worrying about my sin.

She soothed and affirmed me when what I needed to hear was, "Leila, what the hell are you thinking?? You snap out of it right now, turn to God and stay on the straight path! I love you, and I am here to help you!"

I needed her to be the Church for me, not the world. Sure, I felt "loved" in that moment, and that comforting feeling led me to turn from the Truth, for at least a decade.

There are many millions like me out there, who need to hear the Truth clearly, who need to be held accountable to that Truth in order to change. Let's not forget about them and their spiritual needs.

Praise God for the Truth-tellers, and the ones who are not afraid to face the consequences of doing so.

I love being Catholic.

And I'm sorry for rambling and redundancy. It's very late here (early), and I'm just going to hit "publish".

Good-night!

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Related: This thoughtful atheist gets it! Check it out:

As a Gay Atheist, I Want to See the Church Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

When Truth doesn't cut it

For almost twenty years, I have operated under the assumption that souls generally come to God through a hearing of the Truth. After all, that's how my own faith was awakened -- by an exercise of the intellect. I read and I studied and I compared and I examined, and everything Catholicism claimed made beautiful sense to me. It was reasonable, logical, cohesive, coherent, and consistent. On the basis of that coherence, I changed my actions, my beliefs, my heart, and my soul, and I have never looked back. The Truth of the Church was, to me, the essence of her appeal. One of my favorite sayings when it comes to evangelization is "Truth comes with graces attached" -- and yes, it does.

However, I have recently come to understand that I and those like me are not the norm. I have learned that most people do not come to Christ and the Church through an exacting and exhilarating exercise of the intellect. For most people, Truth is not what initially propels them toward Christ.

Well, knock me over with a feather.

But don't get me wrong: Somewhere in my brain, I knew that already. Every human being is unique by design, and I'd read that different folks are drawn to God in different ways: Some are drawn by the fact that God is Truth, for sure, but others by His Oneness (unity), or by His Goodness, or by His Beauty, etc. I've referred to these different "voices of God" when discussing the call to conversion, but I don't think it truly sank in until recently.

First came the election of Pope Francis. For those of us who live mostly in our heads, adoring Truth, embracing intellectual order, craving clarity, and swooning at doctrinal precision, Pope Benedict XVI was our dream pontiff, following on the heels of another beloved papa, the philosopher Blessed John Paul the Great. We Truth-groupies had two popes in a row who nourished our souls by feeding our minds as well. Then suddenly, Pope Francis burst into our comfortable neatness and encouraged us to "make a mess" -- by leaving our books and debates and pristine doctrines for a time and going out into the streets and byways to meet our fellow human beings exactly where they are. Francis had impromptu, non-authoritative exchanges with journalists, secularists, and atheists, chats that were off-the-cuff, even sloppy -- not at all the polished and carefully weighed words of his predecessors.

And the world went nuts. And folks like me readjusted, mentally.

The world "likes" this pope, not for the doctrine and morality he teaches and preaches (which is no different from what came before), not because of ordered thought and careful words, but because he seems to care and listen and love. He seems relatable and real, and more like a loving grandpa in the neighborhood than a Supreme Pontiff on a throne.

But let me stop right here, lest anyone misunderstand: It's not that his predecessors did not love and care for and ache for every soul on the planet! Oh, how it boils my blood when people misunderstand the mystical, saintly JPII who embraced all mankind, or when they malign the shy and kindly Benedict, a quiet and gentle introvert. It's simply that Francis moves the world in a different way, and I think it's that he makes people feel something first, before he makes them think something.

For so many reasons, the soul of modern man is desperate to feel, and feel profoundly.

Francis instinctively operates on an understanding that I needed to learn: Most people do not come to Christ through Truth first. Most people come to Christ prompted by an encounter with Beauty or an experience of Goodness. Love and Truth cannot be separated, of course, but in this era of disconnection, isolation, and despair, Love must precede Truth or Truth won't get a hearing, much less an understanding. They will not hear our Truth if they do not first feel (and believe) our Love.

