By Jim Bowman
Chicago Catholic News
July 22, 2010
http://www.chicagocatholicnews.com/2010/07/church-reporter-visiting-priest-tackles.html
Speaking at the monthly Catholic Citizens of Illinois luncheon on July 9, Fr. Paul Check pressed one of the hottest social-climate buttons around -- converting same-sex people to opposite-sexers.
As recently installed national director of Courage, which sponsors 12-step programs in 100-plus U.S. dioceses (not in Chicago) and overseas, he's in the business of helping people make the change, which is vigorously challenged by same-sex activists.
In Oak Park, for instance, the normally quiet and near-universally welcomed gay and lesbian community rose as one to condemn a local coffee-shop proprietor for planning to host a speaker who had written a book on the subject. This was a Missionary Baptist preacher, Rev. Cornelius Williams, who was to talk up his book, Transition: From Homosexual to Preacher. They were successful in preventing his appearance.
Father Check, a priest of the Bridgeport (Conn.) diocese based now in New York City, offered some basics in how to understand same-sex attraction. Don't use "homosexual" as a noun, for one thing, nor "gay" nor "lesbian." Be careful to distinguish a person from his actions. How you act is what matters, not your inclination. How you act ultimately determines what you are.
Among risk factors for men (not determinants), he cited a high level of emotional sensitivity, a tendency to risk-avoidance and lack of hand-eye coordination.
Among precipitating causes the most common is "sexual trauma, for which the numbers are very high." He said, "One third of young men who self-identify as homosexual were abused. It's a way to raise the [distress] flag."
Family environment has its own precipitating factors. For the boy, "the father may be emotionally unreceptive, disengaged," offering "no response or a severe response to the son's lack of interest in what he, the father likes." There's a lack of "shared delight" between father and son, as in the feeling, "We're doing this together. I like it and I see you like it too."
All in all, "something intrudes on the [boy's] need for the father's affection."
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Another factor is that the mother is emotionally "overinvolved." Male clients of one veteran therapist, asked when they feel most masculine, were silent, unable to remember.
But "always felt that way" from a client does not mean "born that way," he said. A genetic predisposition puts people at risk without deciding the matter.
Indeed, the problem "can be caught early," he said. The boy in his teens may say he's homosexual, but it's "too early to know." It's important to give him a chance to avoid becoming a same-sex practitioner, among other reasons because as such he would be "a thousand times more likely to get AIDS."
Same-sex-attracted women find themselves in a "more fluid" situation, in which the emotional need comes first, before the genital. A family-originated precipitating factor: "A mother's love is missing, and men are seen as dangerous."
Asked about the missing-father syndrome common in the inner-city family, he noted that "homosexuality is deeply embedded in black and Hispanic communities because of this problem," adding something that also goes against prevailing activist wisdom: "Overall, [only] 2 to 3 percent of men and half as many women have the problem." Gay activists commonly claim 10 percent.
Asked about priest molesters, he noted that according to the bishops-authorized John Jay College study, 80 to 90 percent of victims have been adolescent males, which he said demonstrates homosexuality as causative factor. This "ephebophilia," victimizing of adolescents, is in contrast to the more commonly used "pedophilia," which refers to children as victims.
Fr. Check spoke at the Catholic Citizens monthly luncheon at the Union League Club to 45 or so people. He was given his new job as Courage director by his bishop. He succeeds the Courage ministry's founder and long-time director, Fr. John Harvey.
Courage was started in 1983 by New York City Cardinal Terence Cooke as a ministry to "modern-day lepers," as he described men and women drawn to the same sex. It is not operating in the Chicago archdiocese, to judge by its web site, but the national Courage conference 2010 is to be held at St. Mary of the Lake seminary in Mundelein, July 29 to Aug. 1.
Deadline for registration is July 20. Call (212) 268 1010
Fr. Check described the Courage ministry by recalling the Gospel account of the woman caught in adultery. To her Jesus said two things after none of the Pharisees condemned her: "Neither will I condemn you," followed by "Go and sin no more," thus encapsulating his "great [dual] message" -- the "call to compassion" and "the call to conversion."
Fr. Check recommended three web sites:
* Courage, at CourageRC.net, with its interest-group online listing for "Encourage," the Al-Anon-like grouping of family members of the same-sex-attracted;
* The Catholic Therapist -- CatholicTherapist.com;
* The National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality -- NARTH.com.
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