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EspañolJesus excludes no one from redemption. In each individual lies a personal call of the Triune God to holiness. It is an offer of love, singular and unconditional, with a very particular strength, light, and company of Jesus to achieve it. The family also excludes no one from its love.
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“The Church makes her own the attitude of the Lord Jesus, who offers his boundless love to each person without exception. During the Synod, we discussed the situation of families whose members include persons who experience same-sex attraction, a situation not easy either for parents or for children. We would like before all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence. Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.” (The Joy of Love, n.250)
Commentary
A person with homosexual tendencies is an intrinsically valuable person worthy of unconditional love, which has the right to be truly loved by his family. The family is the loving heart where we are worth it all unconditionally and radically without having to prove anything. Worth that stems from simply being a spouse, father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister, grandfather or grandson. This unconditional love for the radical value of each person who comprises it allows each family to embrace all its members without judgment or condemnation; it facilitates the development of support and an affectionate refuge; it allows families to accompany and leads its members back towards a better light and kindness…for life often brings difficult, even dramatic, situations.
A few years ago, Pope Francis responded to a question at a press conference in this way: “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?”. This answer struck a vital nerve and spread worldwide: God also wants people who experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex at his side.
If we reflect on how it was so difficult to understand that we were all called to holiness in the past, now the challenge lies with the understanding that a believer is still called to holiness regardless of the sexual tendency he or she experiences within their self. God does not discriminate but offers his love. God gives himself to us as way, truth, and life. People with homosexual tendencies, as well as heterosexuals, are called to love with a clean and pure heart. Love´s demands – goodness and truth – reach every person: therefore, do not taint it with the greed and lust of bodies, with the egocentric desire to use and abuse, enslaving the personal spirit to the tyranny of material sensuality.
I know that discussions are currently centered on any other point, except this one, which is why they are of little help. It is a matter of fully realizing the will of God in the life of each person, in his or her particular circumstances: that is what holiness is all about. May the family know how to help each of its members listen to the Word of Jesus contained in the Holy Gospels. What does Jesus say? What does he ask of you? By what particular, personalized path does he call you to holiness? Jesus is waiting for you there. You will meet Him there. Furthermore, you will find your way, the truth, and life thanks to Him.
I know that many people dream of the day when the first person with a homosexual tendency will be canonized and venerated on the altars. Not “despite being homosexual, nor because they are,” but because they followed Jesus, embracing his cross and love, from that condition. Moreover, he or she will be a saint because they will have loved God and their neighbor with all their heart and because they will have given their lives to follow Jesus, will have loved him with deeds, will have been faithful and pure of heart, will have fought against selfishness, will have fulfilled the will of God, and will have been the recipient of his mercy. In accordance with what we read in this item, the Church counts on the family as the “domestic church” to lead its children of homosexual condition to the conquest of the glory of Heaven.