The next step in my broadened understanding came when I started pondering what I do on this blog. My whole shtick is debating and dissecting and raking over ideas for Truth and clarity. I know from the combox and from my email inbox that this approach is helpful to many, especially those Catholics who, due to poor catechetical formation, need to understand the tenets of the Faith better. I have something to offer in that area, it's been the main goal of the Bubble all along, and I've absolutely no intention of changing what I do on this blog (so don't worry, truthoholics!).

But I have noticed something other than the intellectual debates (and the insistence on Truth) quietly at work here.

You cannot imagine (heck, I would never have imagined!) what goes on behind the scenes of a blog like this. I don't want to reveal anything personal or betray confidences, but trust me when I say that many of the most challenging and even exasperating commenters are the nicest folks off-screen. I love them, truly, and I think they know it. I've been quiet friends with some of them for years, and a few have asked my advice or poured out their hearts, sensing that for all my doctrinal rigidity, I really do care. I've even had one hit-and-run Church-hater email me later to apologize and tell me the heartbreaking story behind the rage in her comment. I was able to pray for her and her family, and both our hearts were changed.

It's in the relationships forged, not so much the technical debates, that real human connections are made, and the fruit I've seen is that an opponent finds some respect for the Church and gives consideration to Christ where before there had been no such thing. I've even witnessed small miracles that have come through the heart-to-hearts and not through the doctrinal debates.

At some point, l will be able to tell you specific stories. Today, I will just remind you that behind every comment, query, challenge, and curse is a person who has a story -- and wounds that we cannot see. Be gentle and kind with everyone you meet and everyone you debate, because for most people, if they can't sense your authentic love for them, they will not want anything to do with your Truth.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. -- 1 Corinthians 13

Thank you, Pope Francis, for reminding us that Truth is not
always the first way to introduce Christ to the human heart. 

Is Christian love "gibberish"?

Busy week here with little time to write! This post originally ran on January 24, 2011, comparing the atheist view of love with the Christian view.

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It's clear from comments on this blog that there are two very different views of love: The Christian view and the secular/atheist view.

The cultural shift from the Christian view to the secular view has been steady -- and troubling. In past posts, I've asked atheists "What is love?" and the answers and discussions have been fascinating. Here are some thoughts on love from our atheist readers:


To me, love is a human emotion and doesn't have a 'meaning', any more than other human emotions like euphoria or anger or curiosity or whatever. 

Just as I painted the walls of my master bedroom blue because it is my favorite color and makes me happy, I am married to my husband because he makes me happy as well. 

I think that the feeling of "love" is what sets marriage apart from any sort of close friendship you might have with someone else, so once it is gone, there is no longer any point in staying with that person.

I absolutely would equate love to "chemical reactions in a brain that was randomly created and has the basic effect of making us feel good." 

I don't think that I chose to love [my husband]. I think my love for him is one of those crazy chemical reactions, and not something that I picked for myself. I would say that love is something you "have" for someone, not something you "do" or "choose."

[Love is] a very special emotion. 

[Love for a child is] due to a biological desire to care for your young [and] has no higher meaning than that.

Love is an emotion...associated with hormonal changes, physiologic changes, rapid heart rate, deep emotion, glad feelings, sad feelings, satisfaction, anxiety. Not under voluntary control necessarily.

I appreciate and respect the honesty of my atheist readers. This is how I would sum up their position, and they should correct me if I have it wrong:

Secular view of love = involuntary emotion; random chemical reaction; biological response; transitory; a feeling you "get", not something you "do".

Let's switch gears and look at the Christian understanding of love:

Christian love is an act of the will. 

Love is a choice.
Love is a deliberate decision.
Love is willing the good of the other.
Love is an outpouring of self ("self-donation") to the other.
Love is an offering; in other words, a sacrifice.

Love is not a feeling, although feelings do accompany love. Sometimes those feelings are ecstatic, blissful and peaceful, and sometimes they are excruciating, agonizing and raw. At other times, there are no feelings at all.

