The Catholic Mother of a Gay Son

A reader writes:

"When I first found out one of my sons was gay I went immediately to the computer and googled "Catholic" and "homosexuality". It was the first and probably most painful of the paralyzing issues that I felt I needed to tackle in order to arrive at the peaceful acceptance I knew would eventually come. Sadly, I was already reeling from intense anger over the Church's enormous betrayal of its most vulnerable. The abuse scandal and the horrendous sin of covering it up for decades was for me so painful, so unforgivable, and so destructive that I was unsure I could remain a Catholic even before learning that I was the mother of an "objectively disordered" and "intrinsically evil" son who by loving someone would be committing the unforgivable sin of "deviant love".

I am so glad that you chose to excerpt your answer to CSPAN's Brian Lamb's question about remaining in the Catholic Church in spite of its open hostility to Gays and Lesbians. Your dogged commitment to remaining a practicing Catholic at first made me feel so ashamed of my own painful decision to leave the Church. I spent months agonizing and soul searching before deciding that my choice to leave the Church was the right thing for me to do. In spite of the fact that you and I arrived at different decisions, reading your columns and posts helped me to see another side to the story that I was not able to see because of my blinding rage and sorrow. Unfortunately, I just cannot worship in a Church that has deemed one of my children evil, especially when it is coming from a Church that has not only failed to take true responsibility for its own evil. As far as I am concerned, the moral high ground upon which they think they can proclaim gays evil, crumbled decades ago."

One day, the Catholic Church will formally apologize for what it has done to the souls of gay people - and to the children some of its priests have raped and brutalized and traumatized for generations.

(Photo: Gianni Giansanti/Polaris.)