In an open letter, Avera Maria Santo, a 22-year-old U.S. Catholic, pleads for the synod fathers to uphold Church teaching on sexuality.
“My dear bishops, there is no one on this earth that isn’t called to a life of chastity; that includes my brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attractions. This is not because the Church is oppressive and wants us to be miserable and passively submissive to her, but because each and every one of us is invited to enter into the divine life of our Creator, a life where no sin can remain.
The Catechism states, in Paragraph 2331, that “God is love, and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image … God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.”
Not only should I be reminded that, as a Christian, I am called to love as Christ loved us, but I also have the capacity to do so. I am capable of authentic love!
Telling me that my cross of same-sex attraction is too heavy for me to love as Christ calls me to is not just degrading; it is also a lie. God did not abandon me when man first sinned in the beginning, and he will not abandon me now.
He has called me, and each and every one of us, to himself, and I intend to return back to him, no matter how burdensome my cross may be.
Like Christ remembered me from the cross, I pray that you would remember me, and my brothers and sisters like me, dear bishops, as you pray about and discuss how to help young people in matters of faith and vocation, especially in regards to the topic of homosexuality.
Please remember that, as St. Thérèse the Little Flower, a dear patron of mine, so greatly put it, “My vocation is to love.”
Article Source: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/same-sex-attracted-youth-to-synod-dont-change-church-teaching-in-any-way