What a relief and a freedom that true love is dependent on the will alone! Imagine the possibilities: While our emotions are not always within our control, our decision to love always is. This makes us capable of loving our enemies (or a cranky spouse, a defiant child, a nasty neighbor). It made the saints capable of loving their executioners. (Think about that for a minute!!)

Christian love is not transitory, self-interested and fleeting, but rather transcendent, transformative, and eternal.

We are told (and shown) by Christ that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for another. This is no "good feeling" or "chemical reaction" -- it is a choice and an act, a willful offering of one's whole self.

When I recently wrote about the sacrificial nature of love, one atheist reader responded with a single word: "gibberish"

Gibberish? Really? 

But which view of love do we all yearn for? Is it the view that says "My love for you is based on an involuntary good feeling I get from you, and once the feeling is gone, so am I"? Or is the one that says "My love for you is based on an irrevocable decision to put your good ahead of my own, even at the cost of my own life"?

Which love do you want? 

I don't really have to ask. We were all made to love and be loved, not to use and be used. In the depths of our souls, we know this. Every one of us knows this. 

And it's not gibberish -- it's a clear, understandable, harmonious love song, straight to the heart.

From "awesome" gay lifestyle to Catholic: Marie's story

I am very grateful to a reader of the Bubble, a young woman who wishes to go by the name of "Marie", for writing her personal reflections on the issues of gay marriage and true love.

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“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Whenever I discuss my position on gay marriage with people, I’m usually asked, “Why does it matter as long as they’re happy?”, “What’s wrong with love?” or “What do you have against gay people?” It’s hard to briefly answer these questions without getting into a philosophical and theological discussion, but I’ve come to notice that if you ever have the time and your debater has the patience to listen, do it. It can help.

In answer to the questions, I want people to be happy, and I also don’t see anything wrong with love. More importantly, I don’t think I can hate gays considering that during a very important part of my life I was actively living an “awesome” gay lifestyle. I had a hot girlfriend and partied as if my wallet were a basket of fish and loaves. I loved her endlessly, even if my love confused me and led me to sabotage our relationship. I knew she was the one I would spend my life with. Yet something said no. It was Christ calling my heart. I finally answered and gave in, but it wasn’t easy.

I’ve been asked before why I would pick Catholicism as a convert when there were more “friendly” religions out there. My response: I didn’t choose to become Catholic, Christ told me I was Catholic. “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction."(i) Faith is not about picking and choosing. If that were the case, I’d choose not to believe. But my heart clears up the conflicts that my mind has.

I have a few friends that are gay. I use to have a lot of friends that are gay but I lost most of them when I decided to let go of lady-loving attractions and pursue my real purpose in life, which I felt was more likely connected to my relationship with Christ. They felt I was trying to be something I wasn’t and that I was judging them. Honestly, for a time I was. But I realized that by God’s grace alone I had walked away from where they were. I was not a better, smarter person because I had said yes to God. In fact, I was humbled to realize that more was expected of me now because I was no longer blissfully ignorant. I knew I could never go back, no matter how tempting.

I’ve always been attracted to men, which would label me as bisexual, but I think that sounds selfish. (It kind of says, “I just like everything out there so I’ll take it how I can get it.”) So am I gay? Am I straight? Still don’t know. Do I believe that you can “pray away the gay”? Nope. I believe you can pray to have the humility to handle the desires and behaviors that come with being gay, but it’s hard to stop loving someone just because you’re told that you shouldn’t love them.

Gay people do not choose to whom they are attracted, nor with whom they fall in love. As a heterosexual person, if you looked at your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or fiancé and said that you were just going to stop loving him or her at this exact moment, how successful do you think you would be? Not gonna happen. You'd likely fall into a deep depression and obsessively pine away for your love to come back to you. You’d scream “WHY?” and ask God for strength. As a woman who has fallen in love with another woman, this is a testament to what I dealt with upon finding my faith and relinquishing the evils of my life regardless of how innocent and pleasurable they seemed.

My purpose in writing is not to defend homosexual marriage and acts, because I’d then have to try and persuade myself. Instead, I just want you all to realize that the gay desire for marriage and acceptance is misguided, but it truly stems from love. They carry a cross that you do not know. Please understand that the anger and bitterness that comes from the other side is rooted in suffering. How can suffering be so closely tied to love? Ask Jesus, He suffered because of love. It’s unbearable to be told that you shouldn’t feel what you feel but yet not have the free will to change it. It’s surreal to have the feelings that you do but yet not be able to express them. Who would purposely choose to be gay? Seriously. Being gay may not be a choice, but living the lifestyle is.

The root of this fight is not about sexuality or equality, it’s about love. Everyone wants to be loved, to feel love, to express love and to give love. The difference extends to the origin of that love. As human beings, we love on a physical plane, yet are called to something greater. It can be hard to grasp this if you don’t understand the difference and unity of love – eros, philia and agape.

Eros is the love between man and woman that is neither planned nor willed but somehow imposes itself upon human beings. Philia is the love of friendship, akin to the relationship of Christ and the disciples. Agape is divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. It is the love of God, grounded in and shaped by faith. They all are the essence of God, as He is love. The problem is that man has taken these gifts and has chosen to maintain the separateness of them instead of unifying. “An intoxicated and undisciplined eros is not an ascent in ecstasy…but a fall, a degradation of man.”(ii) The love between a man and a woman has become worldly and broken, creating a disordered union between eros and philia, and a complete division from agape. That is homosexual love. It is still real. It is still love. But it is not love in its full, true being. It is a fascination for the great promise of happiness, but because it has lost its proper unity in the one reality and true nature of love, it is impoverished and loses its truth.

So here is where I ponder: How did we get to this point? How did the beauty of God’s most precious gift become reduced to a mere commodity of sex and pleasure? How did marriage become a debatable issue of rights, desires, and benefits? Why is the societal hot topic “gay marriage” when real marriage has been broken? “To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I gained the enjoyment of the body of the person I loved. Thus I polluted the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence and I dimmed its luster with the slime of lust.”(iii) Thanks, St. Augustine... 1,600 years later, you took the words out of my mouth. Man, gay and straight, has fallen victim to disordered love. This is why the issue right now may appear to be a fight about sexuality, equality, and freedoms, when truly it’s about love. Until man unifies the fullness of love, there will always remain this struggle between those who know and those who don’t want to know; there will be no purification or healing.

So please, “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”(iv) However, with this armor please never stop loving and praying for those against you in this battle.




i Pope Benedict XVI, DEUS CARITAS EST, 2006
ii Pope Benedict XVI, DEUS CARITAS EST, 2006
iii The Confessions of St. Augustine
iv Ephesians 6:14-17



Related post: "Gay, Catholic, and Doing Fine"


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Is Christian love "gibberish"?

It's clear from comments on this blog that there are two very different views of love: The Christian view and the secular/atheist view.

The cultural shift from the Christian view to the secular view has been steady -- and troubling. In past posts, I've asked atheists "What is love?" and the answers and discussions have been fascinating. Here are some thoughts on love from our atheist readers:


To me, love is a human emotion and doesn't have a 'meaning', any more than other human emotions like euphoria or anger or curiosity or whatever. 


Just as I painted the walls of my master bedroom blue because it is my favorite color and makes me happy, I am married to my husband because he makes me happy as well. 


I think that the feeling of "love" is what sets marriage apart from any sort of close friendship you might have with someone else, so once it is gone, there is no longer any point in staying with that person.


I absolutely would equate love to "chemical reactions in a brain that was randomly created and has the basic effect of making us feel good." 


I don't think that I chose to love [my husband]. I think my love for him is one of those crazy chemical reactions, and not something that I picked for myself. I would say that love is something you "have" for someone, not something you "do" or "choose."

[Love is] a very special emotion. 

[Love for a child is] due to a biological desire to care for your young [and] has no higher meaning than that.


Love is an emotion...associated with hormonal changes, physiologic changes, rapid heart rate, deep emotion, glad feelings, sad feelings, satisfaction, anxiety. Not under voluntary control necessarily.




I appreciate and respect the honesty of my atheist readers. This is how I would sum up their position, and they should correct me if I have it wrong:


Secular view of love = involuntary emotion; random chemical reaction; biological response; transitory; a feeling you "get", not something you "do".


Let's switch gears and look at the Christian understanding of love:


Christian love is an act of the will. 


Love is a choice.
Love is a deliberate decision.
Love is willing the good of the other.
Love is an outpouring of self ("self-donation") to the other.
Love is an offering; in other words, a sacrifice.


Love is not a feeling, although feelings do accompany love. Sometimes those feelings are ecstatic, blissful and peaceful, and sometimes they are excruciating, agonizing and raw. At other times, there are no feelings at all.


What a relief and a freedom that true love is dependent on the will alone! Imagine the possibilities: While our emotions are not always within our control, our decision to love always is. This makes us capable of loving our enemies (or a cranky spouse, a defiant child, a nasty neighbor). It made the saints capable of loving their executioners. (Think about that for a minute!!)


Christian love is not transitory, self-interested and fleeting, but rather transcendent, transformative, and eternal.


We are told (and shown) by Christ that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for another. This is no "good feeling" or "chemical reaction" -- it is a choice and an act, a willful offering of one's whole self.


When I recently wrote about the sacrificial nature of love, one atheist reader responded with a single word: "gibberish"


Gibberish? Really? 


But which view of love do we all yearn for? Is it the view that says "My love for you is based on an involuntary good feeling I get from you, and once the feeling is gone, so am I"? Or is the one that says "My love for you is based on an irrevocable decision to put your good ahead of my own, even at the cost of my own life"?


Which love do you want? 


I don't really have to ask. We were all made to love and be loved, not to use and be used. In the depths of our souls, we know this. Every one of us knows this. 


And it's not gibberish -- it's a clear, understandable, harmonious love song, straight to the heart.

Providence is way cool!

So, I am down in the kitchen this morning, cooking up some eggs for breakfast (yep, that's one thing I can cook!), lost in thought about the latest comments on this post. I glance over to my right to see a magazine laying open on the counter. I am struck by the title of the exposed article, "Finding the Source of All True Love" and the photo of a joyful Pope Benedict XVI. The text of the article was the following excerpt from his address to youth at Westminster Cathedral on September 18:

I ask each of you, first and foremost, to look into your own heart. Think of all the love that your heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give. After all, we were made for love. This is what the Bible means when it says that we are made in the image and likeness of God: we were made to know the God of love, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to find our supreme fulfillment in that divine love that knows no beginning or end.

We were made to receive love, and we have. Every day we should thank God for the love we have already known, for the love that has made us who we are, the love that has shown us what is truly important in life. We need to thank the Lord for the love we have received from our families, our friends, our teachers, and all those people in our lives who have helped us to realize how precious we are, in their eyes and in the eyes of God.

We were also made to give love, to make it the inspiration for all we do and the most enduring thing in our lives. At times this seems so natural, especially when we feel the exhilaration of love, when our hearts brim over with generosity, idealism, the desire to help others, to build a better world. But at other times we realize that it is difficult to love; our hearts can easily be hardened by selfishness, envy and pride. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the great Missionary of Charity, reminded us that giving love, pure and generous love, is the fruit of a daily decision. Every day we have to choose to love, and this requires help, the help that comes from Christ, from prayer and from the wisdom found in his word, and from the grace which he bestows on us in the sacraments of his Church.

This is the message I want to share with you today. I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amid the "busy-ness" and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.

Heart speaks unto heart. With these words from my heart, dear young friends, I assure you of my prayers for you, that your lives will bear abundant fruit for the growth of the civilization of love. I ask you also to pray for me, for my ministry as the Successor of Peter, and for the needs of the Church throughout the world. Upon you, your families and your friends, I cordially invoke God’s blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.

Amen, dear Papa! Thanks for saying it so eloquently. :)

A question for atheists: Love

For many years, long before I started this blog, I have been itching to ask questions of atheists. I've been able to do that here over the past few months, and I've learned a lot.

I can assure you, I do not mean to be adversarial. My questions come from a place of complete confusion about how the atheist works through these heady philosophical questions. As I've said before, it makes no sense to me. So, I am looking for an answer that can end my confusion, or even ease it a bit.

I do not mean to disparage any person by asking the question. Atheists, please take this question at face value. If you feel the urge to question my motives, you might want to wait for the next post. Skip this one.

I hope that caveat suffices, and that some nice atheist will come to the Bubble and answer in good faith, giving me the benefit of the doubt. :)

Here is the question:


Dear atheists,

You love your friends, your family, your spouse, your children. I'm sure you would even die for your loved ones if necessary. What, ultimately, is the meaning of love?

If I were an atheist, I know what I would answer. But I want to know from you. I chose my words very carefully. Thanks for being as specific as possible.



PS: If you are going to comment as "anonymous," please give yourself a pseudonym so that we can keep the responses straight.

"We don't make determinations about who we love."

Not to be controversial or anything... ha ha ha....


This may seem like a post about homosexuality. It is not. One day I hope to address that topic directly, but this is not that day. This is a post about the human will. And it's quite possible that I am just thinking out loud. Bear with me.


At the October 14 MTV townhall event, President Obama was asked whether or not he thought being gay or transgendered was a choice. He responded:

I don’t think it’s a choice. I think that people are born with a certain makeup, and that we’re all children of God. We don’t make determinations about who we love.    (Emphasis mine.)

Again, setting aside the question of homosexual marriage, homosexual rights, whether homosexual orientation is a choice or not (as if it matters), etc., I want to hone in on that statement: "We don't make determinations about who we love." 


What does he mean by that?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Obama was talking about actual "love" and not "sexual attraction." Think of it: "We don't make determinations about who we love"? Baloney! Love -- true love -- is a choice, not a feeling. We choose to love people by an act of our will (remember, I am not talking about attraction or lust). Love is an action and a disposition of the heart; as Christians, we are commanded to love, well, everyone. So in that sense, we very definitely make determinations about whom we love.

However, I don't believe that's the way in which Obama meant the statement. I am pretty sure he meant: "We don't make determinations about who we are sexually attracted to."

Okay, well, let's say he's technically right on that. Physical attraction is involuntary. But what about after that? That's where human will comes in, right?

Here's an example: A married man may find his best friend's wife attractive. He may be irresistibly drawn to her. He may even believe he is in love with her. He may even be in love with her. Does that give him the right to have sex with her? In the liberal mind, maybe the answer is yes, but I can't be sure. Any liberal want to take that?

But in the world of traditional morality (i.e., the world of objective truth), a man's will must override his urges and emotions. He must not proceed with the best friend's wife, even if he believes that she is his soulmate. The will must prevail over attractions and feelings.

In a real life example, I remember what Woody Allen said when he had a salacious, psychologically (if not technically) incestuous affair with Mia Farrow's daughter (whom he had known since her childhood), which caused devastation to many: "The heart wants what it wants." It was just that simple for him: I will do what I feel, and damn the consequences. If it feels good, do it. (This is basically a philosophy of the godless, because it assumes that man is mere animal and there are no eternal consequences anyway.)

So, maybe "we don't make determinations" about who we are attracted to, but we do make determinations about how we act. That's called our will. And we teach our children from a very young age not to act out on their urges or emotions (in all areas of life), but to control their will -- for their own good and the good of others. Our will governs our emotions, passions and urges.

Isn't this common sense? Tell me what I'm missing.